CSN - LightWing Messages - Women’s Freedom in the 1770s - 3/3/2024
From the Book of Judith
Now there was in the city a woman named Judith, of rare beauty and of great wealth, who, being a widow, lived retired in her own house, and spent her days in prayer and good works. Being touched with compassion for the sad condition of her people, she presented herself before the ancients of the city and said:
“What is this word by which you have consented to give up the city within five days? You have set a time for the mercy of the Lord according to your pleasure. This is not a word that may draw down mercy, but rather indignation. Let us therefore be penitent for this same thing, and remember that all the Saints were tempted and remained faithful; but that those who rejected the trials of the Lord were destroyed. And let us believe that these scourges have happened for our amendment and not for our destruction.”
The ancients, inspired by these noble words, begged her to pray for the people. She consented, and retiring to her oratory, clothed herself in hair-cloth, put ashes on her head, and falling prostrate before the Lord, she besought Him to humble the enemies of her nation. While she thus prayed, Almighty God inspired her with the thought that she should go into the camp of the enemy and cut off the head of the Assyrian general Holofemes.
Then, putting off the haircloth, she immediately arrayed herself in her richest garments, perfumed herself with the best ointments, plaited her hair, and adorned herself with bracelets, earlets, and rings. And the Lord increased her beauty, because all her dressing up did not proceed from vanity. Then she took a servant-maid with her and set out for the camp of Holofernes.
Being brought before Holofernes, the tyrant was charmed with her majestic beauty, and supposing that she had fled from her own people, ordered her to receive every attention, and to be allowed to go and come as she pleased. On the fourth day Holofernes gave a grand banquet to the officers of his army. He and they overcharged themselves with wine, and when they lay down on their couches, they fell into a death-like sleep. Then Judith resolved to strike the decisive blow that was to save her country and her people.
She besought God, saying: “Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, and in this hour look upon the works of my hands, that I may bring to pass that which I have purposed, having a belief that it might be done by Thee.” Then she moved softly towards the tent of Holofernes. And taking his sword, which hung from a pillar nearby, she drew it from its scabbard, raised it aloft, and, at the second stroke, cut off the head of the sleeping tyrant. She then gave the head to her maid…
Note: The Book of Judith is in the Apocrypha of the Septuagint (the preceding is a summarized version). The actual text can be found here: The Book of Judith - World English Bible (WEB)
FOUNDER’S MESSAGE:
In last week’s LightWing Messages, I made reference to a recent article to honor George Washington. I wrote: “…the nation has changed radically since the days of Washington and those of the founding generation. As Americans have lost touch with their heritage, they have also allowed a most dangerous theft of their inheritance as citizens of the Land of the Free. In today’s messages, there is a glimpse of that time of the founding.
Since the month of March is designated as the month to remember American women’s history, it seems fitting to provide an opportunity in today’s messages to reflect upon a couple of women in American history who did much in their own unique ways to pioneer and to promote women’s freedom and women’s rights in the United States. Freedom is a many faceted word and those who are fortunate to understand how to achieve it in their lives are truly blessed by Heaven, for where there is freedom, that is where the Spirit of the Lord is, according to St. Paul.
One of the messages is from one who lived through it, and one who wrote great praise of George Washington before he became the first United States President. The message is that very poem from Phillis Wheatley, “His Excellency General Washington.” She was a slave, yet
became the first African-American and one of the first colonial women to publish a book of poetry in the colonies.
The first message offered is one I wrote the other day gleaned from notes taken a few years back regarding Abigail Adams. It is focused upon the genuine and loving relationship between John and Abigail Adams who, unknowingly through their voluminous correspondence, have left a legacy of a husband and wife and a family who sacrificially served in the birth of a new nation that was conceived in Liberty. This remarkable couple are often overlooked in the telling of our nation’s story, but their value should not be diminished. Especially, at a time when Heavenly Father needs other individuals and couples and families to stand in defense of Freedom itself.
The two messages provide two different looks at presidents through the eyes of two distinctly different ladies living at the same time. Both of these ladies, it seems, lived out their capacity and capabilities to pursue freedom to its fullest despite their respective limitations. This is why they both serve as extraordinary examples of womanhood in their own right. In my humble opinion, it would be good to reflect on the true traits of real women when “gender equality” has become an empty political slogan in our day. True womanhood is in relationship with Heavenly Father and shines brightly when that relationship fully matures.
For those readers wanting more, we continue to hope those folks would join us and could join the Monday Zoom calls. Our calls this year are following the same format of having a discussion or an interview linked to the topic covered in the preceding Sunday edition. This month we will offer an interview with author Jack Meyer. Our LightWing Zoom calls have been successful from last year, and in 2024, they will continue getting better.
Tomorrow, our regular discussion will focus on the message offered today about Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, the first lady of the second President of the United States and mother of the sixth POTUS.
