Diplomat

John Adams

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat, second President; 1735—1826.

John Quincy Adams

Son of John and Abigail Adams, diplomat, senator, sixth President, congressman; 1767—1848.

Silas Deane

Merchant, Continental congressman, diplomat to France; 1737—89.

Benjamin Franklin

Philadelphia printer, writer, scientist, inventor, signer of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat to France; 1706—90.

Elbridge Gerry

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, vice president under Madison; 1744—1814.

John Jay

Lawyer, diplomat, Continental congressman, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; 1745—1829.

John Laurens

Continental Army officer, aide-de-camp to Washington, son of Henry Laurens; 1754—82.

Arthur Lee

Diplomat to France, Continental congressman; 1740—92.

Robert R. Livingston

New York lawyer, politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence; 1746—1813.

The most inadvertently prophetic words that Adams ever uttered were his last: Thomas Jefferson survives. For it was the Jeffersonian image that broke free of the aggregated anonymity, the founders or the fathers, and eventually ascended into heaven with Washington. During the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Jeffersonian legacy became the most adaptable and all-purpose political touchstone in American political history.

— Joseph J. Ellis

Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993)