Memorable Quotations from John Adams

John Adams (1735-1826) was the 2nd president of the United States (1797-1801). Born in Quincy (at that time Braintree), Massachusetts, he was the father of John Quincy Adams. John Adams graduated from Harvard University in 1755 and became an attorney. As a moderate but vigorous leader of the group who disputed British actions leading to the American Revolution, he afterwards served in both Continental Congresses and argued persuasively for the Declaration of Independence, which he signed. Adams served America, the new nation, as a diplomat, negotiating the Treaty of Paris in 1783 to end the Revolution and serving from 1785 to 1788 as envoy to Great Britain. He became President George Washington's vice president from 1789 to 1797 and in 1797 succeeded him as president. President Adams's administration showed his trustworthy and tenacious veracity. Though allied with Alexander Hamilton and the conservative, property-respecting Federalists, he was not controlled by them in their fight with the Jeffersonians, led by Thomas Jefferson By reconciliation he averted war with France. He did not altogether support the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts. After 1801 he lived in retirement in Quincy. His wife, Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818), who was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, was the leading character in the social life of her husband's administration. Animated and intellectual, she was one of the most eminent and significant of American first ladies.