John Adams

John Adams

John Adams served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain. He died on July 4, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence – hours after Thomas Jefferson’s death.

About John Adams in brief

Summary John AdamsJohn Adams served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain. Adams was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with many important figures in early American history. He died on July 4, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence – hours after Thomas Jefferson’s death. He and his wife generated a family of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family, which includes their son John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of U.S. John Adams was born on October 30, 1735, to John Adams Sr. and Susanna Boylston. He had two younger brothers, Peter and Elihu. Adams was raised on the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. He was the eldest child of a deacon and a farmer, and was educated at a dame’s school for boys and girls, centered upon The Primerer New England. He later wrote that his parents held every Species of Libertinage in … Contempt and horror. and detailed pictures of disgrace, or baseness and of Ruin. resulting from any debauchery. Adams later noted that as a child he enjoyed perhaps the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed upon children – that of a mother who was anxious and capable to form the characters of her children, as well as the men and women of her family. He also recalled that he was compelled to obtain a formal education at age six and was a teacher’s teacher’s son.

At age six, Adams attended a new school named Joseph Marsh, where his son responded positively to his father’s command that he remain in school: “You shall comply with my desires” At age seven, Adams was hired a new Deacon and farmer and responded positively, “All matter on the matter of school will remain with my father” He was elected to two terms as vice president under President George Washington and was elected as United States’ second president in 1796. During his term, he became the first president to reside in the executive mansion now known as the White House. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts and built up the Army and Navy in the undeclared “Quasi-War” with France. He eventually resumed his friendship with Thomas Jefferson by initiating a correspondence that lasted fourteen years. Adams’s great-great-grandfather Henry Adams immigrated to Massachusetts from Braintrees, Essex, England, around 1638. He felt pressured to live up to his heritage, who profoundly affected their region’s culture, laws, and traditions. By the time of John Adams’s birth, Puritan tenets such as predestination had waned and many of their severe practices moderated, but Adams still considered them bearers of freedom, a cause that still had a holy urgency. He still considered himself a Puritan.