Abigail Adams, in a letter to John Adams:

Question

Abigail Adams, in a letter to John Adams:

"...I long to hear that you have declared an independency-and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.... If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment [incite; instigate] a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation...
Use the passage to answer the question.

How does Abigail Adams use the ideas of the patriots to support her cause?

by insisting that history has always been unfair to women

by claiming that women have the right to rebel if they do not have a voice in government

by comparing the existing British laws with the laws that the patriots feel need to be established

by declaring women to be independent from and having the same rights as men

Answer 1

Abigail Adams uses the ideas of the patriots to support her cause by claiming that women have the right to rebel if they do not have a voice in government. In her letter, she is essentially applying the same arguments the American colonists used against British rule – that there should be no laws governing them without their representation ("no taxation without representation") – to the situation of women. She indicates that if women are not considered and given a voice in the new laws that the patriots will make (in creating a new, independent government), then women, like the colonists, are justified in rebelling against laws that they had no part in shaping. This is a clever use of the revolutionary rhetoric of the time to argue for the rights and representation of women.