Picture, left:  Abigail Smith Adams, the most erudite of American First Ladies, in her senectitude. (The Adams family tree is here.)
     Adams was an advocate of married women's property rights and more opportunities for women, particularly in the field of education. Women, she believed, should not submit to laws not made in their interest, nor should they be content with the simple role of being companions to their husbands. They should educate themselves and thus be recognized for their intellectual capabilities, so they could guide and influence the lives of their children and husbands. She is known for her March 1776 letter to John and the Continental Congress, requesting that they, "...remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable 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."
     Adams held that slavery was evil and a threat to the American democratic experiment. A letter written by her on March 31, 1776, explained that she doubted most of the Virginians had such "passion for Liberty" as they claimed they did, since they "deprive[d] their fellow Creatures" of freedom.
     A notable incident regarding this happened in Philadelphia in 1791, where a free black youth came to her house asking to be taught how to write. Subsequently, she placed the boy in a local evening school, though not without objections from a neighbor. Adams responded that he was "a Freeman as much as any of the young Men and merely because his Face is Black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood? … I have not thought it any disgrace to my self to take him into my parlor and teach him both to read and write."
     She also wrote,  "I acknowledge myself a unitarian – Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father . . .  There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three."  She also asked Louisa Adams in a letter dated January 3, 1818, "When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?"
     Her last words were to her husband, "Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long."
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW 
 
Hour One
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block A: Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs (1 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block B: Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs (2 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs (3 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs (4 of 4)
Hour Two
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block A: When Britain Burned the White House: The 1814 Invasion of Washington, by Peter Snow  (1 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: When Britain Burned the White House: The 1814 Invasion of Washington, by Peter Snow  (2 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block C: When Britain Burned the White House: The 1814 Invasion of Washington, by Peter Snow  (3 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block D: When Britain Burned the White House: The 1814 Invasion of Washington, by Peter Snow  (4 of 4)
Hour Three
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block A: The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817,  by Myron Magnet  (1 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817,  by Myron Magnet  (2 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817,  by Myron Magnet  (3 of 4)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817,  by Myron Magnet  (4 of 4)
Hour Four
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block A: Edward Bancroft: Scientist, Author, Spy, by Thomas J. Schaeper  (1 of 2)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block B: Edward Bancroft: Scientist, Author, Spy, by Thomas J. Schaeper  (2 of 2)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World, by Maya Jasanoff  (1 of 2)
Saturday  14 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World, by Maya Jasanoff  (2 of 2)
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