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Bober, Natalie. Abigail Adams Witness To a Revolution. Aladdin Paperbacks 1995.

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#1- 1744 November 11th-Abigail Smith is born

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#1- 1744 November 11th-Abigail Smith is born

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Abigail Smith was born november 11th, 1744. Her parents were Elizabeth Quincy Smith and William Smith and she was born in the seaport town of Weymouth Massachusetts.

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In 1959 Abigail Smith meets John Adams through Richard Cranch. John Adams was a lawyer at that time.

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#3 - John Adams begins "dating" Abigail Smith

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#3 - John Adams begins "dating" Abigail Smith

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In 1761 John Smith begins courtship with Abigail Smith. John Adams was 26 and Abigail Adams was 17.

Quote 1: "John increasingly found "business" taking him the four miles to Weymouth. As his visits became more and more frequent, Abigail slowly began to find something strangely attractive about him."

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Abigail Adams was one of only two women to have been both wife and mother to two U.S. presidents (the other being Barbara Bush). Often separated from her husband due to his political work, the self-educated Abigail oversaw the family's household and largely raised their four children on her own, all the while maintaining a lively lifelong correspondence with her husband on the political issues of the day. She was also famous for her early advocacy of several divisive causes, including women's rights, female education and the abolition of slavery.

Abigail Adams: Early Life

Born in 1744, Abigail Smith grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts, a village some 12 miles from Boston. Her father, William Smith, was minister of the First Congregational Church there, and also made a living as a farmer.

He and his wife, Elizabeth Quincy Smith, both belonged to distinguished families in New England. Elizabeth's father, John Quincy, was active in the colonial government and served as Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly for 40 years, and his career in public service greatly influenced his granddaughter.

Educated at home, Abigail read widely from the family library. When she was just 11, she and her sisters began receiving tutoring from Richard Cranch, a transplant from England who later married Abigail's elder sister, Mary.

A friend of Cranch's, a young lawyer named John Adams, met 17-year-old Abigail and fell in love. After a long engagement that her parents insisted on, they married on October 24, 1764, when Abigail was 19 and John was 28.

Abigail Adams' Children

Just nine months after their marriage, Abigail gave birth to the couple's first child, Abigail (called Nabby). She would have six children in all; four lived to adulthood, including Nabby Adams, John Quincy Adams (born 1767), Charles Adams (born 1770) and Thomas Adams (born 1772).

In 1774, as the tensions between the 13 colonies and Great Britain threatened to burst into violence, John Adams headed to Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. He and Abigail began writing regularly to each other during this period, beginning what would become a voluminous and historic correspondence.

ABIGAIL ADAMS Quotes: Remember the Ladies

Abigail herself passionately supported independence, and famously argued that it should be applied to women as well as men. During the Second Continental Congress, as John Adams and his fellow delegates debated the question of formally declaring independence from Great Britain, Abigail wrote to her husband from their home in Braintree, Massachusetts, on March 31, 1776:

"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 favourable to them than your ancestors ... Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no Voice, or Representation."

Though her husband replied somewhat jokingly to her appeal-expressing fear of the "Despotism of the Petticoat"-Abigail later pushed back, making it clear that she was serious about the implications that liberty from the British had for the status of women in a future independent republic.

She also vigorously supported education for women, writing to John in 1778 that "you need not be told how much female education is neglected, nor how fashionable it has been to ridicule female learning."

Abigail Adams, First Lady

In the years after the Revolutionary War, John Adams served as the U.S. minister to France and then England. Abigail remained at home at first, keeping her husband well informed about domestic affairs in her letters.

She joined him in Europe in 1784, and they remained abroad for five more years, returning home in 1789 so John could assume the vice presidency under George Washington. Over the next decade, Abigail divided her time between the U.S. capital (first New York and then Philadelphia) and Braintree, where she managed the family farm.

In 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson stepped down amid serious fissures between the Federalists and anti-Federalists (known as Jeffersonians) in Washington's cabinet. When Washington announced his intention to retire in 1796, John Adams emerged as the leading candidate on the Federalist side, with Jefferson as his main opponent.

Abigail, like her husband, had considered Jefferson a good friend, and regularly written letters to him, but their correspondence stopped once he and John Adams began competing against each other for the nation's highest office.

As first lady, Abigail maintained and voiced strong opinions about the political issues and debates of the day, including the Federalist vs. anti-Federalist struggle. She wrote at the time of her struggles to keep herself in check: "I have been so used to freedom of sentiment that I know not how to place so many guards about me, as will be indispensable, to look at every word before I utter it, and to impose a silence upon myself, when I long to talk."

Abigail spent much of her husband's time in office at home in Massachusetts, but in 1800 she moved with him into the new presidential mansion in Washington, D.C., becoming the first first lady to live in the White House.

She famously disagreed with her husband during the XYZ Affair, with Abigail thinking war should be declared against France. Abigail and John Adams did agree on the Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798, as Abigail saw The Sedition Act banning malicious anti-government writings as serving justice to those who published lies about her husband.

Retiring From Public Life

During the bitterly contested 1800 presidential election, the Jeffersonian press attacked Abigail as being too outspoken and imperious. One opponent, Albert Gallatin, memorably wrote that "She is Mrs. President, not of the United States but of a faction...It is not right."

After Adams lost to Jefferson, Abigail wrote to her son that she had "few regrets" about retiring from public life. "At my age, and with my bodily infirmities, I shall be happier at Quincy [Massachusetts]."

Their son Charles, who had struggled with alcohol abuse, died a few days before the election, which hit both Adamses harder than the loss of the presidency.

Legacy of Abigail Adams

In retirement, Abigail maintained a brisk correspondence, including a renewed relationship with Jefferson (with whom John Adams would exchange letters until they both died on the same day: July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence).

She and John saw their son John Quincy's political career prosper, including a diplomatic post in London and his appointment as secretary of state under James Madison in 1817. Unlike John, Abigail would not live to see John Quincy Adams elected as the nation's sixth president in 1826. She died at home in Quincy in October 1818, at the age of 73 of Typhoid fever.

Abigail Adams refused during her lifetime to allow her correspondence to be published, judging a woman's letters to be a private matter. But in 1848, her grandson Charles Frances Adams (John Quincy's youngest son) arranged the publication of her first volume of letters, preserving forever her unique experience and perspective on American life and democracy.

Sources

Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters (Ballantine Books, 2014).

First Lady Biography: Abigail Adams, National First Ladies' Library.

Abigail Smith Adams, National Women's History Museum.

The Adams Children, PBS: American Experience.

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Abigail Adams was one of only two women to have been both wife and mother to two U.S. presidents (the other being Barbara Bush). Often separated from her husband due to his political work, the self-educated Abigail oversaw the family's household and largely raised their four children on her own, all the while maintaining a lively lifelong correspondence with her husband on the political issues of the day.

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On October 25, 1764 Abigail Smith married John Adams. She was almost 20 and he was 29. They said their vows in the Weymouth Parsonage and Abigail Smith took the last name Adams.

Quote 2: "Together, Mr. and Mrs. John Adams waved to the guests gathered in the doorway to see them off, then rode down the familer winding road toward Braintree and their new home."

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On March 22nd, 1765, The Stamp Act was passed

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https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/stamp-act

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The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source.

Arguing that only their own representative assemblies could tax them, the colonists insisted that the act was unconstitutional, and they resorted to mob violence to intimidate stamp collectors into resigning. Parliament passed the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765 and repealed it in 1766, but issued a Declaratory Act at the same time to reaffirm its authority to pass any colonial legislation it saw fit. The issues of taxation and representation raised by the Stamp Act strained relations with the colonies to the point that, 10 years later, the colonists rose in armed rebellion against the British.

Why The Stamp Act Was Passed

British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to help replenish their finances after the costly Seven Years' War with France. Part of the revenue from the Stamp Act would be used to maintain several regiments of British soldiers in North America to maintain peace between Native Americans and the colonists. Moreover, since colonial juries had proven notoriously reluctant to find smugglers guilty of their crimes, violators of the Stamp Act could be tried and convicted without juries in the vice-admiralty courts.

Raising Revenue

The Seven Years' War (1756-63) ended the long rivalry between France and Britain for control of North America, leaving Britain in possession of Canada and France without a footing on the continent. Victory in the war, however, had saddled the British Empire with a tremendous debt. Since the war benefited the American colonists (who had suffered 80 years of intermittent warfare with their French neighbors) as much as anyone else in the British Empire, the British government decided that those colonists should shoulder part of the war's cost.

Britain had long regulated colonial trade through a system of restrictions and duties on imports and exports. In the first half of the 18th century, however, British enforcement of this system had been lax. Starting with the Sugar Act of 1764, which imposed new duties on sugar and other goods, the British government began to tighten its reins on the colonies. Shortly thereafter, George Grenville (1712-70), the British first lord of the treasury and prime minister, proposed the Stamp Act; Parliament passed the act without debate in 1765.

Stamp Act opponent Patrick Henry is known for his "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech, delivered before a meeting of Virginia's colonial leaders in 1775 in an effort to mobilize a militia against a possible attack by the British. He later served as Virginia's governor (1776-79, 1784-86).

Instead of levying a duty on trade goods, the Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonists. Specifically, the act required that, starting in the fall of 1765, legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors who would collect the tax in exchange for the stamp. The law applied to wills, deeds, newspapers, pamphlets and even playing cards and dice.

The Roots of Colonial Resistance

Coming in the midst of economic hardship in the colonies, the Stamp Act aroused vehement resistance. Although most colonists continued to accept Parliament's authority to regulate their trade, they insisted that only their representative assemblies could levy direct, internal taxes, such as the one imposed by the Stamp Act. They rejected the British government's argument that all British subjects enjoyed virtual representation in Parliament, even if they could not vote for members of Parliament.

The colonists also took exception with the provision denying offenders trials by jury. A vocal minority hinted at dark designs behind the Stamp Act. These radical voices warned that the tax was part of a gradual plot to deprive the colonists of their freedoms and to enslave them beneath a tyrannical regime. Playing off traditional fears of peacetime armies, they wondered aloud why Parliament saw fit to garrison troops in North America only after the threat from the French had been removed. These concerns provided an ideological basis that intensified colonial resistance.

Colonists React to the Stamp Act

Parliament pushed forward with the Stamp Act in spite of the colonists' objections. Colonial resistance to the act mounted slowly at first, but gained momentum as the planned date of its implementation drew near. In Virginia, Patrick Henry (1736-99), whose fiery orations against British tyranny would soon make him famous, submitted a series of resolutions to his colony's assembly, the House of Burgesses. These resolutions denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies and called on the colonists to resist the Stamp Act.

Newspapers throughout the colonies reprinted the resolutions, spreading their radical message to a broad audience. The resolutions provided the tenor for the proclamations of the Stamp Act Congress, an extralegal convention composed of delegates from nine colonies that met in October 1765. The Stamp Act Congress wrote petitions to the king affirming both their loyalty and the conviction that only the colonial assemblies had the constitutional authority to tax the colonists.

While the Congress and the colonial assemblies passed resolutions and issued petitions against the Stamp Act, the colonists took matters into their own hands. The most famous popular resistance took place in Boston, where opponents of the Stamp Act, calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, enlisted the rabble of Boston in opposition to the new law. This mob paraded through the streets with an effigy of Andrew Oliver, Boston's stamp distributor, which they hanged from the Liberty Tree and beheaded before ransacking Oliver's home. Oliver agreed to resign his commission as stamp distributor.

Similar events transpired in other colonial towns, as crowds mobbed the stamp distributors and threatened their physical well-being and their property. By the beginning of 1766, most of the stamp distributors had resigned their commissions, many of them under duress. Mobs in seaport towns turned away ships carrying the stamp papers from England without allowing them to discharge their cargoes. Determined colonial resistance made it impossible for the British government to bring the Stamp Act into effect. In 1766, Parliament repealed it.

The Stamp Act's Legacy

The end of the Stamp Act did not end Parliament's conviction that it had the authority to impose taxes on the colonists. The British government coupled the repeal of the Stamp Act with the Declaratory Act, a reaffirmation of its power to pass any laws over the colonists that it saw fit. However, the colonists held firm to their view that Parliament could not tax them. The issues raised by the Stamp Act festered for 10 years before giving rise to the Revolutionary War and, ultimately, American independence.

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Stamp Act - Fact, Reaction & Legacy | HISTORY

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The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The issues raised by the Stamp Act festered for 10 years before giving rise to the Revolutionary War and, ultimately, American independence.

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On July 14th, 1765 Abigail Adams gives birth to girl, whom she named Abigail Adams. Abigail and her family would always call her Nabby.

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On July 11th, 1767, Abigail gave birth to a son who she named John Quincy. She named John Quincy after her grandfather. John Quincy was born three days before Nabby's second birthday.

Quote 3: "Now, with two children to care for, and John often away at court, Abigail felt the responsibilities of motherhood more keenly." (Page 33)

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Susanna Adams is born is December 28th 1768. Susanna Adams is Abigails second daughter and third child. Susanna was born weak and frail, and after a year on Feburary 4th, 1770, Susanna passed away.  She was only thirteen months old.

After Susanna dies, Abigail Adams has a fourth child on May 29th, 1770. She names this child Charles.

Two years later on Sempember 15th, 1772, Thomas Boylston Adams is born.

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#9 Boston Tea Party, Battle of Lexington and Concord

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#9 Boston Tea Party, Battle of Lexington and Concord

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December 16th, 1773, the Boston Tea Party occurs. April 19th, 1775, Battle of Lexington and Concord begins revolutionary war.

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John Adams leaves for Philadelphia on september 12th while Massachusetts was in the middle of a dysentery epidemic. Abigail writes to john that his brother Elihu was ill with dysentery. Elizabeth Smith (Abigails mother) caught the disease. Elizabeth dies october 1st, 1775.

Quote 4: On the morning of October 1, Abigail brought her mother tea, raised her head so she might swallow a few drops, then heard her gasp and saw her look up at her with " a look that pierced my heart and which I shall never forget; it was the eagerness of a last look" Abigail recognized "the last sad silence of a Friend" Elizabeth Smith died at five o' clock that afternoon"

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"Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?" - John 11:40

"I set myself down to write with a Heart depressed with the Melancholy Scenes around me," Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John in September of 1775, when he was in Philadelphia with the Second Continental Congress and she was managing the family farm at Baintree with her four young children and the family's servants Susy and Patty. A dysentery epidemic had broken out, which would predictably ensue from the quartering of soldiers; General Washington and his men had struggled with dysentery and small pox throughout the siege of Boston; indeed, during the Revolutionary War more soldiers would die of disease than wounds on the battlefield; and in the letter that Abigail wrote her husband (one of over a thousand that passed between the married couple) we can see the sort of faithful Christian courage that would sustain many of the 13,000 civilians living in and around Boston at the time. "My Letter will be only a Bill of Mortality," she wrote,

though thanks be to that Being who restraineth the pestilence, that it has not yet proved mortal to any of our family, though we live in daily Expectation that Patty will not continue many hours. A general putrefaction seems to have taken place, and we cannot bear the House only as we are constantly cleansing it with hot vinegar. I had no Idea of the Distemper producing such a state as hers till now. Yet we take all possible care by shifting her bed every day. Two of the children John and Charles I have sent out of the house, finding it difficult to keep them out of the chamber. Nabby [Abigail, her eldest child] continues well. Tommy {Thomas Boylston her youngest son] is better, but entirely stripped of the hardy robust countenance as well as of all the flesh he had, save what remains for to keep his bones together. Jonathan is the only one who remains in the family but what has had a turn of the disorder. Mrs. Randle has lost her daughter, Mrs. Bracket hers, Mr. Thomas Thayer his wife. 2 persons belonging to Boston have died this week in this parish. I know of eight this week who have been buried in this Town.

In Weymouth, a neighboring town, where Abigail had been the daughter of the Congregationalist parson, in whose library she read so widely and so profitably, the dysentery had not yet taken hold, though it would soon enough and to devastating effect. "It is very sickly, but not mortal," she reported to her doubtless anxious husband. Still, the general sickness in the surrounding towns was bad and getting worse. "The dread upon the minds of people of catching the distemper is almost as great as if it was the smallpox," she wrote, after having succumbed to the dysentery herself and recovering from it.

With her husband away, Abigail had charge not only of the children but the household and the farm. "I have been disturbed more than ever I was in my life to procure watchers and to get assistance," she wrote. But she was also worried about how the neighbors were faring. "I hear Mr. Tudor has been dangerously sick, but is now upon the recovery. Mr. Wibird is very low indeed, scarcely able to walk a step. We have been four Sundays without any meeting." In a subsequent letter of the same month, she commiserated with those neighbors who were parents: "The desolation of War is not so much distressing as the Havock made by the pestilence," she assured her husband. "Some poor parents are mourning the loss of 3, 4, and 5 children, and some families are wholly stripped of every member."

Nevertheless, precisely because of her powers of empathy, because of the true love she felt for those with whom she lived, in the land she loved, what most strengthened Abigail throughout this crisis was her trust in her Maker, in whose image those loved ones were created. "Thus does pestilence travel in the rear of war, to remind us of our entire dependence upon that Being who not only directeth the arrow by day, but has also at his command that which flieth in darkness," she wrote. This was a reference to Psalm 91, the wisdom of which would always inspire Abigail when trouble arrived on her doorstep.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress:
my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
and from the noisome pestilence
...Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;
nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness;
nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,
and ten thousand at thy right hand;
but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold
and see the reward of the wicked.
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge,
even the most High, thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee,
neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
For he shall give his angels charge over thee,
to keep thee in all thy ways.

The faith that the Psalms renewed in Abigail put a lot of worldly matters in perspective. "So uncertain and so transitory are all the enjoyments of life, that were it not for the tender connections which bind us, would it not be folly to wish for continuance here," she asked. "I think I shall never be wedded to the world, and were I to lose about a dozen of my dearest connections, I should have no further relish for life. But perhaps I deceive myself and know but little of my own heart." This was prescient. Abigail would lose a good deal in the world - one daughter in stillbirth, another in infancy and one son at the age of thirty after he had drunk himself to death - but she would never lose her relish for life, for eternal life. And she could speak of conforming her own will to the Lord's with such conviction because it was the rule of her life.

