ADAMS 



28 



ADAMS 



, JOHN (1735-1826), second 

 President of the United States and one of the 

 foremost of that group of American statesmen 

 who gave themselves in full devotion to the 

 cause of independence and the upbuilding of 

 the new nation. The impress which he left 

 on his country is the more remarkable because 

 he was personally not popular. He was notice- 

 ably lacking in the magnetic qualities which 

 made his second cousin, Samuel Adams, an 

 admired leader. John Adams was a brilliant 

 constitutional lawyer, he possessed great moral 

 courage, he was devoted with all his soul to 

 the cause of the colonies. On the other hand, 

 he was nervous, impetuous, generally tactless, 

 vain of his ability, and he w r as inclined to think 

 overwell of his own opinions. 



His friends, his enemies and the people at 

 large did not allow these faults to outweigh 

 his real merits. A weaker man than he would 

 have been ruined by his stand in 1770, when 

 he felt it his duty to defend the British soldiers 

 who were being tried for murder (see BOSTON 

 MASSACRE), but in the very same year he was 

 elected to the colonial legislature. Many years 

 later, as President, he gave another example 

 of courage when he determined, at all costs, 

 to preserve peace with France. His policy 

 made him probably the most disliked man in 

 the United States; yet he himself felt that 

 this was the greatest service he had ever ren- 

 dered to his country and he desired "no other 

 inscription over my grave than this: 'Here lies 

 John Adams, who took upon himself the re- 

 sponsibility of the peace with France in 1800.' " 



His Public Career. John Adams was born at 

 Quincy, Mass., on October 31, 1735. His Puri- 

 tan great-grandfather had left Devonshire, 

 England, in 1636 and had settled on a forty- 

 acre tract on the site of the town of Quincy. 

 The Adams family prospered, although its 

 members never pretended to be anything but 

 hard-working farmers. It was the family cus- 

 tom to send the sons to Harvard College, from 

 which the future President was graduated in 

 1755. He stood fourteenth in a class of twenty- 

 four; in those days the ranking indicated not 



scholarship but social position. The Adams 

 family seemed to think that !u> should study 

 for the ministry, but John was too liberal for 

 the pulpit of his day and preferred thr law. 

 In 1758, being then twenty-three years old, he 

 began to practice in Braintree, but ten years 

 later moved to Boston. In the meantime he 

 had married Abigail Smith, a woman of great 

 charm and ability, who gave him courage and 

 advice at every critical point in his life (see 

 subhead below, Abigail Smith Adams). 



Shortly after his marriage he began to appear 

 in public affairs. When the Stamp Act of 1765 

 was passed he presented resolutions against it 

 at the Braintree town meeting. These resolu- 

 tions, without the change of a word, were later 

 adopted by more than forty Massachusetts 

 towns; moreover, a little later they led to his 

 selection as one of the lawyers to present a 

 memorial against the act to Governor Bernard. 

 Adams made the bold argument that the 

 Stamp Act was necessarily null and void, 

 because the colonists had taken no part in 

 passing it. The repeal of the act ended 

 Adams' public activity for a brief time, but 

 his reputation was established. He was soon 

 offered the position of advocate-general in the 

 Massachusetts admiralty court, but he inter- 

 preted the offer as aa attempt to put him in 

 such a position that he could not freely oppose 

 the policy of the British government, and he 

 refused the position. 



In spite of his defense of the British soldiers 

 who took part in the Boston Massacre he was 

 trusted by the patriot leaders and on all legal 

 matters he was constantly consulted by John 

 Hancock, Joseph Warren and Samuel Adams. 

 For a year or two there was quiet in Boston 

 and the vicinity, but in 1774 the passage of 

 the five Intolerable Acts (which see) rekindled 

 the flames of opposition to Britain. John 

 Adams, with four others from Massachusetts, 

 was chosen as a delegate to the First Conti- 

 nental Congress. Here his influence was great, 

 and its resolutions concerning the rights of the 

 colonies were the work of his pen. In the 

 Second Congress he was one of the most 



