“​Remember the Ladies​”

Letter written by Abigail Adams to her husband John Adams

I ​long to hear that you have declared an independancy --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 favourable to them than your ancestors.

This letter was written by ​Abigail Adams​ ​to her husband Congressman ​John Adams​ on 31
March 1776, just some months before the signature of the Declaration of Independence of the United
States of America.
This historical document, which is part of a large collection of personal correspondence exchanged by
Abigail and her husband, comprises more than 1.000 letters published by their grandson ​Charles
Francis Adams​ in 1848. The letters are still preserved today and not only provide a remarkable historical
evidence about the founding of America but also an insightful concern of a couple that spent long periods
apart during their marriage and lived through an era of convulsive change and historical upheavals

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before, during, and after the American Revolution. Their personal concerns are reflected in their prolific
correspondence that touched on a wide range of subjects such as politics, household economy and
family issues.
At the same time that Abigail penned this letter, ​John Adams​, one of the promoters of the
independence cause, was at ​Second ​Continental Congress​ in Philadelphia preparing his
“Thoughts on Government​”​ essay​, a guidebook for drafting a new constitution on the foundation of
a new American ​government​. The ​Continental Congress​ w
​ as a convention representing delegates

from the ​Thirteen Colonies​ which moved towards declaring independence from the British Empire in
1776. ​The Second Continental Congress​ finally approved and signed the Declaration of
Independence on ​July 4, 1776 ​ after the representing delegates of the 13 colonies agreed to break
free from the British rule and considered themselves as thirteen independent ​sovereign states​. The
Congress became the governing body of the colonies during the ​American Revolutionary War
(1775-1783) fought between ​Great Britain​ and the original ​13 British colonies​. After the defeat of the
British forces, a new nation was formed: ​T​he ​United States of America​.
By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed, the American Revolutionary War
between the colonies and Great Britain had already started in ​April 19, 1775​.
Relations between the colonies and Great Britain had been deteriorating since 1763 after the
Stamp Act of 1765​, and the ​Townshend Acts​ of 1767 were imposed by the British government on
the colonies, requiring them the payment of a direct tax on various stamped documents. The colonies
felt that it was unconstitutional for the Parliament to impose taxes and laws on them without
representation, as they did not have any representatives in the British Parliament. These acts caused
opposition, continued unrest, revolts and riots among the colonies as they organized the ​boycott of
British goods​, which proved unsuccessful, and eventually led to ​the Boston Tea Party​” on
December 16, 1773.​ It was a ​political protes​t by the American colonists who showed their defiance to
the British rule by throwing some ships' cargo of tea into the ocean. The British government
responded in retaliation by passing a series of punitive measures known in the colonies as ​The
Intolerable Acts​.
The Boston Tea Party incident is considered as one of the key events leading up to the American
Revolution. In this context of conflict where war was taking place close to the Adam’s farm in
Braintree​, South Boston, and with her husband away at the Continental Congress, ​Abigail​ raised her
four young children and managed the family farm alone. Her days were busy but yet she was very
well aware of the political changes that were developing around her and reflected her thoughts of the
situation in the letters to her husband.
Abigail Adams​ was born ​Abigail Smith​ on November 22, 1744, in Weymouth, Massachusetts
into a wealthy and religious family. Her father William Smith was a Congregationalist minister and her

