John Adams, the second President, was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, October 19, 1735. He graduated at Harvard, at the age of twenty, and was admitted to the bar three years later. He was one of the most active and influential members of the First and Second Continental Congresses. It was he who by his eloquent logic persuaded Congress to adopt the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, his strenuous political opponent, declared that Adams was the pillar of its support and its ablest advocate and defender. It was Adams who suggested the appointment of General Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental army. During the progress of the war, he criticised the management of Washington, but, long before the death of the Father of his Country, candidly acknowledged the injustice of such criticism.
JOHN ADAMS.
(1735-1826.)
One term, 1797-1801.
The services of Adams were not confined to his early efforts in Congress nor to his term as President. He did important work as commissioner to France and Holland, and as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain. He obtained large loans and induced leading European powers to make excellent treaties with his country. Adams and Franklin framed the preliminary treaty of Versailles, and, as the first American minister to England, he served until 1788. He received the thanks of Congress for the "patriotism, perseverance, integrity, and diligence" displayed while representing his country abroad. When John Adams assumed the duties of the presidency, he found the country comparatively prosperous and well governed.
The South was the most prosperous. Until 1793, its principal productions were rice, indigo, tar, and tobacco. The soil and climate were highly favorable to the growth of cotton, but its culture was unprofitable, for its seeds were so closely interwoven in its texture that only by hard work could a slave clean five pounds a day. In the year named, Eli Whitney, a New England schoolteacher, living in Georgia, invented the cotton gin, with which a man can clean a thousand pounds of cotton a day. This rendered its cultivation highly profitable, gave an importance to the institution of slavery, and, in its far-reaching effects, was the greatest invention ever made in this country.
TROUBLES WITH FRANCE.
The matter which chiefly occupied public attention during the administration of the elder Adams was our difficulties with France. That country had hardly emerged from the awful Reign of Terror in which a million of people were massacred, and it was under the control of a set of bloody minded miscreants, who warred against mankind and believed they could compel the United States to pay a large sum of money for the privilege of being let alone. They turned our representatives out of the country, enacted laws aimed to destroy our commerce, and instructed their naval officers to capture and sell American vessels and cargoes.
President Adams, who abhorred war, sent special ministers to protest against the course of France. The impudent reply was there would be no stoppage until the men who controlled the French government were paid large sums of money. This exasperating notice brought the answer from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney which has become historical: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."