The Presidents #2: John Adams

[Ardent15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams

Discuss him and his Presidency.

[kestrel91316]

1. Treaty of Tripoli where he said we were most certainly NOT a "christian nation"?

And he and Abigail got early inoculations for smallpox back in the day when they used the real smallpox virus and it made you quite sick but conferred strong lifelong immunity.

That's all i remember about him, lol.

[Dr Morbius]

2. John Adams was a great American

...who wasn't an especially great President. He should have - and probably did - known better than to sign the Alien and Sedition acts, but he kept the ill-prepared new nation out of a potentially disastrous war with France after the XYZ affair. He didn't work well with others; his inherent prickliness practically ensured he had no friends left in Washington by the time he left office. And he didn't stay for Jefferson's inauguration. He was that kind of man, terribly catty and vain.

But after James Madison he probably better understood what government ought to be and how it ought to work than almost all his contemporaries, and his contemporaries are very impressive company. He wrote, almost single-handedly, the Constitution of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, which has the honor of being the longest continuously used such document in operation; aside from a few amendments, Massachusetts uses it to this day. In the years between the declaration and the Constitution, Adams argued passionately for a bicameral legislature; we should be thankful he was so prescient. No one fought harder in the 2nd continental Congress for independence.

A fascinating, smart though terribly flawed man who served his country better before he became VP or President. If George Washington was the father of our country, John Adams was surely the midwife.