10/31/2025
John Adams, born October 30, 1735, Lawyer, Statesman, Diplomat. The 2nd President of the United States, was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence for Massachusetts. He, as well as Thomas Jefferson, died on the fiftieth anniversary of that document.
O loftier genius nor purer patriot wore the Senatorial robe during the struggle for Independence, than John Adams. He was born at Braintree (now Quincy), in Massachusetts, on the thirtieth of October, 1735, and, was a direct lineal descendant, in the fourth generation, from Henry Adams, who fled from the persecutions in England during the reign of the first Charles. His maternal ancestor was John Alden, a passenger in the May-Flower, and thus the subject of our memoir inherited from both parental ancestors, the title of a Son of Liberty, which was subsequently given to him and others. (This name was given to the American patriots by Colonel Barre, on the floor of the British House of Commons.) His primary education was derived in a school at Braintree, and there he passed through a preparatory course of instruction for Harvard University, whence he graduated at the age of twenty years (1755).
Having chosen the law as a profession, he entered upon the study of it with an eminent barrister in Worcester, by the name of Putnam. There he had the advantage of sound legal instruction, and through Mr. Putnam he became acquainted with many distinguished public men, among whom was Mr. Gridley, the Attorney-General. Their 'first interview awakened sentiments of mutual regard, and young Adams was allowed the free use of Mr. Gridley's extensive library, a privilege of great value in those days. It was a rich treasure thrown open to him, and its value was soon apparent in the expansion of his general knowledge. He was admitted to the bar in 1758, and commenced practice in Braintree.
At an early period, young Adams' mind was turned to the contemplation of the general politics of his country, and the atmosphere of liberal principles in which he had been born and nurtured, gave a patriotic bias to his judgment and feelings. He watched narrowly the movements of the British government toward the American colonies, and was ever out-spoken in his condemnation of its oppressive acts.
He was admitted as a barrister in 1761, and as his professional business increased, and his acquaintance among distinguished politicians extended, he became more publicly active, until in 1765, when the Stamp Act had raised a perfect hurricane in America, he wrote and published his "Essay on the Canon and Feudal Law." This production at once placed him high in the popular esteem; and the same year he was associated with James Otis and others, to demand, in the presence of the royal governor, that the courts should dispense with the use of stamped paper in the administration of justice.
In 1766 Mr. Adams married Abigail Smith, the amiable daughter of a pious clergyman of Braintree, and soon afterward he removed to Boston. There he was actively associated with Hancock, Otis, and others, in the various measures in favor of the liberties of the people, and was very energetic in endeavors to have the military removed from the town. Governor Bernard endeavored to bribe him to silence, at least, by offers of lucrative offices, but they were all rejected with disdain.
When, after the Boston Massacre, Captain Preston and his men were arraigned for murder, Mr. Adams was applied to, to act as counsel in their defence. Popular favor on one side, and the demands of justice and humanity on the other, were the horns of the dilemma between which Mr. Adams was placed by the application. But he was not long in choosing. He accepted the invitation he defended the prisoners successfully Captain Preston was acquitted, and, notwithstanding the tremendous excitement that existed against the soldiers, the patriotism of Mr. Adams was too far above suspicion to make this defence of the enemy a cause for withdrawing from him the confidence which the people reposed in him. His friends applauded him for the act, and the people were satisfied, as was evident by their choosing him, that same year, 1770, a representative in the provincial Assembly.
Mr. Adams became very obnoxious to both Governors Bernard and Hutchinson. He was elected to a seat in the Executive council, but the latter erased his name. He was again elected when .Governor Gage assumed authority, and he too erased his name. These things increased his popularity. Soon after the accession of Gage the Assembly at Salem adopted a proposition for a general Congress, and elected five delegates thereto in spite of the efforts of the governor to prevent it. John Adams was one of those delegates, and took his seat in the first Continental Congress, convened in Philadelphia on the fifth of September, 1774. He was again elected a delegate in 1775, and through his influence, George Washington of Virginia was elected Commander-in-Chief of all the forces of the United Colonies. (Mr. Adams did not nominate Washington, as has been frequently stated. He gave notice that ho should "propose a member of Congress from Virginia," which was understood to be Washington, but, for reasons that do not appear, upon the journals, he was nominated by Thomas Johnson, of Maryland.
