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Adams, John (Second president of the United)

second president of the United States, was born Oct. 30, 1735, in Braintree, Mass. He graduated from Harvard college in 1755; chose law as a profession; and was admitted to the bar in 1761. In 1764 he married Abigail Smith, an accomplished daughter of the Rev, William Smith. In 1770 he was chosen representative from Boston in the Massachusetts assembly, and in 1774 he was elected to the first continental congress.

He was re-elected in 1776, and was one of the committee which drafted the declaration of independence in June of that year. Adams was appointed as commissioner to the court of France in December, 1777, and returned in 1779. After his return he was chosen a member of the Massachusetts convention for framing a constitution, and on the 29th of September, 1779, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to treat with Great Britain for peace and commerce. He was soon after appointed minister to Holland, and recalled in July, 1781, to Paris. In January, 1785, he was appointed minister to England, and occupied that post until 1788, when he resigned and returned home. He was elected first vice-president of the United States, and took the oath of office April 21, 1789, which office he held, by re-election, until March 4, 1797. He was elected president in 1796, and took the oath of office March 4, 1797, at Philadelphia. He was defeated for a re-election, and, at the close of his official term, he retired to his farm at Quincy. John Adams held office over twenty-five years, and died moderately well off, on July 4, 1826, with the same words on his lips which, fifty years before, on that day, he had uttered on the floor of congress: Independence forever! His principal publications were:

Letters on the American Revolution; Defense of the American Constitutions; an Essay on Canon and Feudal Law; a series of letters under the signature of Novanglus; and Discourses on Davila. It was as vice-president that he had a seat in the senate. In 1856 his life and writings were published in ten volumes, edited by his grandson, C. F. Adams.