Introduction to Samuel Adams

Adams, a Massachusetts family of statesmen, scholars, and authors that included two Presidents of the United States. It is considered by many historians to be the most remarkable family in American history. Intellectually gifted and articulate, its members made notable contributions to public life and letters from colonial times to the 20th century.

Henry Adams (1583?–1646), the founder of the family in America, came from England in 1636. He settled at Mount Wollaston (later called Braintree. now Quincy), Massachusetts, and became a farmer. Two of his great-grandsons were Samuel (1689–1748) and John Adams (1691–1761). One of Samuel's 12 children was the Revolutionary War patriot Samuel Adams (1722–1803). John was the father of the second President of the United States. John Adams (1735–1826).

The eldest son of President Adams, John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), became the sixth President of the United States. John Quincy Adams' son. Charles Francis Adams (1807–1886), served as minister to Great Britain during the Civil War. Three of Charles Francis Adams' sons were historians—Charles Francis (1835–1915), Henry (1838–1918), and Brooks Adams (1848–1927). Their nephew, Charles Francis Adams (1866–1954), was secretary of the navy in the cabinet of President Herbert Hoover.

These men are discussed in this article in chronological order.

Samuel Adams

(1722–1803) was an American Revolutionary leader. He was a second cousin of John Adams, second President of the United States. A skilled politician and propagandist, Sam Adams (as he was popularly called), more than any other man, prepared the way for the American Revolution. During the Revolutionary period, he stirred the colonists against Great Britain through writings, speeches, and personal contact. To his opponents, Adams was the “Chief Incendiary,” exploiting colonial differences with Britain to advance his own radical ideas. To his supporters, he was the “Firebrand of Independence,” dedicated to the cause of American liberty.

Early Career. Sam Adams was born in Boston. He graduated from Harvard in 1740 and received a master's degree in 1743. He studied law for a while, then entered business. He was unsuccessful in a number of ventures, and in 1756 became tax collector of Boston. Adams left this post in 1764, after falling behind in collections. He then turned his attention to politics, devoting his energies to the struggle with Great Britain over colonial rights.

Revolutionary Period. By 1764 Sam Adams was already a leading figure in Boston politics, having opposed for some years the small group of aristocratic families that virtually ruled Massachusetts. He took a prominent part in the agitation against the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, protesting “taxation without representation.” In 1765 he helped form the Sons of Liberty, a secret revolutionary society. Serving in the Massachusetts legislature, 1765–74, Adams became leader of the radicals and was clerk of the House, 1766–74. Adams stirred up opposition to the Townshend Acts (1767), and was an organizer of the Non-Importation Association in 1768.

During a period of relative calm, 1770–72, Sam Adams kept discontent alive by writing inflammatory newspaper articles. In 1772 he organized the first Committee of Correspondence. He drafted the Boston Declaration of Rights in 1772 and was influential in the agitation that led to the Boston Tea Party. After passage of the Intolerable Acts, 1774, Adams was one of the first to call for a congress of the colonies. He was chosen as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, 1774–75. He signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

After Independence. As Adams was more a revolutionary agitator than statesman, his influence declined after American independence was declared. He was a member of the Continental Congress until 1781, serving on the committee that drafted the Articles of Confederation. Although at first opposed to a strong central government, Adams voted for ratification of the Federal Constitution at the Massachusetts Convention of 1788. He was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, 1789–93, and governor, 1794–97.

See also Boston Tea Party; Committees of Correspondence; Sons of Liberty.

John Adams

(1735–1826) was the second President and first Vice President of the United States. See Adams, John.

John Quincy Adams

(1767–1848), the son of John Adams, was the sixth President of the United States. See Adams, John Quincy.

Charles Francis Adams

(1807–1886), son of John Quincy Adams, was a statesman and author. As minister to Great Britain, 1861–68, Adams adroitly handled the difficult problems that the Civil War created between Great Britain and the United States, such as the Trent affair. He thus helped to prevent Britain from recognizing and giving assistance to the Confederacy. Adams served as one of the United States arbitrators at the Geneva Tribunal that settled the Alabama Claims against Great Britain, 1871–72.