On the sixth of May, 1776, Mr. Adams introduced a motion in Congress "that the colonies should form governments independent of the Crown" This motion was equivalent to a declaration of independence, and when, a month afterward, Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion more explicity to declare the colonies free and independent, Mr. Adams was one of its warmest advocates. He was appointed one of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, (The committee consisted of Dr. Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston.), and he placed his signature to that document on the second of August, 1776.
After the battle of Long Island he was appointed by Congress, with Dr. Franklin and Edward Rutledge, to meet Lord Howe in conference upon Staten Island, concerning the pacification of the colonies. According to his prediction, the mission failed. Notwithstanding his great labors in Congress, (During the remainder of the year 1776, and until December, 1777, when he was sent on a foreign mission, he was a member of ninety different committees, and chairman of twenty-five.), he was appointed a member of the council of Massachusetts, while on a visit home, in 1776, the duties of which he faithfully fulfilled.
In 1777 Mr. Adams was appointed a special commissioner to the Court of France, whither Dr. Franklin had previously gone. Finding the subject of his mission fully attended to by Franklin, Adams returned home in 1779. He was immediately called to the duty of forming a Constitution for his native State. While in the discharge of his duty in convention, Congress appointed him a minister to Great Britain, to negotiate a treaty of peace and commerce with that government. He left Boston in the French frigate, La Sensible, in October, 1777, and after a long passage, landed at Ferrol, in Spain, whence he journeyed by land to Paris, Feb, 1780. He found England indisposed for peace, if American Independence was to be die sine qua non, and was about to return home, when he received from Congress the appointment of commissioner to Holland, to negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce with the States General. The confidence of Congress in him was unlimited, and he was intrusted at one time, with the ex*****on of no less than six missions, each of a different character. (These commissions empowered him, 1st: to negotiate a peace with Great Britain; 2d, to make a treaty of commerce with Great Britain; 3d. the same with the States General; 4th, the same with the Prince of Orange; 5th, to pledge the faith of the United States to the Armed Neutrality; 6th, to negotiate a loan of ten millions of dollars.) In 1781 he was associated with Franklin, Jay, and Laurens, as a commissioner to conclude treaties of peace with the European powers.
In 1782 he assisted in negotiating a commercial treaty with Great Britain, and was the first of the American Commissioners who signed the definitive treaty of peace with that power, Sept. 3, 1783. In 1784, Mr. Adams returned to Paris, and in January, 1785, he was appointed Minister for the United States at the Court of Great Britain. That post he honorably occupied until 1788, when he resigned the office and returned home.
While Mr. Adams was absent, the Federal Constitution was adopted, and it received his hearty approval. He was placed upon the ticket with Washington for Vice President, at the first election under the new Constitution, and was elected to that office. He was re-elected to the same office in 1792, and in 1796, he was chosen to succeed Washington in the Presidential Chair. In 1801 he retired from public life.
In 1816 he was placed on the democratic ticket as presidential elector. In 1818 he lost his wife, with whom he had lived fifty-two years in uninterrupted conjugal felicity. In 1824 he was chosen a member of the convention of Massachusetts to revise the Constitution, and was chosen president of that body, which honor he declined on account of his great age. In 1825 he had the felicity of seeing his son elevated to the presidency of the United States. In the spring of 1826 his physical powers rapidly declined, and on the fourth of July of that year, he expired, in the ninety-second year of his age. On the very same day, and at nearly the same hour, his fellow committee-man in drawing up the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, also died. It was the fiftieth anniversary of that glorious act, and the coincidence made a deep impression upon the public mind.
On the morning of the fourth it was evident he could not last many hours. On being asked for a toast for the day the last words he ever uttered- words of glorious import fell from his lips – “Independence for ever!"
Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, B. J. Lossing, 1848.
Official Presidential portrait of John Adams, by John Trumbull, circa 1792.
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