And unto Him who mounts the whirlwind and directs the storm I will cheerfully leave the ordering of my lot, and whether adverse or prosperous days should be my future portion, I will trust in his right hand to lead me safely through, and, after a short rotation of events, fix me in a state immutable and happy.

In signing off her letter, Abigail repeated a proverbial saying that may have dated back to ancient Greece but had a perennial immediacy for eighteenth-century Americans in a world without vaccines. "God helps them that help themselves," she wrote, "and if we can obtain the Divine aid by our own virtue, fortitude, and perseverance, we may be sure of relief... Adieu! I need not say how sincerely I am Your affectionate PORTIA"

Scarcely a month later, Abigail would send another letter to her husband, in which the cry of her pain is still pitiably audible.

Have pity upon me, have pity upon me o! thou my beloved for the Hand of God presseth me sore. Yet will I be dumb and silent and not open my mouth because thou o Lord hast done it. How can I tell you (o my bursting Heart) that my Dear Mother has Left me, this day about 5 oclock she left this world for an infinitely better. After sustaining 16 days severe conflict nature fainted and she fell asleep. Blessed Spirit where art thou? At times I almost am ready to faint under this severe and heavy Stroke, seperated from thee who used to be a comforter towards me in affliction, but blessed be God, his Ear is not heavy that he cannot hear, but he has bid us call upon him in time of Trouble.

Again, affliction made Abigail cling to her biblical bearings. Here, she invokes Job 19:21 and Psalm 38.2 in the opening and Isaiah 59:1 and Psalm 50:15 in the closing sentence. The extremity of her pain shows why these bearings were so vital to her. "You often Expressed your anxiety for me when you left me before, surrounded with Terrors," she wrote her husband. "but my trouble then was as the small dust in the balance compared to what I have since endured."

Bereaving for her dead mother, alone with her children, confronted by a plague that was scarcely controllable, this brave woman could still regret that she might not be capable of writing her husband with her accustomed elegance. "You will pardon and forgive all my wanderings of mind," she wrote. "I cannot be correct. Tis a dreadful time with this whole province. Sickness and death are in almost every family. I have no more shocking and terrible Idea of any Distemper except the Plague than this." And with that, she returned to the incantatory solace of Psalm 91: "Almighty God restrain the pestilence which walketh in darkness and wasteth at noon day and which has laid in the dust one of the dearest of parents. May the Life of the other be lengthened out to his afflicted children and Your distressed Portia."

Days later, it was time to give her husband another report on the family fortunes, and here we see the Christian Abigail in all of her radiant fellow feeling. "I have just returned from attending Patty to the Grave," she writes of the family's servant. "No doubt long before this will reach you, you have received a melancholy train of Letters in some of which I mention her as dangerously sick. She has lain 5 weeks wanting a few days so bad as that we had little hopes of her Recovery; the latter part of the Time she was the most shocking object my Eyes ever beheld, and so loathsome that it was with the utmost difficulty we could bear the House. A mortification took place a week before she died, and rendered her a most pitiable object. We have great sickness yet in the Town; she made the fourth Corpse that was this day committed to the Ground. We have many others now so bad as to despair of their lives."

What would we feel if a beloved nanny or housekeeper were carried off in such a ghastly fashion? We might find out sooner than we imagine; Abigail counted her blessings and marched on. "Blessed be the Father of Mercies all our family are now well," she wrote, "though I have my apprehensions lest the malignancy of the air in the House may have infected some of them, we have fevers of various kinds, the Throat Distemper as well as the Dysentery prevailing in this and the Neighboring Towns."

With dysentery still raging about the town, Abigail was intent on showing how the death of her mother could only deepen her love for her mother.

How long o Lord shall the whole land say I am sick? O shew us wherefore it is that thou art thus contending with us? In a very particular manner I have occasion to make this inquiry who have had Breach upon Breach, nor has one wound been permitted to be healed e'er it is made to Blead afresh, in six weeks I count 5 of my near connections laid in the grave. Your Aunt Simpson died at Milton about ten days ago with the Dysentery. But the heavy stroke which most of all distresses me is my dear Mother. I cannot overcome my too selfish sorrow, all her tenderness towards me, her care and anxiety for my welfare at all times, her watchfulness over my infant years, her advice and instruction in mature age; all, all endear her memory to me, and heighten my sorrow for her loss.

In that great poem of his maturity, Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot wrote that "Love is most nearly itself/ When here and now cease to matter." Love, in other words, will not be bound by time and space, it will not shrink before the terrors of death, it will only lay claim more insistently to its true boundless dominion, though the only thing that can effectively remind us of this truth is the death of those we love.

Abigail Adams certainly recognized this when she lamented the death of her beloved mother in a time of pestilence. "I know a patient submission is my duty," she wrote. "I will strive to obtain it! But the lenient hand of time alone can blunt the keen Edge of Sorrow. He who deigned to weep over a departed Friend, will surely forgive a sorrow which at all times desires to be bounded and restrained, by a firm Belief that a Being of infinite wisdom and unbounded Goodness, will carve out my portion in tender mercy towards me!" Could there be an apter reference to Christ's love for Lazarus?

Taking that love to heart, Abigail could see her blessings with a faithful perspicuity. "Yea though he slay me I will trust in him said holy Job. What though his corrective Hand hath been stretched against me; I will not murmur. Though earthly comforts are taken away I will not repine, he who gave them has surely a right to limit their duration, and has continued them to me much longer than I deserved. I might have been stripped of my children as many others have been. I might o! forbid it Heaven, I might have been left a solitary widow. Still I have many blessings left, many comforts to be thankful for, and rejoice in. I am not left to mourn as one without hope." The eighteenth century produced many fine writers of letters, from Jonathan Swift and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Horace Walpole and Lady Sarah Lennox, but with her Yankee eloquence, her profoundly Christian eloquence, Abigail Adams beats them hollow.

"Patriotism," Samuel Johnson was fond of saying, "is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Certainly, John Adams, in his long and rancorous political career, could vouch for that. But patriotism is also the thing we feel when our family and our neighbors are suffering both the fear of death and death itself, for it is then that we prize not only our native land but our eternal home and those with whom we shall share our eternal home. That the most admirable of our first ladies felt and expressed this patriotism so deeply and so movingly should encourage all of us as we endure our own time of pestilence.

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"Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?" - John 11:40 "I set myself down to write with a Heart depressed with the Melancholy Scenes around me," Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John in September of 1775, when he was in Philadelphia with the Second Continental Congress and she was managing the family farm at Baintree with her four young children and the family's servants Susy and Patty.

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John Adams delivers a formal report to the president of Congress about his views on the policies and status of the European powers as they affected America. In September, John Adams was elected to represent Braintree at the Massachusetts Constitutional Conventioin and he was chosen to write the first draft of the Massachusetts Constitution. In October, Abigail got word from philiadelphia that congress had chosen John Adams sole minister diplomat to France. He would now be responsible for negotiating peace with Great Britian.

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In October of 1782, the British general Cornwallis had surrendered around 8,000 troops. They marched out of Yorktown and their bands played the old English tune: "The World Turned Upside Down". The war had ended but it would be another two years before an offical peace could be concluded. In the September of 1783, Reverend William Smith, passes away. Reverend was Abigails father.

Quote 5: "Now Abigail wrote to her husband, 'If Congress should think proper to make you another appointment, I bed you not to accept it.' John's health was still suffereing, his children need his care, his advice, his instruction, and she felt 'unequal to the task of guiding them alone.'"

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On April 12th, 1789, that John Adams received official notification that he was the vice-president. John journeyed from Braintee to New York, and people who lived their and inbetween cheered him on. John Adams was officially recognized as the vice-president of the U.S. at the redecorated Federal Hall. This happend a few days before the arrival of George Washington in New York.
In 1791 a two party system comes to light: Federalists and Republicans.

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On Febuary 8th, 1797, John Adams is elected the second president of the United States of America. He had run against Thomas Jefferson. John got 71 votes while Thomas only received 68. Thomas Jefferson became the vice-president because he was the runner-up.

Quote 6: "Abigail tried to put her emotions into words:'My feelings are not those of pride and ostentation. . . They are solemized by a sense of the obligations, the important Trusts and Numerous duties  connected with it' Several days later she pledged her support to her husband: 'I am my dearest Friend always willing to be a fellow Labourer with You in all those Relations and departments to which my abilities are competent, and I hope to acuire every requisite degree of Taciturnity which my Station calls for, tho . . . truly . . . it will be putting a force upon nature.' It would be hard for her to curb her tongue, but she would try." (Page: 180)

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Alien and Sedition acts was passed 1798 by John Adams. The Alien and Sedition act was created so that people who weren't living in united states (aliens) would side with the French. This authorized the president to deport people, imprision them, and arrest them during the war. The sedition part of the acts was so that people could not print or publish false information.