Adams was born in Boston. He attended schools in Russia and in England, when his father was United States minister to those countries. In 1825 he graduated from Harvard. Adams was admitted to the bar in 1829, having studied law in the office of Daniel Webster, but never practiced. He was elected to the Massachusetts legislature as a Whig in 1840 and served until 1845. In 1848 he was the Vice Presidential candidate of the Free Soil party. From 1859 to 1861, Adams served in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican.

Adams edited and published the letters of Abigail Adams (1840–41), Works of John Adams (10 volumes, 1850–56), and Memoirs of John Quincy Adams (12 volumes, 1874–77).

Charles Francis Adams

(1835–1915), son of the first Charles Francis Adams, was a historian and a railroad expert. Adams was born in Boston. After graduation from Harvard in 1856 he studied law in the office of Richard Henry Dana and Francis E. Parker. During the Civil War he served in the Union army, rising to the rank of brevet brigadier general.

After the war, Adams studied railroad development and operations. He was named to the Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners in 1869, serving as chairman 1872–79. He wrote Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (1871), exposing corruption in railroad finance. Adams was chairman of the government directors of the Union Pacific Railroad, 1878–84, and president of the railroad, 1884–90.

His numerous writings include: Railroads: Their Origin and Problems, (1878); Richard Henry Dana (1890); Three Episodes in Massachusetts History (1892); Life of Charles Francis Adams (1900).

Henry (Brooks) Adams

(1838–1918), son of the first Charles Francis Adams, was a historian and one of the most important authors and original thinkers of his time. Adams analyzed what Darwin's evolutionary theory implied for the future of society. In his dynamic theory of history he concluded that society, instead of moving toward perfection, was subject to dissipation of energy and eventual exhaustion.

Adams' History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison (9 volumes, 1889–91) remains a definitive analysis of the early years of American democracy. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1913; privately published in 1904) is a study of the medieval spirit in architecture and philosophy. His brilliant autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams (1918; privately published in 1906), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1919. In these two books, Adams contrasts what he considered the unifying effect of religion on life in the 13th century with the disruptive effect of science on the modern mind and society.

Adams was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard in 1858. After studying in Germany, he was secretary to his father, who was minister to Great Britain, 1861–68. In 1870 Henry Adams became assistant professor of history at Harvard and editor of the North American Review. He resigned as editor in 1876 and as professor in 1877 and moved to Washington, D.C., to devote his time to writing. His wife's suicide in 1885 embittered his later years.

Adams' other writings include: The Life of Albert Gallatin (1879); The Works of Albert Gallatin (3 volumes, 1879); A Letter to American Teachers of History (1910); The Degradation of Democratic Dogma (1919). Democracy (anonymously published in 1880) is a novel.

Brooks Adams

(1848–1927), son of the first Charles Francis Adams, was a historian and a critic of society. Adams questioned prevailing attitudes and theories and developed his own theory of the movement of history. He believed that all history is a struggle between concentration and dissipation of energy. His ideas influenced his older brother, Henry Adams, and laid the groundwork for later historians and economists, including Thorstein Veblen, Oswald Spengler, and Charles A. Beard.

Adams' first book, The Emancipation of Massachusetts (1887), describes the development of religious freedom in that commonwealth. In his most important work, Law of Civilization and Decay (1895), he developed his cyclical interpretation of history. Civilization, he wrote, rose and fell according to the growth and decay of commerce. Adams applied this principle to the course of modern history and foresaw eventual chaos.

Brooks Adams was born in Quincy, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard in 1870 and studied at Harvard Law School. Adams was secretary to his father at the Alabama Claims negotiations in Geneva, 1871–72. After practicing law in Boston, 1873–81, Adams, like his brothers Henry and Charles Francis, turned to writing and research.

His other writings include: America's Economic Supremacy (1900); The New Empire (1902); The Theory of Social Revolutions (1913).

Charles Francis Adams

(1866–1954), son of the second John Quincy Adams (1833–1894) and grandson of the first Charles Francis Adams, was a banker and public official. As secretary of the navy, 1929–33, under President Herbert Hoover, Adams helped negotiate the agreements at the London Naval Conference of 1930, which restricted the size and number of naval vessels. He returned to the banking business in 1933. Adams was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1892. He was mavor of Quincy, 1896–97.