John Adams was an eminent and successful lawyer, but it was not the design of his existence that his talents should be wasted in the contentions of the courts.

The British Parliament, as soon as the Colonies had attracted their notice, commenced a system of legislation known as the Colonial System, the object of which was to secure to the mother country a monopoly of their trade, and to prevent their rising to a condition of strength and independence.  The effect of this system was to prevent all manufactures in the Colonies, and all trade with foreign countries, and even with the adjacent plantations.

The Colonies remonstrated in vain against this policy, but owing to popular dissatisfaction, the regulations were not rigidly enforced.  At length an Order in Council was passed, which directed the officers of the customs in Massachusetts Bay, to execute the acts of trade.  A question arose in the Supreme Court of that province in 1761, upon the constitutional right of the British Parliament to bind the Colonies.  The trial produced great excitement.  The cause was argued for the Crown by the King’s Attorney-General, and against the laws by James Otis.

It will be seen that the question thus involved was the very one that was finally submitted to the arbitrament of arms in the American Revolution.  The speech of Otis on the occasion, was an effort of surpassing ability.  John Adams was a witness, and he recorded his opinion of it, and his opinion of the magnitude of the question, thus: 

“Otis was a flame of fire!  With a promptitude of classical allusion, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him.  American independence was then and there born.  Every man of an unusually crowded audience, appeared to me to go away ready to take up arms against Writs of Assistance.”

Speaking on the same subject, on another occasion, John Adams said that “James Otis there and there breathed into this nation the breath of life.”

From that day John Adams was an enthusiast for the independence of his country.

In 1764 he married Abigail, daughter of the Reverend William Smith, of Weymouth.  The mother of John Quincy Adams was a woman of great beauty and high intellectual endowments, and she combined, with the proper accomplishments of her sex, a sweetness of disposition, and a generous sympathy with the patriotic devotion of her illustrious husband.

In 1765, the British Parliament, in contempt of the discontent of the Colonies, presumptuously passed the Stamp Act; a law which directed taxed stamped paper to be used in all legal instruments in the Colonies.  The validity of the law was denied; and while Patrick Henry was denouncing it in Virginia, James Otis and John Adams argued against it before the Governor and Council of Massachusetts.