John Adams Essays (1417 words) - Adams Family, John Adams

John Adams The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution. John Adams -- 1818 In three remarkable careers--as a foe of British oppression and champion of Independence (1761-77), as an American diplomat in Europe (1778-88), and as the first vice-president (1789-97) and then the second president (1797-1801) of the United States--John Adams was a founder of the United States. Perhaps equally important, however, was the life of his mind and spirit; in a pungent diary, vivid letters, learned tracts, and patriotic speeches he revealed himself as a quintessential Puritan, patriarch of an illustrious family, tough-minded philosopher of the republic, sage, and sometimes a vain, stubborn, and vitriolic partisan. John Adams was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Mass., on Oct. 30, 1735, in a small saltbox house still standing and open to visitors. His father, John Adams, a deacon and a fifth-generation Massachusetts farmer, and his mother, the former Suzanna Boylston, were, their son wrote, both fond of reading; so they resolved to give bookishly inclined John a good education. He became the first of his family to go to college when he entered Harvard in 1751. There, and in six further years of intensive reading while he taught school and studied law in Worcester and Boston, he mastered the technicalities of his profession and the literature and learning of his day. By 1762, when he began 14 years of increasingly successful legal practice, he was well informed, ambitious, and public spirited. His most notable good fortune, however, occurred in 1764 when he married Abigail Smith. John Adams's marriage of 54 years to this wise, learned, strong-willed, passionate, and patriotic woman began the brilliant phase of Adams family history that produced their son John Quincy, his son Charles Francis, his sons Henry and Brooks, and numerous other distinguished progeny. In 1761, John Adams began to think and write and act against British measures that he believed infringed on colonial liberties and the right of Massachusetts and the other colonies to self-government. A pamphlet entitled A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law and town instructions denouncing the Stamp Act (1765) marked him as a vigorous, patriotic penman, and, holding various local offices, he soon became a leader among Massachusetts radicals. Although he never wavered in his devotion to colonial rights and early committed himself to independence as an unwelcome last resort, Adams's innate conservatism made him determined in 1770 that the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre receive a fair hearing. He defended the soldiers at their trial. He also spoke out repeatedly against mob violence and other signs of social disintegration. In 1774-76, Adams was a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. His speeches and writings (especially a newspaper series signed Novanglus in 1775) articulating the colonial cause and his brilliant championing of American rights in Congress caused Thomas Jefferson to call him the Colossus of Independence. Adams helped draft the Declaration of Independence, secured its unanimous adoption in Congress, and wrote his wife on July 3, 1776, that the most memorable Epoch in the History of America has begun. After 18 months of toil in committee and on the floor of Congress managing the American Revolution, Adams crossed the Atlantic to be an American commissioner to France. The termination of this mission after less than a year in Paris allowed him to return home long enough to take a leading role in drafting the new Massachusetts constitution. He sailed again for Europe, accompanied by two of his sons, in November 1779 as a commissioner to seek peace with Britain. After quarrels in Paris with Benjamin Franklin and French officials, he left for the Netherlands, where he secured Dutch recognition of American independence and a substantial loan as well. He returned to Paris in October 1782 to insist on American rights (especially to fish on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland) in the negotiations that led to Britain's recognition of the independence of the United States in the Treaty of Paris of Sept. 3, 1783. For two more years Adams helped Franklin and Jefferson negotiate treaties of friendship and commerce with numerous foreign powers. Then, appointed the first American minister to Britain, Adams presented his credentials to George III in 1785, noting his pride in having the distinguished honor to be the first {ex-colonial subject} to stand in your Majesty's royal presence in a diplomatic character. The king, aware