John Adams was born into a comfortable, but not wealthy, Massachusetts farming family
and grew up in the tidy little world of New England village life. His father,
a deacon in the Congregational Church, earned a living as a farmer and shoemaker in
Braintree, roughly fifteen miles south of Boston. As a healthy young boy, John loved
the outdoors, frequently skipping school to hunt and fish. He said later that he would
have preferred a life as a farmer, but his father insisted that he receive a formal
education. His father hoped that he might become a clergyman. As a child, John learned reading and
writing, and then went to a Latin school that was a preparatory school for
those who planned to attend college. He excelled at his studies and entered
Harvard College at age fifteen. He graduated in 1755. Young John taught in a Latin school
in Worcester, Massachusetts, to earn the tuition fees to study law, and from 1756 to 1758,
he studied law with a prominent local lawyer in Worcester.
John Adams's home when he was a child
Before becoming President in 1797, John Adams built his reputation as a blunt-speaking
man of independent mind. A fervent patriot and brilliant intellectual, Adams served as
a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress between 1774 and 1777, as a
diplomat in Europe from 1778 to 1788, and as vice president during the Washington administration.
The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, supported a strong central government that
favored industry, landowners, banking interests, merchants, and close ties with England.
Opposed to them were the Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, who advocated
limited powers for the federal government. Adams's Federalist leanings and high visibility
as vice president positioned him as the leading contender for President in 1796.
In the early days of the American electoral process, the candidate receiving the
second-largest vote in the electoral college became vice president. This is how
Thomas Jefferson, who opposed Adams in the election, came to serve as Adams's
vice president in 1797. Adams won the election principally because he identified
himself with Washington's administration and because he was able to win two
electoral ballots from normally secure Jeffersonian states. In 1800, Adams
faced a much tougher battle for re-election, as the differences between the
Federalists and the Republicans intensified.
The Adams presidency was characterized by continuing crises in foreign
policy, which dramatically affected affairs at home. Suspicious of the
French Revolution and its potential for terror and anarchy, Adams opposed
close ties with France. Relations between America and France deteriorated
to the brink of war, allowing Adams to justify his signing of the extremely
controversial Alien and Sedition Acts. Drafted by Federalist lawmakers, these
four laws were largely aimed at immigrants, who tended to become Republicans.
Furious over Adams's foreign policy and his signing of the Alien and Sedition
Acts, Republicans responded with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which
challenged the legitimacy of federal authority over the states.
Republicans were equally incensed by the heavy taxation necessary for
Adams's military buildup; farmers in Pennsylvania staged Fries's Rebellion
in protest. At the same time, Adams faced disunity in his own party due to
conflict with Hamilton over the undeclared naval war with France. This rivalry
with Hamilton and the Federalist Party cost Adams the 1800 election. He
lost to Thomas Jefferson, who was backed by the united and far more organized
Republicans.
John Adams sacrificed his family life for his political one, spending much
of his time separated from his wife, Abigail Adams, and their children.
John Quincy Adams, Adams's son, grew up to become the sixth President of
the United States. However, he joined the opposition Democratic-Republicans party.
Abigail viewed her suffering as a patriotic
sacrifice but was distraught that her husband was away during the birth
of their children and the loss of their unborn baby in 1777. After his
term as President, John Adams lived a quiet life with Abigail on the
family farm in Quincy, Massachusetts. There, Adams wrote prolifically
for the next twenty-six years.
Abigail Adams saw herself as her husband's wife and helpmate, but she was a
gifted intellectual in her own right,
leaving behind nearly 2,000 letters containing some of the most profoundly
compelling commentary on the society and politics of her time.
A firm advocate of patriotic motherhood, Abigail believed that women
best served the Republic in their roles as educated and independently
thinking wives and mothers.
Property was a requirement for political participation during
Adams's time, and he fought to keep it that way, feeling that the "rich,
the well-born, and the able" should represent the nation. But the western
migration into frontier America when Kentucky and Tennessee were admitted
to the Union in 1792 and 1796, respectively, weakened the property
requirement for voting in the West. Everywhere except on the frontier,
however, wealthy merchants and slave owners dominated office holding,
and financial and kinship ties were crucial to political advancement.
Adams was able to avoid war with France, arguing against Hamilton that war
should be a last resort to diplomacy. In this argument, the President
won the nation the respect of its most powerful adversaries. Although
Adams was fiercely criticized for signing the Alien and Sedition Acts,
he never advocated their passage nor personally implemented them,
and he pardoned the instigators of Fries's Rebellion. Seen in this
light, Adams's legacy is one of reason, virtuous leadership,
compassion, and a cautious but vigorous foreign policy. At the same
time, Adams's stubborn independence left him politically isolated.
He alienated his own cabinet, and his elite republicanism stood in
stark contrast to the more egalitarian Jeffersonian democracy that
was poised to assume power in the new century.
