As a new lawyer in Boston, he found it difficult to earn a living from the profession. But his practice took off after a few years. By then, his experiences in Europe-traveling and working with his father made him an asset to the young nation. Adams was active in government affairs during each of the first 11 U.S. administrations. One of those administrations was his own.
President George Washington was the first to recognize Adams's value. Adams had written articles that expressed support for Washington’s efforts to remain neutral in a conflict between Great Britain and France. In 1794, Washington appointed Adams as the U.S. minister to the Netherlands. While posted to the Netherlands, Adams traveled to London to help with the negotiations for the Jay Treaty in 1794. The treaty avoided another war with Great Britain and encouraged a period of peaceful trade between the two nations. Washington referred to Adams as “the most valuable public character we have abroad.”
Washington also appointed Adams minister to Portugal in 1796. By that fall, Adams’s father, John Adams, was elected president. John changed his son’s diplomatic assignment to U.S. minister to Prussia. Adams devoted time and energy to perfecting his knowledge of the German language to better serve in that capacity. While in the Prussian capital of Berlin, Adams negotiated a friendly commercial treaty with that nation. When his father lost re-election to the presidency in 1800, Adams returned to the United States.
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Putting the Pieces Together
Americans needed to begin to put the past behind them, come together, and plan for the future in the spring of 1865. But Abraham Lincoln, the man best equipped to lead them and who had hoped to restore the country as smoothly and peacefully as possible, had been assassinated.
LAST SHOTS
The last Confederate forces in the Civil War didn’t surrender in the spring of 1865 or on a battlefield.
AND IN OTHER 1865 NEWS
A group of African Americans stop at the White House’s annual public reception on January 1, where they shake hands with President Abraham Lincoln.
A Plot to Kill President the
For several months, actor John Wilkes Booth’s band of conspirators had plotted to capture President Abraham Lincoln and hold him hostage in exchange for Confederate prisoners.
Let the Thing Be Pressed
In June 1864, Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant began a nearly 10-month campaign in Virginia.
HEALING THE NATION
President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time on March 4, 1865.
A Helping Hand
The spring season is hard in any agricultural society. Plants and animals are too small to eat.
WAR SHERMAN-STYLE
As far as Union Major General William T. Sherman was concerned, the Civil War had gone on long enough.
PEACE TALKS
The fall of Fort Fisher made clear that the Confederacy’s days were numbered. Southerners were tired and hungry.
FORT FISHER'S FALL
Outnumbered Confederate soldiers inside Fort Fisher were unable to withstand the approach of Union troops by land and the constant Union naval bombardment from the sea.
