>> you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of history on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/cspanwj to keep up with the latest news. >> the deadline for the c-span student cam video competition is tuesday. get your entries completed now. a 5-7 documentary on that theme, that three ranches and you for a grand prize of 5000 dollars. for a list of the rules go to studentcam.org. >> next, a discussion of the correspondence between abigail

and john adams and their son and his wife. this is from an event marking john and abigail adams' wedding anniversary. the program was cohosted by the massachusetts historical society and the abigail adams historical society. i will start by introducing our our first speaker. bullock is the author of "revolutionary brotherhood: freemasonry," and also the author of "american revolution." in addition to being a fulbright scholar in japan, he has also served at many venues, including on "good morning america" and "all things considered." sarah mann 10 will be presenting a paper in tandem. -- sarah martin will be

presenting a paper in tandem. she has a doctorate of the university of melbourne and has specialized training in editing from arizona state university, and neil was up until recently a editor at the adams papers and holds a doctorate in history from university of south carolina and earned a masters degree in public history from north carolina state. so i want to welcome steve, our first speaker. [applause] >> thank you. on the last day of march, 17 76, 3 months before america broke from britain, abigail adams told her husband that he declared an

independency. let me find my slides. let me try to get this going. here we are. john adams was then serving on the second continental congress in philadelphia, urging congress to do just that. abigail, at the family's house in braintree, massachusetts, fully concurred. her letter went on to denounce unlimited power and legislation without representation. and to predict a rebellion the the latter part of the letter did not refer to the colonies, but two women. the new law code, abigail advised, should remember the ladies. john responded two weeks later that women had power in practice. abigail completed discussion on the topic three weeks later. although john was not being very generous, she concluded, they

could still defeat men's absolute power. the relationship between between abigail and john, it has long attracted attention. they discussed women's writes in the revolutionary time. remember the ladies -- remains carved on a stone statue. abigail's pitifully crafted statements continue to be problematic today. -- beautifully crafted statements continue to echo through today. the discussion itself is a relatively brief. the three statements total only 560 words. -- 568 words. that is less than one and a half pages in printed work.

furthermore, it was only a part of the letters that they sent each other. here is the first letter, with it marked at the bottom, marked at the top, and there is the entire letter showing the relative portions there. in all, the remember the ladies exchange told less than 10% of the 8000 words that they exchanged. just in that five weeks. john rejected the proposal, and although abigail opens boldly, she concludes by praising female submission. yet abigail and john's discussions still prepay for the -- still prepay for the study and seeing the discussion from the 18th century preoccupation

with politeness gives depth and dimension to that exchange. politeness, is not simply mean good manners or following a rules and conventions. instead it is a specific set of attitudes, ideas, and practices. the first came together in the upper levels of british society in the 18th century, then spread across the atlantic in what has been called the refinement of america. the term polite had previously meant smooth or polished. a meaning that persisted into the early part of the 18th century. sir isaac new noted particular crystals could be rubbed to make them more polite. the term was increasingly being polite to humans. an english book on manners published in 1702 suggested that

honesty, courage and wit were rough diamonds until they were polished by company and conversation. politeness applied to leadership as well. it sought to discourage anger, cruelty, and lack of concern for other people. not just in gatherings, but in governing. these shaped the exchange between abigail and john in three ways. the letters displayed polite, polished writing. the interactions were simplified polite performance. the discussion was about politeness. raising the issue of how much the ideals of generous interaction affected social relationships.

abigail's call for the new nation's legal code, to remember the ladies, reminded john that laws gave husbands what she called unlimited power over wives. making them only vassals. abigail was noting the legal doctrine that made the family a single unit with the husband as the sole representative, leaving wives unable to vote, and able to hold property, or protect themselves from their husbands decisions. this was decision -- this was dangerous because the natural tendency of men was to become tyrants. if this power was not constrained, abigail threatened that women woodruff old, and refused to follow laws that they had no voice in creating. having trusted arbitrary power abigail celebrated polished interactions.

