Abigail Adams and Equality

“Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818) advocated and modeled an expanded role for women in public affairs during the formative days of the United States. Married to John Adams, she was an invaluable partner to him as he developed his political career, culminating in the presidency of the United States. She left a voluminous correspondence, providing information on everyday life and insight into the activities in the corridors of power during her time. Her letters show her to have been a woman of keen intelligence, resourceful, competent, self-sufficient, willful, vivacious, and opinionated—a formidable force. Her writing reveals a dedication to principle, a commitment to rights for women and for African-Americans, fierce partisanship in matters of her husband's and her family's interest, and an irreverent sense of humor….
[Before the Declaration of Independence was adopted] a visit below the Mason-Dixon line strengthened Abigail's conviction, passionately shared by her husband, that slavery was not only evil, but a threat to the American democratic experiment. Neither John nor Abigail had any use for Southern slavery accommodationists. On March 31, 1776, Abigail wrote that she doubted the distinguished Virginians in the corridors of power had quite the "passion for Liberty" they claimed, since they had been used to "depriving their fellow Creatures" of freedom.
On February 13, 1791, she wrote to her husband regarding a black servant boy who had come to her asking to go to school to learn to write. Abigail enrolled the boy in a local evening school. A neighbor reported serious objections of several people to the black boy's presence. Swiftly Abigail responded that the boy was "a Freeman as much as any of the young Men and merely because his Face is Black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood? . . . I have not thought it any disgrace to my self to take him into my parlor and teach him both to read and write." No further complaints were made.
Often, Abigail spoke up for married women's property rights and more opportunities for women, particularly in education. She believed that women should not submit to laws clearly not made in their interest. Women should not content themselves with the role of being decorous companions to their husbands. They should educate themselves and be recognized for their intellectual capabilities, for their ability to shoulder responsibilities of managing household, family, and financial affairs, and for their capacity morally to guide and influence the lives of their children and husbands. Although she did not insist on full female enfranchisement, in her celebrated letter of March, 1776, she exhorted her husband to "remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and 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."

Excerpts from Article by Laurie Carter Noble

http://uudb.org/articles/abigailadams.html

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

“Beranrd Bailyn has spent his career at Harvard University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1953. He served as Winthrop Professor of History from 1966 until 1981, when he was appointed Adams University Professor. His works range from the history of education to historical methodology, but his most noted projects are in the field of early American intellectual and cultural history. His Ideological Origins of the American Revolution won both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes in 1968....

Ideological Origins took up the fate, in America, of the Old Whig or English commonwealth ideas of the early 18th century. Here, again, it was the peculiar relevance of these ideas, and the conscious choosing among them and adding to them that was at the core of Bailyn's history. The critique of power's corrupting influence, what might be called the "anti-power" ethic, resonated with American experience…. In place of the individual seeking security for private rights of property and liberty, republicanism gave us a more politically concerned citizen laboring for the commonwealth by carefully preserving the constitutional balance of the one, the few, and the many. It was virtue, not interest, that motivated the American Revolution; self-seeking commercialism was more akin to corruption in the body politic than to the public good, according to the new republican consensus.…Bailyn argued:

‘Within the framework of these ideas, Enlightenment abstractions and common law precedents, covenant theology and classical analogy—Locke and Abraham, Brutus and Coke—could all be brought together into a comprehensive theory of politics.’

This was no unchanging paradigm, but the vibrant and shifting undercurrents of English opposition thought, "stirred by doctrinaire libertarians, disaffected politicians, and religious dissenters." It is this dynamic stirring that was and is the focus of Bailyn's interpretation….” (From: A Revolutionary Historian, The Claremont Institute, http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.970/article_detail.asp).

The Washington, Jefferson & Madison Institute's next educational seminar will focus on the topic of "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution," including the political writings of John Locke, Algernon Sidney, and Bailyn's award-winning book, of which the New York Times Book Review said, “One cannot claim to understand the Revolution without having read this book.” We will also discuss the role of Enlightenment, Classical, and Covenant ideology, together with Never Before in History: America's Inspired Birth, by Gary Amos and Richard Gardiner (1998), which sets forth the influence of Christian and religious principles in the Revolution.

The seminar is primarily for Virginia middle and high school U.S. government and history teachers, and will be held Friday morning, September 17, 2010 (Constitution Day) at Prospect Hill near Charlottesville.

For registration or to receive an agenda, contact Jody Weierholt: jody@wjmi.org.

Moral Education

Our first four Presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison), all taught that there is no happiness without virtue, and that virtue is the foundation of our Republic. Virtue, of course, requires morality, and as Washington stated, “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Modern foes of national morality and religious principle seek to overthrow the Constitution’s foundation of virtue through the courts, as they have been previously defeated by the popular will via legislatures and democratic ballot. Their attack is being fostered by those who lack a conviction of the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” (Declaration of Independence).

The consequences to our communities, and to our States’ education systems, of a ‘change’ in our nation’s moral fabric if mandated by judicial decree are profound. For example, California education code section 51230 provides that both the reading and teaching of Washington’s Farewell Address are a civics requirement for graduation from high school. In his Farewell Address, Washington confirms that:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness ‑these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. …And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

'Tis substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”

National educational policy confirms that: “Schools …may play an active role with respect to teaching civic values and virtue, and the moral code that holds us together as a community. The fact that some of these values are held also by religions does not make it unlawful to teach them in school.”(U. S. Department of Education, Statement on Religious Expression, Revised May 1998). We face a dilemma in America as virtue, religious principles and the freedom of moral education are being threatened.

By: J. David Gowdy

Courage in American Political Life

Justice Clarence Thomas

Excerpts from a Speech at the American Enterprise Institute, May 22, 2001:

“…In my humble opinion, those who come to engage in debates of consequence, and who challenge accepted wisdom, should expect to be treated badly. Nonetheless, they must stand undaunted. That is required. And, that should be expected. For, it is bravery that is required to secure freedom.

…What makes it all worthwhile? What makes it worthwhile is something greater than all of us. There are those things that at one time we all accepted as more important than our comfort or discomfort -- if not our very lives: Duty, honor, country! There was a time when all was to be set aside for these. The plow was left idle, the hearth without fire, the homestead, abandoned.

We all share a reasonable and, in many ways, admirable, reluctance to leave the safety and peacefulness of private life to take up the larger burdens and challenges of active citizenship. The price is high, and it is easier and more enjoyable to remain within the shelter of our personal lives and our local communities, rather than the larger state. To enter public life is to step outside our more confined, comfortable sphere of life, and to face the broader, national sphere of citizenship. What makes it all worthwhile is to devote ourselves to the common good.

…I do believe that we are required to wade into those things that matter to our country and our culture, no matter what the disincentives are, and no matter the personal cost. There is not one among us who wants to be set upon, or obligated to do and say difficult things. Yet, there is not one of us who could in good conscience stand by and watch a loved one or a defenseless person --or a vital national principle -- perish alone, undefended, when our intervention could make all the difference. This may well be too dramatic an example. But nevertheless, put most simply: if we think that something is dreadfully wrong, then someone has to do something.

…Listen to the truths that lie within your hearts, and be not afraid to follow them wherever they may lead you.

The war in which we are engaged is cultural, not civil, it tests whether this "nation: conceived in liberty . . . can long endure."

The Founders warned us that freedom requires constant vigilance, and repeated action. It is said that, when asked what sort of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin replied that they had given us "A Republic, if you can keep it." Today, as in the past, we will need a brave "civic virtue," not a timid civility, to keep our republic….”