John Adams, second President of the United States, was born at Braintree, Mass., October 19th, 1735, and died there July 4th, 1826, the year after his son too was inaugurated President.  He was the first conspicuous member of an enduringly powerful and individual family.  The Adams race have mostly been vehement, proud, pugnacious, and independent, with hot tempers and strong wills; but with high ideals, dramatic devotion to duty, and the intense democratic sentiment so often found united with personal aristocracy of feeling.  They have been men of affairs first, with large practical ability, but with a deep strain of the man of letters which in this generation has outshone the other faculties; strong-headed and hard-working students, with powerful memories and fluent gifts of expression.

[Illustration:  JOHN ADAMS.]

All these characteristics went to make up John Adams; but their enumeration does not furnish a complete picture of him, or reveal the virile, choleric, masterful man.  And he was far more lovable and far more popular than his equally great son, also a typical Adams, from the same cause which produced some of his worst blunders and misfortunes,—­a generous impulsiveness of feeling which made it impossible for him to hold his tongue at the wrong time and place for talking.  But so fervid, combative, and opinionated a man was sure to gain much more hate than love; because love results from comprehension, which only the few close to him could have, while hate—­toward an honest man—­is the outcome of ignorance, which most of the world cannot avoid.  Admiration and respect, however, he had from the majority of his party at the worst of times; and the best encomium on him is that the closer his public acts are examined, the more credit they reflect not only on his abilities but on his unselfishness.

Born of a line of Massachusetts farmers, he graduated from Harvard in 1755.  After teaching a grammar school and beginning to read theology, he studied law and began practice in 1758, soon becoming a leader at the bar and in public life.  In 1764 he married the noble and delightful woman whose letters furnish unconscious testimony to his lovable qualities.  All through the germinal years of the Revolution he was one of the foremost patriots, steadily opposing any abandonment or compromise of essential rights.  In 1765 he was counsel for Boston with Otis and Gridley to support the town’s memorial against the Stamp Act.  In 1766 he was selectman.  In 1768 the royal government offered him the post of advocate-general in the Court of Admiralty,—­a lucrative bribe to desert the opposition; but he refused it.  Yet in 1770, as a matter of high professional duty, he became counsel (successfully) for the British soldiers on trial for the “Boston Massacre.”  Though there was a present uproar of abuse, Mr. Adams was shortly after elected Representative to the General Court by more than three to one.  In March, 1774, he contemplated writing the “History of the Contest between Britain and America!” On June 17th he presided over the meeting at Faneuil Hall to consider the Boston Port Bill, and at the same hour was elected Representative to the first Congress at Philadelphia (September 1) by the Provincial Assembly held in defiance of the government.  Returning thence, he engaged in newspaper debate on the political issues till the battle of Lexington.