Second president of the United States. Adams served as vice-president under George Washington, receiving 34 of the electoral-college ballots in the first presidential election. He was an open Federalist.
In 1798, amid tensions between France and America, Adams's Federalist Party viewed its domestic critics — pro-French Jeffersonians — as potential traitors. With Adams's support, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts: four laws giving the president power to deport "dangerous" foreigners and making it a crime to publish "false, scandalous and malicious writing" about the government. The laws were used to silence opposition journalists and pamphleteers. Congress set two of the laws to expire on Adams's last day as president in March 1801.
The controversy over the Sedition Acts helped Thomas Jefferson defeat Adams in 1800. The showdown, though bitter and chaotic, produced the first peaceful transfer of power between rival factions in America.
Late in life Adams corresponded frequently with Jefferson. In one exchange about slavery, Adams called it a "black cloud" hanging over the country for half a century.
Adams was often overlooked historically — at least until David McCullough's biography made the case for him as "the real driver" of American independence. His cousin Samuel Adams "wired a continent for rebellion", orchestrating the Boston Tea Party and becoming the first to call openly for independence.
idleness, n.: Leisure gone to seed.