John Adams

John Adams (1735 - 1826) was a Massachusetts Federalist who was the second president (1797-1801) of the United States, and a chief promoter of their independence.

He was a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774-78) and helped draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He, along with John Jay and Benjamin Franklin, negotiated the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution in 1783.

He was, during 1785-88, minister to Great Britain, and during 1789-97, the first vice president of the US.

Wisdom & Quotes

• A government of laws, and not of men.

- Novanglus, 1775 (Adams credited the phrase to the seventeenth-century writer James Harrington. It was used in 1780 in the Massachusetts Constitution.)

• Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service, when it is violating all His laws.

- letter to Thomas Jefferson, quoted by James Reston

• My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office (the vice-presidency) that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

- letter to Abigail Adams, December 19, 1793

• Virtue is not always amiable.

- Diary, February 9, 1779

• The happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

- Thoughts on Government

Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur