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John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was the first (1789–1797) Vice President of the United States, and the second (1797–1801) President of the United States.

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John Adams was born on October 30, 1735 (October 19 by the Old Style, Julian Calendar), in Braintree, Massachusetts. His birthplace is now part of Adams National Historical Park. His father, a farmer, also named John, was a fourth-generation descendant of Henry Adams, who emigrated from Barton St David, Somerset, England, to Massachusetts in about 1636; his mother was Susanna Boylston Adams.

Young Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755, and for a time taught school in Worcester and studied law in the office of James Putnam. In 1758, he was admitted to the bar. From an early age he developed the habit of writing deions of events and impressions of men. The earliest of these is his report of the 1761 argument of James Otis in the superior court of Massachusetts as to the legality of Writs of Assistance. Otis’s argument inspired Adams with zeal for the cause of the American colonies. Years later, when he was an old man, Adams undertook to write out, at length, his recollections of this scene.

In 1764 Adams married Miss Abigail Smith (1744–1818), the daughter of a Congregational minister at Weymouth, Massachusetts. Their children were Abigail Amelia (1765-1813); future president John Quincy (1767-1848); Susanna Boylston (1768-70); Charles (1770-1800); Thomas Boylston (1772-1832); and an infant daughter (1777).

Adams had none of the qualities of popular leadership of his second cousin, Samuel Adams; instead, his influence emerged through his work as a constitutional lawyer. Impetuous, intense and often vehement, Adams often found his inborn contentiousness to be a handicap in his political career. These qualities were particularly manifested at a later period—as, for example, during his term as president.

Adams first rose to influence as an opponent of the Stamp Act of 1765. In that year, he drafted the instructions which were sent by the town of Braintree to its representatives in the Massachusetts legislature, and which served as a model for other towns in drawing up instructions to their representatives; in August 1765 he anonymously contributed four notable articles to the Boston Gazette (republished separately in London in 1768 as ), in which he argued that the opposition of the colonies to the Stamp Act was a part of the never-ending struggle between individualism and corporate authority; in December 1765 he delivered a speech before the governor and council in which he pronounced the Stamp Act invalid on the ground that Massachusetts, being without representation in Parliament, had not assented to it.

In 1768 Adams moved to Boston. After the Boston Massacre in 1770, several British soldiers were arrested and charged with the murder of five colonists, and Adams joined Josiah Quincy II in defending them. The trial resulted in an acquittal of the officer who commanded the detachment, and most of the soldiers; but two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. These claimed benefit of clergy and were branded in the hand and released. Adams's conduct in taking the unpopular side in this case resulted in his subsequent election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives by a vote of 418 to 118.

Adams was a member of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1778. In June 1775, with a view to promoting the union of the colonies, he nominated George Washington as commander-in-chief of the army. His influence in Congress was great, and almost from the beginning he sought permanent separation from Great Britain. On October 5, 1775, Congress created the first of a series of committees to study naval matters. From that time onward, Adams championed the establishment and strengthening of an American Navy and is often referred to as the father of the United States Navy.

On June 7, 1776, Adams seconded the resolution introduced by Richard Henry Lee that "these colonies are, and of a right ought to be, free and independent states," acting as champion of these resolutions before the Congress until their adoption on July 2, 1776.

On June 8, 1776, he was appointed on a committee with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman to draft a Declaration of Independence. Although that document was largely drafted by Jefferson, John Adams occupied the foremost place in the debate on its adoption. Many years later Jefferson hailed Adams as "The colossus of Independence." Adams served as the head of the Board of War and Ordinance, as well as many other important committees.

In 1778, Adams sailed for France to supersede Silas Deane in the American commission there. However, as soon as he embarked, that commission concluded the desired treaty of alliance, and he returned home in time to be elected a member of the convention which framed the Massachusetts constitution of 1780. He penned the first draft along with James Bowdoin and Samuel Adams.

Before this work had been completed, he was chosen as minister plenipotentiary for negotiating a treaty of peace and a treaty of commerce with Great Britain and again sent to Europe in September 1779. The French government, however, did not approve of Adams’ appointment and subsequently, on Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes’ insistence, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Henry Laurens were appointed to cooperate with Adams. Since Jefferson did not leave the United States for the task and Laurens played a minor role, Jay, Adams and Franklin played the major part in the negotiations. Overruling Franklin’s vote, Jay and Adams decided to break their instructions, which required them to "make the most candid confidential communications on all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the king of France; to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce without their knowledge or concurrence; and ultimately to govern yourself by their advice and opinion.” Instead, they dealt directly with the British commissioners, without consulting the French ministers.

Throughout the negotiations Adams was especially determined that the right of the United States to the fisheries along the British-American coast should be recognized. Eventually the American negotiators were able to secure a favorable treaty, which was signed on November 30, 1782. Before these negotiations began, Adams had spent some time in the Netherlands. In July 1780, he had been authorized to execute the duties previously assigned to Laurens. With the aid of the Dutch patriot leader Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, Adams secured the recognition of the United States as an independent government at The Hague on April 19, 1782. During this trip he also negotiated a loan and, in October 1782, a treaty of amity and commerce, the first of such treaties between the United States and foreign powers after that of February 1778 with France.

