Adams, John ___ 1735-1826 ___ American ___ teacher, lawyer, politician

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Adams was born at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735, and studied law at Harvard. He married in 1766 and moved to Boston, where he became involved in the patriot movement. He was elected to the Massachusetts Assembly in 1770, and was then chosen as a representative to the First Continental Congress in 1774. At the Congress, he nominated Washington to be commander-in-chief of the colonial armies. In 1776, he offered a resolution that amounted to a declaration of independence from Great Britain. Congress appointed him ambassador to France. When he returned in 1779 he participated in the framing of a state constitution for Massachusetts. In 1781, he participated in the development of the Treaty of Peace and was one of its signatories. He also served as a diplomat in Holland and England. He was elected Vice-President under Washington in 1789, and then President in 1796. His presidency was dominated by the threat of war with France, and a debate over foreign policy. Moreover, in this early period of independence, Adams, a federalist, seemed to be in constant dispute with Thomas Jefferson, a Republican about the limits of federal power over the state governments and individual citizens. After his four year Presidency, he was invited to help reform the constitution of Massachusetts, but declined due to ill health. He died within hours of Jefferson, who had served eight years as President after him.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - A sprit to our honour

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1753-1804 ___ political people historyeye France

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
etext
about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Massachusetts Historical Society

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Diary and Autobiography
The Earliest Diary of John Adams
The Works of John Adams

May 2005, September 2008, March 2013
Please email if you have any corrections, additions or comments, or if you've found the site useful. Thank you.

IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.