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John Adams was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735. He was the son of John and Susanna Boylston Adams. He was raised in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. As a young man, John went to School in Braintree and entered Harvard college at age 16. Latin, history, and law were his majors. As a disciplined scholar, he quickly learned a large amount of information about colonial law and government.
Eventually he became a lawyer in Boston. In 1764, Adams married Abigail Smith, daughter of a Weymouth, a Massachusetts minister. The couple had five children. One of them, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president of the United States.
The marriage lasted 54 years, until the death of Abigail Adams in 1818. Between 1774 and 1784 the Adamses saw very little of each other, because John Adams was very active in serving the young nation. In 1784 Abigail joined her husband in Europe and stayed with him so they were able to build a stronger relationship. In June 1776 Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, moved that Congress declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.
The resolution was referred to a committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston and John Adams. Jefferson wrote the declaration and Adams was spokesman for it when it was presented to Congress. A great debate preceded the final vote. There were many reluctant delegates who still hoped for reconciliation with Britain, but Adams won most of them over.
On July 4, 1776, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. In a letter to his wife written on July 2, the day Lees resolution was approved, Adams wrote that the day will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance with pomp and parade, with guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other There is something important here that I will explain because many people overlook it. The vote on Independence was passed on July 2 nd, 1776. Right after this, the there was a debate on the Declaration, which was adopted on July 4 th, 1776.
Adams knew the vote on independence was more important. He wrote about this in letters to his delegates. Since the Declaration being Dated July 4 th 1776, credit was given to Jefferson as author of the Declaration, meaning less credit was given to Adams who was the true directional man in Congress for the independent movement. Now, this lack of appreciation might be understandable if Mr. Adams had received appropriate credit for his other great contributions to American history after his service in the fight for Independence in 1776. However, throughout American history, John Adams has generally received less credit for his great contributions than any other of the great Founding Fathers.
There are a couple of reasons for this, and they require a little background into the political history of America in the early republic, as well as many hours in a library of solitary detainment on a lazy Sunday afternoon. During the Revolutionary War he served in France and Holland in diplomatic roles, and helped negotiate the treaty of peace. From 1785 to 1788 he was minister to the Court of St. James, returning to be elected Vice President under George Washington. Adams two terms as Vice President were frustrating experiences for a man of his strength, sense, and pride.
He complained to his wife Abigail, My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived. When Adams became President, the war between the French and British was causing a lot of complications for the United States on the high seas and intense partisanship among contending actions within the Nation. His Administration focused on France, where the ruling group, had refused to receive the American ambassador and had suspended commercial relations. Adams sent three commissioners to France, but in the spring of 1798 word arrived that the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand and the Directory had refused to negotiate with them unless they would first pay a substantial bribe. Adams reported the insult to Congress, and the Senate printed the agreement. The Frenchmen were referred to only as X, Y, and Z.
The Nation broke out into what Jefferson called the X. Y. Z. fever, This XYZ affair turned the opinion of the American people away from support of the French Revolution.
John Adams handled this well. Even though negotiations with France were long and complex, he showed his patience and compassion under the heat of intense political pressure. On November 1, 1800, just before the election, Adams arrived in the new Capital City to take up his residence in the White House. On his second evening in its damp, unfinished rooms, he wrote his wife, Before I end my letter, I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it.
May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof. Adams retired to his farm in Quincy. Here he penned his elaborate letters to Thomas Jefferson. Here on July 4, 1826, he whispered his last words: Thomas Jefferson survives. But Jefferson had died at Monticello a few hours earlier. John Adams was truly a shaper of the American revolution.
Learned and thoughtful, John Adams was more remarkable as a political philosopher than as a politician. He saved his Nation from war with France, Established firm communications between different parties, and started america on firm ground. Many should think of him as a hero because in truth, he is. Bibliography - 1. ) Webster, Nesta (1992) The French Revolution. Noontide Press 2. ) Ford, Worthington Journals of the Continental Congress 5: 425 - 426, 3. ) Butterfield, L. H... (1961) The Adams Papers 3: 392 - 393 4. ) Sharp, Roger (1993) American Politics in the Early Republic.
Yale University Press. 5. ) Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia. 1993 - 1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. 6. ). Summers, Robert (1996 - 1999) the Internet Public Library = web =
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