John Adams Dies on Independence Day's 50th Anniversary

John Adams died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He was 90 years old. His last reported words were "Thomas Jefferson survives." He was wrong. Jefferson had died at Monticello hours earlier on the same day. Born on October 30, 1735, in Braintree, Massachusetts, Adams was a Harvard-educated lawyer who became one of the leading voices for American independence. He argued before the Continental Congress for a formal declaration of separation from Britain, served on the committee that drafted the document, and persuaded Thomas Jefferson to write it because Adams believed a Virginian's signature would carry more weight with Southern delegates. He served as the first American ambassador to Great Britain, where he was received by King George III in a profoundly awkward ceremony. He was elected the first vice president under the new Constitution and served two terms under Washington, calling the office "the most insignificant that ever the invention of man contrived." As president from 1797 to 1801, he kept the United States out of a full-scale war with France despite enormous pressure from both Francophile Republicans and Anglophile Federalists. He signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which remain the most controversial domestic legislation of the early republic. He lost the 1800 election to Jefferson and left the capital before dawn on inauguration day, becoming the first president to refuse to attend his successor's swearing-in. He spent 25 years in Quincy, Massachusetts, watching the republic he had helped build become something he alternately celebrated and worried about. He reconciled with Jefferson in 1812, and their correspondence, over 150 letters exchanged between 1812 and 1826, is one of the great literary achievements of American political thought.