Some of Cleveland's actions were controversial with political factions. Such criticisms include but are not limited to: his intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 in order to keep the railroads moving (a move which angered labor unions), his support of the gold standard, and opposition to free silver which alienated the agrarian wing of the Democrats.  Furthermore, critics complained that he had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters   depressions and strikes   in his second term. He lost control of his party to the agrarians and silverites in 1896.


An early, undated photograph of Grover Cleveland from the Cleveland Family Papers at the New Jersey Archives.


Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey to the Reverend Richard Cleveland and Anne Neal.  He was the fifth of nine children, five sons and four daughters.  He was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, where his father was pastor at the time.  From 1841 to 1850, he lived in Fayetteville, New York  A Walking Tour of Fayetteville , but as the church frequently transferred its ministers, the family moved many times, mainly around central and southern New York State.


He became involved in Democratic politics at 19 when he worked for the presidential campaign of James Buchanan. Following Buchanan's single term, the next Democrat elected president would be Cleveland himself, almost thirty years later.  During the American Civil War, Cleveland hired a replacement to avoid Lincoln's draft order of 1863.


As a lawyer in Buffalo, New York, he became notable for his single-minded concentration upon whatever task faced him. He was elected sheriff of Erie County, New York in 1870 and carried out at least two hangings of condemned criminals, refusing to delegate the unpleasant task to others. Political opponents would later hold this against him, calling him the "Buffalo Hangman." Cleveland stated that he wished to take the responsibility for the executions himself and not pass it along to subordinates.


In 1871 Grover Cleveland was elected Sheriff of Erie County, New York. At age 44, he emerged into a political prominence that carried him to the White House in three years.   Running as a reformer, he was elected Mayor of Buffalo in 1881, with the slogan "Public Office is a Public Trust" as his trademark of office. One newspaper, in endorsing him, said it did so for three reasons: "1. He is honest.  2. He is honest.  3. He is honest."  In 1882, he was elected Governor of New York, working closely with reform-minded Republican state legislator Theodore Roosevelt.


Cleveland won the Presidency in the 1884 election with the unusual combination of support from both Democrats and reform-minded Republicans called "Mugwumps" who denounced his opponent, former Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, as corrupt.


The campaign was negative. To counter Cleveland's image of purity, his opponents reported that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo. The derisive phrase "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?", often chanted at Republican political rallies, rose as an unofficial campaign slogan for those who opposed him.


Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who claimed he fathered her child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Halpin was involved with several men at the time, including Cleveland's law partner and mentor, Oscar Folsom, for whom the child was named. (Cleveland may not have been the father and is believed to have assumed responsibility because he was the only bachelor among them.) After Cleveland's election as President, Democratic newspapers added a line to the chant used against Cleveland and made it: "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House! Ha Ha Ha!"


The desire for reform, blunders on behalf of Blaine, and voters' demand for honesty turned the tide for Cleveland.  Cleveland's victory made him the first Democrat elected president since James Buchanan, who was elected in 1856.


Cleveland's administration might be characterized by his saying:  "I have only one thing to do, and that is to do right". Cleveland faced a Republican Senate and often resorted to using his veto powers. Cleveland himself insisted that, as President, his greatest accomplishment was blocking others' bad ideas. He vigorously pursued a policy barring special favors to any economic group. Vetoing a bill to appropriate $10,000 to distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas, he wrote: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character...." He also vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland vetoed


gress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland vetoed that, too. Cleveland used the veto far more often than any President up to that time. Once Cleveland told a friend that his principal duty and greatest service to the country was in preventing Congress from enacting bad bills. He also felt that if the constitution did not authorize it, he could not in good faith sign a bill into law.


Cleveland lived up to his reputation of running an efficient government.  He demanded his administration get rid of extravagances and abuses.


In 1885, Cleveland ordered a military campaign against the Southwestern Apache tribe under Chief Geronimo; in 1886 Geronimo was captured.


President Cleveland angered railroad investors by ordering an investigation of western lands they held by government grant, involving the return of 81,000,000 acres (328,000 kmÂ²) which is the approximately equivalent to the areas of N.Y., N.J., Pa., Dela., Md., and Va.,combined. The Department of the Interior charged that the rights of way for this land must be returned to the public because the railroads failed to extend their lines according to agreements. The lands were forfeited and became part of public domain.


He signed the Interstate Commerce Act, the first law attempting Federal regulation of the railroads.


Cleveland was a committed non-interventionist who had campaigned in opposition to expansion and imperialism. He reversed policy and withdrew the treaty for the annexation of Hawaii negotiated by Benjamin Harrison from the consideration of the Senate.  Cleveland often quoted the advice of George Washington's Farewell Address in decrying alliances, and he slowed the pace of expansion that President Chester Arthur had begun.  Cleveland refused to promote Arthur's Nicaragua canal treaty, calling it an "entangling alliance". Free trade deals (reciprocity treaties) with Mexico and several South American countries died because there was no Senate approval. Cleveland withdrew from Senate consideration the Berlin Conference treaty which guaranteed an open door for U.S. interests in Congo.


n open door for U.S. interests in Congo.


As Fareed Zakaria argued, "But while Cleveland retarded the speed and aggressiveness of U.S. foreign policy, the overall direction did not change."   Historian Charles S. Campbell argues that the audiences who listened to Cleveland and Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard, Sr.'s moralistic lectures "readily detected through the high moral tone a sharp eye for the national interest."   p. 77   Cleveland supported Hawaiian free trade (reciprocity) and accepted an amendment that gave the United States a coaling and naval station in Pearl Harbor. Naval orders were placed with Democratic industrialists rather than Republican ones, but the military buildup actually quickened.


In his second term Cleveland stated that by 1892, the U.S. Navy had been used to promote American interests in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Argentina, Brazil, and Hawaii. Under Cleveland, the U.S. adopted a broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that did not just simply forbid new European colonies but declared an American interest in any matter within the hemisphere. Fareed, p. 146


In December 1887, Cleveland called on Congress to reduce high protective tariffs:


The theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Government which protects him... the exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice. This wrong inflicted upon those who bear the burden of national taxation, like other wrongs, multiplies a brood of evil consequences. The public Treasury... becomes a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the people's use, thus crippling our national energies, suspending our country's development, preventing investment in productive enterprise, threatening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public plunder.


ening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public plunder.


He failed to lower tariffs when the Mills bill failed, and made it the central issue of his losing 1888 campaign, as Republicans under William McKinley claimed a high tariff was needed to produce high wages, high profits, and fast economic expansion.


Grover Cleveland was the second President married in office, and the only President married in the White House itself


On June 2, 1886, Cleveland married Frances Cornelia Folsom, the daughter of his former law partner, in the Blue Room in the White House. He was the second President to marry while in office, and the only President to have a wedding in the White House itself. This marriage was controversial because Cleveland was the executor of the Folsom estate and supervised Frances' upbringing. Folsom, at 21 years old, was the youngest First Lady in the history of the United States. Their children were Ruth Cleveland (1891-1904); Esther Cleveland (1893-1980); Marion Cleveland (1895-1977); Richard Folsom Cleveland (1897-1974); and Francis Grover Cleveland (1903-1995).


* In October 1886, Cleveland presided over the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.


Grover Cleveland


Cleveland appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States during his first term.


Cleveland/Thurman campaign poster


Cleveland was defeated in the 1888 presidential election, in part due to fraud (See Blocks of Five). He actually led in the popular vote over Benjamin Harrison (48.6% to 47.8%), but Harrison won the Electoral College by a 233-168 margin, largely by squeaking out a barely-over-1% win in Cleveland's home state of New York; in fact, had Cleveland won his home state, he would have won the electoral vote by a count of 204-197 (201 votes then needed for victory). Note, though, that Cleveland earned 24 of his electoral votes in states that he won by less than 1% (Connecticut, Virginia, and West Virginia).


Cleveland thus became one of only four men to clearly win the popular vote but lose the presidency; there would not be another such election until Al Gore's narrow loss to George W. Bush in 2000. As Frances Cleveland and the ex-president left the White House, she assured the staff that they would return in four years.


The primary issues for Cleveland for the 1892 campaign were reducing the tariff and stopping free minting of silver which had depleted the gold reserves of the U.S. Treasury. Cleveland was elected again in 1892, thus becoming the only President in U.S. history to be elected to a second term which did not run in succession to the first.


