Founding America (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Jack N. Rakove [44]
Replying from Philadelphia two weeks later, John tried to humor his wife out of her unreasonable request. This response disappointed Abigail, as she let another correspondent, the writer Mercy Otis Warren, know. But John Adams took his wife’s point more seriously than he was prepared to let her know. Some weeks later, he answered letters from James Sullivan, a Massachusetts lawyer, with a thoughtful discussion of whether the new governments the Americans were creating should give the vote to women to enlarge the suf frage. Here Adams conceded that many women had just as good judgment as men. If they were to be denied the vote now, as he assumed they would, it was not because they were incapable of acting intelligently, but rather because this was no time to engage in a controversial political experiment.
—Abigail Adams—
LETTER TO JOHN ADAMS
MARCH 31, 1776
(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.5
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 President6 is safe and the furniture unhurt whilst both the House and Furniture of the Solisiter General7 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