John Adams

David McCullough’s award-winning biography, John Adams (2001), was the primary source for the HBO miniseries about the life of John Adams that premiered in 2008. According to McCullough, he originally intended the biography to include the lives of both John and Thomas Jefferson, but after uncovering a large trove of letters between John and his wife, Abigail, he shifted the focus to the lesser-known president.

John Adams was born in Massachusetts in 1735 to a strict religious family. He excelled in his schooling but had a few instances of rebellion and clashing with teachers. When his father sent him to Harvard at the age of sixteen, he expected John to become a minister, but John found himself drawn to law, which he thought offered him more chances at fame and intellectual glory.

After passing the bar exam, John contributed political satires to a local paper. In 1759, he met Abigail Smith, the younger sister of a woman his friend was courting. Though at first, not impressed with Abigail, he soon grew to appreciate her and they married. Their relationship was based on a shared love of books and honesty about each other’s characters. Together, they had six children, including the future president John Quincy Adams.



John became involved in a number of political causes in the lead up to the American Revolution. He used his platform in the paper to oppose the Stamp Act. Defending the British soldiers accused of firing on a crowd of civilians during the Boston Massacre, he acquired an acquittal for the captain and most of the soldiers involved. This victory was partly due to John’s skill in jury selection, which resulted in a jury predisposed to be favorable towards the British.

Though he was part of the American independence movement, John was one of the more conservative Founding Fathers. He opposed a violent revolutionary movement. Nevertheless, he attended the First Continental Congress in 1774, even though several close friends tried to persuade him not to. John helped draft a letter of grievances against King George.

Over the next two years, John became increasingly committed to the cause of independence. He often worried that the pace was too slow, working hard to push legislation through the new Congress. He was placed in charge of the committee to write the Declaration of Independence, a task which he delegated to Thomas Jefferson. When the time came to argue for the Declaration to be passed, John used his superior debate skills to move it through Congress. Before the Declaration of Independence was signed, John was also appointed to a special committee that would build an alliance with France during the upcoming war.



John served as a diplomat throughout the American Revolution, ending with his role in establishing a peace treaty with the British in 1779. After the war, he was appointed as the first ambassador to Great Britain. Abigail joined him in England, and they traveled extensively to historical sites in Europe.

When John and Abigail returned to the United States in 1789, George Washington asked him to be his vice president. His primary duty was casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate, which he did thirty-one times during his tenure, siding with the president’s Federalist Party in most cases. In general, Adams did not like the role of vice president, though it did not prevent him from running for president in 1796.

Though he was largely out of favor with the Federalists, he won the presidency in 1797, with Thomas Jefferson serving as his vice president. The defining event of his presidency was the XYZ Affair, in which the revolutionary government of France began plundering American merchant ships near Britain. Although John wanted to stay out of the French Revolution, he was forced to take a hard stand against France, weakening relations with the country.



In addition, John was also responsible for several laws that made it more difficult to obtain American citizenship, and easier to deport people living in the country. Thomas Jefferson, who opposed many of John’s policies, worked hard to undermine him in Congress. He easily defeated John during the 1800 election.

John returned to farming after his defeat in the election. He lived frugally, managing to save most of his presidential earnings. He stayed out of politics for the most part, for fear of harming his son, John Quincy’s, own political career.

Before his death, John made a good-faith effort to reconcile with Thomas Jefferson. The two men both died on July 4, 1826, within a few hours of each other. At the time of John’s death, John Quincy was serving as the third president of the United States.