In 1785 John Adams was appointed the first American minister to the court of St. James's. When he was presented to his former sovereign, George III, the King intimated that he was aware of Adams's lack of confidence in the French government. Adams admitted this, stating: "I must avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to my own country.” While in London, Adams published a work entitled (1787), in which he repudiated the views of Turgot and other European writers as to the viciousness of the framework of state governments. In this work, he made the controversial statement that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart from other men in a senate.

While Washington was the unanimous choice for president, Adams came in second in the electoral college and became Vice President in the presidential election of 1789. He played a minor role in the politics of the 1790s, and was reelected in 1792. When the two political parties formed, he joined the Federalist Party and was its nominee for president in 1796, against the Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republicans.

As president of the Senate, Adams cast twenty-nine tie-breaking votes—a record that no successor has ever threatened. His votes protected the president's sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, and prevented war with Great Britain. On at least one occasion he persuaded senators to vote against legislation that he opposed, and he frequently lectured the Senate on procedural and policy matters. Adams's political views and his active role in the Senate made him a natural target for critics of the Washington administration. Toward the end of his first term, as a result of a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters, he began to exercise more restraint in the hope of realizing the goal shared by many of his successors: election in his own right as president of the United States.

In 1796, after Washington refused to seek another term, Adams was elected president, defeating Thomas Jefferson, who became Vice President.

Adams's four years as president (1797–1801) were marked by intense disputes over foreign policy. Britain and France were at war; Adams and the Federalists favored Britain, while Jefferson and the Republicans favored France. An undeclared naval war between the US and France, called the Quasi-War, broke out in 1798. The humiliation of the XYZ Affair led to serious threat of full-scale war with France. The Federalists built up the army (under George Washington and Alexander Hamilton), built warships, and raised taxes. They cracked down on political immigrants and domestic opponents, by the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Adams was a poor negotiator and, indeed, never fully controlled his own Cabinet. Adams and Hamilton became alienated, and senior officials began to look to Hamilton rather than to the president as their political chief. For long stretches, Adams sequestered himself at home in Massachusetts, letting his Cabinet in Philadelphia run national affairs. In February 1799, Adams suddenly roused himself, stunning the country by sending diplomat William Vans Murray on a peace mission to France. Napoleon was now in power in Paris; realizing the animosity of the U.S. was doing no good, he signaled his readiness for friendly relations. The Treaty of Alliance of 1778 was superseded and the U.S. could now be free of foreign entanglements. Adams brought his nation back from the brink of war, but deeply split his own party in the process. He brought in John Marshall as Secretary of State, and demobilized the emergency army.

The death of Washington, in 1799, weakened the Federalists, as they lost the one man who symbolized and united the party. In 1800, Adams ran for reelection and lost narrowly. Defeat was due to distrust of him in his own party, the popular disapproval of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the popularity of his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, and the effective campaigning of Aaron Burr in New York City, which proved decisive. As his term was expiring, he appointed a series of judges, most of whom were unseated when the Jeffersonians repealed their offices. But John Marshall remained and his long tenure as Chief Justice marked the final triumph of Federalist principles.

Adams retired into private life, and later resumed his friendship with Jefferson.

His son, John Quincy Adams, was the sixth President of the United States (1825–1829), the only son of a former President to hold the office until George W. Bush in 2001.

“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

. (1952). One of the most original studies in this field -- examining Adams's political thought by reference to the arguments he waged with authors in the margins of their books. (1960), a useful older history of the decade; slights the debate over republicanism explained so well by Elkins and McKitrick.The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams

Adams appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

On July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Adams died at Quincy, after (allegedly) uttering the famous last words "Thomas Jefferson still survives." (Unbeknownst to Adams, Jefferson had died a few hours earlier). His crypt lies at United First Parish Church (also known as the ) in Quincy. Until his record was broken by Ronald Reagan in 2001, he was the nation's longest-living President (90 years, 247 days).

The Papers of John Adams from the Avalon Project (includes Inaugural Address, State of the Union Addresses, and other materials)Technically, Adams was a presidential candidate in 1792 and Pinckney was a presidential candidate in 1796. Prior to the passage of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, each presidential elector would cast two ballots; the highest vote-getter would become President and the runner-up would become Vice President. Thus, in 1792, with George Washington as the prohibitive favorite for President, the Federalist party fielded Adams as a presidential candidate, with the intention that he be elected to the Vice Presidency. Similarly, in 1796 and 1800, the Federalist party fielded two candidates, Adams and Thomas Pinckney in 1796 and Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in 1800, with the intention that Adams be elected President and either Pinckney be elected Vice President.Adams' term as Vice President is sometimes listed as starting on either March 4 or April 6. March 4 is the official start of the first vice presidential term. April 6 is the date on which Congress counted the electoral votes and certified a Vice President. April 21 is the date on which Adams took the oath of office.