By all accounts, John Adams lived during
a turbulent time. He began life as a proud Englishman and then
rose to become the second president of a new nation. This evolution
was not entirely a coincidence–as Adams, and his cousin, Samuel
Adams, did more to secure their own future and their own destiny
than most. John Adams, an opinionated lawyer by trade, found himself
thrust to the forefront of the American Revolution–a movement he
saw not as a revolution, but as merely reasserting of rights denied
by the British Parliament.
The greater Boston area that John Adams was born into
in 1735 was one of the few well-settled areas and key trading ports
on the east coast–along with Philadelphia and New York. Founded
barely a century ago by Puritans under the eye of John Winthrop,
it still reflected many of its Puritan roots. However, it was also
a growing city and full of merchants, traders and artisans. For
much of Adams' early life, he grew up a farm boy until entering
the prestigious Harvard College, where he vacillated between a
career in law and medicine. He decided on law and the still rural
nature of his area is indicative in the fact that there were no
other lawyers on the South Shore. During this era, Massachusetts
faced almost continual attacks from Indians, finally culminating
in the French
and Indian War from 1754 to 1763. Since the colonies
lacked the necessary manpower, training or equipment to field a
strong army against the attackers, and British troops did the majority
of the fighting. The growing cost of the war encouraged Britain
to begin leveling taxes against the colonies.
The next decade marked a series of spats–each more serious
than the last–between England and the colonists, more specifically
the patriotic "hotheads" in Boston led by Samuel Adams and the
Sons of Liberty. What began with the Writs of Assistance–which
allowed customs agents broad search powers–then spiraled into the
Sugar Act, which raised taxes for the colonies. Then, in March
1765, Britain imposed the Stamp Act, the first "internal" tax on
the colonies. Throughout, John Adams found himself becoming the
written voice of the Revolution, drafting documents, letters and
complaints on behalf of the patriots' cause.
Tensions escalated further still with the Quartering Act
in New York in 1766 and the Townshend Acts in 1767. Boston broke
into almost outright rebellion, forcing the governor to request
British troops for protection–troops which later organize the resistance that
resulted in the Boston Massacre. Adams, one of the most respected
lawyers in the area, was asked to defend the troops involved in
their trial for manslaughter. Adams, believing that law should be
impartial, accepted the controversial post and successfully won
acquittal for the commanding officer. However, throughout the colonies,
anti-British feelings ran high and there grew a greater sense of
colonial unity than ever before. With the Boston Tea Party, the
American patriots acknowledged their desire for freedom and the
possibility of armed resistance to the British.
The Revolutionary
War officially began in April of 1775, when British
troops marched on Lexington
and Concord only to meet armed colonial "Minutemen."
Adams served on the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental
Congress, which presented a unified front to the British King and,
in July 1776, declared America's independence from British rule.
Despite the best efforts of thousands of British troops and hired
German mercenaries, the Minutemen, under the command of George
Washington, held their own. And, in 1780, with the help of French
troops, the American army forced the surrender of the main British
army at Yorktown, effectively ending the war.
The post-war period was a rough adjustment for the colonies,
as they struggled with how to build a new country and prevent the
tyrannies they had witnessed in the British rulers. Adams found
himself dispatched to Europe to develop diplomatic ties there,
and then returned to serve as vice president in the new government.
He suffered in the "insignificant" new post as the American government began
to break factions that came to be known as political parties, the
Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. Then, when he narrowly won
the presidency, Adams found himself faced with an imminent war
with France. With European countries still unsure of America's strength
and resolve, Adams found that France was testing them. When he
stood strong, the French government backed down.
The loose confederation of thirteen British colonies in
the New World had firmly established themselves as a free nation
on the move. Adams, the longest-living president in American history, lived
long enough to see the the development of that nation through the War
of 1812 and to see his son, John Quincy Adams, elected president.