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Transcript
Note: The Alien and Sedition Acts consist of the following acts:

1. An Act supplementary to and to amend the act, intituled, "An Act to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and to repeal the act therefore passed on that subject" of June 18, 1798, "Naturalization Act of 1798"

2. An Act concerning aliens of June 25, 1798, "Alien Act"

3. An Act respecting alien enemies of July 6, 1798, "Alien Enemies Act"

4. An Act in addition to the act, entitled "An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States" of July 14 1798, "Sedition Act"

The documents transcribed here are: The Alien Act, The Alien Enemies Act, and The Sedition Act.
FIFTH CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:
At the Second Session,
Begun and help at the city of Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania, on Monday, the thirteenth of November, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven.
An Act Concerning Aliens.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States at any time during the continuance of this act, to order all such aliens as he shall judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any treasonable or secret machinations against the government thereof, to depart out of the territory of the United Slates, within such time as shall be expressed in such order, which order shall be served on such alien by delivering him a copy thereof, or leaving the same at his usual abode, and returned to the office of the Secretary of State, by the marshal or other person to whom the same shall be directed. And in case any alien, so ordered to depart, shall be found at large within the United States after the time limited in such order for his departure, and not having obtained a license from the President to reside therein, or having obtained such license shall not have conformed thereto, every such alien shall, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three years, and shall never after be admitted to become a citizen of the United States. Provided always, and be it further enacted, that if any alien so ordered to depart shall prove to the satisfaction of the President, by evidence to be taken before such person or persons as the President shall direct, who are for that purpose hereby authorized to administer oaths, that no injury or danger to the United Slates will arise from suffering such alien to reside therein, the President may grant a license to such alien to remain within the United States for such time as he shall judge proper, and at such place as he may designate. And the President may also require of such alien to enter into a bond to the United States, in such penal sum as he may direct, with one or more sufficient sureties to the satisfaction of the per- son authorized by the President to take the same, conditioned for the good behavior of such alien during his residence in the United States, and not violating his license, which license the President may revoke, whenever he shall think proper .

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, whenever he may deem it necessary (for the public safety, to order to be removed out of the territory thereof, any alien who mayor shall be in prison in pursuance of this act; and to cause to be arrested and sent out of the United States such of those aliens as shall have been ordered to depart therefrom and shall not have obtained a license as aforesaid, in all cases where, in the opinion of the President, the public safety requires a speedy removal. And if any alien so removed or sent out of the United Slates by the President shall voluntarily return thereto, unless by permission of the President of the United States, such alien on conviction thereof, shall be imprisoned so long as, in the opinion of the President, the public safety may require.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That every master or commander of any ship or vessel which shall come into any port of the United States after the first day of July next, shall immediately on his arrival make report in writing to the collector or other chief officer of the customs of such port, of all aliens, if any, on board his vessel, specifying their names, age, the place of nativity, the country from which they shall have come, the nation to which they belong and owe allegiance, their occupation and a description of their persons, as far as he shall be informed thereof, and on failure, every such master and commander shall forfeit and pay three hundred dollars, for the payment whereof on default of such master or commander, such vessel shall also be holden, and may by such collector or other officer of the customs be detained. And it shall be the duty of such collector or other officer of the customs, forthwith to transmit to the office of the department of state true copies of all such returns.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the circuit and district courts of the United States, shall respectively have cognizance of all crimes and offences against this act. And all marshals and other officers of the United States are required to execute all precepts and orders of the President of the United States issued in pursuance or by virtue of this act.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for any alien who may be ordered to be removed from the United States, by virtue of this act, to take with him such part of his goods, chattels, or other property, as he may find convenient; and all property left in the United States by any alien, who may be removed, as aforesaid, shall be, and re- main subject to his order and disposal, in the same manner as if this act had not been passed.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That this act shall continue and be in force for and during the term of two years from the passing thereof.

Jonathan Dayton, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
TH. Jefferson, Vice President of the United States and President of the Sentate.

I Certify that this Act did originate in the Sentate.
Attest, Sam. A. Otis, Secretary

