It doesn’t get much notice these days, but John Adams actually had quite a bit to do with our country becoming independent. One very interesting letter was written by Adams in support of William Hooper’s (William Hooper, who’s he?) preparation of a new written constitution for the State of North Carolina. This letter was later published by a Philadelphia printer. Here’s one sample paragraph:

“It has been the will of Heaven, that we should be thrown into existence at a period when the greatest philosophers and lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live . . . . A period when a coincidence of circumstances without example has afforded to thirteen colonies at once an opportunity of beginning government anew from the foundation and building as they choose. How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children? How few have ever had anything more of choice in government than in climate?” (“John Adams”, by David McCullough, page 102).

Of course John Adams had a part in the Declaration of Independence, in the United States Constitution, in the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary war, and in the first national Presidency as Vice President to George Washington. And really much, much more!