John Adams – Great Man of History Essay
John Adams is often forgotten by history. The average person on the street if asked about him would know nothing or, simply that he was a president. John Adams had a much greater impact on America than that. John Adams played a pivotal role in America’s independence: before the war, during the war, and after the war. Without John Adams, independence would probably not have been achieved, and certainly could not have been maintained. John Adams was the most important founding father.
John Adams did much before the Revolutionary War ever stated. Writing under the pseudonym Novangelus in early 1775, he asserted that parliament had no jurisdiction over the colonies. He wrote that, “’[T]wo supreme and independent authorities cannot exist in the same state’…And, therefore, I contend, that our provincial legislatures are the only supreme authorities in our colonies.” Also, even when he defended the soldier of the Boston Massacre, he blamed the forced quartering of soldiers as creating disturbances. Most Americans agreed that they disliked quartering the troops, but few would have imagined the defenders of the British soldiers indirectly blaming the British government instead.
John Adams was in the first and second Continental Congress where he continuously lobbied for independence. In fact, he lobbied for it so much, his fellow congressmen encouraged him to shut up quite frequently. He was chairman of the War Committee and was the one to appoint George Washington to the head of the Continental Army.