John Adams, President and Attorney

Born in 1735, John Adams was an attorney who defended the accused British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial. He later became a member of the Federalist Party. He was a capable leader and a one-term president; today's presidents would be wise to emulate him.

Adams wrote many things that are beyond the scope of this short piece, but what follows is some of the best. He knew that central to the American Enlightenment was the abandonment of fear: "Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it."

Adams' sense of government has been handed down through the generations in America: "Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."

He had read Voltaire: "But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever", he said. Numerous exceptions apply to this general rule. Americans lost the legal right to drink when the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, but by consuming enough illegal booze and continuing to fight, they eventually won back their right.

Adams' witty insights on equality are still relevant: "That all men are born to equal rights is true... But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is as gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people, as ever was practiced by monks, by Druids, by Brahmins, by priests of the immortal Lama, or by the self-styled philosophers of the French revolution."

With characteristic distrust of government, Adams wrote "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

Both Jefferson and Adams died on July 4, 1826. According to most accounts, Adams' last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives."