This text comes from our book, The American Venture.
It may seem that it was men alone who took part in the revolution and in governing the colonies and the new United States during that struggle. Of course, only men made up Congress; men alone led the armies that fought the British for American independence. And though we have some examples of women who fought alongside their husbands for the cause of independence (and some who disguised themselves as men to do so), it was men who mostly filled the ranks of the patriot and loyalist regiments. Women, however, in many ways helped the patriot cause by raising money for soldiers, managing the businesses and farms their soldier husbands left behind for the war, and acting as spies and informants for both sides. Women bore many of the burdens that either the loyalist or the patriot cause thrust upon them.
And women helped shape the new American government. Wives, mothers, and daughters discussed the new government and its constitution with their menfolk. Indeed, many of the patriot leaders had relationships of mutual affection and respect with their wives, which led them to respect their wives’ opinions.
One such couple was John and Abigail Adams. Both educated and intelligent, John and Abigail discussed political matters in conversation and by letter, leaving behind an extensive correspondence between them. Together, they envisioned a classical form of government, directed by a noble spirit that insisted on liberty and justice for all. (For Abigail, this meant giving some political power to women—an idea that John rejected.) Although Abigail was never present at the discussions on adopting a new constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation, she influenced the delegates through her husband, John.
Mercy Otis Warren, of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was another important woman of the period. She was not only the sister of an early revolutionary leader, James Otis, but the wife of the Massachusetts legislator, James Warren, the mother of his five children, and a poet, playwright, and historian. It was in Mercy Warren’s Boston home (where she hosted political protest meetings) that Sam Adams and his allies organized the Committees of Correspondence. After the war, in 1788, she published a book, Observations on the New Constitution, in which she opposed the constitution that would be proposed to replace the Articles of Confederation because it gave too much power to the central government.
Mercy Warren was a friend of John and Abigail Adams until, in 1805, she published a three-volume history of the revolution in which she criticized John Adams. It was not until 1812 that Mercy Warren reestablished her friendship with the Adamses. Mercy Otis Warren died in 1814, at the age of 86.
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