Shortly after Cleveland was inaugurated, the Panic of 1893 struck the stock market, and he soon faced an acute economic depression. He dealt directly with the Treasury crisis rather than with business failures, farm mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment. He obtained repeal of the mildly inflationary Sherman Silver Purchase Act. With the aid of J. P. Morgan and Wall Street, he maintained the Treasury's gold reserve.


Cleveland's humiliation by Gorman and the sugar trust; cartoon by W. A. Rogers


He fought to lower the tariff in 1893-1894. The Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act introduced by West Virginian Representative William L. Wilson and passed by the House would have made significant reforms. However, by the time the bill passed the Senate, guided by Democrat Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, it had more than 600 amendments attached that nullified most of the reforms. The "Sugar Trust" in particular made changes that favored it at the expense of the consumer. It imposed an income tax of two percent to make up for revenue that would be lost by tariff reductions. Cleveland was devastated that his program had been ruined. He denounced the revised measure as a disgraceful product of "party perfidy and party dishonor," but still allowed it to become law without his signature, believing that it was better than nothing and was at the least an improvement over the McKinley tariff.


ecome law without his signature, believing that it was better than nothing and was at the least an improvement over the McKinley tariff.


Cleveland refused to allow Eugene Debs to use the Pullman Strike to shut down most of the nation's passenger, freight and mail traffic in June 1894. He obtained an injunction in federal court, and when the strikers refused to obey it, he sent in federal troops to Chicago, Illinois and 20 other rail centers. "If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a postcard in Chicago," he thundered, "that card will be delivered." Most governors supported Cleveland except Democrat John P. Altgeld of Illinois, who became his bitter foe in 1896.


Cleveland's agrarian and silverite enemies seized control of the Democratic party in 1896, repudiated his administration and the gold standard, and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a Silver Platform. Cleveland silently supported the National Democratic Party (United States) (or "Gold Democratic") third party ticket that promised to defend the gold standard, limit government, and oppose protectionism. The party won only 100,000 votes in the general election (just over 1 percent). Agrarians again nominated Bryan in 1900, but in 1904 the conservatives, with Cleveland's support, regained control of the Democratic Party and nominated Alton B. Parker.


Typewriters were new in 1893, and this cartoon shows Cleveland as unable to work the Democratic Party machine without jamming the keys (the key politicians in his party)


Invoking the Monroe Doctrine in 1895, Cleveland forced Britain to agree to arbitration of a disputed boundary in Venezuela. His administration is credited with the modernization of the United States Navy that allowed the U.S. to decisively win the Spanish-American War in 1898, one year after he left office.


In 1893, Cleveland sent former Congressman James Henderson Blount to Hawaii to investigate the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and the establishment of a provisional government. He initially supported Blount's scathing report which blamed the U.S. for the overthrow; called for the restoration of Liliuokalani; and withdrew from the Senate the treaty of annexation of Hawaii. When the deposed Queen refused to grant amnesty as a condition of her reinstatement, and said she would execute the current government in Honolulu, Cleveland referred the matter to Congress. The Senate then produced the Morgan Report, which completely contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair. Following the Turpie Resolution of May 31, 1894, which vowed a policy of non-interference in Hawaiian affairs, Cleveland dropped all support for reinstating the Queen, and further wen


f May 31, 1894, which vowed a policy of non-interference in Hawaiian affairs, Cleveland dropped all support for reinstating the Queen, and further went on to officially recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the Republic of Hawaii declared on July 4, 1894.


Cleveland was a stout opponent of the women's suffrage (voting) movement.  In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland wrote, "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."  *


Official White House portrait of Grover Cleveland, oil on canvas, painted in 1891 by Jonathan Eastman Johnson (1824â1906)


Cleveland appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court during his second term.


Two of Cleveland's nominees were rejected by the Senate.


* William Hornblower, on January 15, 1894, by a vote of 24-30.


* Wheeler Hazard Peckham, (the older brother of Rufus Wheeler) on February 16, 1894, by a vote of 32-41.


After Cleveland began his second term in 1893, Doctor R.M. O'Reilly found an ulcerated sore a little less than one inch (24 mm) in diameter on the left lingual surface of Cleveland's hard palate. Initial biopsies were inconclusive; later the samples were proven to be a malignant cancer. Because of the financial depression of the country, Cleveland decided to have surgery performed on the tumor in secrecy to avoid further market panic. The surgery occurred on July 1, to give Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for an August 7 address to Congress, which had recessed at the end of June.


Under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland, accompanied by lead surgeon Dr. Joseph Bryant, left for New York. Bryant, joined by his assistants Dr. John F. Erdmann, Dr. W.W. Keen Jr., Dr. Ferdinand Hasbrouck (dentist and anesthesiologist), and Dr. Edward Janeway, operated aboard E. C. Benedict's yacht Oneida as it sailed off Long Island. The surgery was conducted through the President's mouth, to avoid any scars or other signs of surgery. The team, sedating Cleveland with nitrous oxide (laughing gas), removed his upper left jaw and portions of his hard palate. The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland's mouth severely disfigured. During another surgery, an orthodontist fitted Cleveland with a hard rubber prosthesis that corrected his speech and covered up the surgery.


hesis that corrected his speech and covered up the surgery.


A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious press somewhat placated. Even when a newspaper story appeared giving details of the actual operation, the participating surgeons discounted the severity of what transpired during Cleveland's vacation. In 1917, one of the surgeons present on the Oneida (Dr. W.W. Keen, Jr.) wrote an article detailing the operation. The lump was preserved and is on display at the MÃ¼tter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The final diagnosis was verrucous carcinoma and the president was cured by the surgical excision.


Oil painting of Grover Cleveland, painted in 1899 by Anders Zorn.


After leaving the White House, Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate, Westland Mansion, in Princeton, New Jersey. For a time he was a trustee of Princeton University, bringing him into opposition to the school's president, Woodrow Wilson. Conservative Democrats hoped to nominate him for another presidential term in 1904, but his age and health forced them to turn to other candidates. Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt, with whom he had constructively worked while Governor of New York decades before.


The former president had been scheduled to be the Chairman and Master of Ceremonies for Robert Fulton Day on September 24, 1907 at the Jamestown Exposition at Sewell's Point on Hampton Roads, Virginia. However, ill-health forced him to cancel, and his role was filled by humorist Mark Twain.


Cleveland died in 1908 from a heart attack with his wife at his side. He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.


Cleveland on the $1000 bill


Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill from 1928 to 1946. He also appeared on a $1000 bill of 1907 and the first few issues of the $20 Federal Reserve notes from 1914.


Since he was both the 22nd and 24th President, he will be featured on two separate dollar coins to be released in 2012 as part of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005.


In 2006, Free New York, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research group, began raising funds to purchase the former Fairfield Library in Buffalo, New York and transform it into the Grover Cleveland Presidential Library & Museum.


Statue of Grover Cleveland outside City Hall in Buffalo, New York


* Cleveland, Grover.  about Hawaii.'' (1893).


** This is the handbook of the Gold Democrats who strongly supported Cleveland and justified his policies, while opposing Bryan.


*David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito,  "Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896-1900,"Independent Review 4 (Spring 2000), 555-75.


* Graff, Henry F. Grover Cleveland (2002), short overview.


*  Wilson, Woodrow, Mr. Cleveland as President  Atlantic Monthly (March 1897): pp. 289-301 online Woodrow Wilson became President in 1912; he was a Bourbon Democrat when he wrote the favorable essay.


Sir Isaac Newton FRS ( ) (4 January 1643 â March 31 1727)   [  OS: December 25 1642 â March 20 1727 ]    was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist. His treatise PhilosophiÃ¦ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering.  He showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.


ng the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.


In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he invented the reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum.  He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.


In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the calculus. He also demonstrated the generalized binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.


In a 2005 poll of the Royal Society of who had the greatest effect on the history of science, Newton was deemed more influential than Albert Einstein.


Newton in a 1702 portrait by Godfrey Kneller. Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643   [ OS: December 25, 1642 ]    at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. At the time of Newton's birth, England had not adopted the latest papal calendar and therefore his date of birth was recorded as Christmas Day, December 25, 1642. Newton was born three months after the death of his father. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed u


young Isaac disliked his stepfather and held some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19:  Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them. Cohen, I.B. (1970). Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 11, p.43. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons


Newton may have suffered from Asperger syndrome, a form of autism.