men who wished to be happy given the harsh title of master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend. women need to be guarded from the vicious and lawlessness. just as god protected humanity men should protect women's happiness. abigail's two paragraphs divide her discussion. while the advocate greater legal rights for women, each paragraph uses a different set of categories. abigail first speaks of legality and former political organizations. of rebelling against tyrants and resisting legislation without representation. having discussed rebellion with hard power, abigail turns to tenderness and happiness. this language of soft power was

congenial to abigail, who famously referred to john as her friend. even, my dearest friend. john also reciprocates. abigail used some form of the word friend in 80% of her letters. abigail's concerns were not personal peculiarities. her contrast between the harsh master and tender friend was taken from a reddish novel that parallels or chesterfield's view of fatherhood. chesterfield stopped writing to his son as dear boy when he had a birthday and began to write dear friend. his son had become his own master. restrained use of power and attention to the concerns of other people was at the heart of polite ideals.

a british ideal reprinted in america. the desire to please other people as the essence of politeness. thomas jefferson advised his grandson that people get to goodwill by sacrificing their own conveniences and preferences. benjamin franklin's decision to never contradict anyone, jefferson noted, made him the most amiable of men in society. contemporaries often describe political ties in similar terms. a sermon of the 1760 coronation of george iii called on god to unite came and people in the strictest bands of affection. in his 1776 common sense, tom paine hoped for four a

reconciliation with britain until the king showed himself a solid -- a sullen pharaoh. the king heard of their deaths on feelingly. john's response to weeks later dismissed abigail's proposal. as to your extraordinary code of laws she wrote on april 14, i cannot help but laugh. he notes that they argued that education loosened the bands of government made children apprentices, and indian slaved discontented with authority. he had not heard that women were similarly on easy, he joked. despite rejecting abigail suggestions, john enthusiastically responded to her subject and style. he filled his high-spirited

letter with the long lists of specifics. including not just groups under authority, but opponents to the american cause, and reforms of government culminating in the term for mob rule. john follows abigail in alternating between formal political science and emotional response interactions. at the roots he shifts to a different description of relationships. calling male power little more than a fury. men knew they needed to take women's concerns into account and they did not dare to use their legal authority in practice. in practice you know that we are the subjects. having praised the ethics of her seemed -- of restraint leaderships, helix women's rights and revolutionary rhetoric.

washington would fight against women's efforts to control men. john's failure to engage in a full argument against women's rights did not mean he had no opinion on the subject. he addressed women's suffrage six weeks later in responding to a massachusetts jurist for ending property qualifications. john conceded that the consent of the people was the only moral foundation of government. he argued the precise application of the principle is unclear. he suggested that no one -- even some women and children had as much ability as men to vote. raising the issue of voter qualifications at this point john warned, would have in most discussions and troublesome claims. abigail was not seeking an extended debate. she found john's response

invigorating despite expressing disappointment at his positions in a long letter to their mutual friend. she described theparaphrasing long passages from both letters. john's response called abigail saucy. the term often used for disobedient children was dangerous, even in jest. abigail tells one that john had also been saucy in response to her list of female grievances, again mixing the language of pushing relationships sauciness, with the practice -- with the practicing of former politics, showing john had not this red his wife's tone. both recognized the need to keep up each spirits, particularly in these months. the british had just left nearby

boston in march and had been a source of continuing concern for the safety of the family and property. abigail begins her march 31 letter -- i wish you would ever write me a letter half as long as i write you, suggesting her message sought to have john remember not just the ladies but herself. responding to her call for further involvement, john offered a substantial character sketch of his barber in a mid -april letter, calling the description a trifling subject intended for your amusement. abigail explained in early may that she delayed writing because , dismayed at the lethargy of massachusetts patriots, she had not felt enough humor to entertain you, and feared using unbecoming invectives. such attentiveness to the concerns of their partners was a

cornerstone of john and abigail's relationship. they had began writing virtually from the start of the courtship, as we will hear next. john told abigail a few months before their wedding that he had thought of sending her a nest of letters, like a nest of baskets, even though he knew the baskets themselves might be a more genteel and acceptable present. john may have realized he had found a friend who would appreciate letters even more. john asked her, is there no way for two friendly souls to converse together, although their bodies are 400 miles off? he answered his own question yes. by letter. abigail's call for women's rights seems easy today to see as a policy prescription for a lawyer's brief. she was serious about her concerns.