We invite our readers to call in and check in with other like-minded readers for mutual support in such turbulent times. Our readers can participate in the question and answer session, or just listen. If readers are not already on our list to receive a link to the call, please send an email request to this address: d.jamzon@gmail.com We’ll add you to our mailing list.
CSN LightWing Mission – Zoom call Monday 3/4/24 at 5:00pm PST NOW Mondays at 5pm PST (6pm MST; 7pm CST; 8pm EST).
These words are being freely offered to you – intended to shine light unto our paths, as written: “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Proverbs 29:18 - KJV
May God bless our readers and all of their loved ones. May God bless All His Children!
May we who are called by our Father in Heaven, humble ourselves and pray earnestly, seeking to know His heart and mind and to know His Will. May we repent for our lack of faith and iniquity. May we have the courage to not only turn away from our wicked ways, but may we seriously turn toward Him and pursue righteousness and His Kingdom.
Abigail Adams & Women’s Freedom in the 1770s
By Dennis Jamison 3/2/24
The month of March is presently designated as the month to remember American women’s history, and such a designation provides numerous opportunities to reflect upon women in American history who did much in their own ways to pioneer, promote and prosper women’s freedom and women’s rights in the United States. One of those lady pioneers was Abigail Adams. However, despite her free spirit in relation with her husband John, her words and her ways have often been misconstrued, misunderstood, or deliberately distorted.
Mr. and Mrs. John Adams serves as a great example of a husband and wife working in harmony for the well-being of their family as well as the greater good of their community and country. They show up in our heritage as a couple struggling with challenging and stressful times, yet demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice for a higher purpose. If John Adams is one of the original Founding Fathers of the nation, Abigail Adams should be more than qualified to be one of the “Founding Mothers.” Each, unique in their own ways, help to plant and nourish the seeds of freedom that would ultimately be harvested by their descendants. We know this because of their correspondence in trying times.
Around 1200 letters have survived of this extensive correspondence between Abigail and John, and through their written words, despite sometimes questionable grammar and inconsistent spelling, the American people have an opportunity to come to know more deeply this extraordinary couple. The well-known historian, Joseph Ellis, in his book Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (1993), commented that these letters “constituted a treasure trove of unexpected intimacy and candor, more revealing than any other correspondence between a prominent American husband and wife in American history.”
This is a fairly strong statement regarding the vitality of such a husband and wife relationship evidenced in such written records. The correspondence from Abigail, although she was primarily self-educated, reveals that she could hold her own in the intellectual exchanges between her and her Harvard-educated husband over politics, government, and philosophy. While Joseph Ellis respects John Adams as one of the better letter-writers of his time, he views Abigail as a better and more colorful letter- writer than Mr. Adams.
These letters from Abigail covered issues such as the harsh New England weather, word-of-mouth and eyewitness accounts of events in the revolutionary environment of Boston, comments and concerns about the current politics of the day (especially ideas on the new form of government being created) as well as Abigail’s personal or political philosophy. She also offered her practical advice to her husband as John often sought the advice of his partner on various matters and their long distance discussions could be playful, yet earnest.
Abigail once admitted, in a letter she wrote to John 1775, “My pen is always freer than my tongue; I have wrote many things to you that I suppose I never would have talked.” Such an admission leads one to believe that without the lengthy periods of necessary separation, the world would never have learned Mrs. Adams’ innermost thoughts, and in addition, maybe John would have missed the opportunity to know his wife in a more complete way. It is also highly likely that unless Abigail felt such freedom to share her innermost thoughts and sentiments with John, the world would have missed the opportunity to know this remarkable woman.
By the same measure though, it is also entirely understandable that Abigail would not have felt free to write such stinging sentiments to another man; for example, someone like Thomas Jefferson with whom she did correspond. For instance, Abigail Adams’ views on the tyranny of men were directed mainly to the man she felt she could trust with her innermost thoughts, the man she considered her dearest friend: “That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth also thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.”
However, while it is true that Abigail dared to express her issues with the ‘tyrannical nature’ of men and her strong belief in the rights of women, these views were likely written without the idea that others would someday read her words. It is reported that Abigail and John instructed others who received their letters to burn them as Martha Washington did with her letters from George, many did not follow the Adams’ instructions, and now people around the world have access to her views.
It was a different age and letters were more personal and much more private – a much more secure line of communication than in our computerized age of instantaneous and cloud “stored” messaging. So, while Abigail Adam’s views were very potent, and they carried even more weight since she was also once the First Lady of the United States of America, they were intended only for her husband – not the entire world nor intended for future fertilization of the seeds of a feminist movement. There is no doubt Mrs. Adams’ wit, perspective and courage in sharing her mind was far ahead of her time. Yet, there is a serious point that is overlooked, more easily in our time, and that is the privacy of the communication permitted a freedom of expression. Additionally, the intent that letters be burned was an intent to ensure such privacy.
