“Remember the Ladies”: A Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams (1776)

In a letter to John Adams on March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams warned that the new American legislators should not replicate the injustices of the old political order. “Remember the Ladies,” she wrote, urging that women not be placed “in the unlimited power of the Husbands.”

Adams, Abigail - “Remember the Ladies”: A Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams (1776)
Editor’s Note
P

Paul Meany

Intellectual History Editor

On March 31, 1776, as the American colonies moved toward independence, Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, John Adams, then serving in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In a striking and memorable passage, she urged him to “remember the Ladies” when writing the new laws of the American republic.

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) was born Abigail Smith in Weymouth, Massachusetts into a prominent New England family. Her father, William Smith, was a Congregational minister with an extensive library. Luckily for Abigail, unlike many of her father’s contemporaries, he was a permissive man and allowed Abigail to educate herself through reading. In her youth, she read the works of Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, and John Milton.

While, like many colonist women of the period, she received no formal education, Abigail was widely read and intellectually curious despite the obstacles. In I764, at the age of twenty, Abigail married John Adams—and his library. Abigail began to read Plato, Cato’s Letters authors John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Plutarch, Joseph Priestley, Polybius, Robert Molesworth, Jonathan Swift, Michel De Montaigne, Samuel Pufendorf, and John Locke.

Though Abigail belonged to an elite class of women in colonial society, women in the eighteenth century, even at the top of American society, lived under extensive legal and political constraints. The widely held doctrine of coverture meant that married women had no independent legal identity apart from their husbands. Basic political and economic rights, such as private property rights, legal independence, and political participation, were largely denied to women.

Since women could not vote, hold office, or formally participate in political institutions, the male perspective overwhelmingly dominated political writing. While some women published essays or pamphlets publicly, most female political expression appeared in private letters, poems, or anonymous writings. The correspondence of women like Abigail Adams reveals how women engaged with the political debates of the age despite government excluding them from formal participation.

Abigail Adams was no passive observer of the Revolution. She acted as John Adams’s eyes and ears in Boston while he was away. In a letter to John on March 31, 1776, she warned that the new American legislators should not replicate the injustices of the old political order. “Remember the Ladies,” she wrote, urging that women not be placed “in the unlimited power of the Husbands.” If ignored, she famously warned, women would be “determined to foment a Rebellion.”

Abigail’s language drew on the same political vocabulary circulating widely among revolutionary writers of the time. One of the most influential sources of political ideals in the colonies was Cato’s Letters. Published in the 1720s, they were an extremely popular series of essays that defended liberty and warned of the dangers of arbitrary power.

Though Abigail does not explicitly cite Cato’s Letters (in line with eighteenth-​century writing conventions), she invokes one of the central themes: the danger of arbitrary, unaccountable power. She writes, “Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.” Similarly, Trenchard and Gordon write, “It is nothing strange, that men, who think themselves unaccountable, should act unaccountably, and that all men would be unaccountable if they could.“By invoking the well-​known principle of Whig thought that tyranny is naturally active and preys upon liberty, Abigail Adams framed her appeal for women’s rights within the broader revolutionary critique of arbitrary and unaccountable power.

Abigail’s 1776 “Remember the Ladies” letter blends domestic concerns, political theory, and revolutionary rhetoric. Adams’s appeal illustrates how the language of liberty circulating in 1776 raised questions—about the origins of political authority, the abolition of slavery, and the equality of the sexes—that reached far beyond the immediate struggle against Britain.

Read More
Read Less

Braintree March 31 1776

I wish you would ever write me a Letter half as long as I write you; and tell me if you may where your Fleet are gone? What sort of Defence Virginia can make against our common Enemy? Whether it is so situated as to make an able Defence? Are not the Gentery Lords and the common people vassals, are they not like the uncivilized Natives Brittain represents us to be? I hope their Riffel Men who have shewen themselves very savage and even Blood thirsty; are not a specimen of the Generality of the people.

I am willing to allow the Colony great merrit for having produced a Washington but they have been shamefully duped by a Dunmore.

I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be Eaquelly 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.

Do not you want to see Boston; I am fearfull of the small pox, or I should have been in before this time. I got Mr. Crane to go to our House and see what state it was in. I find it has been occupied by one of the Doctors of a Regiment, very dirty, but no other damage has been done to it. The few things which were left in it are all gone. Cranch has the key which he never deliverd up. I have wrote to him for it and am determined to get it cleand as soon as possible and shut it up. I look upon it a new acquisition of property, a property which one month ago I did not value at a single Shilling, and could with pleasure have seen it in flames.

The Town in General is left in a better state than we expected, more oweing to a percipitate flight than any Regard to the inhabitants, tho some individuals discoverd a sense of honour and justice and have left the rent of the Houses in which they were, for the owners and the furniture unhurt, or if damaged sufficent to make it good.

Others have committed abominable Ravages. The Mansion House of your President is safe and the furniture unhurt whilst both the House and Furniture of the Solisiter General have fallen a prey to their own merciless party. Surely the very Fiends feel a Reverential awe for Virtue and patriotism, whilst they Detest the paricide and traitor.

I feel very differently at the approach of spring to what I did a month ago. We knew not then whether we could plant or sow with safety, whether when we had toild we could reap the fruits of our own industery, whether we could rest in our own Cottages, or whether we should not be driven from the sea coasts to seek shelter in the wilderness, but now we feel as if we might sit under our own vine and eat the good of the land.

I feel a gaieti de Coar to which before I was a stranger. I think the Sun looks brighter, the Birds sing more melodiously, and Nature puts on a more chearfull countanance. We feel a temporary peace, and the poor fugitives are returning to their deserted habitations.

Tho we felicitate ourselves, we sympathize with those who are trembling least the Lot of Boston should be theirs. But they cannot be in similar circumstances unless pusilanimity and cowardise should take possession of them. They have time and warning given them to see the Evil and shun it.—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. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, 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 immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.

April 5

Not having an opportunity of sending this I shall add a few lines more; tho not with a heart so gay. I have been attending the sick chamber of our Neighbour Trot whose affliction I most sensibly feel but cannot discribe, striped of two lovely children in one week. Gorge the Eldest died on wedensday and Billy the youngest on fryday, with the Canker fever, a terible disorder so much like the thr[o]at distemper, that it differs but little from it. Betsy Cranch has been very bad, but upon the recovery. Becky Peck they do not expect will live out the day. Many grown person[s] are now sick with it, in this [street?] 5. It rages much in other Towns. The Mumps too are very frequent. Isaac is now confined with it. Our own little flock are yet well. My Heart trembles with anxiety for them. God preserve them.

I want to hear much oftener from you than I do. March 8 was the last date of any that I have yet had.—You inquire of whether I am making Salt peter. I have not yet attempted it, but after Soap making believe I shall make the experiment. I find as much as I can do to manufacture cloathing for my family which would else be Naked. I know of but one person in this part of the Town who has made any, that is Mr. Tertias Bass as he is calld who has got very near an hundred weight which has been found to be very good. I have heard of some others in the other parishes. Mr. Reed of Weymouth has been applied to, to go to Andover to the mills which are now at work, and has gone. I have lately seen a small Manuscrip de[s]cribing the proportions for the various sorts of powder, fit for cannon, small arms and pistols. If it would be of any Service your way I will get it transcribed and send it to you.—Every one of your Friend[s] send their Regards, and all the little ones. Your Brothers youngest child lies bad with convulsion fitts. Adieu. I need not say how much I am Your ever faithfull Friend.