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 mother ​Elizabeth (née Quincy) Smith​ was a descendent of the Quincy family, a prominent political
family in the ​Massachusetts colony​. Abigail did not receive a formal education at school due to her
poor health, and later in life, she would also consider that her lack of education was due to the
traditional belief that females did not need or deserve formal education, “​The education of women
was little thought of in those days​; ​indeed”​ as she pointed out in a letter she wrote to one of her
granddaughters some years before her death. However, she was taught to read and write at home,
and had access to the large libraries of her father and grandfather, taking a special interest in poetry,
drama, history, theology and political theory and eventually she became probably one of the most
well-read women in eighteenth-century America​ ​as she was a great reader and a prolific letter-writer.
Abigail Smith married ​John Adams​, a promising young lawyer, on October 25, 764. John spent
weeks and months away from home as he built a successful law career and so it was Abigail who
was in charge of the management of the farm.
When John was elected to serve in the​ First Continental Congress in Philadelphia​ ​(September
5, to October 26, 1774) in which America made its first legislative moves toward forming a
government independent of Great Britain, his absences from home were longer than ever before and
letter writing was the only way the couple could communicate with each other.
As the ​Second Continental Congress​ drafted and debated the Declaration of Independence, Abigail
wrote this letter to her husband John.
She starts the letter complaining about the limited length of his letters and not receiving much
information concerning the military situation at that time during the ​American Revolutionary War.
She continues asking​ ​for specific information about ​Virginia​’s defence strategy against the British
and points out her concern about the brutality of ​Virginia’s rifleman​ who had shown themselves to
be very savage and even blood thirsty during the conflict, as she was hoping that their behaviour was
not the representative image that the colonies were projecting as a whole. However, although she’s
outraged and strongly rejects the British allegation that the rebelling American colonists are as
uncivilized​ and as​ savage as the Indians​, ​she also believes that these terms are to be true
regarding many southern white colonists. Despite the fact that on the one hand she praises the
respectable founding Father ​George Washington ​as an​ ​ icon of patriotic virtue and a Virginian, on
the other hand she criticises the people of the colony of Virginia​, ​“s​ hamefully duped by a Dunmore​”​,
in reference to the Royal Governor of Virginia ​Lord Dunmore​, famous for his ​Dunmore’s
Proclamation​, in which he offered freedom to slaves who would leave their patriot masters and join
the loyalist forces in an attempt to stop the rebel colonialist cause in Virginia. Abigail also shows her
concern about slavery as she points out the hypocrisy of the slave-owning leaders of the revolution
who were advocating for liberty as their cause for revolution while at the same time they were
depriving freedom to ​“their fellow Creatures of theirs​” in clear reference to their slaves using religious

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terms and Christian values certainly influenced by her religious background. She continues her letter
expressing her wish to ​hear that they have declared an independency ​ and assumes that a new set of
laws will be established in the new government when the colonies achieve full independency from the
British and so she asks her husband to ​Remember the ladies​ when writing the new Constitution of
the United States as it is an opportunity to make the legal status of women equal to that of men. Her
remarkable request must be understood in the context of a patriarchal society in the late 18​th​ century
where women did not have the right to vote, were legally subordinated to their husbands, were not
allowed to receive formal education and were confined to the domestic sphere.
She also reminds her husband in her letter to be more generous and favourable to women than
their ancestors, the British, in reference to the first British colonists that arrived in America bringing
with them the common law regarding marriage in which the husband had complete control over his
wife’s body, their children, the property, and any inherited money. Abigail uses parallelism between
the American colonists who had no representation in the Parliament of London but were bound by the
British laws, and the American women that have no voice or representation in the drafting of the new
set of laws but are nevertheless bound by these laws. She also states that men are tyrannical, have a
natural tendency towards domination and that the previous English laws gave them unlimited power
to treat their wives as they wished, so she wants to make sure that the new American laws would
help them remember not to treat women in abusive ways and be more friends than masters to their
wives in terms of equality and dignity, appealing to men with common sense that historically have
​ earers .
loathed customs that treated women as simple child​-b
She asserts that women have been placed by Providence under the protection of men, concluding
that women are subordinated to men as all human beings are subjects of the Supreme Being,
following the commonly accepted gender hierarchy in the eighteenth century, as there is no evidence
in her prolific correspondence that Abigail disapproved of the existing hierarchy within marriage in
which a woman should remain in her own sphere. Abigail would base this hierarchical concept ​on a
division of work not ​ ​on a ​struggle​ between a married couple for the power, as she viewed John as
the head of the household and in her letters she continuously expressed that her role doing
traditionally male activities while her husband was away was a misfortune and a sacrifice for the
cause of independence and often urged him to come back home.
Her strong Christian beliefs (based on the deep roots in Puritan New England and the
family-oriented background that she was raised in) asserts that men should protect women as men
are the reflection of God protecting the family, and so she asks her husband in her letter to use his
power to make women happy with a favourable set of laws to protect them, in order to enhance their
domestic lives.