she was also taking a turn offering polished remarks that would have been welcome in his sophisticated salon. john and abigail showed off, entertaining and impressing each other. each offered a polite, literally polished contribution for broader conversation they knew was essential to their relationship. before one of his trips to europe during the revolutionary war, john gave abigail a locket for training a woman sitting on -- portraying a woman sitting on the shore as the ship sailed away. at her feet lies an anchor, a symbol of hope that the long not -- that belonged not to the ship, but the friend aboard, a connection she might've said held fast by their correspondence. you bid me burn your letters john had responded to abigail's request, but i must forget you

first. abigail's final statement on women's rights in early may 1776 concludes by emphasizing that women themselves did not want for power. -- full power. she first chides john for not recognizing that his views of liberty should extend to women. it paralleled an argument already being made. although men's power was no w absolute, there are butchery authority could be defeated by -- their authority could be defeated by women's power to free themselves and subdued their masters. restraint and respectful authority would allow women some ability to sway decisions. abigail's letter follows the rhetorical pattern they had a -- had established earlier. she first calls male rule absolute and arbitrary, terms that had been long used to critique irresponsible power and call for responsive as well as responsible leadership.

women had the power to destroy this male control without violence, taking men's natural legal authority and throwing it at our feet. abigail quotes alexander pope in shifting the discussion from legal and constitutional terms. women would gain power, she suggests, by accepting male authority, or excepting proper -- or accepting proper male authority. with abigail's concluding reference to women obeying. the exchange seems rather disappointing at the end. her point makes more sense within the culture of politeness. pope's poem does not demand female servility. it instead celebrates its subject. in the couplet before, the one abigail quotes, the ideal woman is celebrated for acting with

moderation. she ne'er answers till a husband cools, or if she rules him never shows she rules. abigail's uncertainty about the rightful power of women makes her final sentence problematic. in an odd phrase, one that i misread for years, she writes that once women had subdued their masters, they would flow through natural and legal authority at our feet. dedications had also spoken of being laid at the feet of the superior. the biblical vision depicted in william blake's watercolor depicted heavenly elders as in the revelation casting their crowns before jesus' throne. but these images suggest humbled men laying down their authority,

not women casting it at their own feet. abigail furthermore offers no transition into the pope quotation. the accepting and submitting in the first line had just been in abigail's prediction the experience of men. what is going on here is that this reveals abigail's uneasiness with the stock alternatives. although men had demanded too much authority, the picture of women triumphing was not fully satisfying either. women should not hold such power themselves. politeness had sought to create a world where such harshness was unnecessary. abigail's favorite novel was samuel richardson's, a book about seduction of a young woman driven away from home by parents trying to control to tightly

-- too tightly their child's marital plans. abigail and john's eldest daughter decided she had experienced a very different sort of parenting in 1785. only 11 in 1776, she had spent little time with her father during the war and afterwards. when she finally visited him in england for an extended period nine years later, she found he was not the severe man she had expected. having feared he would demand her obedience, she notes with surprise in her diary that he left me to follow my own wishes in the most important concerns of life. since her father did not, like many other parents, usurp the power nature had given them by acting as tyrants over their families, he was worthy of every token of my attention.

in their parenting, their correspondence, and even john's governing, the adams sought to balance the hard power of laws with the soft power of concern. sentimental 19th century americans would develop an almost mystical confidence in the power of sympathy. not coincidentally, the name of the first novel written in america. published only a few years after this exchange. for all her faith and friendship, abigail had known better. her opening statement noted the need for laws to restrain vicious men, deaf to the demands of tenderness. although john did not note it, abigail had used the principle that had inspired his own call for a republic. in the phrase that would become most closely associated with john, abigail would call for a government of laws and not of men.

over the next generations, americans often came to see power and politeness less as parts of a whole than as differing categories. the french social theorist use d this terminology of separate spheres extensively in his great study of american democracy in the 1830's. he also recognized the significance of the connections envisioned earlier in the ideals of politeness. his final work on the french revolution suggested the french aristocracy had become so dominant that it did not need to show concern for common people. the more constrained english nobility had been forced to treat common people generously even to treat them as equals. while abigail and john could not have accepted the description of the english aristocrats, they surely would have approved of his lesson of building authority

through polite exchange. stating that the french nobility had clung to its prerogatives, and failed. the english counterpart, who had treated people more generously had submitted that it might command. [no audio] thank you. >> thank you. good morning. neil and i have been comparing the courtship correspondence of

john and abigail and john quincy, and louisa catherine is explored the idea of proximity and how the physical proximity of each couple really influenced the development of their relationship. i'm going to take that as my starting point today, and then i'm going to turn it on its head a little bit and expand beyond the courtship years. to that idea of physical proximity i also want to add the idea of a cultural proximity. certainly john and abigail had a certain degree of sameness.

