Thursday, September 6, 2007

Second President: John Adams - 1 comments



John Adams was GW's Vice President, and he didn't like it. After all his service to the new country: fighting the Revolutionary War, on the committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence, negotiated the Anglo-American Treaty of 1783, and what does he get? The Vice Presidency, the office he described as, "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived."

But he did go on to become President, but it turned out to be unpleasant work. The dour Adams was happy to retire after his four-year term ended in 1801.

This portrait by John Trumbull dates from 1793, commissioned by Adams to celebrate his own role in drafting the Treaty of Paris. Nice!