John Adams

Welcome to Did You Know a video series on Massachusetts where we take a look at interesting tidbits of state history. Each video will cover a different part of Massachusetts history and culture. Today, our topic is founding father and second U.S. President John Adams. Did you know that Adams was the first U.S. president to live in the White House?

Let's find out more. John Adams was a prominent patriot and civic leader in the time of the revolution and the early years of the United States. He was an essential leader in our nation's founding. But his accomplishments tend to be overshadowed by some of his peers. However, his work as a diplomat, patriot and president should not be overlooked.

Today, we will learn about John Adams. John Adams was born on October 30th, 1735, in a part of Braintree, Massachusetts, that later became the city of Quincy. He grew up in a family that upheld Puritan values. And he studied at Braintree Latin School. Adams attended Harvard College from 1751 to 1755 and decided to study law instead of becoming a minister.

He was admitted to the bar in 1759 and wrote extensively about legal affairs of the day, including the trial by fellow lawyer James Otis against the writs of assistance. The writs were search warrants that could be executed without warning the property's inhabitants and allowed customs officials to request help from local sheriffs and citizens in the searches. Otis argued passionately against the law in 1761, but lost the case.

Adams, who attended the trial, admired Otis argument, saying Then and there the child independence was born. Adams would later in life use many of the same arguments and ideas as Otis when drafting the Massachusetts state constitution, which forbid searches without a warrant. Part of the Constitution. Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights would eventually influence the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Adams started publishing political essays in 1763 under the pen name Humphrey Plow Jogger, which slowly increased a section in politics. He married his third cousin, Abigail Smith, in 1764, and they had six children, including John Quincy Adams, who would later become the sixth U.S. president. Abigail was also a prominent political figure in her correspondence with her husband is well known today.

Adams used his legal position to protest against the Stamp Act in 1765 as it was enacted without consulting the American legislators and enforced the British vice admiral records, who acted without juries. Adams used his pen name to publish several articles opposing the act, but he refused to participate in public protests led by his cousin, Samuel Adams. Adams and members of the Braintree town meeting wrote a letter called the Braintree Instructions and sent it to their representative in the Massachusetts legislature on September 24th, 1765.

This document described the Stamp Act as a violation of common law and exactly how it trampled over the rights of the colonists with unlawful court enforcements and a lack of representation in Parliament. The document was powerful and persuasive and will be adopted by over 40 towns in Massachusetts as an official response against parliamentary power in 1766. Adams became a selectman of the town of Braintree and moved to Boston with his family.

The passage of the Townsend acts in 1767 heightened tensions between colonists and British authorities, which came to a head with the Boston massacre in 1770 and the resulting death of five civilians. The soldiers involved were arrested, and when no other lawyer steps up to defend them, Adams volunteered as a lawyer for the soldiers, believing that every man had a right to a public defender and a fair trial.

Adams won an acquittal for the commander of the soldiers, Captain Thomas Preston, and six of the soldiers, while two more were charged with manslaughter. Adams took a very unpopular role to ensure that the soldiers would get a fair trial. John Hancock and Samuel Adams tried to incite the colonists against the British. The colonists were already weary of British rule and unfair taxation.

However, John Adams remained prudent and a man of principles while initially a more conservative figure in the Patriot movement. Adams increasingly favored independence after Parliament started directly paying the salary of Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a move Adams saw as a way to more directly subjugate the colonies under the crown. He praised the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and attended the first Continental Congress in 1774, where he helped the conservative and radical factions of the committee compromise on sending a letter of grievances to King George the Third.

After the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Adams worked in the second Continental Congress to advocate for the colonies independence and nominated George Washington as commander of the Continental Army. Adams continually advocated for independence in the 1776 assigned fellow delegate and friend Thomas Jefferson, whom he had met at the First Continental Congress, to write the Declaration of Independence.

Congress passed a resolution of independence on July 2nd, 1776, which Adams predicted in a letter to Abigail, become the date of a new national holiday. He was off by two days as Independence Day falls on July 4th, the day of the Declaration of Independence was approved by Congress. Adams served on 90 committees and chair 25 of them as well as heading the Board of War and Ordnance, which handled all aspects of the Continental Army's military campaign.

As de facto Secretary of War, Adams manned all aspects of supplying and providing arms to the army while communicating with its officers. Adams was sent to Paris in 1778 to assist Benjamin Franklin in securing a military alliance with France. Adams took ten year old John Quincy with him, but had little success in persuading the French government to agree to an alliance.

When he returned to Massachusetts in 1779, he was elected by the people of Braintree to attend the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. There, the delegates selected him Samuel Adams and James Bodin, to draft the document. Adams was the principal writer of the group and based the Constitution on his knowledge of philosophy, history and Republican ideals. The Massachusetts Constitution would be ratified in 1780 and would later serve as a model for the United States Constitution.

