Adams, John (1735-1826)

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John Adams (1735-1826)

Diplomat, vice president and president of the united states

Independent Will. Throughout a long career culminating in a term as president, John Adams valued independence above all else. He based his political philosophy on his understanding of history and human nature, not on public opinion. As president he considered it vital to remain independent of party politics and the other branches of government. That political independence allowed Adams to remain true to his principles and prevented war with France, but it damaged his political career.

Background. John Adams was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, on 30 October 1735. His father, John Adams, was a farmer and cordwainer (shoemaker), church deacon, militia officer, tax collector, and selectman. His mother, Susanna Boylston Adams, was from a prominent family of merchants and physicians. After graduating from Harvard College in 1755, Adams taught school in Worcester, Massachusetts, and studied law with James Putnam. He was admitted to the bar in Boston in 1758 and opened a law practice in Braintree. In 1764 Adams married Abigail Smith, the daughter of Rev. William and Elizabeth Quincy Smith of Weymouth. Mrs. Adams was an astute political observer and her husband’s “dearest friend.” The Adamses had six children, including John Quincy Adams, who became the sixth president of the United States. Political events in the 1760s soon ended Adams’s life as a small-town lawyer and satisfied his ambition for fame.

American Revolution. In 1765 Parliament imposed a stamp tax on the American colonists. Adams prepared Braintree’s resolutions protesting the Stamp Act as an unconstitutional tax imposed without the consent of the colonists. Using his skills as a lawyer and political essayist, Adams played an increasingly important role as he and his fellow patriots moved from protecting their rights as Englishmen to establishing an independent republic. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, Adams worked tirelessly in 1775 and 1776 to prepare the American colonies for independence. He pushed Congress to adopt the army assembled in Massachusetts after the Battles of Lexington and Concord and appoint George Washington commander in chief of the Continental Army and to pass resolutions authorizing the states to set up independent governments. Although Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Jefferson admitted that Adams was our “Colossus on the floor,” leading the fight for its passage. From 1778 to 1788, with the exception of a brief return to the United States, during which he wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, Adams represented American diplomatic interests in Europe. In 1778 Congress appointed Adams commissioner to France to assist Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee in strengthening the American alliance with France. In 1782 Adams negotiated a treaty of recognition and secured the first in a series of loans from the Dutch government. Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay negotiated the peace treaty with Britain ending the Revolutionary War in 1783. Adams was minister to the Court of St. James from 1785 until he resigned in frustration in 1788. The British government, with little confidence in the future of the weak Confederation government, ignored the terms of the Peace of Paris and refused to negotiate a commercial treaty with the United States. Adams, however, returned to the United States in 1788 as a respected figure. A few months later he was elected vice president.

Political Philosophy. Adams developed his political philosophy from wide reading in English and European political thought and his observations on human nature and government. He believed that human beings were motivated by self-interest and a “passion for distinction.” He also believed that society was engaged in a constant class struggle between the rich and the poor, or the aristocracy and the democracy. In his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787), Adams warned of the danger of a single-house legislature advocated by the French philosopher Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot and adopted under the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. Adams argued that the only way to protect liberty was to design a balanced government that would prevent either the aristocracy or the democracy from gaining too much power. The people should be represented in the lower house of the legislature, and the aristocracy should be represented in the upper house. The key to maintaining balanced government was a strong executive elected by the people with veto power over legislation. The executive must be independent from both branches of the legislature and from political parties in order to protect the interests of all the people. In Discourses on Davila (1805) Adams argued that the use of titles for members of the Senate would encourage the development of a natural, nonhereditary aristocracy to serve as a stabilizing force in American society. The alternative would be the establishment of hereditary aristocracy and hereditary monarchy. His political views often separated Adams from members of his own party, the opposing Republican Party, and public opinion.

Vice Presidency. Adams’s critics ridiculed his support for presidential and vice-presidential titles and his practice of wearing a sword and wig to the Senate by calling him “the Duke of Braintree” and “His Rotundity.” He removed the sword and the wig, but the vice presidency (1789–1797) remained a frustrating and insignificant office. He attended only two or three cabinet meetings in eight years, concentrating instead on fulfilling his constitutional responsibility of presiding over the Senate. When called upon to break tie votes, which he did more than any of his successors, he loyally supported the Washington administration and Federalist policies. Adams upheld the president’s power to remove appointees without the consent of the Senate, supported the enforcement of American neutrality during the French Revolution, and defeated commercial discrimination against Britain. At the same time Adams had fundamental differences with Hamiltonian Federalists. Adams supported Hamilton on funding and the assumption of state debts because he thought those measures were necessary to establish a sound financial basis for the United States. He also approved of the National Bank as a depository of government funds. However, he did not approve of the speculative nature of federal securities or paper money designed to attract merchants, manufacturers, and speculators to support the national government out of self-interest. Adams felt that the federal government must remain independent and avoid favoring any special interests. As vice president, however, he considered it his duty to support administration policies.

Presidency. As president between 1797 and 1801 Adams held firm to the belief that he must remain free from party politics in order to rule in the best interests of the nation. Adams did not accept the developing two-party system, and his attempts at nonpartisanship led to vacillating policies and divisions within the Federalist Party. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, and Secretary of War James McHenry took their orders not from President Adams but from former secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Sensitive to charges that he was ambitious and spiteful toward opponents, Adams was reluctant to remove cabinet members who were plotting against him. The belief that he must remain above party politics also prevented Adams from building sufficient support for his alternative to Hamiltonian Federalism either in Congress or the nation. On the occasions when he tried to assert his independence he often lacked the political influence to back up his actions. For example, soon after taking office, Adams informed Vice President Thomas Jefferson of his intention to nominate James Madison, a Republican, as special envoy to France, but when Secretary of the Treasury Wolcott threatened to resign over the appointment, Adams withdrew the offer. In May 1797 Adams’s defense preparations against France called for a navy, national system of coastal defense, and a small increase of the regular army, especially in the military specialties of artillery and cavalry. Instead, High Federalists in Congress passed Hamilton’s program for a larger regular army. When Adams offered command of the army to George Washington, he was also forced to accept Washington’s choice for second in command: Alexander Hamilton. Adams asserted his independence again in 1799 when he dispatched a peace mission to France. Unfortunately, he had not sufficiently established his independence from the unpopular policies of the High Federalists. A disappointed and defeated Adams left Washington, D.C., on the morning of Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration.

Adamant to the End. John Adams had twenty-five years to contemplate his presidency and his place in history after he returned to Quincy, Massachusetts. Between 1809 and 1812 he published a series of letters in the Boston Patriot defending his record as diplomat and president. Adams also maintained his political independence, reluctantly endorsing the embargo as a temporary measure, supporting the War of 1812 but criticizing Jefferson’s neglect of the navy, and opposing the Hartford Convention. He proudly observed the diplomatic and political career of his son, John Quincy Adams, whose duplication of his father’s political independence cost him a Senate seat and a second presidential term. The death of Mrs. Adams in 1818 was a severe blow, but the renewal of his friendship with Thomas Jefferson in 1812 and the more flattering assessments of his career in his later years were a source of comfort. Adams freely acknowledged his character flaws of vanity and ambition and the failures of his presidency, but he was also justifiably proud of his distinguished diplomatic career and his role in restoring peace with France. His appointment of John Marshall as chief justice of the United States in 1801 also had a significant impact on U.S. constitutional history. His political independence had, on many occasions, cost him popularity and the fame he desired, but Adams admitted that independence was “essential to my existence.” John Adams died on Independence Day, 4 July 1826, just hours after the death of Thomas Jefferson.