Prior to his administration as President, he had served as commissioner to the court of France, “Minister Plenipotentiary for the Purpose of Negotiating a Treaty of Peace and Commerce with Great Britain”; commissioner to conclude a treaty with the States-General of Holland; minister to England after the conclusion of peace, and finally as Vice-President under Washington.  His services in every capacity in which he was engaged for his country showed his great ability and zeal:  but in the struggle over the Alien and Sedition Laws his opponents gave him no quarter and when he retired from the Presidency it was with the feeling, shared to some extent by his great opponent Jefferson, that republics never have a proper regard for the services and sacrifices of statesmen, though they are only too ready to reward military heroes beyond their deserts.  The author of ‘Familiar Letters on Public Affairs’ writes of Mr. Adams:—­

“He was a man of strong mind, great learning, and eminent ability to use knowledge both in speech and writing.  He was ever a firm believer in Christianity, not from habit and example but from a diligent investigation of its proofs.  He had an uncompromising regard for his own opinion and was strongly contrasted with Washington in this respect.  He seemed to have supposed that his opinions could not have been corrected by those of other men or bettered by any comparison.”

It might be inferred from this that Mr. Adams was as obstinate in prejudice as in opinion, but as he had demonstrated to the contrary in taking the unpopular cause of the British soldiers at the beginning of his public career, he showed it still more strikingly by renewing and continuing until his death a friendship with Jefferson which had been interrupted by the fierce struggle over the Alien and Sedition Act.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS (March 4th. 1797)

When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained, between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable powers of fleets and armies they must determine to resist, than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country.  Relying, however, on the purity of their attentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelgence of the people, under an over-ruling Providence, which had so signally protected this country from the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its present numbers, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging, and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty.