Radio Script #1078

Little Talks on Common Things
February 22, 1976

Probably a number of you have been watching on television the Adams Chronicles depicting the career of John Adams in Revolutionary times. It is appropriate in this Bicentennial year that this radio program take note of the remarkable letters that passed between John Adams and his wife Abigail during his long absences from their Braintree home between 1774, when he attended the First Continental Congress, until 1783, when he Signed in Paris the treaty with England ending the American Revolution and establishing the independence of the United States.

One of those letters most pertinent for us today was written from Philadelphia on June 25, 1775, only about two months after the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord. Now note what John Adams said two hundred years ago about freedom. This is what he wrote to his wife: “Your description of the distress of the inhabitants of Boston and other seaport towns is enough to melt a heart of stone, but, my dear, cities may be rebuilt, a people reduced to poverty may acquire back property, but a constitution of government once changed from freedom can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the people once surrender their share in the legislature and their rights to defend the limitations upon their government and of resisting every encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.”

Just consider that statement of John Adams in the light of the present, tendency to take authority away from local government close to the people, and place it not merely with state legislature and national Congress, but more often and more persistently with bureaucrats who sit behind desks in state or national capitols and tell people in distant communities what they can and cannot do. We sincerely hope Adams was wrong when he said that once such freedoms are lost they can never be regained. If enough people become concerned enough, surely some of these lost liberties can be won back by the folk in local communities.

John Adams was in Philadelppia when the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775. A week later Abigail wrote to John as follows: “Every account agrees that 1,500 were slain or wounded on the British side in the Charlestown battle. We are astounded that our own people were not all cut off. We had about 100 foot entrenched; the whole number on our side being not more than 800, and we had not half enough ammunition. Reinforcements could not get to our men in season. The tide was high, so that the enemy’s floating batteries came on each side of the causeway, and their rowed galleys kept up a constant fire. The town of Charlestown was in flames all around them. The day was very hot and the smoke blew in the faces of our men.

“We in Braintree are in constant fear of hostilities. Scarcely a day passes without alarm.”

A short time later Abigail wrote: “Our home in Braintree has been the scene of confusion, our soldiers coming in for lodging, supper, breakfast, or just a drink. There are also many refugees from Boston, tired and fatigued, seeking asylum for a day
or night, or even a week. You can hardly imagine how we live.”

In Philadelphia during that summer of 1775, John Adams was concerned quite as much by hostility between the colonies as he was by the British army. He wrote to Abigail: “Wen Congress came together here, I found a strong jealousy of us from New England, and of Massachusetts in particular. They fear we want to set up an American republic of Presbyterian form. The designs against us in New England are hostile and sanguinary. Nothing but fortitude, vigor and perseverance can save us.

”This Congress is a great, unwieldy body. Its progress must be slow. The fleetest sailor must wait for the slowest.”

It was in the middle of July 1775 when Abigail Adams first met George Washington, the man who was to play such an important part in her husband’s career. This was what she wrote to John about that meeting. “I had the pleasure of seeing both generals soon after they arrived.” (The other general was Charles Lee.) Abigail continued: “I was struck with Gen. Washington. You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I thought you had not told me half. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier are equally blended in him. Beside him, Lee looks like a careless, hardy veteran. The elegance of his pen far exceeds that of his person.”

Toward the end of July, Abigail gave her husband her impression of Boston under British control. “Distress in Boston increases fast. Their beef is all spent, their malt and cider gone; all the fresh provisions they can get they are obliged to give to the sick and wounded. Twenty of our men who were wounded at Charlestown and were then captured and imprisoned in Boston are now dead. No man dares be seen talking to a friend on the street. All must be in their houses every evening by ten o’clock.

“Here in Braintree every West India article is scarce and dear. You can hardly imagine how we lack many common articles. Not one pin can be bought for love or money. I wish you to convey me 1,000 by any friend travelling this way.” A month later John was able to write Abigail that a friend of his in Philadelphia had found some pins, and they were on the way to Braintree.

Very interesting is what John Adams wrote his wife about the Declaration of Independence when he was attending the Third Continental Congress in the summer of 1776. On May 17 he wrote:”Great Britain has at last driven America to the last step, complete separation, a total and absolute independence, not merely from the Parliament, but also from the crown itself. Such is now our resolve in the Congress. Confederation among ourselves, these thirteen colonies, is all that is necessary for a complete separation from Britain. We shall effect that by extinguishing all authority under the Crown or Parliament.

“I believe that no colony which adopts a government of the people will ever give it up. There is something unnatural and odious about a government 3,000 miles away. A whole government of our own choice, managed by men whom we revere and confide in, has a charm for which men will fight.”

Though the Declaration was not proclaimed until July 4, it was actually passed by the Congress on July 2, so that Adams’ letter to his wife telling of the great event was dated July 3, 1776. “Yesterday, we decided the greatest question ever decided in America, and perhaps a greater one will never be decided among men. Without a single dissenting colony, a resolution was passed that ‘these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, and as such have full power to make war, conclude peace, establish commerce, and do all other acts which other states have a right to do.” You will see in a few days, a statement setting forth the causes which have impelled us to this mighty resolution and the means which will justify it in the sight of God and men.”

On July 14, Abigail wrote this reply: “I am delighted at the prospect of future happiness and glory for our country, and I am gratified that a person so nearly connected with me has had the honor of being an actor in laying the foundation for this future greatness. May the basis of our constitution be justice, truth and righteousness. May our country be founded upon rock, so that neither storm nor tempest can overthrow it.”

On July 21 she wrote about the reception of the Declaration in Boston. “Last Thursday, after hearing a good sermon, I went with the multitude into King Street to hear the proclamation of independence read and proclaimed. When Col. Crafts read it from the balcony of the State House, strict attention was given to every word. Cheers went the air, bells rang, guns and cannon were discharged, and every face was joyful. Mr. Bowdoin then spoke, predicting prosperity and security for America. The King’s arms were then taken down from the State House and every vestige of him removed from the places where it had been offered. Thus ends royal authority in Massachusetts, and all the people say Amen.”

Although John Adams was to have difficulties with Benjamin Franklin, when they later served together as Commissioners to France, pleading with the French Government for aid in the Revolution, Adams thought highly of the great Pennsylvanian at the time of the Declaration in 1776. He wrote to Abigail:

“Dr. Franklin has been very constant in his attention to Congress. His conduct has been composed and grave, and very reserved. He has assumed no superiority because of his age, has never attempted to take the lead. Yet he has not been backward, and on many occasions has disclosed a disposition entirely American. He does not object to our boldest measures, but on the contrary often thinks us too irresolute. He thinks we are at present in an odd state, neither peace nor war, but believes we shall soon become more decisive. Many people in England have thought the opposition in America is due wholly to Dr. Franklin, and I doubt not they will attribute all the squabbling in this Congress to him. There could be no greater mistake. He has not taken the lead here, his part has been to advise and assist.”

John Adams’ wife was a remarkable woman. Married in 1764, she was already the mother of four children when, ten years later, her husband left Braintree to attend the first Continental Congress. For the next 12 years he was seldom at home, and then never for longer than a couple of months. She carried on the Braintree farm, suffering loss of male servants to the army, and with her own hands helped do the hard out-of-door work on the place. In an age when women were not given much education and were supposed to know nothing about either business or government, Abigail Adams became self-educated, learning both Latin and French, and reading many of the same books that made such persons as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson erudite scholars. In 1784, she joined her husband in Europe, where already their older son, John Quincy Adams, had made a reputation before he was 21 years old. I’ll tell you more about these people next week.

Year: 1976