John Adams Dollar Coin
Issued May 17, 2007
John Adams
Second (2nd) President of The United States(1797-1801)
The John Adams one-dollar coin features a portrait of Adams on the front. The image is almost identical to the official White House portrait of Adams by John Trumbull, but the coin designer also used other portraits in the smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery to complet the details. The coin was the second in the Presidential Dollars series since thy are issued in the order in which the Presidents served.
Adams was known as the “Atlas of Independence” for his major role in the American Revolution and the fight for independence from britain. he was also known as the “Sage of Braintree” because he was the elder statesman from Braintree, Massachusetts.
Highlights of Adams’s administration include the appointment of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the establishment of the Library of Congress, the creation of the Mississippi and Indiana Territories and the first meeting of Congress in the nation’s new Capitol building in Washington, D.c.. When the federal government moved to its new facilities in 1800, he became the first President to live in the Exceutive Mansion, which would later become known as the White House. Controversy over the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, which sought to limit the influence of political opponents, helped cost Adams a second term.
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”
John Adams was bon to a prominent farming family in Massachusetts on October 30, 1735. After graduating from Harvard College in 1755, he became a top lawyer. In 1765, he argued against British taxation without representation, and in 1770 he ensured that the soldiers invloved in the Boston Massacre received a fair trial.
Adams became active in politics in1770 when he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature. In 1774, he was a delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. There, he argued strongly for indpendence from Britain and nominated George Washington to be commander of the continental Army.
In June 1776, Adams joined Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin on a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. He did not fight during the Revolution, but he was head of the war department that oversaw the Continental Army. Congress sent him to Europe in 1778 to secure aid for the Armerican cause and negotiate treaties. Chief among them was the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the Revolution in 1783.
Following the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, Adams supported George Washington to become the first President. In the Electoral Collage voting in 1789, Adams was elected Vice President. He won reelection in 1792.
When Washington declined to seek aa third term as President, Adams was seen as his logical replacement. He narrowly defeated Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1796, and on March 4, 1797 he was inaugurated as Americas second President.
As President, Adams left domestic matters largely in the hands of Congress. he was more concernd with foreign affairs and managed to avoid a potentially devastating war with France.
Thomas Jefferson defeated Adams in his 1800 reelection bid. Adams retired to his hometown, where he died on July 4, 1826 – the precise 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
“Atlas of Independence”
Tags: 1797-1801, 2nd, Atlas of Independence, John Adams, must study politics, presidents, second president, sons may have liberty, to study mathematics and philosophy