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 Abigail adds some extra paragraphs written a few days later on April 5 before sending her letter.
They provide a more historical context of the revolutionary period describing daily family events, and
the appalling situation at home due to several diseases, such as the cranker fever, mumps or a
dysentery epidemic that had already killed many of their neighbours and relatives. She also
expresses her great concern about the scarceness of basic goods because nothing was coming from
England and so she explains how she has already made soap, clothes for her family and in response
to a previous letter in which John had asked her if she and other women were making salt peter​ f​ or
the war effort, she responds that even though her daily chores are very time-consuming, she is
considering the elaboration of salt peter to produce gunpowder as she has had access to information
about its elaboration, showing that she’s eager to help and support her husband with the war effort
and how deeply involved she is with the long awaited independence cause.
Abigail and John Adams shared a loving and trustworthy relationship based on mutual respect and
loyalty. John took his wife’s opinion and values into consideration although in the reply of this
particular letter John did not take his wife’s request seriously and mocked her plea for women’s rights
calling her saucy and declaring that men were not really the “masters” of women but were “subject to
the despotism of the petticoat.”. John often sought her advice on political issues as they viewed each
other as intellectual equals and friends (their letters were addressed "Dearest Friend) and so she
expresses her​ s​ trong opinions in​ a s​ traightforward​ ​way with the use of imperatives “​Remember the
ladies​” or calling men naturally tyrants or that women are determined to foment a rebellion if they are
not well cared and deprived of a voice in Legislation whereas they are bound by the laws which are
imposed upon them .
Abigail felt confident and determined about speaking her mind to her husband on any political or
social issues. The freedom expressed in the language of her letters, is the result of the equal
relationship she shared with her husband John and also because she was a privileged self-educated,
middle to upper-class white woman.
The future first lady of America, Abigail Adams, was an intelligent, broad-minded and patriotic
woman and also a major supporter of female education so they could guide and play an important
role as mothers and wives (her husband ​John Adams​ was the 2​nd​ president of the United States and
her son ​John Quincy​ was the 6th president of the United States).
Some of Abigail’s letters and Remember the Ladies in particular, have been considered as a
private first step in the​ ​fight for equal​ r​ ights for women, but as far as I’m concerned it must be taken
into account that she was a woman of her times, a woman in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
century who was primarily concerned with her family but also aware of the inequalities in her society
such as slavery, the married women’s lack of property rights (they had no control over their own
income or land) or a husband’s unlimited and abusive power held over his wife. She was an eager

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 politically minded woman ahead of her time but nevertheless someone who would not expose her
political views in public but kept them at home or in personal letters and she often used the pen name
“Portia​” (the patient wife of the Roman statesman Brutus) in her letters to John so nobody would
know who she was.
​ s human beings in the new code of laws was
Although Abigail’s request for the rights of women​ a
disregarded and ignored and did not change John Adams or his contemporary’s views on the
women’s position in society, it cannot be denied that she undoubtedly challenged and questioned​ t​ he
patriarchal established system during her time and the role of women and equality in society. In my
opinion the term “​feminist​” could not yet be applied to a woman in the late eighteenth century and as
far as I see it, Abigail was presumably not questioning her husband’s authority in their marriage, as
this would have been most unusual in an eighteenth century context, but nevertheless, it can not be
denied that it was uncommon for a woman of her time to discuss or write about political issues so
openly and frankly, even though she kept them to a private sphere. She definitely had progressive
ideas, beliefs and social attitudes for a woman of her time and she inspired future women who
advocated against racial and gender injustice (such as ​Lucretia Mott or Elisabeth Cady Stanton​-
Declaration of Sentiments in Seneca Falls-1848) just as the rebellion Abigail had foreseen in her
letter “Remember the Ladies” that progressively led to the demand for ​women's suffrage​ in the
1840s. It was finally in 1920 that the government of the United States granted women​ ​the right to vote
and eventually legal and social amendments were passed in order to facilitate gender equality.

Bibliography

Online articles
➢ Shingleton, J​. (2018). ​ABIGAIL ADAMS: THE FEMINIST MYTH​.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize from The Concord Review in 2000. Available at:
http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/pdf/2014/04/EPrize%20Adams.pdf​ [Accessed 18 Mar. 2018].

➢ Abigail Adams and “Remember the Ladies​”. (2015). ​The National Humanities
Center-America in Class.​ [online] Available at:
http://americainclass.org/abigail-adams-and-remember-the-ladies/​ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2018].

➢ National Historical Park Massachusetts. (2018). ​Adams National Historical Park.​ [Available
at: ​https://www.nps.gov/adam/learn/historyculture/abigail-adams-1744-1818.htm​ [Accessed 16
Mar. 2018].

Books
➢ Belle Gelles, E. (1995). Portia: The World of Abigail Adams. 2nd ed. Indiana University Press;
Reprint edition (December 22, 1992).Google Books
https://books.google.es/books?id=9w4DpBT3jX4C

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Audiovisual sources
➢ Abigail Adams- The story of Liberty ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdDV3OJ6eUk