ADAMS. JOHN, (ante). John Adams was the great-grandson of Henry, the English emigrant; his father was a deacon of the church and selectman, a farmer of small means and a shoemaker, but he off John a good education at Harvard, whence lie went to Wor cester and took charge of a school. He was ambitious, and only lacked influence to get into the army; then he thought of divinity, but the confusion and wrangling of sects dis mayed him, so he settled on law. In 1764 he married Abigail Smith, daughter of the minister at Weymouth, and a person above his social position. She proved a good wife and mother and made his home happy. Soon after marriage lie went into politics with other opponents of the stamp act and parliamentary oppression. He was selected as one of the counscd of the town of Boston, the others being Jeremiah Gridlev, the head of the har, and James Otis, the famous orator. They were to present to the governor and council n memorial asking that courts might proceed with business though no stamped paper was to be had. As junior, Adams opened the business, taking the bold stand that the stamp act was void because parliament had no right to tax the colonies. The repeal of the net soon after ended the matter. About this time he began to write on "Taxa tion" in the Boston Gazette, and some of his articles were reprinted in a London paper. In 1768 he moved to Boston, and two years later was elected to the general court, though at the time he was retained to defend capt• Preston in the Boston massacre affair, who was acquitted in spite of the great prejudice existing. In the general court he began to be a leader of the patriot party, and though he soon resigned was consulted upon all important matters by governor Hutchinson. About this time he wrote articles on the independence of the judiciary and the payment of the salaries of judges by the crown. The destruction of the tea brought on the crisis and produced the congress of 1774, of which A. was one of the five Massachusetts members. There he took active part in the discus sion of colonial independence, and when a declaration was agreed upon he was chosen to put the resolutions in shape. Returning home he was chosen to the provincial congress, then in session, which had substantially declared war by appointing a committee of safety, seizing the provincial revenues, appointing general officers, collecting stores and beginning to form an army. After the adjournment of this congress his pen was again at work and the "Novanglus" articles appeared in anwer to pro-British papers signed "Massachusettensis." This work was interrupted by the battle of Lexington, and A. hurried to the congress in Philadelphia, which body soon became the chief authority in the colonies. Adams was satisfied that reconciliation was impossible, though a majority in congress thought differently. The siege of Boston had begun, and Adams claims that he fast suggested Washington for the chief command in order to secure the active help of the Virginia delegates; but he insisted that gen. Artemus Ward should be second, which place the Virginians wanted for Lee; Lee was made third in rank. While absent from congress some of his correspondence was made public, in which he spoke freely of his colleagues, especially John Dickinson, who, with some others, became his personal enemy for life. He was a hard worker in congress, chiefly in committees; was on the naval committee, and his rules then written are the basis of our present naval code. Late in 1775 he was appointed chief justice of •ass., but never took the seat, resigning the next year. In congress freedom was slowly gaining ground; A. was in favor of adoption of self-government by each of the colonies, then a confederation, and then treaties with foreign powers. May 13, 1776, he carried the first proposition, and the others naturally followed. A resolution by Robt. H. Lee offered under instruc tions of the Virgina convention, that the " colonies are by right and ought to be free and independent," was warmly supported by A. and carried by seven states to six. A. was put on the committee on the declaration and on foreign affairs, and was chairman of the congressional board of war, in fact the war department, where he gave the hardest labor for 18 months, and almost alone created such a war department as we had; and in this and other work lie ouined the reputation of "the clearest head and firmest heart of any man in congress." ''Near the close of 1777 he was appointed commissioner to France to supersede Silas Deane. The French alliance was already made, and Franklin commis sioned as ambassador. A. came home in 1770 in the ship with our first minister from a foreign power. Ile was made a member of the Mass. constitutional convention, but was immediately appointed minister to Great Britain to treat for peace, and returned to Europe in the same frigate that had brought him home. Soon after arrival in London he went to Holland to negotiate a loan, and was made minister to that country while there.
