And as the second U.S. president, he is known for a monumental blunder – the Alien and Sedition Acts. Here are fast facts about a great, but complicated, man:
Born: Oct. 30, 1735, in Braintree, now Quincy, Massachusetts.
Career:
A graduate of Harvard, Adams was admitted to the bar in 1758, according to William A. DeGregorio in The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Barricade Books; 1993). As a lawyer, he represented John Hancock, later president of the Continental Congress, who had been charged with smuggling, recounts the Boston Tea Party Historical Society website. (Adams managed to get Hancock off the hook.) As vice president: In its biography of Adams, The White House Historical Society recounts that Adams had this to say about becoming vice president: "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
But he served Washington as vice president for eight years. The vice president is also president of the Senate, a role Adams took seriously. He cast 29 tie-breaking votes, “a record that no successor has ever threatened,” according to the U.S. Senate article, John Adams, 1st Vice President (1789-1797). After serving as vice president during Washington’s presidency, Adams was elected president, defeating Jefferson.
Personal:
Marriage: In 1764, Adams, 28, married Abigail Smith, 19 – forming a marriage and partnership that still stands apart in American politics. After they married, “the bridal couple mounted a single horse and rode off to their new home,” DeGregorio writes. The self-educated Abigail is widely regarded as an early advocate of women’s rights. Her observations about political leaders and situations of the time are often quoted today.
A rocky personality: Historians describe Adams as difficult, driven, ambitious, temperamental and highly intelligent.
Fellow patriots had mixed emotions about him. Here is Ben Franklin’s backhanded compliment, “He [Adams] means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.”
The Adams-Jefferson Bond: Jefferson and Adams became close friends, particularly during the years when both worked as diplomats. (Adams served as diplomat from 1778-1788. In 1785, he was appointed the first American ambassador to Great Britain.) But after Jefferson defeated Adams in his bid for re-election, a bitter Adams made midnight appointments to the judiciary in hopes of continuing the influence of his Federalist Party. The relationship between the two men was severed.
By 1812, however, the two resumed their friendship through letter writing.
Death: He died in Quincy, notably, on the nation’s 50th birthday–July 4, 1826. His last words were “Thomas Jefferson still…” In his book, DeGregorio notes that the last word was indistinct but thought to be “survives.” Today, the quote is commonly reported as, “Thomas Jefferson still survives” or "Thomas Jefferson still lives." Actually, Jefferson died the same day. Adams was 90; Jefferson was 83.
Quick Study is compiled by YT&T editors using these references:
Books:
The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, by William A. DeGregorio, (Barricade Books; 1993).
John Adams, by David McCullough, (Simon & Schuster; 2001).
Articles:
National Public Radio: Timeline of the American Revolution
The U.S. Department of State: John Adams in Holland
Boston Tea Party Historical Society: John Hancock, Smuggling Powerhouse
John Adams: The White House Historical Society
U.S. Senate: John Adams, 1st Vice President (1789-1797)
Library of Congress: Alien and Sedition Acts
University of Pennsylvania Law Review: The Midnight Judges, by Kathryn Turner.
Related:
Quick Study: George Washington
5 reasons to note Washington's birthday
Was the Boston Massacre really a massacre?