s ago, except as they were involved in the question
of negro slavery. When, therefore, Adams began his career as a political
orator, it was of no consequence whether men were rich or poor, or
whether the country was advanced or backward in material civilization.
He spoke to the heart and the soul of man, as Garrison and Sumner and
Lincoln spoke on other issues, but involving the same established
principles.

Little could John Adams have divined his own future influence and fame
when, as a boy on his father's farm in Braintree, he toiled in rural and
commonplace drudgeries, or when he was an undistinguished student at
Harvard or a schoolmaster in a country village. It was not until
political agitations aroused the public mind that a new field was open
to him, congenial to his genius.

Still, even when he boarded with his father, a sturdy Puritan, at the
time he began the practice of the law at the age of twenty-three, he had
his aspirations. Writes he in his diary, "Chores, chat, tobacco, apples,
tea, steal away my time, but I am resolved to translate Justinian;" and
yet on his first legal writ he made a failure for lack of concentrated
effort. "My thoughts," he said, "are roving from girls to friends, from
friends to court, and from court to Greece and Rome,"--showing that
enthusiastic, versatile temperament which then and afterwards
characterized him.

Not long after that, he had given up Justinian. "You may get more by
studying town-meetings and training-days," he writes. "Popularity is the
way to gain and figure." These extracts give no indication of
legal ambition.

But in 1761 the political horizon was overcast. There were difficulties
with Great Britain. James Otis had made a great speech, which Adams
heard, on what were called "writs of assistance," giving power to the
English officers of customs in the Colony to enter houses and stores to
search for smuggled goods. This remarkable speech made a deep impression
on the young lawyer, and kindled fires which were never extinguished. He
saw injustice, and a violation of the rights of English subjects, as all
the Colonists acknowledged themselves to be, and he revolted from
injustice and tyranny. This was the turning-point of his life; he became
a patriot and politician. This, however, was without neglecting his law
business, which soon grew upon his hands, for he could make a speech and
address juries. Eloquence was his gift. He was a born orator, like
Patrick H