When you look at the history of the United States, there are many of our Presidents that we easily bring to mind, Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, etc. There are many that you don’t know anything about off hand, and in most cases that is a good thing. In the case of John Adams it seems that history has done a great disservice to this great American Patriot who should be considered more for Mt. Rushmore than others, but he is, by many, almost forgotten. John Adams was the second president of the United States, he was one of the original members of the Continental Congress and one of those responsible for the writing and acceptance of the Declaration of Independence.
What intrigues me about this man is that he clearly continued to evolve long after his time as a public servant ran out. Many of his thoughts and feelings which have been preserved, show a man that has not only a grasp of what the world is about, but what a person needs to do to live a satisfied life while you are in it.
Clearly there are regrets that he has from his past. Time spent away from his family, being too narrow minded and focusing on trivial things. Worrying about what others thought of him, and how history would treat him, worried him quite a bit. This is a fault all too common with all of us, but a colossal waste of time.
Quick Facts about John Adams
*Born: October 30, 1735 – In Braintree, Mass.
*Education: Graduated from Harvard Occupation: Lawyer
*President from 1797-1801 Died: July 4, 1826
* Married to Abigail Smith, children John Quincy, Susanna, Charles, and Thomas.
*Delegate to the First Continental Congress
*Elected Commissioner to France
*Elected The First Vice President of the United States
*Elected The Second President of the United States
*First President to Live in the White House In Washington, D.C.
*John Adams represented Boston in the Colonial Legislature. He led the resistance against British policies in America. When the First Continental Congress was organized in 1774, Adams served on it representing Massachusetts, and was one of the first to suggest independence as a course of action. Adams served in the Second Continental Congress as wee and was a key figure in forming the Continental Army and played an important role in adopting the Declaration of Independence, and was one of the patriots who signed the document.
Quotes of John Adams:
“Happiness, whether in despotism or democracy, whether in slavery or liberty, can never be found without virtue”
“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
“Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart”
“Fear is the foundation of most governments.”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence”
“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
“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”
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it”
“In politics the middle way is none at all.”
“Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
“If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind, whom should we serve?”
“The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”
“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence”
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion”
“That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world”
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”
“The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.”
“A democracy is as really a republic as on oak a tree, or a temple a building”
“There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.”
“Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.”
“It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there can be property in man”
“Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.”
“There is no such thing as human wisdom; all is the providence of God”
“Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics”
“The happiness of society is the end of government.”
“The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people’s hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice”
“Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion… in private self-defense.”
“I cannot conceive such a Being could make such a Species as the human, merely to live and die on this earth”
“Politics are the divine science, after all”
“The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation”
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing”
“Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.”
“I am persuaded there is among the mass of our people a fund of wisdom, integrity, and humanity which will preserve their happiness in a tolerable measure”
Without Virtue, There Can Be No Political Liberty
Viewpoints: A courageous American patriot who stood by his principles
This is not what John Adams had in mind.
The American Minute: October 30
On This Day in 1735, John Adams is Born
