John Adams our 2nd president- Crystal Lake Dental Associates

John Adams John Adams 2nd President of the United States (March 4, 1797 to March 3, 1801) Nickname: "Atlas of Independence" Born: October 30, 1735, in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts Died: July 4, 1826, in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts

Father: John Adams
Mother: Susanna Boylston Adams
Married: Abigail Smith (1744-1818), on October 25, 1764
Children: Abigail Amelia Adams (1765-1813);  John Quincy Adams (1767-1848); Susanna Adams (1768-70); Charles Adams (1770-1800); Thomas Boylston Adams (1772-1832)

Religion: Unitarian
Education: Graduated from Harvard College (1755)
Occupation: Lawyer
Political Party: Federalist
Other Government Positions:

• Member of Continental Congress, 1774-78
• Commissioner to France, 1778
• Minister to the Netherlands, 1780
• Minister to England, 1785
• Vice President, 1789-97 (under  Washington)

Life Overview

John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States (1797–1801). Hailing from New England, Adams, a prominent lawyer and public figure in Boston, was highly educated and represented Enlightenment values promotingrepublicanism. A Federalist, he was highly influential and one of the key Founding Fathers of the United States.

Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution. As a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence. He assigned Thomas Jefferson the role of drafting the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776,^[1] and assisted him in that process. As a representative of Congress in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from Amsterdam bankers. A political theorist and historian, Adams largely wrote the Massachusetts state constitution in 1780 which soon after ended slavery in Massachusetts,^[2] but was in Europe when the federal Constitution was drafted on similar principles later in the decade. One of his greatest roles was as a judge of character: in 1775, he nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief, and 25 years later nominated John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the United States.

Adams' revolutionary credentials secured him two terms as George Washington's vice president and his own election in 1796 as the second president. During his one term, he encountered ferocious attacks by the Jeffersonian Republicans, as well as the dominant faction in his own Federalist Party led by his bitter enemy Alexander Hamilton. Adams signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts, and built up the army and navy especially in the face of an undeclared naval war (called the "Quasi War") with France, 1798–1800. The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the conflict in the face of Hamilton's opposition.

In 1800 Adams was defeated for re-election by Thomas Jefferson, therefor becoming the first president to serve for only one term. He retired to Massachusetts. He later resumed his friendship with Jefferson. He and his wife, Abigail Adams, founded an accomplished family line of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family. Adams was the father of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. His achievements have received greater recognition in modern times, though his contributions were not initially as celebrated as those of other Founders.

My favorite quote: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Notable Events:

• 1796
• E Pluribus Unum: "Out of Many, One"; added to American coins.
• 1797
• Three anonymous French trouble makers brought France and the U.S. to the brink of war in what became known as theXYZ Affair.
• 1798
• Federalists support the highly unpopular Alien and Sedition Acts. They would later be repealed.
• 1800
• U.S. capital relocated to Washington, D.C. from Philadelphia.
•  Jefferson defeated Adams.
• Congress established Library of Congress.

Points of Interest:

• The Adams' were the first residents of the White House. They moved in in November 1800 while the paint was still wet. Mrs. Adams would hang her laundry in the East Room to dry.
• Adams was one of three presidents not to attend the inauguration of his successor. Not only was Adams disappointed in losing to  Jefferson, he was also grieving the death of his son Charles.
• Adams was the great-great-grandson of John and Priscilla Alden, Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
• The only presidents to sign the Declaration of Independence Adams and  Jefferson both died on its 50th anniversary, July 4, 1826. Adams' dying words were "Thomas Jefferson survives". Jefferson, however, had passed on a few hours earlier.

Notable Quotes:

"Society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. "

"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which was ever debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right out to be, free and independent states."

"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe. "

"Let me have my farm, family and goose quill, and all the honors and offices this world has to bestow may go to those who deserve them better and desire them more. I court them now."

"Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality; an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance."

"No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow."

"Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand."

"Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty."

"If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence."

"Let the human mind loose. It must be loosed; it will be loose. Superstition and despotism cannot confine it."

"Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public. . . . A man must be his own trumpeter. He must get his picture drawn, his statue made, and must hire all the artists in his turn, to set about the works to spread his name, make the mob stare and gape, and perpetuate his fame. "

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. "

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for ever more."

"I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof."

"The body politic is . . . a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good."

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

"The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

"Old minds are like old horses: you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order."

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people. "

"Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity."

"The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries."

"When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more."

"A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man."

"We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions . . . shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power . . . we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society."

"Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to liberty, and few nations, if any, have found it."

"If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready. . . . But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country."

"In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. "

"Grief drives men to serious reflection, sharpens the understanding and softens the heart."

"This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,

For freedom only deals the deadly blow;

Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,

For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade."

"The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefensible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge--I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers."

"Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United States in a foreign country. Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested."

"Genius is sorrow's child."

"It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power."

"By my physical constitution, I am but an ordinary man. The times alone have destined me to fame--and even these have not been able to give me much."

"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics."

Resources

http://www.visitingdc.com/president/john-adams-picture.htm

2011 Wikipedia. John ada,sGeorge Wasington. Retrieved 10/21/2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams

1996-2008 Summers, Robert.( 1996-2008). John Adams. In ipl2: Information You Can Trust: POTUS. Retrieved 1021/2011, from http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/jadams.html

2011 Great Presidential Quotes. John adams Wasington. Retrieved 10/21/2011, from  http://www.greatpresidentialquotes.com/index.php?set=details&id=2&page=0

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Phillip C. Neal DDS

Crystal Lake Dental Associates

280 B Memorial Court

Crystal Lake, Illinois 60014

815 459 2202

www.DrNeal.com