John Adams

John Adams, American statesman and political philosopher, played a leading role in the American Revolution and served as the nation's first vice president and second president. He wrote a number of important works in constitutional and political philosophy, in which he argued for a ... moderate form of representative democracy to safeguard liberty. Adams, a Harvard-educated lawyer from a Puritan family, wrote the Constitution of Massachusetts, sat on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and served for a decade as a diplomat in Europe, which resulted in his not being able to attend the Constitutional Convention.

[Washington's] successor, John Adams, despite many outrages committed by the French, would not be drawn into war. At the end of his presidency, he would say his greatest accomplishment in public service was his continuous pursuit of peace. That's even though a war declaration might have made him, for a time, a very popular leader who might not have lost the election of 1800. Adams hoped his epitaph would read, "Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800."

In one of his last surviving writings, a controversial March 22, 1778, letter to ... Dr. Richard Price, ... Turgot criticized American state constitutions for establishing a strong executive—"an unreasonable imitation ... of the usages of England"—rather than lodge all power in a legislature ... The letter provoked John Adams to make his case for a separation of powers, writing the three-volume Defense of the American Constitution which wasn't published until 1787, after Turgot's death. Adams, prickly pear that he was, liked Turgot and described him as "grave, sensible, and amiable."

Mr. John Adams observed that the numbers of people were taken by this article as an index of the wealth of the state, & not as subjects of taxation, that as to this matter it was of no consequence by what name you called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves. That in some countries the labouring poor were called freemen, in others they were called slaves; but that the difference as to the state was imaginary only. What matters is whether a landlord employing ten labourers in his farm, gives them annually as much money as will buy them the necessaries of life, or gives them those necessaries at short hand.

For ... we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering: A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from. ... We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors. American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America. ... Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Franklin was famous for his charm and tact ... but he had detractors. For instance, John Adams complained that "I could never obtain the favour of his Company in a Morning before Breakfast which would have been the most convenient time to read over the Letters and papers. ... Mr. Franklin kept a horn book always in his Pockett in which he minuted all his invitations to dinner, and Mr. [Arthur] Lee said it was the only thing in which he was punctual ... and after that went sometimes to the Play, sometimes to the Philosophers but most commonly to visit those Ladies. ..."

The partisan appointment policy under President John Adams was much the same, but much more blatant, and devoid of the insincere protestations of non-partisanship by the first president ... On another occasion, bitter at criticisms by William Duane's radical Jeffersonian Philadelphia Aurora, Adams had his Secretary of State pass the word of his displeasure to the US Attorney for Pennsylvania William Rawle, for not cracking down on the Aurora for seditious libel. "If Mr. Rawle does not think this paper libelous," thundered the President, "he is not fit for his office; and if he does not prosecute it, he will not do his duty."

After 1789, John Adams said that, so far from being a democracy of a democratic republic, the political organization of the country was that of "a monarchical republic, or, if you will, a limited monarchy"; the powers of its President were far greater than those of "an avoyer, a consul, a podesta, a doge, a stadtholder; nay, than a king of Poland; nay, than a king of Sparta." If all that was true in 1789—and it was true—what is to be said of the American State at the present time, after a century and a half of steady centralization and continuous increments of power?

Montesquieu, whom Americans devoutly admired, declared that if people were allowed "to dispose of property [as they] pleased," a republic would be "utterly undone." As disparate a pair of Americans as John Adams and Benjamin Franklin agreed. Adams denounced credit as responsible for "most of the Luxury & Folly which has yet infected our People," and declared that anyone who could devise a way to abolish credit forever "would deserve a Statue to his Memory."

John Adams, ... born in that part of the town of Braintree, Mass., which has since been set off as the town of Quincy, October 31, 1735, died there, July 4, 1826. His great-grandfather, Henry Adams, received a grant of about 40 acres of land in Braintree in 1636, and soon afterward emigrated from Devonshire, England, with his eight sons. John Adams ... was the eldest son of John Adams and Susanna Boylston ... When the stamp act was passed, in 1765, Adams took a prominent part in a town-meeting at Braintree, where he presented resolutions which were adopted word for word by more than forty towns in Massachusetts.

John Adams reflected on Morris, his contemporary: "I think he has a masterly understanding, an open temper, and an honest heart; and if he does not always vote for what you and I would think proper, it is because he thinks that a large body of people remain who are not yet of his mind. He has vast designs in the mercantile way, and no doubt pursues mercantile ends, which are always gain; but he is an excellent member of our body." ...
Foreign lenders seemed tapped out ... John Adams didn't have any luck with the Dutch government. But Adams was able to raise money from Dutch bankers.

If the American experiment may be regarded as successful, if it is a model to be emulated, the reason must be found in the causes of the American Revolution. "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced," John Adams observed. "The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution." [Letter to Hazekiah Niles, 15 February 1818]

Personally, the most heartening experience of Jefferson's last years was the reconciliation with John Adams ... Jefferson, almost 69, told Dr. Rush that while he was wary of the suspicious and envious Adams, then 76, he recognized what Adams had done for American liberty ... a couple of Jefferson's Virginia friends visited Adams and heard him declare: "I always loved Jefferson and still love him." ... Adams ended up writing the first letter on January 1, 1812, and Jefferson replied: "I now salute you with unchanged affections and respect." Soon correspondence was flowing between Quincy and Monticello.

Annoyed over criticism from the Jeffersonians that President Adams's bellicose policies risked drawing the United States into the war between England and France, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed into law a bill that criminalized any criticism of "a false, scandalous and malicious" nature ... [T]he Federalists proceeded to ardently enforce the Sedition Act. Probably the most famous prosecution was of Vermont Congressman Matthew Lyon, whose letter criticizing President Adams caused him to spend months in a jail cell and to be hit with the astounding fine of $1,000.