According to E.T. Bell and H. Eves:


Newton began his schooling in the village schools and was later sent to The King's School, Grantham, where he became the top student in the school. At King's, he lodged with the local apothecary, William Clarke and eventually became engaged to the apothecary's stepdaughter, Anne Storer, before he went off to the University of Cambridge at the age of 19. As Newton became engrossed in his studies, the romance cooled and Miss Storer married someone else. It is said he kept a warm memory of this love, but Newton had no other recorded "sweet-hearts" and never married.


There are a rumours that he remained a virgin.  Book Review Isaac Newton biography December 2003  However, Bell and Eves' sources for this claim, William Stukeley and Mrs. Vincent (the former Miss Storer   actually named Katherine, not Anne), merely say that Newton entertained "a passion" for Storer while he lodged at the Clarke house.


From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham (where his signature can still be seen upon a library window sill). He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He was, by later reports of his contemporaries, thoroughly unhappy with the work. It appears to have been Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, who persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. This he did at the age of eighteen, achieving an admirable final report.


In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, but Newton preferred to read the more advanced ideas of modern philosophers such as Descartes and astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalized binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that would later become calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in April of 1665, the University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 2 years, Newton worked at his home in Woolsthorpe on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.


Isaac Newton (Bolton, Sarah K. Famous Men of Science. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1889)


Most modern historians believe that Newton and Leibniz had developed calculus independently, using their own unique notations. According to Newton's inner circle, Newton had worked out his method years before Leibniz, yet he published almost nothing about it until 1693, and did not give a full account until 1704. Meanwhile, Leibniz began publishing a full account of his methods in 1684. Moreover, Leibniz's notation and "differential Method" were universally adopted on the Continent, and after 1820 or so, in the British Empire. Whereas Leibniz's notebooks show the advancement of the ideas from early stages until maturity, there is only the end product in Newton's known notes. Newton claimed that he had been reluctant to publish his calculus because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginnin


because he feared being mocked for it . Newton had a very close relationship with Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, who from the beginning was impressed by Newton's gravitational theory. In 1691 Duillier planned to prepare a new version of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, but never finished it. Some of Newton's biographers have suggested that the relationship may have been romantic.  Biography of Isaac Newton at  www.knittingcircle.org.uk   However, in 1694 the relationship between the two men cooled down. At the time, Duillier had also exchanged several letters with Leibniz.


Starting in 1699, other members of the Royal Society (of which Newton was a member) accused Leibniz of plagiarism, and the dispute broke out in full force in 1711. Newton's Royal Society proclaimed in a study that it was Newton who was the true discoverer and labeled Leibniz a fraud. This study was cast into doubt when it was later found that Newton himself wrote the study's concluding remarks on Leibniz. Thus began the bitter Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, which marred the lives of both Newton and Leibniz until the latter's death in 1716.


Newton is generally credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent. He discovered Newton's identities, Newton's method, classified cubic plane curves (polynomials of degree three in two variables), made substantial contributions to the theory of finite differences, and was the first to use fractional indices and to employ coordinate geometry to derive solutions to Diophantine equations. He approximated partial sums of the harmonic series by logarithms (a precursor to Euler's summation formula), and was the first to use power series with confidence and to revert power series. He also discovered a new formula for calculating pi.


He was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In that day, any fellow of Cambridge or Oxford had to be an ordained Anglican priest. However, the terms of the Lucasian professorship required that the holder not be active in the church (presumably so as to have more time for science). Newton argued that this should exempt him from the ordination requirement, and Charles II, whose permission was needed, accepted this argument. Thus a conflict between Newton's religious views and Anglican orthodoxy was averted.


From 1670 to 1672, Newton lectured on optics. During this period he investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into white light.


A replica of Newton's 6-inch reflecting telescope of 1672 for the Royal Society.


He also showed that the coloured light does not change its properties, by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various objects.  Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus the colours we observe are the result of how objects interact with the incident already-coloured light, not the result of objects generating the colour. For more details, see Newton's theory of colour.


From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours, and invented a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope) to bypass that problem. By grinding his own mirrors, using Newton's rings to judge the quality of the optics for his telescopes, he was able to produce a superior instrument to the refracting telescope, due primarily to the wider diameter of the mirror. In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. When Robert Hooke criticised some of Newton's ideas, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke's death.


en remained enemies until Hooke's death.


Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.


In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. The contact with the theosophist Henry More, revived his interest in alchemy. He replaced the ether with occult forces based on Hermetic ideas of attraction and repulsion between particles. John Maynard Keynes, who acquired many of Newton's writings on alchemy, stated that "Newton was not the first of the age of reason: he was the last of the magicians."    Newton's interest in alchemy cannot be isolated from his contributions to science.   notes that Newton apparently abandoned his alchemical researches.  (This was at a time when there was no clear distinction between alchemy and science.) Had he not relied on the occult idea of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)


of action at a distance, across a vacuum, he might not have developed his theory of gravity. (See also Isaac Newton's occult studies.)


In 1704 Newton wrote Opticks, in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?"   quoting Opticks   Newton also constructed a primitive form of a frictional electrostatic generator, using a glass globe (Optics, 8th Query).


Newton's own copy of his Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition.


In 1677, Newton returned to his work on mechanics, i.e., gravitation and its effect on the orbits of planets, with reference to Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and consulting with Hooke and Flamsteed on the subject. He published his results in De Motu Corporum (1684). This contained the beginnings of the laws of motion that would inform the Principia.


The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (now known as the Principia) was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that were not to be improved upon for more than two hundred years. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the force that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation. In the same work he presented the first analytical determination, based on Boyle's law, of the speed of sound in air.


With the Principia, Newton became internationally recognised. He acquired a circle of admirers, including the Swiss-born mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with whom he formed an intense relationship that lasted until 1693. The end of this friendship led Newton to a nervous breakdown.


Isaac Newton in 1712. Portrait by Sir James Thornhill.


In the 1690s Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible. Henry More's belief in the universe and rejection of Cartesian dualism may have influenced Newton's religious ideas. A manuscript he sent to John Locke in which he disputed the existence of the Trinity was never published. Later works â The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728) and Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733) â were published after his death. He also devoted a great deal of time to alchemy (see above).


Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but his only recorded comments were to complain about a cold draft in the chamber and request that the window be closed.


Newton moved to London to take up the post of warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, a position that he had obtained through the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He took charge of England's great recoining, somewhat treading on the toes of Master Lucas (and securing the job of deputy comptroller of the temporary Chester branch for Edmond Halley). Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon Lucas' death in 1699, a position Newton held until his death.  These appointments were intended as sinecures, but Newton took them seriously, retiring from his Cambridge duties in 1701, and exercising his power to reform the currency and punish clippers and counterfeiters. As Master of the Mint in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins an


nt in 1717 Newton unofficially moved the Pound Sterling from the silver standard to the gold standard by creating a relationship between gold coins and the silver penny in the "Law of Queen Anne"; these were all great reforms at the time, adding considerably to the wealth and stability of England.  It was his work at the Mint, rather than his earlier contributions to science, that earned him a knighthood from Queen Anne in 1705.


Newton's grave in Westminster Abbey


Newton was made President of the Royal Society in 1703 and an associate of the French AcadÃ©mie des Sciences. In his position at the Royal Society, Newton made an enemy of John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal, by prematurely publishing Flamsteed's star catalogue, which Newton had used in his studies.


Newton died in London on March 31, 1727   [ OS: March 20, 1727 ]   , and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt, Westfall 1980, p. 44.  served as his hostess in social affairs at his house on Jermyn Street in London; he was her "very loving Uncle," Westfall 1980, p. 595  according to his letter to her when she was recovering from smallpox.  Although Newton, who had no children, had divested much of his estate onto relatives in his last years he actually died intestate.


After his death, Newton's body was discovered to have had massive amounts of mercury in it, probably resulting from his alchemical pursuits. Mercury poisoning could explain Newton's eccentricity in late life.


Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."


His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's studies of the Bible and of the early Church Fathers were also noteworthy.  Newton wrote works on textual criticism, most notably An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture. He also placed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at 3 April, AD 33, which agrees with one traditionally accepted date. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, v. 1, pp. 382â402 after narrowing the years to 30 or 33, provisionally judges 30 most likely.  He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible (see Bible code).


Newton may have rejected the church's doctrine of the Trinity. In a minority view, T.C. Pfizenmaier argues that he more likely held the Eastern Orthodox view of the Trinity rather than the Western one held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and most Protestants.    In his own day, he was also accused of being a Rosicrucian (as were many in the Royal Society and in the court of Charles II).