APPROVED, June 25, 1798.
John Adams
President of the United States.
An Act Respecting Alien Enemies
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government, and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies. And the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby authorized, in any event, as aforesaid, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, towards the aliens who shall become liable, as aforesaid; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject, and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those, who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, shall refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which shall be found necessary in the premises and for the public safety: Provided, that aliens resident within the United States, who shall become liable as enemies, in the manner aforesaid, and who shall not be chargeable with actual hostility, or other crime against the public safety, shall be allowed, for the recovery, disposal, and removal of their goods and effects, and for their departure, the full time which is, or shall be stipulated by any treaty, where any shall have been between the United States, and the hostile nation or government, of which they shall be natives, citizens, denizens or subjects: and where no such treaty shall have existed, the President of the United States may ascertain and declare such reasonable time as may be consistent with the public safety, and according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That after any proclamation shall be made as aforesaid, it shall be the duty of the several courts of the United States, and of each state, having criminal jurisdiction, and of the several judges and justices of the courts of the United States, and they shall be, and are hereby respectively, authorized upon complaint, against any alien or alien enemies, as aforesaid, who shall be resident and at large within such jurisdiction or district, to the danger of the public peace or safety, and contrary to the tenor or intent of such proclamation, or other regulations which the President of the United States shall and may establish in the premises, to cause such alien or aliens to be duly apprehended and convened before such court, judge or justice; and after a full examination and hearing on such complaint. and sufficient cause therefor appearing, shall and may order such alien or aliens to be removed out of the territory of the United States, or to give sureties of their good behaviour, or to be otherwise restrained, conformably to the proclamation or regulations which shall and may be established as aforesaid, and may imprison, or otherwise secure such alien or aliens, until the order which shall and may be made, as aforesaid, shall be performed.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the marshal of the district in which any alien enemy shall be apprehended, who by the President of the United States, or by order of any court, judge or justice, as aforesaid, shall be required to depart, and to be removed, as aforesaid, to provide therefor, and to execute such order, by himself or his deputy, or other discreet person or persons to be employed by him, by causing a removal of such alien out of the territory of the United States; and for such removal the marshal shall have the warrant of the President of the United States, or of the court, judge or justice ordering the same, as the case may be.

APPROVED, July 6, 1798.

FIFTH CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:
At the Second Session,
Begun and help at the city of Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania, on Monday, the thirteenth of November, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven.
An Act in Addition to the Act, Entitled "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States."
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing or executing his trust or duty, and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and on conviction, before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during a term not less than six months nor exceeding five years; and further, at the discretion of the court may be holden to find sureties for his good behaviour in such sum, and for such time, as the said court may direct.

SEC. 2. And be it farther enacted, That if any person shall write, print, utter or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted and declared, That if any person shall be prosecuted under this act, for the writing or publishing any libel aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in his defence, the truth of the matter contained in publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the cause, shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That this act shall continue and be in force until the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and one, and no longer: Provided, that the expiration of the act shall not prevent or defeat a prosecution and punishment of any offence against the law, during the time it shall be in force.

Jonathan Dayton, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Theodore Sedgwick, President of the Sentate pro tempore.

I Certify that this Act did originate in the Sentate.
Attest, Sam. A. Otis, Secretary

APPROVED, July 14, 1798
John Adams
President of the United States.

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: An Act Concerning Aliens, July 6, 1798; Fifth Congress; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

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John Adams ran for president again but lost to Thomas Jefferson. Despite of the Alien and Sedition acts, disloyal cabinet and his resistence to maintain an army, John Adams was thought to do very well in office and immediately after the election was done, it was found that on October 30th, a peace treaty had been signed with paris and he had avoided a war with France.

Quote 7: "But he had wrecked his career as a politician, for he had alienated some Federalists and split his party, and the other members of his party couldn't forgive him for it" (Page: 200)

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When James Madison was elected president in 1809, he had immediately made John Quincy an ambassador to Russia. John had resigned from Congress and was currently practicing law in Boston. Abigail and John Adams didn't really want him to go.

Quote 8: "Abigail feared that she would never see him again. This son had been her 'support,' she told her sister Elizabeth. It was like 'takeing our last leave of him.' His 'tenderness and affection' made him particularly dear to her." (Page: 208)

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Nabby discovers she has a cancerous tumor in her breast in the summer of 1811. She has surgery to remove her entire breast in early October. She was conscious during the surgery. It only took 25 minutes but dressing the wound took an hour.

In 1812 Nabby realizes that the cancer had reappeared and was spreading throughout her body. Nabby makes the three hundred mile journey to her parents house. She arrives at the end of July and dies August 15th. Abigail is distraught.

Quote 9: "Nabby died on August 15, a few days after her husband reacher her bedside. She had just turned forty-eight. John called his daughter a 'monument to suffering and to patience.' Abigail had never known such anguish. This was a burden she couldn't bear. Nabby had been her 'closest companion.'" (Page 214)

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In 1814, John Quincy signs the treaty refered as the "Peace of Christmas Eve" at Ghent, Belgium. This treaty ends the war with England. He was then named minister to the Court of St. James.

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Abigail Adams developes typhoid fever early in october. On October 28th, 1818, she dies at age of 73. She had been married to John Adams for 54 years.

Quote 10: "John, gazing down at her, said simply,'I wish I could lay down beside her and die too." For a moment his palsied frame shook uncontrollably. Then he turned to louisa and led the distraught woman into another room to comfort her." (Page: 221)