As you can see from this Wikipedia article, John Adams generally ranks somewhere in the top half of U.S. Presidents, in the 10-20 range. This surprises me, given that Adams was notoriously thin-skinned and signed the Alien and Sedition Acts and was unpopular enough to only merit one term. Do I simply have a skewed perspective of his Presidency, or were there good things that balanced out the bad?
He never owned slaves, for one. He was a middle class man more akin to Benjamin Franklin than to Washington or Jefferson. He also took on the presidency and vice presidency as a matter of duty, which put his family under real financial strain. He was also diplomatic enough to rekindle his friendship with Thomas Jefferson after a very nasty political falling out, which is endearing. Plus, he was present and active in most of the crucial events that formed his nation, which only two other presidents can claim, both of whom are much more popular than he is. He was a fine statesman with a modesty that suited the administration of a nascent democracy. Oh, and he had a really remarkable wife who helped direct his energy toward the abolition of slavery.