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
Which one is right? ?
In the passage provided from Abigail Adams's letter to John Adams, she is using the ideas of the patriots to support her cause mainly:
by claiming that women have the right to rebel if they do not have a voice in government
Abigail Adams cleverly uses the revolutionary rhetoric of the time, which emphasized the principles of freedom and representation in government, to advocate for the rights of women. She implies that if women are not considered in the new laws and are not given a voice or representation, they have the same cause to rebel as the colonists did against British rule. Her argument parallels the colonists' insistence on "no taxation without representation" and suggests that women could similarly reject laws that they had no hand in creating. This approach is a direct appeal using the patriots' own logic to argue for gender equality in legal matters.