Module 4: "Don't Forget the Ladies"

The United States Constitution was built to ensure that a Government as that in England would never be present. The Constitution set out in a post-revolutionary society to protect and define the U.S However, the Constitution did not represent everyone. “Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, and men without property. And so the Constitution did not reflect the interest of those groups,” (Zinn page 69).

One of these groups had an advocate from the very beginning. I found the letter between husband and wife Abigail and John Adams very interesting in telling a story from 1776 of inequality and discontent not only in a nation but also in the household.

Abigail Adams wrote her husband John Adams on the discrimination that is relevant to women in the Constitution. She asked of her husband to “remember the ladies” and provide rights to women under that of their husbands. In the letter address on March 31, 1776 she writes, “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,” (Abigail and John

Adams, letters 1776).

John Adams would write back to her, and it seems as if he has very little faith in the constitution at the time and is almost laughing writing his wife back. Adams writes to his wife, “…we know better than to repeal our Masculine systems. Altho they are in full Force, you know they are little more than Theory,” (Abigail and John Adams, letters 1776). I think that he is trying to explain to Abigail that if they were to give such freedoms to women that slaves, and indentured servants would also come banging down the door for a place in the Constitution. In Abigail’s letter she seems to be a very independent minded women. In her letter, in response to John’s letter, she is not laughing and finds and finds his response offensive. Abigail writes in her letter addressed on May 7, 1776 “I can not say that 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,” (Abigail and John Adams, letters 1776). It has been and will be citizens like Abigail Adams that have lead to change in this country and will continually lead to change.

Works Cited

Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. Abridged Teaching Edition. New York, NY: The New Press, 2003. Print.

Abigail and John Adams, letters 1776, in L. H. Butterfield et al., eds., The Book of Abigail and John (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 120-22, 127 reprinted in Mary Beth Norton, Major Problems in American Women's History (Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1989), p. 83-84.