John Adams

John Adams was Vice President under George Washington for both of Washington’s terms. This was a time when the person that received the 2^nd most votes in the Electoral College became the Vice President (the British would call this person the 1st loser). Fortunately, Adams and Washington were of the same “party”.  Adams called the Vice Presidency “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” The Vice President, in many administrations, had no official role or duties other than to serve as the President of the Senate and vote in the case of ties. Modern Vice Presidents tend to get more responsibility from the President, but officially they aren’t given much constitutional power. When Adams became President, Thomas Jefferson was his Vice President, and for the only time in history, the President and Vice President were from different parties. Can you imagine if Al Gore had been George W. Bush’s Vice President or if John McCain were Barak Obama’s Vice President?! The 12^th Amendment to the Constitution changed this and thereafter the President and Vice President were from the same party.

The lasting legacy of Adams includes avoiding a war with France.  Tensions flared when the new post French revolution leadership began seizing US ships during a war with England. Washington had successfully kept the country neutral in the France-England war and Adams intended to follow suit. Unfortunately, when he sent a team of diplomats to negotiate with France, the French Minster’s aides demanded a bribe of $250,000. When this information became public in the XYZ affair there was a public outcry and many wanted an alliance with England and war with France. Adams, however, did not give into the pressure and was able to avoid war.

In the form of a smear on his legacy, he signed into law 4 bills that collectively are referred to as the Alien and Sedition acts. Basically the Alien Act was intended to give the president power to deport immigrants who were vocally against the administration. The Naturalization Act made it more difficult for an immigrant to become a citizen. The Sedition Act was directly intended to shut down anti-administration newspapers by making it illegal to criticize the government. There were many opposing newspaper editors that were jailed and had their newspapers closed for printing stories that the administration didn’t like.

Another action by Adams that was to have a lasting impact on the country was his appointment of the “Midnight Judges”. During his “Lame Duck” session he signed appointments for judges.  The Jefferson administration refused to deliver some of the appointments and the issue went to the Supreme Court.  This had two effects; the precedent of an outgoing administration to exercise power that will impact the next administration in the waning hours of the administration and the establishment of “judicial review”.  In the case of Marbury v Madison, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall sided with the Jefferson administration that there were not bound by the previous administrations appointments that hadn’t been delivered.  This set the precedent that the Supreme Court is the final decision making in determining if laws are constitutional.

In an irony of  history, Adams died on the July 4th 1826, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Adams was part of the team appointed to write the Declaration of Independence with Jefferson, Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman.  His dying words were “Jefferson still survives”.  Thomas Jefferson had already died on the same day!

Now for the fun part, tidbits that you can share at parties!

• As a lawyer he defended the British soldiers after the Boston massacre
• He is one of only 3 Presidents that did not attend their successors inauguration (J. Adams, J. Q. Adams, A. Johnson)
• Traces his family history back to the Mayflower
• Still has direct descendants alive today
• Former president of Raytheon was a direct descendent

In terms of references, David McCullough wrote a great book called “John Adams” that was made into a short series on HBO.