John Adams :: essays papers

John AdamsThe Revolution was effected onward the war commenced. The Revolution was in theminds and hearts of the people... This radical change in the principles, opinions,sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.In three remarkable careers--as a foe of British oppression and champion ofIndependence (1761-77), as an American diplomat in Europe (1778-88), and as the initiatoryvice-president (1789-97) and then the reciprocal ohm president (1797-1801) of the UnitedStates--John Adams was a founder of the United States. Perhaps every bit important,however, was the life of his mind and spirit in a pungent diary, pictorial letters, learnedtracts, and patriotic speeches he revealed himself as a quintessential Puritan, patriarch of an illustrious family, tough-minded philosopher of the republic, sage, and sometimes a vain, stub natural, and vitriolic partisan.John Adams was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Mass., on Oct. 30, 1735, in a smallsaltbox house neertheless standing and open to visitors. His father, John Adams, a deacon and afifth-generation mama farmer, and his mother, the former Suzanna Boylston,were, their son wrote, both fond of reading so they single-minded to give bookishly inclined John a good education. He became the first of his family to go to college when he entered Harvard in 1751. There, and in six further years of intensive reading while he taught school and studied virtue in Worcester and Boston, he mastered the technicalities of his profession and the literature and learning of his day. By 1762, when he began 14 years of increasingly successful legal practice, he was well informed, ambitious, and public spirited.His most notable good fortune, however, occurred in 1764 when he married AbigailSmith. John Adamss marriage of 54 years to this wise, learned, strong-willed, passionate, and patriotic cleaning lady began the brilliant phase of Adams family history that produced their son John Quincy, his son Char les Francis, his sons heat content and Brooks, and numerous other distinguished progeny.In 1761, John Adams began to think and draw up and act against British measures that hebelieved infringed on colonial liberties and the right of mammy and the othercolonies to self-government. A pamphlet entitled A Dissertation on the Canon and theFeudal Law and town instructions denouncing the Stamp feat (1765) marked him as avigorous, patriotic penman, and, holding various local anaesthetic offices, he soon became a leaderamong Massachusetts radicals. Although he never wavered in his devotion to colonialrights and early committed himself to independence as an unwelcome last resort,Adamss innate conservatism made him determined in 1770 that the British soldiers