In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world, but he rejected the hylozoism implicit in Leibniz and Baruch Spinoza. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, by an active reason, but this universe, to be perfect and ordained, had to be regular.


Newton, by William Blake; here, Newton is depicted as a "divine geometer"


Newton and Robert Boyleâs mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians.    Thus, the clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism,    and, at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton's discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a "Natural Religion."


The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment "magical thinking," and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyleâs mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyleâs ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them.    Newton refashioned the world governed by an interventionist God into a world crafted by a God that designs along rational and universal principles.    These principles were available for all people to discover, allowed people to pursue their own aims fruitfully in this life, not the next, and to perfect themselves with their own rational powers.


Newton saw God as the master creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Principia, Book III; cited in; Newtonâs Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his writings, p. 42, ed. H.S. Thayer, Hafner Library of Classics, NY, 1953.  A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir David Brewster, Edinburgh, 1850; cited in; ibid, p. 65.  Webb, R.K. ed. Knud Haakonssen. âThe emergence of Rational Dissent.â Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in eighteenth-century Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1996. p19.  But the unforeseen theological consequence of his conception of God, as Leibniz pointed out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâ


out, was that God was now entirely removed from the worldâs affairs, since the need for intervention would only evidence some imperfection in Godâs creation, something impossible for a perfect and omnipotent creator.  Westfall, Richard S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England. p201.  Leibniz's theodicy cleared God from the responsibility for "l'origine du mal" by making God removed from participation in his creation. The understanding of the world was now brought down to the level of simple human reason, and humans, as Odo Marquard argued, became responsible for the correction and elimination of evil. Marquard, Odo. "Burdened and Disemburdened Man and the Flight into Unindictability," in Farewell to Matters of Principle. Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.


Robert M. Wallace trans. London: Oxford UP, 1989.


On the other hand, latitudinarian and Newtonian ideas taken too far resulted in the millenarians, a religious faction dedicated to the concept of a mechanical universe, but finding in it the same enthusiasm and mysticism that the Enlightenment had fought so hard to extinguish. Jacob, Margaret C. The Newtonians and the English Revolution: 1689â1720. p100â101.


In a manuscript he wrote in 1704 in which he describes his attempts to extract scientific information from the Bible, he estimated that the world would end no earlier than 2060. In predicting this he said, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."


As warden of the Royal Mint, Newton estimated that 20% of the coins taken in during The Great Recoinage were counterfeit. Counterfeiting was high treason, punishable by being hanged, drawn and quartered. Despite this, convictions of the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult to achieve; however, Newton proved to be equal to the task.


He gathered much of that evidence himself, disguised, while he hung out at bars and taverns. For all the barriers placed to prosecution, and separating the branches of government, English law still had ancient and formidable customs of authority. Newton was made a justice of the peace and between June 1698 and Christmas 1699 conducted some 200 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers and suspects. Newton won his convictions and in February 1699, he had ten prisoners waiting to be executed.


Possibly Newton's greatest triumph as the king's attorney was against William Chaloner. One of Chaloner's schemes was to set up phony conspiracies of Catholics and then turn in the hapless conspirators whom he entrapped. Chaloner made himself rich enough to posture as a gentleman. Petitioning Parliament, Chaloner accused the Mint of providing tools to counterfeiters (a charge also made by others). He proposed that he be allowed to inspect the Mint's processes in order to improve them. He petitioned Parliament to adopt his plans for a coinage that could not be counterfeited, while at the same time striking false coins. Newton was outraged, and went about the work to uncover anything about Chaloner. During his studies, he found that Chaloner was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walk


was engaged in counterfeiting. He immediately put Chaloner on trial, but Mr Chaloner had friends in high places, and to Newton's horror, Chaloner walked free. Newton put him on trial a second time with conclusive evidence. Chaloner was convicted of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered on March 23 1699 at Tyburn gallows. Westfall 1980, pp. 571â5


Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessorsâGalileo, Boyle, and Newton principallyâas the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of Nature and Natural Law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded. Cassels, Alan. Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World. p2.


It was Newtonâs conception of the universe based upon Natural and rationally understandable laws that became the seed for Enlightenment ideology. Locke and Voltaire applied concepts of Natural Law to political systems advocating intrinsic rights; the physiocrats and Adam Smith applied Natural conceptions of psychology and self-interest to economic systems and the sociologists criticised the current social order for trying to fit history into Natural models of progress.  Monboddo and Samuel Clarke resisted elements of Newton's work, but eventually rationalised it to conform with their strong religious views of nature.


The famous three laws of motion:


# Newton's First Law (also known as the Law of Inertia) states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force.


# Newton's Second Law states that an applied force,   F  , on an object equals the time rate of change of its momentum,   p  . Mathematically, this is written as   \vec F = \frac{d\vec p}{dt} \, = \, \frac{d}{dt} (m \vec v) \, = \, \vec v \, \frac{dm}{dt} + m \, \frac{d\vec v}{dt} \,.    Assuming the mass to be constant, the first term vanishes. Defining the acceleration to be  \vec a \ =\  d\vec v/dt   results in the famous equation   \vec F = m \, \vec a \,  which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass. In the MKS system of measurement, mass is given in kilograms, acceleration in metres per second squared, and force in newtons (named in his honour).


newtons (named in his honour).


# Newton's Third Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.


A reputed descendant of Newton's apple tree, found in the Botanic Gardens in Cambridge.


A popular story claims that Newton was inspired to formulate his theory of universal gravitation by the fall of an apple from a tree.  Cartoons have gone further to suggest the apple actually hit Newton's head, and that its impact somehow made him aware of the force of gravity.  John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint and husband of Newton's niece, described the event when he wrote about Newton's life:


The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon's orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it "universal gravitation".


A contemporary writer, William Stukeley, recorded in his Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life a conversation with Newton in Kensington on 15 April 1726, in which Newton recalled "when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre." In similar terms, Voltaire wrote in his Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree." These accounts are probably exaggerations of Newton's own tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.


tale about sitting by a window in his home (Woolsthorpe Manor) and watching an apple fall from a tree.


Various trees are claimed to be "the" apple tree which Newton describes. The King's School, Grantham, claims that the tree was purchased by the school, uprooted and transported to the headmaster's garden some years later, the staff of the [now] National Trust-owned Woolsthorpe Manor dispute this, and claim that a tree present in their gardens is the one described by Newton. A descendant of the original tree can be seen growing outside the main gate of Trinity College, Cambridge, below the room Newton lived in when he studied there. The National Fruit Collection at Brogdale  /ref> can supply grafts from their tree (ref 1948-729), which appears identical to Flower of Kent, a coarse-fleshed cooking variety.


* Short Chronicle, The System of the World, Optical Lectures, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, Amended and De mundi systemate were published posthumously in 1728.


French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange often said that Newton was the greatest genius who ever lived, and once added that he was also "the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish." Fred L. Wilson, History of Science: Newton citing: Delambre, M. "Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. le comte J. L. Lagrange," Oeuvres de Lagrange I. Paris, 1867, p. xx.  English poet Alexander Pope was moved by Newton's accomplishments to write the famous epitaph:


Newton himself was rather more modest of his own achievements, famously writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676


Historians generally think the above quote was an attack on Hooke (who was short and hunchbacked), rather than - or in addition to - a statement of modesty. The two were in a dispute over optical discoveries at the time. The latter interpretation also fits with many of his other disputes over his discoveries - such as the question of who discovered calculus as discussed above.


And then in a memoir later


*"The Invisible Science." Magical Egypt. Chance Gardner and John Anthony West. 2005.


*Berlinski, David, Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of our World, ISBN 0-684-84392-7 (hardback), also in paperback, Simon & Schuster, (2000).


* Christianson, Gale E. In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and His Times. Collier MacMillan, (1984). 608 pages.


* Dampier, William C. & M. Dampier. Readings in the Literature of Science. Harper & Row, New York, (1959).


*Gjertsen, Derek. The Newton Handbook, Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1986).


* Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. Knopf, (2003). hardcover, 288 pages, ISBN 0-375-42233-1.


* Hawking, Stephen, ed.  On the Shoulders of Giants.  ISBN 0-7624-1348-4 Places selections from Newton's Principia in the context of selected writings by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Einstein.


