John Adams

(1735-1826)

Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts on October 30, 1735, the son of a distinguished family in the area, one that would remain distinguished well into the 20^th century. After an outstanding career at Harvard he read law and settled in Braintree to practice in 1758. The focus of his interest soon shifted to Boston, where a group of lawyers met to discuss the problems of British domination and the ideas of liberty. By 1768, when he moved to Boston, Adams was already known for his newspaper articles and for his protest of the Stamp Act Nonetheless, his commitment to justice led him to a successful defense of British soldiers after the Boston Massacre of 1770.

His growing radicalism got Adams thrown out of the Governor’s Council in 1773; the following year he was a delegate to the first Continental Congress, where he became a major voice for independence and helped edit Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence in 1776. He was an envoy to the peace conference that produced the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Two years later he was in Britain as the U.S. minister, meanwhile writing on constitutional theory.

In 1789 Adams became the first Vice-President and heir apparent to George Washington. A confirmed Federalist, he nonetheless tried with some success to stay above partisan politics. Elected president by a narrow margin over Jefferson (who thus became vice-president), Adams began his term trying to cement the divided Federalist Party while conciliating the Jefferson’s Republicans. It was an impossible task. In trying to build the national army and navy for the inevitable conflict with Britain or France, Adams ran afoul of the states’ rights Republicans; and the Federalists on his cabinet, especially Hamilton, worked against him in promoting more active war preparations. In 1798 he signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which virtually prohibited criticism of the government; the Acts, widely condemned, were the beginning of the end of the Federalist Party.

With a diplomatic masterstroke in 1800 Adams prevented war with France. But the country had turned against him; in the election that year he lost to Jefferson. Adams retired to the life of the elder statesman and to putting the final touches of grooming his son, John Quincy Adams, for the Presidency. He died on July Fourth, 1826, the same day as Jefferson, the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration.

Thomas Jefferson

(1743-1826)

On the plain stone obelisk on the hill below his beloved Monticello is written: “Here lies buried/Thomas Jefferson/author of the Declaration of Independence/of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom/ and father of the University of Virginia”.

He left out a few things: he was a farmer, lawyer, family man, statesman, scientist, architect, linguist, philosopher, inventor, amateur musician, founder of the Library of Congress and (most tellingly omitted), president of the United States.

Jefferson was born into a distinguished farming family in Albermarle County, Virginia, on April 13, 1743. An avid student from his youth, he graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1762 and then studied law, being admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767. He soon became involved in local politics and was elected to the House of Burgesses. Bringing his wide knowledge of history and law to the rising tide of the independence movement, Jefferson became a noted pamphleteer and a member of the Continental Congress in 1775. His reputation for eloquence and wisdom made him the choice to draft the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on July 4, 1776.

During the Revolution, Jefferson, no military man, served in the Virginia legislature and became governor in 1779. He retired to his estate Monticello in 1781, which over the years he was to build and tinker with endlessly; during this period he also began work on a natural history of Virginia which would gain him laurels as a scientist. He returned to public life after the death of his wife in 1783, becoming a member of the Continental Congress. In 1784 he went as a minister to France; there he observed and reported home the French Revolution, applauding its democratic aims while deploring its methods. He returned home in 1789 to find the Constitution completed. Worried about its centralizing of power, he approved it uneasily and agreed to be Washington’s secretary of state. In that office he began his opposition to the Federalist’s anti-French tendencies, their national bank, their catering to the wealthy.

Jefferson ran a close second to John Adams in the 1796 election, thus becoming by the procedure of the time vice-president (and giving a good indication of why that procedure was eventually changed). Throughout his term he resisted many of the administration’s efforts, especially the oppressive Alien and Sedition Acts. In the Kentucky Resolution of 1798 Jefferson proposed that the states have authority to reject federal laws they deem unconstitutional (under the later name on nullification, this well-intentioned idea was later to divide the Union). The Acts helped doom Adams; Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, but only by narrowly defeating Aaron Burr in an election decided in the House.

As president, Jefferson stemmed a conservative tide that had dominated the country; nonetheless, he did so in a diplomatic and conciliatory fashion, thus setting vital American precedent for the peaceful transfer of power from one ideology to another. Yet Jefferson was simultaneously among the most beloved and most dammed of all American presidents. The most significant and popular act of his tenure was the Louisiana Purchase in 1803; he also began the Lewis and Clark expedition during his first term. His suppression of the pirates in Tripoli beginning in 1801 was widely approved, giving him an easy reelection in 1804. His second term was marred by the controversy with ex-Vice-President Aaron Burr and by the embargo on exports to Europe. Jefferson, fearing a revolt, repealed the embargo in 1808.

Jefferson left office and returned to Monticello in 1809. The country soon forgot the turmoil of his second term and saw him admiringly as “the Sage of Monticello”. His last great effort was a labor of love, the founding of the University of Virginia; the campus he designed was the masterpiece of his architectural career. Lying on his deathbed in 1826, he would wake and ask what day it was; he wanted to hold out until July Fourth, and he got his wish; a few hours later, John Adams, likewise determined, died in Boston. It was the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.