Background

1
Background

• Attended Harvard at age 16
• A Reluctant Teacher
• Became a Lawyer
• Married Abigail Smith
• Had 5 Children

2
Revolutionary Activities

• Protested against the Stamp Intolerable Acts
• Defended Captain Thomas Preston 6 other British
  soldiers indicted for murder in the Boston
  Massacre
• Delegate to 1st and 2nd Continental Congress

3
More Revolutionary Acts

• Served on Committee to write the Declaration of
  Independence
• Diplomat to France, negotiated loans
• Signed the Treaty of Paris
• First American Minister to London

4
John Adams

• First Vice President
• Second president
• Federalist
• Teacher, lawyer, farmer, politician

5
On the Vice Presidency

• My country has in its wisdom contrived for me
  the most insignificant office that ever the
  invention of man contrived or his imagination
  conceived.

6
Adams Activities

• XYZ Affair
• Alien Sedition Act
• Alien Act is against French Immigrants
• Sedition Acts fines and imprisonment for
  writing, speaking, or publishing anything false,
  scandalous,and malicious against the federal
  government
• Appointed Strong Federalist Judges John Marshall

7
Adamss Thoughts

• Favored a Strong national government
• Placed national interest ahead of political
  party True Patriot
• Believed that Republican opposition was a
  conspiracy by Hamilton

8
Adamss Critics

• Bad Calculator of peoples motives
• An Honest Man, sometimes acted unreasonably
• His Alien Sedition Acts violated the 1st
  Amendment

9
Post Presidency

• Returns to Quincy
• Resumes correspondence with Jefferson in 1812
• Dies on July 4, 1826