* Hart, Michael J. The 100. Carol Publishing Group, (July 1992), paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0-8065-1350-0.


* Kandaswamy, Anand M.  The Newton/Leibniz Conflict in Context.


* Keynes, John Maynard.  Essays in Biography.  W W Norton & Co, 1963, paperback, ISBN 0-393-00189-X. Keynes had taken a close interest in Newton and owned many of Newton's private papers.


* Newton, Isaac. Papers and Letters in Natural Philosophy, edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Harvard University Press, 1958,1978. ISBN 0-674-46853-8.


* Shapley, Harlow, S. Rapport, and H. Wright. A Treasury of Science; "Newtonia" pp. 147â9; "Discoveries" pp. 150-4. Harper & Bros., New York, (1946).


* Simmons, J.  The giant book of scientists -- The 100 greatest minds of all time, Sydney: The Book Company, (1996).


* Richard de Villamil. Newton, The man. G.D. Knox, London, 1931. Preface by Albert Einstein. Reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York (1972).


*Whiteside, D. T. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton - 8 volumes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1967â81).


*Cohen, I. B. (1980). The Newtonian Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


*Dobbs, B. J. T. (1975). The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy or "The Hunting of the Greene Lyon." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


*Halley, E. (1687). "Review of Newton's Principia." Philosophical Transactions 186:291â297.


*Herivel, J. W. (1965). The Background to Newton's Principia. A Study of Newton's Dynamical Researches in the Years 1664â84. Oxford: Clarendon Press.


*KoyrÃ©, A. (1965). Newtonian Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.


*Maclaurin, C. (1748). An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books. London: A. Millar and J. Nourse.


*Newton, I. (1934). Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, tr. A. Motte, rev. F. Cajori. Berkeley: University of California Press.


*Newton, I. (1952). Opticks, or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. New York: Dover Publications.


*Newton, I. (1958). Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, eds. I. B. Cohen and R. E. Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.


*Newton, I. (1959â1977). The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, eds. H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


*Newton, I. (1962). The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton: A Selection from the Portsmouth Collection in the University Library, Cambridge, ed. A. R. Hall and M. B. Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


*Newton, I. (1967). The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. D. T. Whiteside. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


*Newton, I. (1975). Isaac Newton's 'Theory of the Moon's Motion' (1702). London: Dawson.


*Pemberton, H. (1728). A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. London: S. Palmer.


*Stukeley, W. (1936). Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, ed. A. H. White. London: Taylor and Francis.


*Westfall, R. S. (1971). Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. London: Macdonald.


*Shamos, Morris H. (1959). Great Experiments in Physics. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc.


*  The Mind of Isaac Newton By combining images, audio, animations and interactive segments, the application gives students a sense of Newton's multifaceted mind.


*  Newton's First ODE - A study by  Phaser Scientific Software on how Newton approximated the solutions of a first-order ODE using infinite series.


*  Newton's Dark Secrets NOVA TV programme.


*  Isaac Newton on Â£1 note.


John Adams, Jr. (October 30,1735   July 4, 1826)  was the second President of the United States (1797 1801). He also served as America's first Vice President (1789 1797). He was defeated for re-election in the "Revolution of 1800" by Thomas Jefferson. Adams was also the first President to reside in the newly built White House in Washington, D.C., which was completed in 1800.


Adams, a sponsor of the American Revolution in Massachusetts, was a driving force for independence in 1776; Jefferson called him the "Colossus of Independence". He represented the Continental Congress in Europe. He was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining the loans from the Amsterdam money market necessary for the conduct of the Revolution. His prestige secured his two elections as Washington's Vice President and his election to succeed him.   As President, he was frustrated by battles inside his own Federalist party against a faction led by Alexander Hamilton, but he broke with them to avert a major conflict with France in 1798, during the Quasi-War crisis. He became the founder of an important family of politicians, diplomats and historians, and in recent years his reputation has improved.


founder of an important family of politicians, diplomats and historians, and in recent years his reputation has improved.


Birthplace of John Adams, Quincy, Massachusetts.


John Adams was the oldest of three brothers, born on October 30, 1735 (October 19, 1735 by the Old Style, Julian calendar), in Braintree, Massachusetts, though in an area which became part of Quincy, Massachusetts in 1792. His birthplace is now part of Adams National Historical Park. His father, a farmer and a Deacon, also named John (1690-1761), was a fourth-generation descendant of Henry Adams, who immigrated from Barton St David, Somerset, England, to Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1636, from a Welsh male line called Ap Adam.  /ref> His mother was Susanna Boylston Adams. Ferling (1992) ch 1  Who is a descendant of the Boylstons of Brookline, one of the colony's most vigorous and successful families.


Young Adams went to Harvard College at age sixteen (in 1751). MSN Encarta, John Adams  His father expected him to become a minister, but Adams had doubts.  After graduating in 1755, he taught school for a few years in Worcester, allowing himself time to think about his career choice.  After much reflection, he decided to become a lawyer, and studied law in the office of James Putnam, a prominent lawyer in Worcester. In 1758, he was admitted to the bar. From an early age, he developed the habit of writing descriptions of events and impressions of men.  These litter his diary.  He put the skill to good use as a lawyer, often recording cases he observed so that he could study and reflect upon them.  His report of the 1761 argument of James Otis in the superior court of Massachusetts as to the legality of Writs of Assistance is a good example. Otisâs argument inspired Adams with zeal for t


s in the superior court of Massachusetts as to the legality of Writs of Assistance is a good example. Otisâs argument inspired Adams with zeal for the cause of the American colonies.  Ferling (1992) ch 2


In 1764, Adams married Abigail Smith (1744â1818), the daughter of a Congregational minister,Rev. William Smith, at Weymouth, Massachusetts. Their children were Abigail (1765-1813); future president John Quincy (1767-1848); Susanna (1768â1770); Charles (1770-1800); Thomas Boylston (1772-1832); and Elizabeth (1775) who was stillborn.


Adams was not a popular leader like his second cousin, Samuel Adams; instead, his influence emerged through his work as a constitutional lawyer and his intense analysis of historical examples, Ferling (1992) p 117  together with his thorough knowledge of the law and his dedication to the principles of republicanism. Adams often found his inborn contentiousness to be a restraint in his political career.


Adams wanted to secure approval from the people, and he saw his chance in the British/colonial conflict. He became well known for his essays and energetic resolutions against British taxation and regulation. In 1774 Massachusetts sent him to the Continental Congress. In 1775 war broke out between the colonies and Great Britain. Adams was one of the first few delegates to recognize that a compromise with the British was pointless. In 1776 he worked hard to break away from Britain by using a formal declaration of independence. On July 2, 1776 Congress voted for the resolution, "these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states."  Two days later, they passed the Declaration of Independence.


johna.jpg


Adams first rose to prominence as an opponent of the Stamp Act of 1765. In that year, he drafted the instructions which were sent by the inhabitants of Braintree to its representatives in the Massachusetts legislature, and which served as a model for other towns to draw up instructions to their representatives. In August 1765, he anonymously contributed four notable articles to the Boston Gazette (republished in The London Chronicle in 1768 as True Sentiments of America and also known as A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law).  In the letter he suggested that there was a connection between the Protestant ideas that Adams' Puritan ancestors brought to New England and the ideas that suggested they resist the Stamp Act.  In the former he explained that the opposition of the colonies to the Stamp Act was because the Stamp Act deprived the American colonists of two basic rights guarantee


explained that the opposition of the colonies to the Stamp Act was because the Stamp Act deprived the American colonists of two basic rights guaranteed to all Englishmen, and which all free men deserved: rights to be taxed only by consent and to be tried only by a jury of one's peers.  The "Braintree Instructions" were a succinct and forthright defense of colonial rights and liberties, while the Dissertation was an essay in political education.


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.  Ferling (1992) pp 53-63


In 1770, a street confrontation resulted in British soldiers killing four civilians in what became known as the Boston Massacre. The soldiers involved, who were arrested on criminal charges, had trouble finding legal counsel.  Finally, they asked Adams to defend them.  Although he feared it would hurt his reputation, he agreed. One of the soldiers, Captain Thomas Preston gave Adams a symbolic "single guinea" as a retaining fee, Chinard, John Adams, 58-60  the only fee he received in the case. Or, as stated in the biography of John Adams by David McCullough, Adams received nothing more than a retainer of eighteen guineas. McCullough, John Adams, pg. 66


Six of the soldiers were acquitted.  Two who had fired directly into the crowd were charged with murder but were convicted only of manslaughter.


