John Adams

Birth: Oct 30, 1735(Quincy, MA)

Death: July 4, 1826 (Quincy, MA)

Marriage: Abigail Smith (Oct 25, 1764)

(Weymouth, MA)

Birth: Nov.23, 1744 (Weymouth, MA)

Death: Oct. 28, 1818(Quincy, MA)

Children:

Abigail (Nabby): (July 14, 1765-1813)

John Quincy: (July 11, 1767-1848)

Susanna: (Dec. 28, 1768-1770)

Charles: (May 29, 1770-1800)

Thomas: (Sep. 15, 1772-1832)

Elizabeth: (stillborn 1775)

  • 2g-grandson of Henry Adams & Elizabeth/Edith Squire
  • HarvardCollege (1751-1754)
  • Admitted to MA Bar (1761
  • Elected to MA Assembly (1770)
  • Delegate to 1st Continental Congress 1774
  • Delegate to 2nd Continental Congress 1775-1778
  • Signer of the Declaration of Independence 1776
  • Diplomat to France (1776-1779)
  • Minister plenipotentiary in Europe (1780-1781)
  • Party to the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain (1783)
  • Minister to British court 1783-1788
  • 1stU.S. Vice-President 1789-1797
  • 2ndU.S. President 1797-1801

The Founding Fathers on Jesus, Christianity and the Bible:

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.

(Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XIII, p. 292-294. In a letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813.)

The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost. . . . There is no authority, civil or religious – there can be no legitimate government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words damnation.

(Letter from John Adams to Benjamin Rush, from Quincy, Massachusetts, dated December 21, 1809, from the original in Wallbuilders’ possession.)

Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company: I mean hell.

(John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), Vol. X, p. 254, to Thomas Jefferson on April 19, 1817.)

The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.

(John Adams, Works, Vol. III, p. 421, diary entry for July 26, 1796.

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!

(John Adams, Works, Vol. II, pp. 6-7, diary entry for February 22, 1756.)

I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.

(John Adams, Works, Vol. X, p. 85, to Thomas Jefferson on December 25, 1813.)

The Founding Fathers on Creation and Evolution

When I was in England from 1785 to 1788, I may say I was intimate with Dr. Price [Richard Price was a theologian and a strong British supporter of American rights and independence, with Congress bestowing on him an American citizenship in 1778]. I had much conversation with him at his own house, at my houses, and at the house and tables of many friends. In some of our most unreserved conversations when we have been alone, he has repeatedly said to me, “I am inclined to believe that the Universe is eternal and infinite. It seems to me that an eternal and infinite effect must necessarily flow from an eternal and infinite Cause; and an infinite Wisdom, Goodness, and Power that could have been induced to produce a Universe in time must have produced it from eternity.” “It seems to me, the effect must flow from the Cause"... It has been long – very long – a settled opinion in my mind that there is now, never will be, and never was but one Being who can understand the universe, and that it is not only vain but wicked for insects [like us] to pretend to comprehend it. (John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Lester Cappon, editor (North Carolina: University of North Carolina, 1959) pp. 374-375, to Thomas Jefferson, September 14, 1813.)

“We recognize no Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!”
[April 18, 1775, on the eve of the Revolutionary War after a British major ordered John Adams, John Hancock, and those with them to disperse in “the name of George the Sovereign King of England." ]

The Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence

By Rev. Charles A Goodrich - R.G. H. Huntington – Hartford 1842

(Page 94)

(Page 101) Portion of letter to his wife Abigail

On November 1, 1800, just before the election, Adams arrived in the new CapitalCity to take up his residence in the White House. On his second evening in its damp, unfinished rooms, he wrote his wife, "Before I end my letter, I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof."

"It is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand ... the only foundation for a free constitution is pure virtues, 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" (letter to cousin Zabdiel Adams, June 21, 1776).

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