Thomas Jefferson - president (3) part-2

In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem.
Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr.
The House of Representatives settled the tie.
Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged Jefferson's election.
When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed.
He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third.
He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean.
Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.
During Jefferson's second term, he was increasingly preoccupied with keeping the Nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen.
Jefferson's attempted solution, an embargo upon American shipping, worked badly and was unpopular.
Jefferson retired to Monticello to ponder such projects as his grand designs for the University of Virginia.
A French nobleman observed that he had placed his house and his mind "on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe."
He died on July 4, 1826.

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Thomas Jefferson - president (3) part-1

n the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter, "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing.
He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.
Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was no public speaker.
In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the "silent member" of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence.
In years following he labored to make its words a reality in Virginia.
Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786.
Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785.
His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington's Cabinet.
He resigned in 1793.
Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form.
Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France.
Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states.
As a reluctant candidate for President in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a flaw in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams.

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John Adams Presidential Dollar Coin

Presidential Dollars John Adams Design - Artist's rendering of the second coin in the new presidents dollar series.

John Adams, who served for one term, from 1797-1801.
I like this drawing of John Adams, although I'm not so sure it conveys his personality traits too well, once one has learned some of the facts about John Adams' life.
However, when we, as a nation, are seeking to celebrate the lives our of patriots and Founding Fathers, we want to see the better side of our heroes when they are depicted on seminal public artwork, and the artist has done a wonderful job of capturing a side of John Adams that most people probably didn't know.
John Adams looks almost kindly here, and keenly intelligent, with a generous mien.
The portrait is flattering, considering that Adams was known to be a somewhat corpulent man. Let's see how the portrait looks when transfered to an actual coin
The image of the coin that appears in the artist rendering is often quite different than what the circulating coin actually looks like!
This is especially true for the John Adams Presidential Dollar.
The artist rendering depicts an intelligent, somewhat attractive man with a thoughtful look in his eyes, but the actual coin seems to have lost much of the sensitivity of the original design. Adams' eyes almost look like they have mascara and eye liner around them!
His face seems to have lost definition and his hair looks downright greasy.
Lest I get carried away with my criticisms,
I must remind the reader that many considerations go into the sculpting and engraving of a coin design.
The design must be technologically fit for the high speed coin presses, and the obverse and reverse designs must have some technological synergy, otherwise the coin dies wear down or break very quickly.
There have been several very lovely coin designs created in the past, such as the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle, or the Peace Dollar by Anthony de Francisci, which were meant by the artists to be struck in very high relief.
However, the realities of mass coining didn't mesh well with the artists' intentions, and both of these designs had to be altered to made them feasible for high-production coining.
Although it might be interesting to compare the "before and after" photos of the artist renderings to the actual coins, the fact is that without knowing what the precise technical challenges were for the engraving of each design,
it is an exercise in pure speculation to guess why one feature of John Adams' face might have been softened while another was emphasized.
The John Adams Presidential Dollar was designed by Artistic Infusion Program Master Designer Joel Iskowitz, and sculpted by U.S. Mint sculptor-engraver Charles Vickers.

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JOHN ADAMS — Portrait

JOHN ADAMS — Portrait

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John Adams - President- 2

John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American politician and the second President of the United States (1797–1801), after being the first Vice President (1789–1797) for two terms.
He is regarded as one of the most influential Founding Fathers of the United States.
Adams came to prominence in the early stages of the American Revolution.
As a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, he played a leading role in persuading Congress to adopt the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776.
As a representative of Congress in Europe, he was a major negotiator of the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and chiefly responsible for obtaining important loans from Amsterdam.
Adams's revolutionary credentials secured him two terms as George Washington's vice president and his own election as the second president.
During his one term as president, he was frustrated by battles inside his own Federalist party against a faction led by Alexander Hamilton, and he signed the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts.
The major accomplishment of his presidency was his peaceful resolution of the Quasi-War crisis with France in 1798.
After Adams was defeated for reelection by Thomas Jefferson, he retired to Massachusetts.
He and his wife Abigail Adams founded an accomplished family line of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family.
His achievements have received greater recognition in modern times, though his contributions were not initially as celebrated as other Founders'.

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