Despite his previous misgivings, Adams was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (the colonial legislature) in June of 1770, while still in preparation for the trial.


In 1772, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson announced that he and his judges would no longer need their salaries paid by the Massachusetts legislature, because the Crown would henceforth assume payment drawn from customs revenues. Boston radicals protested and asked Adams to explain their objections.  In "Two Replies of the Massachusetts House of Representatives to Governor Hutchinson" Adams argued that the colonists had never been under the sovereignty of Parliament. Their original charter was with the person of the king and their allegiance was only to him.  If a workable line could not be drawn between parliamentary sovereignty and the total independence of the colonies, he continued, the colonies would have no other choice but to choose independence.


choose independence.


In Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America, From Its Origin, in 1754, to the Present Time Adams attacked some essays by Daniel Leonard that defended Hutchinson's arguments for the absolute authority of Parliament over the colonies. In Novanglus Adams gave a point-by-point refutation of Leonard's essays, and then provided one of the most extensive and learned arguments made by the colonists against British imperial policy. It was a systematic attempt by Adams to describe the origins, nature, and jurisdiction of the unwritten British constitution. Adams used his wide knowledge of English and colonial legal history to show the provincial legislatures were fully sovereign over their own internal affairs, and that the colonies were connected to Great Britain only through the King.


connected to Great Britain only through the King.


Massachusetts sent Adams to the first and second Continental Congresses in 1774 and from 1775 to 1778.  In 1775 he was also appointed the chief judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court.  In June 1775, with a view of promoting the union of the colonies, he nominated George Washington of Virginia as commander-in-chief of the army then assembled around Boston. His influence in Congress was great, and almost from the beginning, he sought permanent separation from Britain. On October 5, 1775, Congress created the first of a series of committees to study naval matters.


On May 15, 1776 the Continental Congress, in response to escalating hostilities which had climaxed a year prior at Lexington and Concord, urged that the states begin constructing their own constitutions.


John Trumbull's famous painting depicts the five-man drafting committee presenting their work to the Congress. John Adams is standing in the center of the painting.


Today, the Declaration of Independence is remembered as the great revolutionary act, but Adams and most of his contemporaries saw the Declaration as a mere formality. The resolution to draft independent constitutions was, as Adams put it, "independence itself."  Ferling (1992) ch 8 p 146


Over the next decade, Americans from every state gathered and deliberated on new governing documents. As radical as it was to actually write constitutions (prior convention suggested that a society's form of government needn't be codified, nor should its organic law be written down in a single document), what was equally radical was the nature of American political thought as the summer of 1776 dawned.  Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993)


At that time several Congressmen turned to Adams for advice about framing new governments.  Adams tired of repeating the same thing, and published the pamphlet Thoughts on Government (1776), which was subsequently influential in the writing of many state constitutions. Many historians argue that Thoughts on Government should be read as an articulation of the classical theory of mixed government.  Adams contended that social classes exist in every political society, and that a good government must accept that reality. For centuries, dating back to Aristotle, a mixed regime balancing monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, or the monarch, nobles, and people was required to preserve order and liberty.  Ferling (1992) pp 155-7, 213-5


Using the tools of Republicanism in the United States the patriots believed it was corrupt and nefarious aristocrats, in the English Parliament and stationed in America, who were guilty of the British assault on American liberty.  Unlike others, Adams thought that the definition of a republic had to do with its ends, rather than its means.  He wrote in Thoughts on Government, "there is no good government but what is republican. That the only valuable part of the British constitution is so; because the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'"  Thoughts on Government defended bicameralism, for "a single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual." Thoughts on Government, Works of John Adams, IV:195  He also suggested that the executive should be independent, as should the judiciary.  Thoughts on Government' was enormously infl


John Adams, IV:195  He also suggested that the executive should be independent, as should the judiciary.  Thoughts on Government' was enormously influential and was referenced as an authority in every state-constitution writing hall.


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.  Ferling (1992) ch 8. An 1813 letter by Adams, in which he said that one-third of the people supported the revolution, refers to the French revolution in the 1790s.


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, Adams occupied the foremost place in the debate on its adoption. He deferred the writing to Jefferson believing it would be better received having been written by him. Adams believed Jefferson wrote profoundly better than any man in Congress, and he himself was "obnoxious and disliked." Many years later, Jefferson hailed Adams as, "The Colossus of that Congress the great pillar of support to the Declaration of Independence, and its ablest advocate and champion on the floor of the House." Lipscomb & Bergh, eds. Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1903), vol 13, p xxiv  In 1777, Adams resigned his seat on the Massachusetts Superior Court to serve as the head of the Board of War and Ordina


erson (1903), vol 13, p xxiv  In 1777, Adams resigned his seat on the Massachusetts Superior Court to serve as the head of the Board of War and Ordinance, as well as many other important committees.  Marquis 1607-1896


John Adams, as depicted on a two-cent American president postage stamp.


Congress chose Adams to represent the fledgling union in Europe in 1777, and again in 1779. On the second trip, he was appointed as minister plenipotentiary charged with the mission of negotiating a treaty of peace and a treaty of commerce with Great Britain; he went to Europe in September 1779. The French government, however, did not approve of Adamsâs appointment and subsequently, on the insistence of the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Henry Laurens were appointed to cooperate with Adams. In the event Jay, Adams and Franklin played the major part in the negotiations. Overruling Franklin, Jay and Adams decided not to consult with France; instead, they dealt directly with the British commissioners.  Ferling (1992) ch 11-12


the British commissioners.  Ferling (1992) ch 11-12


Throughout the negotiations, Adams was especially determined that the right of the United States to the fisheries along the Atlantic coast should be recognized. The American negotiators were able to secure a favorable treaty, which gave Americans ownership of all lands east of the Mississippi, except Florida, which was transferred to Spain as its reward. The treaty was signed on November 30, 1782.


After these negotiations began, Adams had spent some time as the ambassador in the Netherlands, then the only other well-functioning Republic in the world.  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. In February 1782 the Frisian states had been the first Dutch province to recognize the United States, while France had been the first European country to grant diplomatic recognition, in 1778).  During this visit, he also negotiated a loan of five million guilders. It was floated by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink. Up till 1794 a total of eleven loans were granted in Amsterdam to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders.   In October 17


helm Willink. Up till 1794 a total of eleven loans were granted in Amsterdam to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders.   In October 1782, a treaty of amity and commerce, the second such treaty between the United States and a foreign power (after the 1778 treaty with France). The house that Adams purchased during this stay in The Netherlands became the first American embassy on foreign soil anywhere in the world.


In 1785, John Adams was appointed the first American minister to the Court of St. James's (that is, ambassador to Great Britain). 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.â


Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain referred to this episode in July 7, 1976 at the White House.  She said, "John Adams, America's first Ambassador, said to my ancestor, King George III, that it was his desire to help with the restoration of "the old good nature and the old good humor between our peoples." That restoration has long been made, and the links of language, tradition, and personal contact have maintained it."  See   /ref>


Massachusetts's new constitution, ratified in 1780 and written largely by Adams himself, structured its government most closely on his views of politics and society. Ronald M. Peters. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: A Social Compact (1978) p 13 says Adams was its "principal architect."  It was the first constitution written by a special committee and ratified by the people.  It was also the first to feature a bicameral legislature, a clear and distinct executive with a partial (2/3) veto (although he was restrained by an executive council), and a distinct judicial branch.


While in London, Adams published a work entitled A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States (1787). In it he repudiated the views of Turgot and other European writers as to the viciousness of the framework of state governments. Turgot argued that countries that lacked aristocracies needn't have bicameral legislatures.  He thought that  republican governments feature âall authorities into one center, that of the nation.â Turgot to Richard Price, March 22, 1778, in Works of John Adams, IV:279  In the book, Adams suggested that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart from other men in a senate--that would prevent them from dominating the lower house.  Wood (2006) has maintained that Adams had become intellectually irrelevant by the time the Federal Constitution was ratified. By then, American political thought, transformed by more than a decade


e intellectually irrelevant by the time the Federal Constitution was ratified. By then, American political thought, transformed by more than a decade of vigorous and searching debate as well as shaping experiential pressures, had abandoned the classical conception of politics which understood government as a mirror of social estates. Americans' new conception of popular sovereignty now saw the people-at-large as the sole possessors of power in the realm.  All agents of the government enjoyed mere portions of the people's power and only for a limited period of time. Adams had completely missed this concept and revealed his continued attachment to the older version of politics. Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (2006) pp 173-202; see also Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993).   Yet Wood overlooks Adams' peculiar definition of the term "repub


(2006) pp 173-202; see also Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993).   Yet Wood overlooks Adams' peculiar definition of the term "republic," and his support for a constitution ratified by the people. Thompson,1999  He also underplays Adams' belief in checks and balances. "Power must be opposed to power, and interest to interest,â Adams wrote.  Works of John Adams, IV:557  Adams did as much as anyone to put the idea of "checks and balances" on the intellectual map.


