montmarayroyal:

ploddingthroughthepresidents:

It’s Abigail Adams’s birthday, and I wish we’d done more to remember the ladies.

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.

-Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776

My favorite quote by her: “I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.“