geographically they both came from coastal farming communities, and they also shared a new england congregationalist background. those are values they instill in their eldest son. those are the values that john quincy tased to london in 1795 -- takes to london in 1795 where he meets louisa catherine, who definitely comes from a different cultural background. she has more cosmopolitan european upbringing rooted in the anglican church. that idea of cultural proximity and physical proximity really underscores how we can understand the development of these two couples' relationships. now, in terms --

there we go. sorry. wrong button, i think. if we take john and abigail's first letter, we can look at that twin idea of proximity in this letter. it is rooted in a culture of familiar letters. it reads like a conversation. it is light and loving, teasing, fun, and the affection and devotion is evident in it and is certainly characteristic of the corpus of john and abigail's correspondence. if we take the final letter nearly 40 years later -- abigail gets the last word -- this letter is very typical of abigail adams. it is reading february 1801 from philadelphia as abigail is making her way from washington dc back to quincy.

john has lost his bid for reelection to thomas jefferson and the couple's public life is coming to a close. in typical abigail fashion, she writes of the political scene when she arrives in philadelphia. she reports the response to the election to john, and also comments on the honors being shown her as she passes through the town. somebody had printed her arrival in the paper. throngs of people are lining up in the rain to pay their respects to the president's lady. it is the last paragraph that encapsulates abigail. she writes, adieu, my friend. i wish you well through the remainder of your political journey. i want to see the list of judges. i think in that you have

abigail's affection and devotion to john. you have her concern for jon husband, and john the public service. -- servant. and then you have this deep intellectual engagement that she has with political life during that list of judges is the so-called midnight appointees of john. it is this wonderful, rich encapsulation of abigail's correspondence. the reason i showed the first and the last is that nearly 1200 letter span over the course of 40 years is available to us because that proximity change for the couple. going from the courtship period, where they are largely together and able to negotiate the bounds of the relationship through conversation, they enter 30

years where they spend more time apart than together. this is why we have a wonderful and rich historic record from which to draw. it is something historians dip into in particular ways to tell particular stories. you want to look at the revolution, there's a certain span of course bonnets. -- correspondence. you want to tell the evolution of john and/or abigail's political ideology, then you run the span of the correspondence or you can tell the story of abigail. as historical editors, but we -- what we bring to the conversation is a slightly different perspective. we work through the correspondence systematically and methodically. we engage with the correspondence and characters in a very intimate way to some

extent. when you look at it at that microlevel, what really emerges is this idea that they were sharing these experiences over time, but their lived experience and their experience as couples is shared only through their letters. they have to write about those experiences in a way that brings them to their partner. there is one stunning example of this. i have a couple, if we have time. the one i really want to focus on takes place in 1777, and john is in philadelphia, attending the continental congress. he has been there since january. when he left quincy, he left abigail pregnant with her sixth child.

the span of correspondence picks up on 9 july, ending on the 28th of july, when john receives this first letter. the first letter is abigail voicing some concerns that things are different with this pregnancy and she's worried that something has happened. people are telling her that perhaps that is unfounded, but she's a little concerned. in a series of four letters, she goes from a few concerns to describing a very difficult physical labor, and i have one quote from that. she has been in labor for 48 hours, and she writes, i must lay my pen down this moment to bear what i cannot fly from. now i have endured it.

i reassume my pen. it is rather remarkable, just from a logistics perspective. more than that, the only way she can share this really painful experience with her partner is by writing about it. this is an incredibly intimate detail, especially for this time period, and it is that kind of detail that really just grabs you and brings this experience home. for those of you who know the story, she gives birth to a stillborn daughter. she writes a letter on july 16th to say that the dear infant is numbered with its ancestors. in the meantime, john, who knows she is close to her time and is writing of his concerns for her well-being and his hopes that she's going to give birth to a

daughter, especially one that had abigail's -- who was good, fair, wise, and virtuous as the mother, or if perhaps it was a son, had the mother's mind and heart. but other than an awareness that this is about the time, his letters are run-of-the-mill reports on congressional activities, reports on the progress of the war, and when you read them in a series there is a jarring juxtaposition of the two sides of the correspondence. on the 26th, he starts to have an idea and he writes, i am anxious to hear. the more so because i had no letter from you, nor concerning you by the last post. that's really important. he knows that if anything is