Adams never bought a slave and declined on principle to employ slave labor. Littlefield, Daniel C. "John Jay, the Revolutionary Generation, and Slavery." New York History 2000 81(1): p 91-132. ISSN 0146-437X  Abigail Adams opposed slavery and employed free blacks in preference to her father's two domestic slaves. He spoke out against a bill to emancipate slaves in Massachusetts, opposed use of black soldiers in the Revolution, and tried to keep the issue out of national politics.  Ferling (1992) pp 172-3


John Adams, portrait by John Trumbull.


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 early 1790s and was reelected in 1792. Washington never asked Adams for input on policy and legal issues.  Ferling (1992) ch 15


One of the best known Adams quotes concluded of the institution of the Vice Presidency: This is the most unimportant position human ever made. "Wizje StanÃ³w Zjednoczonych w Pismach OjcÃ³w ZaÅoÅ¼ycieli", Warsaw, 1976  His main task while in this office was presiding over Senate. Most Vice Presidents after him were not regarded as powerful or significant members of Presidential administrations, with some exceptions (such as Martin Van Buren, Richard Nixon, Walter Mondale, Al Gore or Dick Cheney, who were regarded as influential members of their President's teams).


In the first year of Washington's administration, Adams became deeply involved in a month-long Senate controversy over what the official title of the President would be, favoring grandiose titles such as "His Majesty the President" or "His High Mightiness" over the simple "President of the United States" that won the issue. The pomposity of Adams's stance, and his being overweight, led to the nickname "His Rotundity."


As president of the Senate, Adams cast 31 tie-breaking votesâa record that only John C. Calhoun came close to tying, with 28.  Ferling (1992) p 311  His votes protected the president's sole authority over the removal of appointees and influenced the location of the national capital. 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.  When the two political parties formed, he joined the Federalist Party, but never got on well with its dominant leader Alexander Hamilton.


restraint.  When the two political parties formed, he joined the Federalist Party, but never got on well with its dominant leader Alexander Hamilton. Because of Adams's seniority and the need for a northern president, he was elected as the Federalist  nominee for president in 1796, over Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party. His success was due to peace and prosperity; Washington and Hamilton had averted war with Britain by the Jay Treaty of 1795.  Ferling (1992) pp 316-32


Adams' two terms as Vice President were frustrating experiences for a man of his vigor, intellect, and vanity. He complained to his wife Abigail, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."


During the presidential campaign of 1796 Adams was the presidential candidate of the Federalist Party and Thomas Pinckney, the Governor of South Carolina, his running mate. The federalists wanted Adams as their presidential candidate to crush Thomas Jefferson's bid. Most federalists would have preferred Hamilton to be a candidate.  Although Hamilton and his followers supported Adams, they also held a grudge against him.  They did consider him to be the lesser of the two evils. However, they thought Adams lacked the seriousness and popularity that had caused Washington to be successful, and also feared that Adams was too vain, opinionated, unpredictable, and stubborn to follow their directions.  Adams' opponents were former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who was joined by Senator Aaron Burr of New York on the Democratic-Republican ticket.


e Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who was joined by Senator Aaron Burr of New York on the Democratic-Republican ticket.


As was customary, Adams stayed in his home town of Quincy rather than actively campaign for the Presidency.  He wanted to stay out of what he called the silly and wicked game. His party, however, campaigned for him, while the Republicans campaigned for Jefferson.


It was expected that Adams would dominate the votes in New England, while Jefferson was expected to win in the Southern states. In the end, Adams won the election by a narrow margin of 71 electoral votes to 68 for Jefferson (who became the vice president).


When Adams entered office, he realized that he needed to protect Washingtonâs policy of staying out of the French and British war. Because the French helped secure American independence from Britain they had greater popularity with America. After the Jay treaty with Great Britain the French became angry and began seizing American merchant ships that were trading with the British. In order for Adams to avoid war he sent a commission to negotiate an understanding with France. In case the negotiation did not work Adams urged the Congress to augment the navy and army.


Presidential Dollar of John Adams


As President Adams followed Washington's lead in making the presidency the example of republican values and stressing civic virtue, he was never implicated in any scandal. Some historians consider his worst mistake to be keeping the old cabinet, which was controlled by Hamilton, instead of installing his own people, confirming Adams's own admission he was a poor politician because he "was unpractised in intrigues for power."  Ferling (1992) ch 16, p 333.  Yet, there are those historians who feel that Adams retention of Washington's cabinet was a statesman-like step to soothe worries about an orderly succession. As Adams himself explained, "I had then no particular object of any of them."  McCullough p 471  That would soon change.


Adams's combative spirit did not always lend itself to presidential decorum, as Adams himself admitted in his old age: "[As president] I refused to suffer in silence. I sighed, sobbed, and groaned, and sometimes screeched and screamed. And I must confess to my shame and sorrow that I sometimes swore." Ellis (1998) p 57


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 Democratic-Republicans favored France. An undeclared naval war between the U.S. and France, called the Quasi-War, broke out in 1798. The humiliation of the XYZ Affair, in which the French demanded huge bribes before any discussions could begin, led to serious threats of full-scale war with France and embarrassed the Jeffersonians, who were friends to France. The Federalists built up the army under George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, built warships, such as the USS Constitution, and raised taxes. They cracked down on political immigrants and domestic opponents with the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed by Adams in 1798.


omestic opponents with the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed by Adams in 1798.


These Acts were composed of four separate and distinct units:


These 4 acts were brought about to suppress Republican opposition. The Naturalization Act doubled the period required to naturalize the foreign born to American citizenship to 14 years. Since most immigrants voted republican they thought by initiating this act it would decrease the proportion of people who voted republican.


The Alien Friends Act and the Alien Enemies Act allowed the president to deport any foreigner that he  thought was dangerous to the country.


The Sedition Act criminalized anyone who publicly criticized the federal government. Some of the punishments included 2-5 years in prison and fines of $2,000 to $5,000. Adams had not designed or promoted any of these acts but he did sign them into law because he had no problem punishing those who abused the government.


Those Acts, and the high-profile prosecution of a number of newspaper editors and one Congressman by the Federalists, became highly controversial. Some historians have noted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were relatively rarely enforced, as only 10 convictions under the Sedition Act have been identified and as Adams never signed a deportation order, and that the furor over the Alien and Sedition Acts was mainly stirred up by the Democratic-Republicans. However, other historians emphasize that the Acts were highly controversial from the outset, resulted in many aliens leaving the country voluntarily, and created an atmosphere where opposing the Federalists, even on the floor of Congress, could and did result in prosecution. The election of 1800 became a bitter and volatile battle, with each side expressing extraordinary fear of the other party and its policies.  Ferling (1992) ch 17


1800 became a bitter and volatile battle, with each side expressing extraordinary fear of the other party and its policies.  Ferling (1992) ch 17


The deep division in the Federalist party came on the army issue. Adams was forced to name Washington as commander of the new army, and Washington demanded that Hamilton be given the second position. Adams reluctantly gave in. Major General Hamilton virtually took control of the War department. The rift between Adams and the High Federalists (as Adams's opponents were called) grew wider. The High Federalists refused to consult Adams over the key legislation of 1798; they changed the defense measures which he had called for, demanded that Hamilton control the army, and refused to recognize the necessity of giving key Democratic-Republicans (like Aaron Burr) senior positions in the army (which Adams wanted to do in order to gain some Democratic-Republican support). By building a large standing army the High Federalists raised popular alarms and played into the hands of the Democratic-Repub


ic-Republican support). By building a large standing army the High Federalists raised popular alarms and played into the hands of the Democratic-Republicans. They also alienated Adams and his large personal following. They shortsightedly viewed the Federalist party as their own tool and ignored the need to pull together the entire nation in the face of war with France. Kurtz (1967) yyoaoaoaschwing! p 331


