American Minute

October 30

John Adams was born OCTOBER 30, 1735.

A Harvard graduate, he was admitted to the bar and married Abigail Smith in 1764.

In the Continental Congress, John Adams recommended Thomas Jefferson pen the Declaration and George Washington be Commander-in-Chief.

John Adams authored Massachusetts' 1780 Constitution and was U.S. Minister to France, signing the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War.

While U.S. Minister to Britain, John Adams helped ratify the Constitution by writing a three volume work: Defense of the Constitution of the Government of the United States.

John Adams was the first Vice-President, serving under George Washington, and in 1796 was elected the 2nd U.S. President.

He established the Library of Congress and the Department of Navy.

His son, John Quincy, became 6th President.

In 1819, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson:

"Have you ever found in history, one single example of a Nation thoroughly corrupted that was afterwards restored to virtue?...

And without virtue, there can be no political liberty."

John Adams continued:

"Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly?...


I believe no effort in favour of virtue is lost."

On June 2, 1778, while in Paris, John Adams made the entry in his diary:

"In vain are schools, academies, and universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years....

The vices and examples of the parents cannot be concealed from the children.

How is it possible that children can have any just sense of the sacred obligations of morality or religion if, from their earliest infancy, they learn their mothers live in habitual infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers?"

In 1774, in his commentary titled, Novanglus: A History of the Dispute with America, from its Origin, in 1754, to the Present Time, John Adams wrote:

"It is the duty of the clergy to accommodate their discourses to the times, to preach against such sins as are most prevalent, and recommend such virtues as are most wanted.

For example, if exorbitant ambition and venality are predominant, ought they not to warn their hearers against those vices?

If public spirit is much wanted, should they not inculcate this great virtue?


If the rights and duties of Christian magistrates and subjects are disputed, should they not explain them, show their nature, ends, limitations, and restrictions, how much soever it may move the gall of Massachusetts."

On June 21, 1776, John Adams wrote:

"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.

The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our people in a greater measure, than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty."

In February of 1765, John Adams wrote in his notes on A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law:

"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."


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