John Adams
Born: October 30, 1735
Died: July 4, 1826
Colony/State: Massachusetts
Occupation / Public Role: Lawyer, legislator, diplomat, Vice President, President of the United States
Contribution to the Founding Era: Delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, leading advocate of independence, diplomat, and later the first Vice President and second President of the United States.
John Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts (now Quincy) and graduated from Harvard College in 1755. He taught school briefly, studied law under James Putnam, and built a legal career in Massachusetts before emerging as one of the most forceful Patriot voices of the revolutionary era. He married Abigail Smith in 1764, beginning one of the best-known partnerships of the founding generation.
Adams played a major role in the movement toward independence. He served in the Continental Congress and was a member of the Committee of Five chosen to prepare a declaration. Although Thomas Jefferson drafted the text, Adams strongly supported both independence itself and Jefferson’s draft during the debates of July 1776. The National Archives notes that independence was voted on July 2, 1776, and the Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776.
Adams was not only a signer of the Declaration but one of the Revolution’s hardest-driving political workers. Britannica notes that he was a major figure in the Continental Congress, later helped write the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, and went on to serve as a diplomat in Europe, including helping negotiate the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War.
After the Revolution, Adams became the first Vice President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 under George Washington and then the second President from 1797 to 1801. His presidency came during a tense and difficult period marked by conflict with France and fierce party division at home.
John Adams died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the same day as Thomas Jefferson. He remains one of the central figures of the American founding: blunt, stubborn, brilliant, and usually about as subtle as a cannon rolling through a church picnic. But he mattered enormously, and the Revolution would not look the same without him.
Related Links
- Signers of the Declaration of Independence
- Declaration of Independence
- Thomas Jefferson
- Samuel Adams
- John Hancock