IIe secured a loan of 2,000,000. After peace, with which he had much to do, he was sent as minister to England, and arrived in London in May, 1785. Ile was civilly but coldly received, and his situation was anything but agreeable; so, at his request, he was recalled in 1788. While in England he prepared his Defense of the American Constitu tion, a work which subjected him to the charge of anti-republican and even monarchical tendencies. Under the newly organized federal government he became 'Vice-president, and gave probably more casting votes in the senate than all vice-presidents since; giving about- twenty, nearly all to support Washington's policy or on some important organic law. Up to this time A. and Jefferson had generally agreed, but differing views of the French revolution separated them widely—A. vehemently denouncing that outbreak as a great evil. The strife became so warm that when the second presidential election came on, the friends of Jefferson nominated George Clinton for vice-president against A., but failed to defeat Mai. With Washington, A. heartily supported the plan of neutrality, while the Jeffersonians were eager for discriminations against England. Washington declined a candidacy for a third term, and then came our first partisan contest for presi dent; Adams, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, and Thomas Pinckney were more or less in the field. In the electoral college A. barely prevailed, having 71 votes' to 69 for Jeffer; son; (as the law was then the electors voted for two men without designating the office the highest vote made the president, and the next highest the vice-president). A. charged Hamilton with dividing the vote of the north and east, and that, with other con temporaneous troubles, broke up the federal party. Our French relations were in a crit ical state when A. took the chair; our minister, James Monroe, had disregarded his instructions and led us into difficulty with the wily Talleyrand, and the exposure of this entanglement aroused a strong anti-French feeling and revived the old federal party; but some unlucky appointments by A., such as Vans Murray for minister to France, soon checked this resurrection. When the new commission reached France, Bonaparte was in power, and there was no further difficulty. 'When the election of 1800 came on, tho federal party was only in fragments; the republicans (soon to be democrats) were strong and growing rapidly under such skillful leaders as Jefferson and Burr A. was still pop ural with the people, but his opponents loaded him down with the French troubles, the alien and sedition laws, and many sins of which lie was not guilty; his private corre spondence was exposed, and to all, as in "Washington's case, was added the charge that he selected his cabinet under British influence. There was no choice of president by the people's election: Jefferson had 73 votes, Burr 73, Adams 65, Pinckney 44. After many ballots the house of representatives chose Jefferson for president and Burr for vice president, and on the day of inauguration John Adams left office without waiting to see his opponent take the chair. He had no intercourse with his successful rival for thirteen years. A. at once quitted public life; lie had been frugal and was not without estate, and his home was happy, until the death of his second son; his hope, however, was in his son John Quincy, whom he desired to see seated in the presidential chair. Few men have fallen so suddenly from high political importance to zero; iu the last year of his term lie received and wrote letters by thousands; the next year he received hardly a hundred. Ile lost the favor and got the spite of both parties. Ice was bitterly assailed long after lie left office, and his misdeeds were even used in the campaign against his son in 1824. But though his official utterances were stopped, his pen was busy. He defended himself iu the newspapers, and biought to light many important historical facts. After Jefferson left public life he and A. were reconciled and corresponded during the remainder of their lives, both dying on the same day, the day of all in whin they might desire to go—July 4, 1826, the semi-centennial anniversary of the declaration of independence in which both had taken deep personal interest. When A. was in his 86th year lie was chosen a dele gate to the convention to revise the Mass. constitution, and did much to bring about a modification of sections respecting religion and support of churches, for with years he had grown liberal, even ahead of his time. In person lie was above medium height, with a stout, well-knit frame, growing corpulent with age; large head, wide and expan sive brow; a mild and even humorous eye; general aspect grave and imposing; be delighted in society and conversation and was a good talker; affections warm but not particularly demonstrative; anger violent and soon cooled, and without malevolence; impatient of cant and of opposition to his well-established views.