Report on Abigail Adams: Part 2

By Rebekah Cox

Abigail was not able to be with John at his inauguration due to sickness. Later, she agreed to assist in the arranging of the White House and to hire and supervise servants Abigail did not want to look or act “Queenly,” so she asked her sisters to tell her when she changed her attitude.

The Press enjoyed writing about distinguished people and President John Adams and First Lady, Abigail Adams were not at all able to escape the offensive attention of the English Press. They would write criticizing things about the work John did in the United States as President, and they also wrote how poorly Abigail would choose the produce at the grocery stores. The English Press annoyed Thomas Jefferson, who was a good friend of the Adams's, and the angry the American papers would repeat the slander. Abigail was very tired of public life, and she said: “If my future peace and tranquility were all that I considered, a release from public life would be the most desirable event of it.”  She also said that it “…requires courage and firmness, wisdom and temperance, patience and forbearance to stand in such a conspicuous elevated position.” 

President and Mrs. Adams lived with their servants in their Philadelphia house for three years. Then President John Adams went to live in the almost-finished Presidential Mansion. Abigail was very reluctant to join the President at the White House, because of his political enemies, and that the mansion was not finished. 

Abigail thought the mansion gloomy and unfurnished. In 1800, Abigail spent almost a year in the gloomy Presidential Mansion, and then John failed to be re-elected as the President of the United States of America.  1801 John and Abigail Adams retired to Massachusetts to live with their family. At this time Abigail was fifty-six years old. 

October 28, 1818 Mrs. Abigail Adams died at her home in Quincy, Massachusetts at the age of 73.  John Adams lived to see his son, John Quincy Adams elected as the sixth President of the United Stats of America, 1824. Then on July 4,1826 John Adams also died. 

Twenty-two years after Abigail Adams died, her grandson, John Quincy’s son, published the first book of Abigail’s letters. Many of the letters contained anti-slavery comments. Later on, as the women’s rights movement began, feminists made Abigail one of their heroines, and would forcefully quote from one of Abigail’s letters to John the words: “Remember the Ladies.”