pplpod Episode 43 follows John Adams from Massachusetts farm boy to the prickly, indispensable engine of American independence. We trace the lawyer who defended the Boston Massacre soldiers on principle, the relentless delegate who pushed Congress toward July 1776, and the tireless diplomat who secured loans in the Netherlands and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris. In office, we unpack the nation-building firsts: Washington’s vice president, then a one-term presidency defined by the XYZ Affair, the undeclared Quasi-War with France, and the high-cost gamble of peace. We also sit with the hardest chapters—Alien and Sedition Acts, party warfare, “midnight judges”—and the redemptions: the peaceful transfer after the Election of 1800 and a lifetime correspondence with Abigail Adams that mapped a marriage of minds. Legacy, limits, and the stubborn ethics of a founder who prized law over applause.

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