1. Background  Attended Harvard at age 16  A Reluctant Teacher  Became a Lawyer  Married Abigail Smith  Had 5 Children

2. Revolutionary Activities  Protested against the Stamp & Intolerable Acts  Defended Captain Thomas Preston & 6 other British soldiers indicted for murder in the Boston Massacre  Delegate to 1 st and 2 nd Continental Congress

3. More Revolutionary Acts  Served on Committee to write the Declaration of Independence  Diplomat to France, negotiated loans  Signed the Treaty of Paris  First American Minister to London

4. John Adams First Vice President  Second president  Federalist  Teacher, lawyer, farmer, politician

5. On the Vice Presidency  “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

6. Adams’ Activities  XYZ Affair  Alien & Sedition Act  Alien Act is against French Immigrants  Sedition Acts = fines and imprisonment for writing, speaking, or publishing anything “false, scandalous,and malicious” against the federal government  Appointed Strong Federalist Judges: John Marshall

7. Adams’s Thoughts  Favored a Strong national government  Placed national interest ahead of political party = True Patriot  Believed that Republican opposition was a conspiracy by Hamilton

8. Adams’s Critics  “Bad Calculator” of people’s motives  An Honest Man, sometimes acted unreasonably  His Alien & Sedition Acts violated the 1 st Amendment

9. Post Presidency:  Returns to Quincy  Resumes correspondence with Jefferson in 1812  Dies on July 4, 1826