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Washington Post
15 hours ago
- General
- Washington Post
John and Abigail Adams knew all-out war with Britain was inevitable
Joseph J. Ellis is the author, most recently, of 'The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents.' On June 2, 1775, barely six weeks after British troops and colonial militias had clashed at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail. He was in Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress had recently convened, and she had reported to him about more recent skirmishing around Boston Harbor. He asked whether she had been frightened, and added: 'Poor Bostonians! My Heart Bleeds for them day and Night' — then reported encouraging signs of militancy stirring in Philadelphia, even if many in the Continental Congress resisted it. John's letters to Abigail and others in the spring of 1775 conveyed his sense that all-out war with Britain was inevitable. 'I am myself as fond of Reconciliation … as any Man,' he wrote to a relative on June 10, but 'the Cancer is too deeply rooted, and too far spread to be cured by any thing short of cutting it out entire.' A week later, the hundreds of bodies strewn on Bunker Hill would seem to confirm John's prescient but unpopular assessment. Abigail needed no reminding of her husband's impatience with his more cautious critics in Philadelphia, who were, as he would put it months later, still 'waiting … for a Messiah that will never come.' She tried to calm him down, but she did not try to change his mind, because she also had come to the conclusion that the necessity of waging war for American independence was a foregone conclusion. 'We now expect our Sea coasts ravaged,' she wrote on June 16. 'Courage I know we have in abundance … but powder — where shall we get a sufficient supply?' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement We know so much about the thinking of John and Abigail Adams at this crucial time because of the letters they exchanged in 1775 and 1776, letters they would make a conscious effort to preserve. 'I have now purchased a Folio Book,' John wrote from Philadelphia at one point, 'and intend to write all my Letters to you in it from this Time forward.' He urged Abigail to make copies of hers, too: 'I really think that your Letters are much better worth preserving than mine.' Most historians have tended to agree with John's assessment, and Abigail herself acknowledged the candor that she brought to their exchanges. 'My pen is always freer than my tongue,' she noted. 'I have wrote many things to you that I suppose I could never have talk'd.' The Adams team was crossing a Rubicon together. They both realized that they were living through a decisive moment in American history. They both agreed that history was headed toward American independence. And they both believed that they had an obligation to record their thoughts, memories and even their emotional uncertainties for future generations. They were not just writing letters to each other; they were writing to posterity, which is to say, us. As a result, we know more about their thoughts and feelings than any other prominent couple in America during that era. What John and Abigail Adams wanted us to know was that the American Revolution was not just a great political crisis. It was also a personal crisis for their family. For example, John worried that his wholesale commitment to what he called The Cause rendered him an absent father at the very time their three sons and daughter needed him the most. He blamed himself when two of the sons later led promiscuous and drug- or alcohol-driven lives. Abigail had no plausible reason to think herself a failure as a mother, but she worried about being a failure as a wife, for she was not at John's side in Philadelphia. She could only comfort and reassure him from afar. As she put it: 'When he is wounded, I bleed.' Finally, they both doubted their capacity to convey the mental and emotional implications of their decision to commit to American independence at a time when the political prospects for victory over the dominant military and economic power on the planet were, at best, highly problematic. They were like poker players who were all-in before knowing what cards they had been dealt. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Because we know the outcome, we cannot comprehend what it felt like to devote, as Thomas Jefferson later put it, 'our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor,' to a glorious but unlikely cause. We cannot share their uncertainty. Their letters provide only a glimpse of their conviction and bravado, which is the way they wanted it. If Britain won the war, their letters were unlikely ever to be seen anyway. But just because we know where history was headed — that it would take 15 months after Lexington and Concord for the American colonies to declare independence — it in no way diminishes the fascination of the Adamses' correspondence during that period. The letters show us their frustrations with and their criticisms of their more hesitant colleagues ('The Fidgets, the Whims, the Caprice, the Vanity, the Superstition, the Irritability of some of us,' John wrote in July 1775), and the efforts by John to convince himself and then Abigail that patience was their only option. Although the couple had already crossed a Rubicon, they would have to wait on the other side for a majority of their fellow Americans to join them.
