In the first presidential election of that year, he was elected Vice-President on the ticket with Washington ; and began a feud with Alexander Hamilton, the mighty leader of the Federalist party and a chief organizer of our executive machine, which is accredited with the premature overthrow of that party, and had momentous personal and literary results as well., As official head of the party he thought himself entitled to its real leadership as well; Hamilton would not and indeed could not surrender his position, for the lesser men looked to him for counsel and policy, and the rivalry never ended till Hamilton's death. In 1796 he was elected President against Jefferson by three electoral votes, one vote each in Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina, a virtual defeat as not likely to recur. His term is recognized as one of the ablest and most useful of our administrations ; but its personal memoirs are most painful and scandalous. The members of the Cabinet — nearly all Hamiltonians — laid official secrets before Hamilton and took advice from him to thwart the President. They dis liked Mr. Adams' overhearing ways and ob trusive vanity,— for modesty or a low sense of personal dignity were no parts of his char acter,— considered his policy destructive to the party and injurious to the country, and felt that loyalty to them involved and justified a dis loyalty to him. Finally his best act brought on an explosion. The French Directory had pro voked a war with this country, which the Ham iltonian section of the Federalist leaders and much of the rank and file hailed with delight, thinking it a service to the world to cripple France as then ruled; but when it showed signs of a better spirit, Mr. Adams, without consult
ing his Cabinet (who he knew would oppose it nearly or quite unanimously), nominated a com mission to frame a treaty with France. He had the constitutional right to do so; but a storm of fury broke on him from the Hamiltonian leaders as little better than a traitor. He was renominated for President in 1800, but beaten by Jefferson, owing to the loss of New York despite heavy gain in Pennsylvania. The causes were natural and local, and while machine unity might have gained the upper-class party one more election it was bound soon to be swamped by popular growth; but as it never won another, each faction laid its death to the other, and American History is hot with the fires of this battle even yet.
His later years were spent at home, where he was always interested in public affairs and sometimes much too free in his comments on them; where he read immensely and wrote somewhat. He heartily approved his son's break with the Federalists (see ADAMS, JOHN Quibicv) on the Embargo (q.v.). He died on the same day as Jefferson, both on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independ ence.
Mr. Adams' greatest usefulness and popular ity sprang from the same cause that produced some of his worst blunders and misfortunes: a generous impulsiveness which made it im possible for him to hold his tongue at the wrong time and place for talking, his vehemence, self confidence and impatience of obstruction. He was fervid, combative, opinionated and master ful; but he had trust, admiration and respect from the majority of his party at the worst of times, and history justifies it. Consult by his grandson Charles Francis Adams; Parker, T., (Historic Americans' (1910).