During his time in Congress, Adams became increasingly critical of slavery and of the Southern leaders whom he believed controlled the Democratic Party. Young Adams was educated by private tutors – his cousin James Thaxter and his father's law clerk, Nathan Rice. He soon began to exhibit his literary skills, and in 1779 he initiated a diary which he kept until just before he died in 1848. Until the age of ten, Adams grew up on the family farm in Braintree, largely in the care of his mother.