wrong, someone else would have written him. but they haven't, because it's not just there is the stillborn child, but abigail's health is in the balance and they can't write until she is safe or not. it is this void of information and all he can say is i wait with impatience for monday morning when the post is to arrive. it is just kind of incredible from this perspective. two days later, the monday post has arrived and he receives the four letters. within the span of reading four letters, he is moved from concerns, perhaps unfounded, to this very difficult physical journey, to the death of his child and the anguish of his partner which he is not there to assuage.

it is one of those really stark moments that as an editor you get drawn in with the correspondence. i had a second example, and i'm going to keep it very brief. as editors we sometimes get caught up in the details. it is from our current volume, which is the first presidential volume. these portraits date to the beginning as the autumn's -- adam's presidency. abigail, similarly, is in quincy when john assumes the white house. she again is dealing with death and reporting death, and this time it is his mother's death she has to report, and also the death of her 21-year-old niece from tuberculosis. one is expected, and one is not. she writes these heart wrenching letters, oh, it is too much to bear.

my heart is too big for my bosom. it rends my frame. she writes about how all these trials and tribulations, she has been without the comfort of her partner. john is writing these teasing letters about how his wife and mother are ganging up on him and that is in between abigail's letter about the death and john's response to learning the news. it is this glaring detail that -- it is one of the really remarkable and interesting ways that as editors we engage with the correspondents. i will turn it over to neil. thank you. [applause]

>> good morning. john quincy adams and louisa catherine johnson's courtship correspondence was much more tumultuous than john and abigail's. john quincy and louisa exchanged twice as many letters than john and abigail, and throughout the correspondence, you see the issues that are going to arise later in their marriage starting to show up, their differences in temperaments and opinions and how these are going to play out later in their married life. i wanted to start a giving you guys a pretty good representation of what they look like when they were courting. as i mentioned, the actual miniatures they exchanged with each other and they have a delightful banter about, those

were sadly lost. these are pretty close to the same time period. john quincy's was done in 1795. that is when he shows up at the johnson household in london. louisa's miniature was done in 1797, the year she was married. in the paper i gave you some examples of the types of arguments that arose during their correspondence, but another issue that came up that i particularly like is john quincy is writing to louisa catherine in the summer of 1796, asking her how she is spending her time, if she is spending her time wisely, what she is doing to better herself. he particularly asks her about her performance with the harp and he says, your progress on the harp, i am persuaded, is great.

however, louisa writes him back and says i shall never make any proficiency in this charming accomplishment. she has been saying i have been thinking a lot about you and it is hard to concentrate on the harp. john quincy writes back and says, that is fine. playing the harp is charming him up but it is also it should be asked is charming, but also a trivial accomplishment. he says, i hope your hours are employed in the acquisition of more valuable qualities. you can imagine that is probably not the response the louisa was looking for from her future husband. i love this letter that louisa writes to john quincy in march of 1797. this really gives you a good idea about where louisa is coming from with their relationship. the first quote that i drew out, she's talking about the separation, how her family is

probably going to have to go to the united states pretty soon, that is going to lengthen the amount of time they are apart from each other. she uses the word forced philosophy, and this is something i have to be contended with. that was a very particular word. john quincy is constantly writing about his philosophy that he has taken about the fact they are apart from each other and they are going to have to endure it and accept it until a time when he can come to london for them to marry. he actually says about his philosophy, there is something pleasing and grateful in remembrance of a distant friend. that is how he is doing their -- viewing their courtship. louisa is not seeing it as being pleasing. she would much rather they were together than being separated. in the next part of the letter louisa gets gossipy. she's talking about david humphreys, who was the u.s. minister to portugal but is now going to be the u.s. minister to spain.

