minutemanworld:Sarah Martin of the Massachusetts Historical Society (and editor of the Adams&rsquo
minutemanworld: Sarah Martin of the Massachusetts Historical Society (and editor of the Adams’ family letters), talks here about Abigail Adams’ famous “remember the ladies letter” that she wrote to John Adams on March 31, 1776. “Abigail was very much her own woman and she was a bit fiery. She is an independent spirit and so she is curious and inquisitive and loving and not always rational and, you know, she’s one of us.” John’s away at Congress and Abigail is managing the farm, managing the business, and taking care of the children. She opens the letter with a scathing indictment of slaveholders. “I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breast,” Then she discusses more mundane things, before making her famous statement. “I long to hear that you have declared an Independency and by the way in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.” “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound in any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” -- source link