John Adams was the first vice president of the United States (from 1789 to
1797) and the second president of the United States (from 1797 to 1801).
During the American Revolution (1775–83), he served as one of the leading politicians in the first and second Continental Congresses. (See
Continental Congress, First and Continental
Congress, Second.) He was well regarded by his
fellow politicians as a man of strong intellect.
Early life
Adams was born in Braintree (later called
Quincy), Massachusetts, on October 30, 1735.
His father, also named John Adams, was a
farmer and leather goods maker who also served
as a church deacon, town selectman, and lieutenant in the local militia. The elder Adams and
his wife, Suzanne Boyleston, also had two other
sons, Peter and Elihu.
Adams spent much of his youth outdoors in
rural Braintree and planned to be a farmer when
he grew up. Adams was educated by two private
tutors and attended a public school called Dame
School. In 1751, Adams’s parents sent him to
Harvard College to study to be a clergyman.
Among the twenty-eight initial students in his
class, Adams eventually ranked in the top three.
After graduating from Harvard in 1755, the
nineteen-year-old Adams moved to Worcester,
Massachusetts, thirty miles west of Boston.
There he started to teach grammar school. He
lived in the house of James Putnam, a Harvard
graduate and lawyer. Adams studied law under
Putnam and in 1758 returned to his parents’
home in Boston to practice law.
In 1764 Adams married Abigail Smith, the
daughter of a clergyman. She too was intelligent,
and their marriage was marked by loyalty and
friendship. Together they had five children:
Abby, John Quincy, Susanna, Charles, and
Thomas. Susanna died when she was just one.
Law and activism
In the 1760s, Adams continued to study law and
slowly built his law practice. He also became involved in revolutionary politics. When the
French and Indian War ended in 1763, victorious Great Britain had amassed great debts. To
pay them, the British Parliament enacted a series of tax laws that became
known in America as the Intolerable Acts. Many Americans began to feel
it was unfair for Parliament, in which America had no elected representatives, to tax Americans.
After Parliament enacted the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act
of 1765, John Adams’s cousin, statesman Samuel Adams (1722–1803),
organized protests in Boston. John Adams attended meetings and
emerged as an effective spokesman against Britain’s imperial policies. In
August 1765, he published the first in a series of four essays in the Boston
Gazette newspaper. The essays, later published in Britain, described how
colonists had emigrated to America to establish civil governments based
on liberty and freedom.
In his law practice, Adams worked on a variety of cases, including
divorce, wills, rape, and trespass. Adams defended John Hancock
(1737–1793), who would be the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, against smuggling charges brought by British customs
officials. In 1770, Adams defended Captain Thomas Preston, the British
officer in charge at the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770. That event
happened when British soldiers fired upon a crowd of colonists, killing
five of them. Adams received much criticism for defending Preston.
Adams, however, believed every man deserved a fair trial, and Adams
won the case.
American Revolution politics and diplomacy
In 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to seek solutions to America’s problems with Great Britain. Adams was chosen to
attend as a representative from Massachusetts. Not yet in favor of independence, Adams recommended a system of equal parliaments in
America and Britain with common allegiance to the crown.
In April 1775, the Revolutionary War began with the Battle of
Lexington and Concord. Adams served that May in the Second
Continental Congress, where he supported future president George
Washington (1732–1799; served 1789–97) to lead the Continental
Army. By then, Adams believed independence was necessary. In February
1776, he gave Congress a pamphlet called “Thoughts on Government,”
in which he proposed a system of governments for the colonies. Later
that year, Adams seconded the motion in Congress that led to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
Adams served America during the war as a commissioner in France,
seeking foreign aid for the American cause. Returning to Boston in
1779, Adams attended the state convention that prepared the
Massachusetts state constitution, which Adams drafted. Along with
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) and John Jay (1745–1829), Adams
served as commissioner to negotiate peace with Great Britain and eventually signed the Treaty of Paris to end the war in 1783. From 1785 to
1788, Adams served as America’s first minister to Great Britain, missing
the action as America drafted a Constitution to form a new plan of government.
In the federal government
Adams returned to America in 1788 and was chosen to be the nation’s
first vice president. He served under President Washington throughout both of Washington’s two terms, from 1789 to 1797. Writing to his wife,
Abigail, Adams called the office of vice president insignificant.
Washington’s decision to retire after two terms gave Adams a chance
to seek the presidency. Adams was a member of the Federalist Party,
which generally favored a strong federal government. Adams’s chief opponent for the presidency was the leader of the Democratic-Republican
Party, Thomas Jefferson. The Democratic-Republican Party, whose
members also became known as Jeffersonian Republicans, generally favored a smaller role for the federal government but strong state governments.