she writes that he just got married to a british lady, and isn't it great they are spending a little bit of time with her family before they go off to the diplomatic post? this is something that louisa would like to happen. she hopes when they do marry she will still be able to spend a little bit of time with her family before they go back to the united states. this is an issue that comes up in their marriage. both of them were very close to their families. in 1801, when john finishes up being a minister to prussia and comes back to the united states, they arrive in philadelphia. john wants to see his parents in massachusetts. he has not seen them for several years. louisa has got her little baby george washington adams, and she wants to go see her parents. they cannot agree, so they go their separate ways. john goes to massachusetts louisa goes to washington, d.c. later on louisa travels with john quincy to massachusetts. both of them when they were very committed to a point of view neither one of them wanted to

back down. in the bottom of this letter is where we start the correspondence talking about chesterfield's letters, and the whole debate on what is louisa reading what should louisa be , reading, is john quincy adams reading too much. louisa is talking about the time when finally he will be done with diplomatic service and they will be able to get married and spent time together. she says i shall see you divested of rank, and shall prove the sincerity of my attachment by convincing you it was not your situation but yourself that i loved. that is really important. when john quincy adams louisa get engaged, the idea is she will bring a dowry. when they actually get married

her father's finances have collapsed, so she does not bring any money to the marriage. this is an issue that comes up again and again in their relationship and in their married life. louisa feels like she can never complain or argue about financial issues because she did not bring any money to the marriage, so she doesn't have a foot to stand on. it doesn't stop her from lamenting the decisions john makes financially, like in 1803 when he decides to sell their house in boston and they are going to be living in quincy when they are in town. she much prefers to live in boston. she is lamenting to herself and lamenting in letters the fact that they have lost their boston home, but she feels like i really can't say anything because it is his money and he is going to be making the decisions. i wanted to show you some larger portraits.

this is john quincy adams in 1796. around the time when he is in london, courting louisa at the johnson family household. abigail really liked this image. she said that john quincy favorite it so much. louisa thought it was too flattering. here is louisa catherine painted in 1824 with her harp. john quincy like to go to the johnson household when he was in london and here the girls sing and play musical instruments. louisa was very happy with the fact that by the 1820's, the harp had come back into vogue. she was an accomplished musician. she decided to be painted with the popular instrument at the time. proximity did play a major role

in the courtship letters, and the difference in background between the two individuals was also important. john and abigail spent a lot of their married life apart abigail's with the children, john was away. it gives you great exchanges between this couple. the difference with john quincy and louisa is once they get married, they are spending most of their time together. when john quincy has different diplomatic roles, louisa is following him. the difference is that their children are often being left in massachusetts to be educated and reared by family members. this is particularly hard on louisa. this is a constant argument between them. john quincy wanted the boys to have a really good education but louisa, especially when the boys got older, as she felt very responsible and wondered if i

spend more time with them, with their lives have been different. particularly when john quincy becomes minister to st. petersburg, there are six years that she does not see her sons. she leaves those little boys and when she sees him again and -- in london, they are 12 and 14 years old. they're practically teenagers and almost strangers to their parents. that must've been particularly difficult to deal with in their marriage. i don't want to leave you thinking all is gloom and doom. i want to end with john quincy adams' diary. historians have said if you just look at john quincy adams' diary, you don't get a good idea about louisa because he doesn't mention her a lot and usually it's in passing. this particular entry, 26 july 1811, their wedding anniversary, he is writing in his diary for himself and he's reflecting back on their marriage thus far. i want to read you part of it.

he says, "our union has not been without its trials nor invariably without dissidents between us. there are many differences of sentiment, taste, and opinions in regard to domestic economy and to the education of children between us. there are natural frailties of temper in both of us, both being quick and irascible and mind being sometimes being harsh, but she has always been a faithful and affectionate wife and a careful, tender, and indulgent watchful mother. i have found in this connection a full conviction that my lot in marriage has been highly favored." i think that is why they did stay married for 50 years. they both realized they had made the right decision in choosing their life partner. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you so much. do you want to join us on the podium here? if anyone has any questions for any of the speakers, we have a couple of microphones that can be brought around to the audience. >> i have a question for sarah martin. >> yes, sir. >> can you hear me now? >> i can. >> are there any surviving letters of abigail's before she married john, such as you can say how her writing style developed and what the influences were? >> yes, there are. she had several female and male writing correspondence, and it fits within the culture of

familiar letters in that especially with the women, the letters were being used as a means of educating themselves, so they are discussing the books they are reading, they are exploring political ideas, and they're doing it very consciously in a way to educate themselves. and so one of the letters i can think of is to her cousin, isaac smith, and she saying that proudly she is reporting that she has some familiarity with the french language. and she demonstrates her newfound prowess by translating a sample of french and including it with a letter. it is not a large number, and i can't give you a number of the

