Adams’ Letters

Every politician has his trusted advisors. Often these are high ranking officials who have proven their vast political knowledge and proven that they can be trusted to keep their part of government participation on the straight and narrow for their president. However, not every advisor is a politician or someone in business, or even someone who works at all. Some seek the advice of their wives, but few to the degree of Congressman John Adams, who would later be our second president. John Adams and his wife, Abigail had an interesting political relationship. She was truly his closest confidant. When he needed advice, she was his “go-to girl” in every case. Often, Abigail would be at home maintaining the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts while her husband was serving on the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. On March 7, 1777, Continental Congressman John Adams wrote three letters to and received two letters from his wife, Abigail.

The Adams’ correspondence was truly remarkable. Their total letters during his political career numbered 1,160 letters in total, and they covered topics ranging from politics and military strategy to household economy and family health. For many of the years of Adams’ political career their lives were literally lived in letters. Their mutual respect and adoration showed that even in an age when women were unable to vote, there were nonetheless marriages in which wives and husbands were true intellectual and emotional equals, and the marriage between John and Abigail Adams was one of those.

Normally, Congress met in Philadelphia, but in mid-December 1776 Congress decided to move to Baltimore to escape capture by the advancing British. The time in Baltimore was frustrating for the Congress. There were complaints that “the town was exceedingly expensive, and exceedingly dirty, that at times members could make their way to the assembly hall only on horseback, through deep mud.” Throughout the session there was inadequate representation from the various colonies. In those days congressmen came to meetings if they felt they could make it, but excuses for not going were often made too. Even with the shortage of representatives, Samuel Adams declared in the earlier part of the session, “We have done more important business in three weeks than we had done, and I believe should have done, at Philadelphia, in six months.” The congressmen also managed to appoint a committee of five to obtain foreign assistance.

On March 7th, 1777, John drafted his second letter to Abigail. In it he declared that Philadelphia had lost its vibrancy during Congress’ removal to Baltimore. “This City is a dull Place, in Comparason [sic] of what it was. More than one half the Inhabitants have removed to the Country, as it was their Wisdom to do—the Remainder are chiefly Quakers as dull as Beetles. From these neither good is to be expected nor Evil to be apprehended. They are a kind of neutral Tribe, or the Race of the insipids.” While the Adams’ couple did what they had to do to serve their country, I’m sure the years of service were hard on the couple, but never on their marriage. Their love was genuine and forever. Their letters may have been mostly formal and businesslike, but I think that if you read between the lines their letter told so much more about the couple they were.