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Introduction

Written in response to Abigail’s celebrated March 31 letter, this reply shows John Adams engaging her arguments with wit while acknowledging the broader tensions surrounding authority and liberty. The letter answers directly to Abigail’s appeal and reflects the mixture of affection, humor, and political realism that characterized their exchange.

Letter Text

As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere. That children and apprentices were disobedient, that schools and colleges were grown turbulent, that Indians slighted their guardians and negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented. I should like to hear what is to be done by way of recompense to them.

Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are obliged to go fair and softly, and in practice you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight.

HAL 1776 Commentary

John Adams’s response tempers Abigail’s bold appeal with humor and irony, yet it does not dismiss the substance of her argument. His playful tone masks an acknowledgment of shifting social dynamics brought about by the Revolution itself. Within the correspondence, this exchange demonstrates how political upheaval invited challenges not only to imperial authority, but also to assumptions governing family and gender relations.

Source

Founders Online, National Archives.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1776.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0093