top of my head, but there is multiple correspondents, male and female, and it is the same ideas that are reflected in her early correspondence with john. she is very much intellectually tentative. she had definite ideas, which is characteristic throughout her correspondence, but she's kind of finding her footing. certainly it is not the confident, intellectual abigail we would see in her later correspondence. >> i was so impressed by a letter that i did not realize until i read the paper that the first letter she writes to john is so extraordinary, coming from somebody like me who has a background in 18th century intellectual history, it is the most unlikely place you would find it, isn't this the one she is writing where she says why didn't you come visit me last time, where were you, you said

you would come, said you would only miss me if you were sick, which is the kind of u would -- kind of letter you would seek to receive, even e-mails and texts. she does it so charmingly. she has this beautiful -- that is sort of going backwards from a classic work of social theory at this time, which is thinking about the ways in which the -- in which benevolence and people's concern for each other extends outwards and eventually encompasses the whole world and universe. even from the very beginning she is the one bringing in the depths of using this deep intellectual history in ways that are not immediately obvious.

she is quoting, but you would not know which -- they were written before. >> i had a question maybe to all three of you, having to do with the change in attitudes or maybe evolution of john adams and john quincy adams, both married to strong and intelligent women. as you review the correspondence and diary entries, did you notice any change in tone or change in understanding that might suggest the john adams' view towards women in general, and the same with respect to john quincy adams, did you sense a change in tone, having lived with an experienced a long marriage with these two women? >> i will speak on john quincy. i think for him one big change was he had a 14-month engagement.

he had the courtship. as a young man he spent a lot of time with his father traveling around europe, being a diplomat, surrounded by older men, spending a lot of time in a very male environment. when he marries louisa and they get to prussia -- they are in a country where neither one of them has the upper hand and they are on neutral ground, and then louisa starts to have a series of miscarriages. john is taking care of her. she did have a doctor. john quincy adams spending a lot of time taking care of her. that changes his views radically because he is spending time for the first time as a married man, he and louisa are constantly with each other. seeing what she's going through and the hardships she's dealing with, that does a lot to influence his outlook.

>> with john and abigail, i don't know it is an evolution necessarily in how he thinks about women, i think you could discuss how he thinks about abigail. certainly there is a shift in the correspondence in how he intellectually engages her. in the earlier letters there is an instructional tone. in the later letters it is engagement with equals. both john and abigail are great advocates of public education. they are actually both advocates of both female and male public education. i think in a humorous exchange i don't remember the exact -- i think it is late 1770's, he basically writes, oh, woman, i am writing politics to a woman yes. it is humorous. it is one of those things where

he is commenting, the jocular aspect. there is very much of a teasing tone. the fact of the matter is part of abigail's attraction to john was that intellectual engagement she demonstrated, and certainly he fostered it and facilitated its growth in the beginning, but it was the respect and a mutual love for them. they are both in their later correspondence saying oh, have you read this? she is responding with ok but, but what about this person? while not perhaps intellectual equals, they were intellectual conversationalists. i think you do see that kind of shift in the quality of the -- the equality of the exchange over the course of correspondence.

>> i was just going to say, what i'm struck by is how well john and abigail get along with each other, and the troubles that john has getting along with presumably everyone else. he is so polite and sharing and fun, and you don't get that sense from other people viewing him in the 1790's particularly. i have a similar sense about abigail, too. the younger abigail comes to visit john. the reason she thinks he's going to be this harsh kind of guy presumably, is because she has grown up with abigail making her think that john was a tough guy. it is sort of comforting to me one of the reasons i included it

there, it is one of those speeds you don't think john adams had the very polite, very genteel, knowing how to treat somebody so beautifully. they write in their diary that night how extraordinary he was. >> do you recall any of the letters from any of the four celebrities, either describing their towns, their communities such as braintree, weymouth, quincy, or even boston? >> there are many, is a very short answer. they are spending time in all those communities, certainly abigail and john are. frequently -- if you're talking about descriptions with the physical landscape, you get that through john's letter.