Adams defeated Jefferson and took office as president in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 4, 1797. Jefferson became vice
president because he received the second most electoral votes; this system
eventually was changed by the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution
in 1804.
One of Adams’s first decisions as president was one he eventually
called one of his greatest mistakes: keeping Washington’s cabinet instead
of creating his own. The cabinet is the group of people who lead the
major departments in the executive branch of government. In 1797,
those positions included the attorney general, the secretary of state, the
secretary of the treasury, and the secretary of war. Keeping Washington’s
cabinet was an error because they were very loyal to former attorney general Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804), the leader of the Federalist
Party, with whom Adams had many problems throughout his presidency.
Foreign affairs
When Adams became president, America was being drawn into a naval
war between Great Britain and France. The two European countries had
been fighting since 1793 over issues related to commerce and imperial
power. Amidst that conflict, Great Britain began capturing American
merchant vessels and forcing the ships’ sailors into naval service for Great
Britain.
America tried to end its problems with Great Britain by signing a
treaty in 1795. France considered this to be a violation of France’s own
treaties with America. So France began to capture American merchant
vessels carrying goods to Great Britain and to force American sailors into
service for France.
Adams wanted to avoid war as much as possible. Many members of
the Federalist Party, however, wanted America to align with Great Britain
and fight France. Hamilton was among that group, and his desire for war
with France contributed to his problems with Adams. DemocraticRepublicans, including Vice President Jefferson, tended to favor France
and to prefer that America stay out of the conflict if possible.
Early in March 1797, Adams proposed to send a DemocraticRepublican, future president James Madison (1751–1836; served
1809–17), to negotiate the problems with France. Opposed to Madison,
Adams’s cabinet threatened to resign, so Adams dropped the idea. He instead sent a bipartisan commission to Paris, France, in July 1797. The
commission consisted of South Carolina governor Charles Pinckney
(1757–1824), Virginia politician John Marshall (1755–1835), and former U.S. representative Elbridge Gerry (1744–1814) of Massachusetts.
Anonymous French agents told the commission that negotiations
could not begin without a monetary bribe from the Americans to help
France in its war with Great Britain. The scandal led to a louder cry for
war with France. Adams allowed American merchant vessels to arm
themselves. Congress passed laws breaking all treaties with France and
authorizing the seizure of French ships that endangered U.S. commerce.
It also created the Department of the Navy in April 1798 and added the
U.S. Marine Corps in July.
Domestic affairs
The conflict with France led to the passage of the Alien and Sedition
Acts in 1798. These were four laws that increased the time for foreigners to become U.S. citizens, empowered the president to deport foreigners under certain conditions, and made it a crime to publish “false,
scandalous, and malicious” things about the government. One newspaper at the time wrote, “It is Patriotism to write in favor of our government—it is sedition to write against it.”
Adams did not actively enforce the Alien Acts. His administration,
however, used the Sedition Act to file criminal charges against many
newspapers editors who favored the Democratic-Republican Party.
Hamilton did not think Adams was doing enough to enforce these laws,
which added to the problems between the two men.
The federal budget nearly doubled during Adams’s administration.
To raise money, Congress passed a tax law called the Window Tax in July 1798. When three Pennsylvanians were jailed in early 1799 for refusing
to pay the tax, John Fries (1764–1825) led a rebellion to force federal
marshals to release the prisoners. Adams ordered the rebellion to cease
and sent federal troops to crush it. Fries and his supporters were sentenced to death for treason, but Adams pardoned them for their crimes.
This increased his unpopularity with the Federalists.
A number of government offices were formed during the Adams administration, including the U.S. Public Health Service in 1798 and the
Library of Congress in 1800. The Mississippi and Indiana territories
were created in 1798 and 1800. Also in 1800, Adams became the first
president to reside in the White House after the federal government relocated to Washington, D.C.
Peace with France and the campaign of 1800
Adams arranged his final diplomatic mission to France in February
1799. He sent Ambassador to the Netherlands William Murray
(1760–1803), Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth (1745–1807), and North
Carolina governor William Davie (1756–1920) to negotiate for peace.
In October 1800, they signed the Treaty of Mortefontaine, finally reaching peace with France.
News of the peace failed to reach America in time to help Adams
win the presidential election of 1800. Division in the Federalist Party allowed Jefferson, the Democratic-Republican candidate, to emerge the
victor. The Democratic-Republican Party also won control of Congress
in the election.
In the wake of defeat, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed a judiciary act before the end of the term. It empowered Adams in his last
months in office to appoint new judges—aligned with the Federalist
Party—to federal courts.