John Adams was a Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Grea
Portrait, c. 1800–1815
Adams's birthplace in present-day Quincy, Massachusetts
John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence depicting the Committee of Five presenting its draft of the Declaration to the Congress in Philadelphia; Adams appears in the center with his hand on his hip.
The Assembly Room at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson was a Founding Father and the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. He was also the second vice president under John Adams from 1797 to 1801. A prolific wri
John Adams
…1797. He was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with contemporaries, including his wife and advisor Abigail Adams and his friend and rival Thomas Jefferson. A lawyer and political activist prior to the Revolution, Adams was devoted to the right to counsel and presumption of innocence. He defied anti-British…
The Wren Building at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, where Jefferson studied in 1761 and 1762
Monticello, Jefferson's home near Charlottesville, Virginia
The Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson largely wrote in isolation between June 11 and 28, 1776, from a floor he was renting in a home at 700 Market Street in Center City Philadelphia, contain "the most potent and consequential words in American history," historian Joseph Ellis later wrote.