In eighteenth-century America, distance still made a huge difference. There were no cellphones, no internet, no instant forms of communication. There were, however, letters, which often took weeks or months to arrive. The act of writing a letter was therefore a more deliberative process than composing an email, more like writing a speech than having a chat, more a projection of your deepest thoughts than your immediate impulses.
This distinction between now and then is essential background as we enter their lost world and attempt to grasp the full meaning of the roughly 1,200 letters that John and Abigail Adams exchanged during the founding era. For, in truth, they were writing to us as well as to each other.
Our story begins in June of 1776, when John wrote these words to Abigail: “I have now purchased a Folio Book in the first page of which…I am writing this letter, and intend to write all my letters to you in it, from this time forward.” He urged Abigail to do the same thing, claiming that “I really think that your letters are much better…than mine.” (Many historians have tended to agree with John’s judgment.)
When John wrote these words, he presumed that he and Abigail were crossing the Rubicon together, living through the decisive moment in American history and they had both an opportunity and obligation to record their thoughts for future generations, which is to say us.
On one score John was right. He and Abigail both believed that American independence was inevitable. But, as he already knew, they were not on the same page when it came to the political agenda of an independent America. A letter that Abigail began writing a few months earlier in March made that clear. When John received her letter in early April, he found what he called “my saucy wife” lived up to her reputation.
“And, by the way,” she began, in what has become the most famous letter in the entire Adams correspondence, “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 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.”