John Adams

John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818) exchanged over 1,100 letters, beginning during their courtship in 1762 and continuing throughout John's political career (until 1801). These warm and informative letters include John's descriptions of the Continental Congress and…

This brief biography of Abigail Adams, written by Debra Michals, give a background of her life and upbringing. The text also explores her relationship with John Adams and their time in the White House when he served as president.

This short biography, by C. James Taylor, chronicling the life of John Adams focuses on his political life, relationship with his wife Abigail, and his presidency. It is a good introduction to Adams and his background.

In this letter from President John Adams to his wife Abigail Adams, the president writes about the election victory of his rival, Thomas Jefferson. He remarks upon having to nominate judges and the last tasks that he has to accomplish as president.

The treaty, sent to Congress by the American negotiators, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, formally ended the Revolutionary War. They emerged from the peace process with one of the most advantageous treaties ever negotiated for the United States. Two crucial provisions of the treaty…

After a flurry of activity in the summer of 1775, Congress takes a brief recess in August. When the body reconvenes in September, five men representing the entire colony of Georgia are present. Several questions continue to plague Congress. What will become of American trade and foreign relations…

This portrait of John Adams, painted by American artist Glibert Stuart, is an American classic. While Adams was president in 1798, the Massachusetts House of Representatives asked him to sit for a portrait to hang in the State House in Boston.

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">A leading American historian challenges the long-entrenched interpretation originated by the late Charles A. Beard</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Discreet helpers have worked on the speeches and papers of many Presidents, but a nation in a time of trial will respond best “to the Great Man himself, standing alone”</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Without doubt they were Washington, who walked carefully within the Constitution, and Lincoln, who stretched it as far as he dared</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">All that the Adamses saw they were schooled to put down and save. The result is a collection of historical records beyond price and without peer.</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">Eighteenth-century equivalents of “Yankee go home!” greeted the Adams family when, in 1785, they arrived in London. Nevertheless, there were certain delightful compensations—especially for an eligible young lady</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Even the worst offender, even the most unpopular cause, deserves a good lawyer. Our example is a passionate moment in Boston on the eve of the Revolution, when John Adams undertook to defend the hatred British soldiers who had fired into a Boston mob and created some “martyrs.” There are echoes of our own times in the trial that followed</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The courtship and fifty-four-year marriage of John and Abigail Adams was, despite separation and war and tragedy, a moving and highly literate love feast between two "Dearest Friends"</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">They’ve all had things to say about their fellow chief executives. Once in a great while, one was even flattering.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">For years, people have argued that France had the <span class="typestyle"> real</span> revolution and that ours was mild by comparison. But now, a powerful new book argues that the American Revolution was the most sweeping in all history. It alone established a pure commercial culture that makes America the universal society we are today. </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">John Adams and Thomas Jefferson stood together in America’s perilous dawn, but politics soon drove them apart. Then, in their last years, the two old enemies began a remarkable correspondence that is both testimony to the power of friendship and an eloquent summary of the dialogue that went on within the Revolutionary generation and that continues within our own.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The ambassador from an infant republic spent five enchanted years in the French capital at a time when monarchy was giving way to revolution. Walking the city streets today, you can still feel the extravagant spirit of the city and the era he knew.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Is trial by jury the essential underpinning of our system of justice or, as more and more critics charge, a relic so flawed that it should perhaps even be abolished? An experienced trial judge examines the historical evidence in the case.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The<em> Declaration of Independence</em> is not what Thomas Jefferson thought it was when he wrote it, and that's why we celebrate it.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">When John Adams was elected president, and Thomas Jefferson as vice president, each came to see the other as a traitor. Out of their enmity grew our modern political system.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">As the 2000 election made very clear, we are torn between revering judges and despising them. It’s in the nature of the job.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The 70-year-old statesman lived the high life in Paris and pulled off a diplomatic miracle.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> As Adams and Jefferson died, America came of age</span> </p>

<p>America’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra-violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between "patriots" and loyalists.</p>

<p>Critical decisions by the chief justice saved the Supreme Court’s independence — and made possible its wide-ranging role today.</p>

<p>Rush was a visionary writer and reformer, a confidant to John Adams, Washington's surgeon general, and opponent of slavery and prejudice, yet he's not a well-known founding father. </p>

<p>Sixteen historic sites in Boston remind Americans of the events that led to our nation’s birth, from the Boston Massacre to Breed's Hill and the USS Constitution.</p>

<p>Our greatest Chief Justice defined the Constitution and ensured that the rule of law prevailed at a time of presidential overreach and bitter political factionalism.</p>

<p>After his father's death in 1848, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. became the last great hope of America's first—and, at the time, only—political dynasty.</p>