Abigail Adams

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Abigail Adams stood as a witness to the crucial political events that resulted in the formulation of the nation's early political and legal history; however, her status as a woman during time and her intellectual and personal capacity is interesting in its own right, outside of her marital connections. The author points out that, unlike the relatively singular lives of Washington or Jefferson, the Adams emerged as a political dynasty as well as a political influence in the young nation's development. The paper states that Abigail Adams' letters to her husband lay testimony to the fact that rather than being complaint, during the immediate antebellum period, the ideological struggles over slavery and women's rights were woven into the historical fabric of the founding nation.

From the Paper:

"Adams' failure to exhort her husband and to use her political influence to achieve her objectives highlights the contradictions of this early period of American history. It has been commented that the more simply articulated ideals of the Declaration of Independence eventually were diluted by the political necessities of constructing a Constitution amenable to all of the states, and to the maintenance of the aristocratic, land-owning class that the Founding Father came from. The new nation was to be governed by the Thomas Jefferson's of the world, not the Thomas Paines, and to maintain a delicate equilibrium between South and North; the existence of slavery was tolerated via the "three-fourths compromise." Similarly, women's rights were also compromised and bracketed for later reference, to be resolved by future generations. Certain contradictions of American free governance were put aside for later generations to wrangle with, rather than to become a part of the difficult struggles of making America into a new nation."

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