he was always this hobby farmer. while he's engaged in very important political life that he experiences his longing for that rural field, and there are these descriptions. both abigail is providing them when she's in quincy because she knows they provide him a certain amount of solace while he's engaged in his public business and then i think one of the things that is new to me with this volume is it is the first volume where abigail is not rooted in quincy for the entire time. that is a first for me. we have these wonderful letters from her, and she's doing the same for abigail.

she is saying today i drove by , your house, and it looked so lonely. but then she goes on to describe that the clover is coming into bloom, and the strawberries are coming in in the garden. she has these wonderful, rich descriptions of the landscape. it is that kind of aspect of the question you are talking about. it is certainly there. they were very rooted to their home spaces. >> excellent program. this could be for either sarah or neil. i love the proximity scene that you addressed. i was curious if you could comment on john quincy adams perhaps using that lack of proximity in his introduction of louisa catherine to abigail through the letters in almost this teasing and gaining independence and teasing his own

mother, because he's finally on his own. would you comment on that? >> yes, so you guys might be aware that john quincy had had an earlier relationship with mary fraser that did not work out. his parents were very involved with that, giving that feedback . i think this time he is playing his cards closer to his chest. he was on the other side of the ocean, but that did not stop abigail from giving him advice before. i think he felt that i will, you know, do this at my own speed and make my own decision here. i'm a grown man. but he is very teasing and what -- in what he does tell her, and then abigail figures it out because she is abigail. she still is giving him advice particularly not so much on louisa as a person but on louisa as someone growing up in london

in a fine household, and what a shock it's going to be for her when she becomes the wife of a diplomat who doesn't have a lot of money, and then coming back to massachusetts where she had never been before. i think abigail is trying to tell john quincy that he needs to make her aware of this. he does. he's very explicit in their correspondence about this is the life you are going to have. louisa loves john and she's willing to accept whatever he comes up with. i think this is him asserting his individuality and the fact that he is a grown man and he's going to make his own decisions. >> as both a wife and mother, i find that both of their marriages were very unconventional in that i think for john and abigail, abigail is

a very independent, extremely bright woman, but because they were apart for so long, she had her own domain. she had control. she had her own power, and her relationship with john was more of an emotional and intellectual banter. he wasn't there through all those child-rearing years. on the other hand, louisa, while she was totally dedicated to john quincy, she was torn away from her children and so there was none of that being brought the child-rearing is a family. -- child-rearing as a family. well maybe it works for both of their personalities and their relationships, i find both of the relationships quite unconventional and very remarkable, obviously, but they did not have the same kind of

perhaps stresses in their , relationship that perhaps they would have had had they been a nuclear family unit. i don't know what your thoughts would be on that. >> i would agree to the extent that we are dealing with none -- with not necessarily common marital situations, but i think that especially during the revolutionary years, it's not necessarily that uncommon. abigail was certainly not the only woman left guarding the home front. we have been dealing with wars throughout the ages. we know more about it because the correspondence survives. you have to take that with a little bit of a grain of salt that there isn't necessarily a one type fits all for marriage

today, that was true back then. and yes, we are dealing with incredibly independent people. you can see that. you can see that in the way abigail handles the management of their properties. she's very cautious and asking for advice early in the marriage, and then she's a little more confident. by 1790, she's referring to them as her farms. there is definitely that evolution, but i don't think it is that their relationship was founded on love and intellectual engagement. that is a critical component but they were very present in each other's lives. that is what the letters are. that is how they remained present in each other's lives. that was the means that they had.

yes, john quincy and louisa and they existed -- excuse me, their children were rooted here while they were off for extended periods of time, but so too were john and abigail's children at various times away from the home. john took both of his elder sons with him to europe, and at one point he puts charles on a boat to come back to the united states by himself. abigail hears about it second hand and then the boat doesn't arrive because -- she literally has no idea where in the world her son is. it's a differing degree than perhaps your idea of the nuclear family, but i think they had the same concerns, they just play out differently. >> thank you. we will take a short break. if you have any questions for the speakers, you can talk to them during the break. there are refreshments to the left.

in the back -- actually, at the front of the church we have books for sale. there are restrooms at the back and down the stairs. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> here are some of our featured programs this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span2 tonight at 10:00 bre t stephens argues our enemies and competitors are taking advantage of the situation abroad as it focuses on domestic concerns. monday night at 10:00, steve israel on his recent novel about a salesman and a top-secret government surveillance program. on american history tv on c-span3 tonight at 8:00, george mason university professor john turner