Adams, John

John Adams (1735–1826) is most famous for being the nation's second president, succeeding George Washington, and for losing his reelection to Thomas Jefferson, which essentially ended the role of the Federalists in the new government and ushered in the long run of the Jeffersonian party known by various names but usually called Democratic-Republicans.

But Adams also was Washington's vice president (1789–1797), which made him under the new Constitution the Senate's first president. It was a role for which he was not well suited. Adams was a contentious man, given to outspoken comments and vigorous debates. He even allowed, as titular head of the Senate, that he was more “accustomed to take a share in … debates, than to preside in … deliberations,” by his own description. But his Senate role was to preside, a task he found particularly difficult. In the words of a later senator, Robert Dole of Kansas: “Time after time, he rushed into action, only to be forced to check himself. Time after time, he tried in vain to hold his tongue. As the first Senate labored to establish precedents of protocol and conduct, Adams was vociferous as he campaigned endlessly for elaborate titles and ceremonies.”

The second U.S. president, John Adams, also established many precedents as the first president of the Senate.

[Page 2]As Washington's vice president, Adams spent eight years in a job even he admitted was not designed for him. But he did exercise one constitutional power aggressively: the right to break tie votes. As vice president, Adams cast twenty-nine tie-breaking votes, a record that remained unbroken in 2007.

Adams was the father of a later president, John Quincy Adams (see below).