October 1, 2019 (Tuesday)
John Adams (1735-1826) was a leader of the American Revolution who became President of the United States. He has been characterized by historians as intelligent, patriotic, opinionated and blunt. He was born in Braintree (present-day Quincy), Massachusetts, on October 30, 1735. He graduated from Harvard College in 1755. He then taught school for several years and studied law with an attorney in Worcester, Massachusetts. Adams began his law career in 1758 and eventually became one of Boston’s most prominent attorneys
John Adams – President 1797-1801
He served as Vice President with President George Washington,
1789-1797. He then ran for president and won. He became president and Thomas Jefferson became Vice President. The two served together 1797-1801. John and Abigail with their children were the first residents of the White House (Washington had input in construction, but never lived there).
Jefferson decided to run for president against John Adams and won the presidency for himself. The two men disagreed on whether the federal government (Adams) was supreme or the states (Jefferson). These ideological differences are still in play today.
The two men campaigned bitterly against each other in the 1796 election, and a rivalry developed between them that lasted for many years. When Jefferson was inaugurated, Adams refused to attend the ceremony. Instead, he packed up and moved back to Massachusetts.
That situation differed from the earlier days when the two men worked together to lead the revolution against Great Britain’s authority in colonial America. Adams worked with Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as a committee of the Continental Congress to write The Declaration of Independence.
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.
Abigail Adams died in 1818 but John Adams lived long enough to see his son John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) become America’s sixth president in 1824. By that point, the elder Adams and Jefferson were among the last living signers of the Declaration of Independence. In their latter years they corresponded and mended their relationship. Both men died on the same day: July 4, 1826.