Why do we love Abigail?
She was the first Second Lady, the second First Lady, and the mother of the
sixth President. She raised her children and ran the farm while her husband
was away raising a revolution and running a nation. She was an ambassador's
wife to the courts of Paris and Great Britain who brought official style to
the young country and helped set the tone for the conduct of official
Washington, and hung her laundry in the East Room of the uncompleted White
House in the swampy wilderness of the new capital. She was a whip-smart,
home-educated advocate for the establishment of a federal government, the
abolition of slavery, and the rights of women. She was a prolific letter
writer who spoke plainly and brilliantly to her husband, while he was
helping draft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, of the
importance of including women in the establishment of the new nation.
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Biography:
Born - November 11, 1744
Weymouth, Mass.
Died - October 28, 1818
Quincy, Mass.
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In her own words -- On Declaring Independence:
"I long to hear that you have declared an independency—and by the way in
the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I
would 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 particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined
to foment a Rebellion, 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
imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our
happiness." |
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