Epoch Times
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
A Curricular Solution to the Crisis of Civic Illiteracy
Commentary John and Abigail Adams envisioned an America with a school in every neighborhood and a well-informed citizenry that was adept in languages, literature, and music, as well as science, history, and religion. Their vision was practical until the ages recast it, little by little. Then sometime between Joseph McCarthy and Joan Baez, the status quo of the educational system came undone. Students who had been accustomed to a traditional 50/50 split between the humanities and the sciences were capsized academically by the surprise Sputnik launch in 1957. The U.S.'s race to space sent higher education into a tizzy, becoming fixated on improving science education above all. In the succeeding seven decades, resources have consistently risen for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), which has been to our benefit. But this has come at an unnecessary cost: the humanities have been downplayed, devalued, and dodged. That uneven ratio has bestowed an unfortunate historic illiteracy on three generations. Most people, for example, do not know the philosophical roots of the Declaration of Independence, their rights as laid out in the Constitution, or the civic virtues their teachers should have taught them. For these three reasons, many Americans do not vote in local, state, or national elections. Even amid this crisis of civic illiteracy, only about 18 percent of colleges and universities nationwide Related Stories 4/13/2025 3/19/2025 According to That gap in Columbia's history major requirements is deeply troubling, though it at least has a Contemporary Civilization requirement in its signature core curriculum for undergraduates that addresses founding documents and key concepts of United States government. Meanwhile, at Colgate University, which has no such option in its general education requirements, 'Students choose one of two pathways to graduate with a B.A. in history. Both require nine courses. The Field of Focus (FoF) Pathway requires one history workshop, seven electives….. The FoF Pathway allows students to devise individualized, intellectually coherent specializations. Possible fields of focus include environmental history, gender and sexuality, and race and racism.' This reorientation away from the study of American history—even as a point of reference for students who are focusing their studies on other parts of the world—is now the norm in the American academy. In the 2020–21 academic year, 18 of the top 25 public universities did not have a wide-ranging American history requirement for students seeking a B.A. in history in the major or core curriculum, nor did 24 of the 25 best national schools. Even the legendary linchpins of the liberal arts—Amherst, Swarthmore, Vassar, Smith, Williams, and Pomona—fared poorly: 21 out of 25 colleges examined did not have an American history requirement. The consequences of forgoing the study of American history have a powerful effect on the population. Much of what is not learned—or stays uncorrected—turns into the misinformation that is so damaging in a free and democratic society. When 8th graders were In 2015, 10 percent of college graduates In 2019, ACTA In 2024, an ACTA survey of college students showed that fewer than half identified ideas like 'free markets' and 'rule of law' as core principles of American civic life. The survey also found that 60 percent of American college students failed to identify term lengths for members of Congress. A shocking 68 percent did not know that Congress is the branch that holds the power to declare war. Seventy-one percent did not know when 18-year-olds gained the right to vote. All of these results were based on multiple-choice questions. All the respondents had to do was select the correct option out of four possibilities. The late Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2001 to 2009, admonished, 'Unlike a monarchy, a democracy is not automatically self-perpetuating. History and values have to be renewed from generation to generation.' Our failure to educate future citizens for informed civic participation compromises the country. Institutions need to take ACTA's findings to heart and, starting with their requirements for the history major, embrace their obligation to address the crisis in civic education. From Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Boston Globe
13-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Coverture is a dirty word for women and their rights
Advertisement Abigail Adams alluded to coverture in her famous Americans should know about coverture not just to understand the obstacles 18th-century women faced or the limits of 'revolution' in 1776, but also because coverture has never been fully abolished in this country. Passing an Equal Rights Amendment would reverse this revolutionary-era inequality. Wouldn't that be a fitting act to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution? Advertisement Catherine Allgor Cambridge The writer is president emerita of the Massachusetts Historical Society and a visiting scholar of history at Tufts University.
