Abigail Adams

I am Abigail Adams, wife of one president, mother of another and advisor to both. I was born In Massachusetts in 1744, the daughter of a congregationist minister. I taught myself in the familiarity. History, philosophy, Shakespeare. I had a mind, and I intended to use it. At 17, I met a lawyer named John Adams. We shared books before we shared vows. He was curious, passionate and quick to listen. We married in 1764 and raised five children together when war and duty didn't separate us. While John travelled the colonies in later Europe, I kept the home, managing our farm, our finances and our future. I wrote to him constantly. Letters filled with news, argument, affection and conviction. I warned him to remember the ladies, to write laws that gave women more than obedience and men less than unchecked power. All men would be tyrants if they could, I said, and I meant it. I spoke often of freedom, of abolition, of representation. When John became vice president and then president, I stood beside him, hostess counsellor, sometimes called Mrs. President by those who thought I spoke too much for a woman. Let them think it. John and I were companions in prosperity and woe, bound by affection, sharpened by distance and joined in purpose. When I died, he said, I wish I could lie down beside her, and died too. We had loved deeply, and in that love tempered by principle, sealed by sacrifice, we helped give birth to a republic.