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John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain.
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John Adams was an advocate of American independence from Britain, a major figure in the Continental Congress (1774–77), the author of the Massachusetts constitution (1780), a signer of the Treaty of Paris (1783), ambassador to the Court of St. James (1785–88), and the first vice president (1789–97) and second president (1797–1801) of the United States.
When did John Adams become president?
Having finished second to George Washington in the first U.S. presidential election in 1789 and serving as Washington’s vice president (1789–97), Adams won a narrow victory over Thomas Jefferson to be elected as the second president of the United States in 1796. He then lost to Jefferson in the 1800 presidential election.
What was John Adams’s family like?
John Adams’s family could trace its lineage to the first generation of Puritan settlers in New England and made major contributions to U.S. political and intellectual life for more than 150 years. His cousin Samuel Adams was, like John Adams, a lynchpin of the American Revolution. John Quincy Adams, like his father, John Adams, served as U.S. president.
What was John Adams’s early life like?
Adams was the eldest of the three sons of Deacon John Adams and Susanna Boylston of Braintree, Massachusetts. His father was only a farmer and shoemaker, but the Adams family could trace its lineage back to the first generation of Puritan settlers in New England. A local selectman and a leader in the community, Deacon Adams encouraged his eldest son to aspire toward a career in the ministry. In keeping with that goal, Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755. For the next three years, he taught grammar school in Worcester, Massachusetts, while contemplating his future. He eventually chose law rather than the ministry and in 1758 moved back to Braintree, then soon began practicing law in nearby Boston.
In 1764 Adams married Abigail Smith, a minister’s daughter from neighbouring Weymouth. Intelligent, well-read, vivacious, and just as fiercely independent as her new husband, Abigail Adams became a confidante and political partner who helped to stabilize and sustain the ever-irascible and highly volatile Adams throughout his long career. The letters between them afford an extended glimpse into their deepest thoughts and emotions and provide modern readers with the most revealing record of personal intimacy between husband and wife in the revolutionary era. Typical of their epistolary exchange was Abigail’s lament regarding John’s prolonged absence in her letter to him of November 27, 1775:
Colonel Warren returned last week to Plymouth, so that I shall not hear anything from you until he goes back again, which will not be till the last of this month. He damped my spirits greatly by telling me that the court had prolonged your stay another month. I was pleasing myself with the thought that you would soon be upon your return. It is in vain to repine. I hope the public will reap what I sacrifice.
Their first child, Abigail Amelia, was born in 1765. Their first son, John Quincy, arrived two years later. Two other sons, Thomas Boylston and Charles, followed shortly thereafter. (Another child, Susanna, did not survive infancy.)
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- Early Years. John Adams: The Early Years. Born in Braintree (present-day Quincy), Massachusetts, on October 30, 1735, to the descendants of Mayflower Pilgrims, John Adams was the oldest of John and Susanna Boylston Adams’ three sons.
- John Adams and The American Revolution. During the 1760s, Adams began challenging Great Britain’s authority in colonial America. He came to view the British imposition of high taxes and tariffs as a tool of oppression, and he no longer believed that the government in England had the colonists’ best interests in mind.
- Diplomatic Missions to Europe. In 1778, Adams was sent to Paris, France, to secure aid for the colonists’ cause. The following year, he returned to America and worked as the principal framer of the Massachusetts Constitution (the world’s oldest surviving written constitution).
- John Adams: America's First Vice President. Although Washington and Adams shared many political views, the vice president’s role seemed primarily ceremonial, and Adams spent the next eight years, from 1789 to 1797, in frustration.
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer. He served as the 2nd president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before becoming president, he was the 1st vice president under George Washington from 1789 to 1797. He was also the one of the Founding Fathers of the United States .
- George Washington
- Thomas Jefferson
Apr 3, 2014 · Learn about John Adams, a key figure in the American Revolution and the second president of the United States. Explore his life, political career, presidency, family and legacy.
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On April 21, 1789, John Adams became the first Vice President of the United States. Over the next twelve years, John and Abigail followed the federal government as it was relocated from New York City to Philadelphia, and finally to Washington, D.C. The constant sojourning in service to their nation was the defining characteristic of the Adamses ...
