The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 69any one of the two last.” Adams’s skepticism and, in particular, his sense that in time
the purest republic becomes tainted by the hereditary principle or, at least, the
evolution of a ruling class, led him to think less well of the American future than
Jefferson did. Part of this stemmed from a patrician distrust of the people. Whatever
its sources, it prompted Adams to meet Jefferson’s optimism with irony. “Many
hundred years must roll away before We shall be corrupted,” he declared sarcasti-
cally. “Our pure, virtuous, public spirited federative Republick will last for ever,
govern the Globe and introduce the perfection of Man.”Alternative voices of Revolution
The letters between Adams and Jefferson reveal two contrary visions of the new
American republic and its fate. So, in a different way, do the letters that passed
between John Adams and his wife Abigail. Inevitably, perhaps, the tone is more
intimate, even teasing. But Abigail Adams (1744–1818) raises, consistently, the seri-
ous issue of freedom and equality for women. “I long to hear that you have declared
an independency,” she wrote to her husband in 1776, “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.” Abigail Adams urged John Adams and his colleagues,
as they prepared the new laws of the nation, to be “more generous and favourable”
to women than their “ancestors” had been. “Do not put such unlimited power into
the hands of the Husbands,” she wrote. “Remember all Men would be tyrants if
they could.” If “persistent care and attention” were not taken to observe the rights
of women, Abigail Adams warned, “we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and
will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or
Representation.” The tone was playful, but it made adroit and serious use of one of
the primary beliefs of the leaders of the Revolution: that, as Jefferson put it in his
Notes, “laws to be just, must give a reciprocation of rights ... without this, they are
mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded on force.” Unfortunately, all Abigail
Adams received in response was the playful claim from John that he, and all hus-
bands, “have only the Name of Masters.” All men, he insisted, were “completely
subject” “to the Despotism of the Petticoat.”
Adams wrote to his wife, adding gentle insult to injury, that he could not choose
but laugh at her “extraordinary Code of Laws.” “We have been told that our Struggle
has loosened the bands of Government everywhere,” he explained: “that Children
and Apprentices were disobedient – that schools and Colledges were grown turbu-
lent – that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their
Masters.” Now, he added, what she wrote to him made him aware that “another Tribe
more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented” amid the
revolutionary turmoil of 1776. The remark was clearly intended to put Abigail
Adams down, however playfully, to dismiss her claims for the natural rights of
women by associating women with other, supposedly undeserving groups. But,
inadvertently, it raised a serious and central point. “All men are created equal,” the
Declaration of Independence announced. That explicitly excluded women.GGray_c01.indd 69ray_c 01 .indd 69 8 8/1/2011 7:54:56 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 56 AM