For long stretches, Adams withdrew to his home in Massachusetts. In February 1799, Adams stunned the country by sending diplomat William Vans Murray on a peace mission to France. Napoleon, realizing the animosity of the United States was doing no good, signaled his readiness for friendly relations. The Treaty of Alliance of 1778 was superseded and the United States could now be free of foreign entanglements, as Washington advised in his own Farewell Letter. Adams avoided war, but deeply split his own party in the process. He brought in John Marshall as Secretary of State and demobilized the emergency army.  Ferling (1992) ch 18


The death of Washington, in 1799, weakened the Federalists, as they lost the one man who symbolized and united the party.  In the presidential election of 1800, Adams ran and lost the electoral vote narrowly. Among the causes of his defeat was distrust of him by "High Federalists" led by Hamilton, the popular disapproval of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the popularity of his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, and the effective politicking of Aaron Burr in New York State, where the legislature (which selected the electoral college) shifted from Federalist to Republican on the basis of a few wards in New York City controlled by Burr's machine.  Ferling (1992) ch 19; Ferling (2004)


In the election of 1800 John Adams and his running mate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney went against the Republican duo of Jefferson and Burr. Hamilton tried his hardest to sabotage Adams campaign in hopes of boosting Pinckney's chances of winning the presidency. In the end, Adams lost narrowly to Jefferson by 65 to 73 electoral votes.


As his term was expiring, Adams appointed a series of judges, called the "Midnight Judges" because most of them were formally appointed days before the presidential term expired. Most of the judges were eventually unseated when the Jeffersonians abolished their offices. But John Marshall remained, and his long tenure as Chief Justice of the United States represents the most lasting influence of the Federalists, as Marshall refashioned the Constitution into a nationalizing force and established the Judicial Branch as the equal of the Executive and Legislative branches. Ferling (1992) p 409


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


Portrait of an elderly John Adams by Gilbert Stuart (1823).


Following his 1800 defeat, Adams retired into private life. Depressed when he left office, he did not attend Jefferson's inauguration.  He went back to farming in the Quincy area.


In 1812, Adams reconciled with Jefferson. Their mutual friend Benjamin Rush, who had been corresponding with both, encouraged Adams to reach out to Jefferson. Adams sent a brief note to Jefferson, which resulted in a resumption of their friendship, and initiated a correspondence which lasted the rest of their lives. Their letters are rich in insight into both the period and the minds of the two Presidents and revolutionary leaders. Their correspondence lasted fourteen years, and consisted of 158 letters.  Cappon (1988)   It was in these years that they two men discussed "natural aristocracy."  Jefferson said that "âThe natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society.  And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enou


iety.  And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of society. May we not even say that the form of government is best which provides most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?" Cappon, ed., 387  Adams wondered if it ever would be so clear who these people were, "Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy does not appear to me well founded.  Birth and wealth are conferred on some men as imperiously by nature, as genius, strength, or beauty. . . . When aristocracies, are established by human laws and honour wealth and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence."  Cappon, ed. 400   It would always be true, Adams argue


cipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence."  Cappon, ed. 400   It would always be true, Adams argued, that fate would bestow influence on some men for reasons other than true wisdom and virtue.  That being the way of nature, he thought such "talents" were natural.  A good government, therefore, had to account for that reality.


Sixteen months before his death, his son, John Quincy Adams, became 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.


His daughter Abigail ("Nabby") was married to Congressman William Stephens Smith and died of cancer in 1816. His son Charles died as an alcoholic in 1800. His son Thomas and his family lived with Adams and Louisa Smith (Abigail's niece by her brother William) to the end of Adams's life.  Ferling (1992) ch 20


Tombs of Presidents John Adams (distance) and John Quincy Adams (foreground) and their wives, in a family crypt beneath the United First Parish Church.


On July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Adams died at his home in Quincy. His last words are often quoted as "Thomas Jefferson survives." Only the words "Thomas Jefferson" were clearly intelligible among his last, however.  Jefferson Still Survives. Retrieved on 2006-12-26.  Adams was unaware that Jefferson, his great political rival â and later friend and correspondent â had died a few hours earlier on that same day.United First Parish Church The fact that Adams and Jefferson, both of whom had been so instrumental in creating the Declaration of Independence, died on the fiftieth anniversary of the date of its publication, is one of the more remarkable coincidences in history.


His crypt lies at United First Parish Church (also known as the Church of the Presidents) in Quincy.  Until his record was broken by Ronald Reagan in 2001, he was the nation's longest-living President (90 years, 247 days) maintaining that record for 175 years.  The record is currently held by former President Gerald Ford, who served less than one term, and who died December 26, 2006 at 93 years, 165 days.


John Adams remains the longest-lived person ever elected to both of the highest offices in the United States.


Adams was raised a Congregationalist, becoming a Unitarian at a time when most of the Congregational churches around Boston were turning to Unitarianism.  Everett (1966) argues that Adams was not a deist, but he used deistic terms in his speeches and writing. He believed in the essential goodness of the creation, but did not believe in the divinity of Christ or that God intervened in the affairs of individuals. Although not anti-clerical, he advocated the separation of church and state. He also believed that regular church service was beneficial to man's moral sense. Everett concludes that "Adams strove for a religion based on a common sense sort of reasonableness" and maintained that religion must change and evolve toward perfection. Robert B. Everett, "The Mature Religious Thought of John Adams," Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association (1966), p 49-57; [ISSN 0361-6207]


t B. Everett, "The Mature Religious Thought of John Adams," Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association (1966), p 49-57; [ISSN 0361-6207].


Adams often railed against what he saw as overclaiming of authority by the Catholic church. See  TeachingAmericanHistory.org: " A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law", John Adams, 1765


In 1796, Adams denounced the deism of political opponent Thomas Paine, saying, "The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity, let the Blackguard Paine say what he will." The Works of John Adams (1854), vol III, p 421, diary entry for July 26, 1796.


The Unitarian Universalist Historical Society sheds some light on Adamsâs religious beliefs.    They point out that Adams was clearly no atheist by quoting from his letter to Benjamin Rush, an early promoter of Universalist thought, âI have attended public worship in all countries and with all sects and believe them all much better than no religion, though I have not thought myself obliged to believe all I heard.â The Society also relates how Rush reconciled Adams to his former friend Thomas Jefferson in 1812, after many bitter political battles. This resulted in correspondence between Adams and Jefferson about many topics, including philosophy and religion.  In one of these communications, Adams told Jefferson, "The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion." In another letter, Adams reveals his sincere devotion to God, âMy Adoration of the Author of the U


and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion." In another letter, Adams reveals his sincere devotion to God, âMy Adoration of the Author of the Universe is too profound and too sincere. The Love of God and his Creation; delight, Joy, Tryumph, Exaltation in my own existence, tho' but an Atom, a molecule Organique, in the Universe, are my religion.â He continues by revealing his Universalist sympathies, rejection of orthodox Christian dogma, and his personal belief that he was a true Christian for not accepting such dogma, âHowl, Snarl, bite, Ye Calvinistick! Ye Athanasian Divines, if You will. Ye will say, I am no Christian: I say Ye are no Christians: and there the Account is ballanced. Yet I believe all the honest men among you, are Christians in my Sense of the Word." The Society also demonstrates that Adams rejected orthodox Christian doctrines of the trinity, predestination,


re Christians in my Sense of the Word." The Society also demonstrates that Adams rejected orthodox Christian doctrines of the trinity, predestination, yet equated human understanding and the human conscience to âcelestial communicationâ or personal revelation from God. It is also shown that Adams held a strong conviction in life after death or otherwise, as he explained, âyou might be ashamed of your Maker.â


* Brown, Ralph A. The Presidency of John Adams. (1988). Political narrative.


* Ellis, Joseph J. Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993), interpretative essay by Pulitzer prize winning scholar.


* Ferling, John. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. (2004), narrative history of the election .


* Knollenberg, Bernard. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775,(2003).  Online edition.


* Kurtz, Stephen G. The Presidency of John Adams: The Collapse of Federalism, 1795-1800 (1957). Detailed political narrative.


* McCullough, David. John Adams. (2002). Best-selling popular biography, stressing Adams's character and his marriage with Abigail over his ideas and constitutional thoughts. Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Biography.


* Miller, John C. The Federalist Era: 1789-1801. (1960). Thorough survey of politics in decade.