Ch. 4.3. Primary Source: “Remember the Ladies,” Abigail and John Adams, 1776

The voluminous correspondence between Abigail and John Adams includes this famous exchange about women’s rights. At the time John was a member of the Massachusetts delegation in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776

What sort of defense [can] Virginia make against our common enemy? … I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs. Of this I am certain that it is not founded upon that generous and Christian principal of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us…

I long to hear that you have declared an independency [from Britain]. 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. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend. Why then not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity? Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex. Regard us then as beings placed by providence under your protection and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.

John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 14, 1776

You ask what sort of defense Virginia can make. I believe they will make an able defense… Their neighboring sister or rather daughter colony of North Carolina, which is a warlike colony, and has several battalions at the Continental expense, as well as a pretty good militia… The gentry are very rich, and the common people very poor. This inequality of property, gives an aristocratical turn to all their proceedings, and occasions a strong aversion in their patricians, to common sense. But the spirit of these barons, is coming down, and it must submit.

As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere. That children and apprentices were disobedient–that schools and colleges were grown turbulent–that Indians slighted their guardians and negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented. This is rather too coarse a compliment but you are so saucy, I won’t blot it out.

Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in practice you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave heroes would fight. I am sure every good politician would plot, as long as he would against despotism, empire, monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, or ochlocracy [i.e., mob rule]. A fine story indeed. I begin to think the Ministry [i.e., the British government] as deep as they are wicked. After stirring up Tories, land-jobbers, trimmers, bigots, Canadians, Indians, negroes, Hanoverians, Hessians, Russians, Irish Roman Catholics, Scotch Renegades, at last they have stimulated [women] to demand new privileges and threaten to rebel.

Abigail Adams to John Adams, May 7, 1776

I cannot say I think you very generous to the ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken–and notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet: “Charm by accepting, by submitting sway; yet have our humor most when we obey.”

Source: The Founders’ Constitution (The University of Chicago Press), Volume 1, Chapter 15, Documents 9, 10, and 12:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s9.html

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s10.html

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s12.html