I'm Mary Catherine. I'm celebrating American 250 by reading primary documents written for or by the

founders for as many of the days of the year as I can. Thank you for joining me for this mini

episode of getting hammered. Today we have a really famous letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams,

and why do we hear from them all the time? One, they're prolific, two, they're great. And in this case,

she is speaking up for women's rights in the colonies,

and she's pretty forceful about it as she gives some input to John about what he should be doing

as they craft the Constitution. I'm going to let her speak for herself because that's what she wants,

and she does it ably. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 71, 1776.

Braintree, Massachusetts.

I wish you would ever write me a letter half as long as I write you, and tell me, if you

may, where your fleet are gone.

What sort of defense Virginia can make against our common enemy, whether it is so situated

as to make an able defense?

Are not the gentry lords and the common people vassals? Are they not like the uncivilized Native Britain represents

us to be? I hope their riflemen who have shown themselves very savage and even bloodthirsty are not a

specimen of the generality of the people. I am willing to allow the colony great merit for having

produced a Washington, but they have been shamefully duped by Dunmore. Dunmore was the royal governor of Virginia, who fled the colony out to a British naval ship and then induced many enslaved people to come fight on his behalf and sort of outmaneuvered Virginians in the colonies. I have sometimes been ready to think that

the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed

to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs. Of this, I am certain that it is not founded upon

that generous and Christian principle of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us.

A pretty pointed critique

of slaveholders in Virginia. Do not you want to see Boston? I am fearful of the smallpox,

...