Knowing your American Heroes ~ John Adams ( 1735-1826 )~by rldubour

Friday! Time for an American Hero! Today is:

 

Knowing your American Heroes

John Adams ( 1735-1826 )

Born in Braintree, Massachusetts

The eldest of three brothers.

John Adams was his father

Susanna Boylston was his mother.

At sixteen he went to Harvard

In seventeen-fifty-one.

Graduating in fifty-five

His career had just begun.

After his graduation

taught school in Worcester, Mass.

Wanting to be a lawyer

teaching soon would pass.

Went to work for James Putnam

In fifty-eight he passed the bar.

For the American colonies

This zeal would take him far.

He married Abigail Smith

in seventeen-sixty-four.

Daughter of a Congregational Minister

In Weymouth by the shore.

He came to prominence early

In the American Revolution.

Played a leading role

In the American Constitution.

John Adams (October 30, 1735  – July 4, 1826) was an American politician and the second President of the United States (1797–1801), after being first Vice President (1789–1797) for two terms. He is regarded as one of the most influential 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 adopt the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. 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.

Adams’s revolutionary credentials secured him two terms as George Washington’s vice president and his own election as the second president. During his one term as president, he was frustrated by battles inside his own Federalist party against a faction led by Alexander Hamilton, and he signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts. The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the Quasi-War crisis with France in 1798.

After Adams was defeated for reelection by Thomas Jefferson, he retired to Massachusetts. He and his wife Abigail Adams founded an accomplished family line of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family. His achievements have received greater recognition in modern times, though his contributions were not initially as celebrated as other Founders’.