The Constitution is still in use today, and it is the oldest written constitution still in use in the world. It contains a separated three branch government with a bicameral legislature, an independent judiciary, and a declaration of the rights of the citizens. Adams returned to France in 1780 after accepting a post as U.S. envoy, but again fared poorly in diplomatic issues and left for Holland in attempt to negotiate for financial aid for the war.

Adams had little success at first at persuading The Hague to support the United States until the defeat of the British Army at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Adams finally secured a Dutch loan of $2 million to the U.S. in 1782 and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War officially in 1783. After his appointment as the ambassador to Great Britain in 1785, Adams served three years in the post and returned to the States in 1788, where he resumed work on his family's farm.

Despite his vow that he would not serve in politics again, Adams was made a leading candidate in the presidential election of 1789. He received 34 electoral votes to George Washington and 69 votes, making Adams the first U.S. vice president. Adams was sworn in as vice president on April 21st, 1789, and served two four year terms under Washington while casting more tiebreaking votes in the Senate than any other vice president.

He also developed a mutual rivalry with Alexander Hamilton, whom Adams disliked for his political ambition in bank based economic plan. In 1795, the United States ratified the treaty with Britain resolving trade and debt issues that have gone unresolved after the Treaty of Paris. This agreement, the two partizan divisions in the U.S. populace and Congress creating the first two party system in the country of the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans.

When Washington decided not to run for a third term as president in 1796. Adams was selected as a candidate in the United States, his first contested election. He was elected as the second U.S. president, with Thomas Jefferson becoming the vice president as the runner up. Adams was sworn into office on March 4th, 1797. Initially conducted his presidency from his home in Massachusetts, preferring the setting to the capital of Philadelphia.

He kept Washington's old cabinet that was staffed by then loyal to Hamilton. Adams rarely consulted his cabinet and often made decisions in opposition to it, leading to administrative squabbling. Adams spent his one term as president dealing with diplomatic clashes with France during and after the French Revolution and France's subsequent wars. Adams supported staying out of the conflicts, but caused controversy by calling for a military buildup in case it was necessary.

In 1797, the X, y, Z affair, when the French Foreign Minister Talleyrand and his advisors requested large bribes from the U.S. in order to start peace negotiations turned public opinion against France. Adams also contributed to building up a standing army and creating the United States Navy to deal with a quasi war of 1798 to 1800 between the United States and France, where French ships attacked American vessels as retaliation for aligning with the English during this conflict, which was never officially declared war, Adams built up the military to prevent a possible land invasion by the French, while clashing with Alexander Hamilton, who insisted on declaring war.

Adams appointed George Washington, commander of the new Army. But when he died in late 1799, Hamilton used his political actions to get that position. In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte assumed control of the French government, leading Adams to disband the army. Napoleon offered peace negotiations with the United States, and Adams negotiated a treaty against the wishes of Hamilton and the Federalist Party.

Adams moved into the new presidential mansion in the capital of Washington, D.C., in June of 1800, becoming the first U.S. president to reside in the building that is called the White House today. The election of 1800 was a bitter and partizan one, with the Federalists and Democratic-Republican parties hurling personal attacks at the other side and their candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were elected on the Democratic-Republican ticket to oppose Adams and statesman Charles Coatsworth Pinckney on the federalist side.

The ugliness of the political campaign that year led to a rift between Jefferson and Adams that would last for the next 12 years. Alexander Hamilton continued to try and ruin Adams reputation by writing a private pamphlet that insulted Adams personally. But it was leaked to the public by Hamilton's rival, Burr. This pamphlet ended both Hamilton's political career and the Federalist Party, while ensuring Adams would not win a second term as president.

Adams came third in the election behind Jefferson and Burr, with Jefferson ultimately elected president out of a tie in electoral votes. Adams left Washington, D.C., in early 1801 and did not attend Jefferson's inauguration. Adams returned to life as a farmer and largely avoided involvement in politics. Though his son, John Quincy Adams, served for five years in the U.S. Senate.

Adams and Jefferson would barely communicate until 1812, when the two resumed their acquaintance in a series of letters they sent to each other. Over the next 14 years, though, they largely avoided discussing politics and personal issues. Abigail died in 1818, and in 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected president. In that same year, the French general, the Marquis de Lafayette, an American ally during the Revolutionary War, paid a visit to Adams at his home during Lafayette's grand tour of the United States.

Adams died on July 4th, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His last words were Thomas Jefferson survives. Unaware that Jefferson had died on the same day a few hours before him, Adams is remembered as a prominent patriot, a steadfast leader of the United States government. Thank you for joining me today to learn about John Adams.

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