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| Abigail Adams, Gilbert Sullivan |
I thought about taking up the American flag out by the mailbox yesterday evening as I came in from church that I'd stuck in the ground especially for Independence Day. Decided to leave it just a few more days and began to reflect again on that hot, muggy day (as these past few days have been) in July, 235 years ago, when fifty-six men pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor as they signed and supported the Declaration of Independence from foreign rule. In doing so, they appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” Those who signed their names were to be persecuted as outlaws by their military enemies. If the struggle for independence was unsuccessful, they knew there would be certain death as traitors to the Crown of England.
Many of these men lost everything—their homes, their property, their families, their health. A bounty price was set for the capture of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Some of the signers had their homes burned and property destroyed; one man’s wife was imprisoned and eventually died from the hardships; others were harassed and left impoverished; another had to be constantly on the run, and his wife died of exposure and the unceasing strain.
It cost these men a great deal to be a signer of that great document. But let us not forget that it cost their wives a great deal as well, as we read in Wives of the Signers, published by Wallbuilders Press:
"... yet rarely a complaint do we find in their correspondence. On the other hand, the letters and other recorded utterances of the wives of the signers breathe the utmost devotion not only to their husbands but to the great cause for which their husbands had thrown life and fortune in the balance."
On June 20, 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to reassure her husband, John, in Philadelphia:
I feel no anxiety at the large armament designed against us. The remarkable interpositions of heaven in our favor cannot be too gratefully acknowledged. He who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, who clothes the lilies of the field and who feeds the young ravens when they cry, will not forsake a people engaged in so right a cause, if we remember His loving kindness.
~ America's God and Country by William J.Federer
June 2, 1778—From the Autobiography of John Adams.
From all that I had read of History and Government, of human Life and manners, I had drawn this Conclusion, that the manners of Women were the most infallible Barometer, to ascertain the degree of Morality and Virtue in a Nation. All that I have since read and all the observations I have made in different Nations, have confirmed me in this opinion. The Manners of Women, are the surest Criterion by which to determine whether a Republican Government is practicable, in a Nation or not. The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Swiss, the Dutch, all lost their public Spirit, their Republican Principles and habits, and their Republican Forms of Government, when they lost the Modesty and Domestic Virtues of their Women.
If the manners of women is, in reality, the ‘infallible barometer’ of the practicality of a republican form of government, what could be said of the modesty and domestic virtues of the women of our era for the cause of America’s form of government?
The manners of the women of 1776 helped change the course of history, and to those women and to their husbands America is indebted...and to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions.
An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.
Proverbs 31: 10-12
Painting ~ Abigail Adams 1810, Gilbert Sullivan 1755-1828
Wikimedia Commons public domain
