Although Adams was familiar with the romantic notions of politics and government held by Enlightenment idealists, he was convinced that only structure and rules could stop mankind’s tyrannical tendencies. That is why, though he was initially impressed with Thomas Paine’s rousing “Common Sense” (some thought Adams had written it himself), he later cooled on the pamphlet, writing that Paine had “a better hand at pulling down than building.”

One author who got him particularly hot under the wig was Mary Wollstonecraft, an English radical thinker and the future mother of Mary Shelley, author of “Frankenstein.” She sweetly sang the praises of the French Revolution in a philosophical treatise. Adams, who feared its unchecked powers (which, indeed, led to the rise of Napoleon), crammed more than 10,000 words of angry rebuttal in the margins. In response to Wollstonecraft’s admiration of France’s simple, one-house legislature, for example, he wrote, “It is Silly to be eternally harping upon Simplicity in a form of Government. The Simplest of all possible Governments is a Despotism in one.”

The collection also depicts the life of a complex man to whom ideals like an impartial rule of law were necessary to creating a nation. His commitment impressed Lauren Gilbert, head of the library’s community services.

“I was interested to see he had defended the English soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre even though he was clearly on the side of the revolutionaries,” she said. “Obviously, he believed in a fair trial.”

Image Adams tempered initial enthusiasm for Thomas Paine's “Common Sense.” Credit... John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library

The 1770 massacre, in which British troops fired on and killed five members of a mob of colonists pelting them with sticks, oyster shells and ice, led to a famous trial. Adams took on the case even knowing that his law practice and reputation would suffer because of raging public opinion against the men. Using arguments about self-defense learned from Cicero, the eloquent lawyer was able to get six of the eight soldiers acquitted of murder and obtain reduced sentences for the other two.

The display includes reproductions of two action drawings of the clash by the silversmith and patriot Paul Revere. One, a hand-drawn sketch that shows the position of the soldiers and colonists, represents one of the earliest forensic maps in American history.