Yet, the letters continue to speak to the future generations and reveal a true relationship of a man and a woman who treated each other with respect, who trusted each other and who loved each other in an incredibly turbulent time in human history. Certainly, it would be no easy task to now determine whether many other women of her generation were of the same opinions or frame of mind, or whether other couples shared the same degree of honesty and genuine interaction in their communication.
It is obvious that Mrs. Adam’s words had a powerful impact on generations of women in the future and were used in the building of the critical mass for the feminist movement. It is true her ideas would provide a foundation for the women who utilized her words as inspiration and guidance for the creation of the Women’s Suffrage movement. Abigail’s letter to John on March 31, 1776, has usually been the one most often quoted with regard to women’s rights, as it expressed a strong and serious admonition to her husband, but also directed to John as a representative of the Second Continental Congress:
…by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would 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 no particular car 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.”
In this statement, Abigail Adams was sharing sentiments is a book her and her husband both knew, but it planted seeds of thought for those of her gender, long after she passed away. Such words flowed forth freely because she felt the genuine freedom to express what was inside of her heart and mind. If John had been an ogre of a husband, she may have stifled her genuine sentiments and future generations would have never known Abigail’s true heart. Their genuine relationship permitted her this freedom of expression and she had much to express regarding the freedom of women in the newly forming nation.
Unfortunately, attempts to isolate either Mr. or Mrs. as individuals from their deep mutual respect, trust and love for one another miss the significance and resilient strength of the depth of their union. Those who see to separate the couple for whatever deeper political agenda, do so out of ignorance, malice, or a political agenda. Mrs. Adams certainly felt free to speak her mind to her husband because she felt respected, loved and trusted. That they were a couple, or a genuine team, is quite apparent in their correspondence. It is their harmony in time of incredible turmoil and grave danger that should show up as extraordinary. There was a war on and they still found time to share in such a significant way with one another, despite all the hardship.
As history usually only takes note of the Founding Fathers, it is long overdue that Americans fully acknowledge the old maxim that “behind every great man is a great woman” and acknowledge Abigail Adams as the great woman behind her husband. Certainly her son, John Quincy, who went on to become the sixth president of the developing United States, had a wee bit of support from his mother as well. His own expression of praise of his mother’s relationship to his father serves as a proper tribute to her:
“There is not a virtue that can abide in the female heart but it was the ornament of hers. She had been fifty-four years the delight of my father's heart, the sweetener of all his toils, the comforter of all his sorrows, the sharer and heightener of all his joys. It was but the last time when I saw my father that he told me... [that] through all the good report and evil report of the world, in all his struggles and in all his sorrows, the affectionate participation and cheering encouragement of his wife had been his never-failing support, without which he was sure he should never have lived through them.”
His Excellency General Washington
Phillis Wheatley 1753 - 1784
Celestial choir! enthron'd in realms of light,
Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write.
While freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See mother earth her offspring's fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light
Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!
The Goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel binds Her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber'd charms and recent graces rise.
Muse! Bow propitious while my pen relates
How pour her armies through a thousand gates,
As when Eolus heaven's fair face deforms,
Enwrapp'd in tempest and a night of storms;
Astonish'd ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the sounding shore;
Or think as leaves in Autumn's golden reign,
Such, and so many, moves the warrior's train.
In bright array they seek the work of war,
Where high unfurl'd the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praise recite?
Enough thou know'st them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in peace and honors—we demand
The grace and glory of thy martial band.
Fam'd for thy valour, for thy virtues more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!
One century scarce perform'd its destined round,
When Gallic powers Columbia's fury found;
And so may you, whoever dares disgrace
The land of freedom's heaven-defended race!
Fix'd are the eyes of nations on the scales,
For in their hopes Columbia's arm prevails.
Anon Britannia droops the pensive head,
While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah! Cruel blindness to Columbia's state!
Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.
Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev'ry action let the Goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! Be thine.
Phillis Wheatley Peters was born in West Africa in 1753. At the age of eight, she was kidnapped, enslaved in New England, and sold to John Wheatley of Boston. The first African-American and one of the first women to publish a book of poetry in the colonies, Wheatley learned to read and write English by the age of nine, familiarizing herself with Latin, Greek, the Bible, and selected classics at an early age. She began writing poetry at thirteen, modeling her work on the English poets of the time, particularly John Milton, Thomas Gray, and Alexander Pope. Wheatley wrote a letter and poem in support of George Washington, who replied with an invitation to visit him in Cambridge, stating that he would be “happy to see a person so favored by the muses.”
In 1773, thirty-nine of her poems were published in London as Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which became the first book of poetry published by an enslaved African-American in the United States. The book includes many elegies as well as poems on Christian themes; it also includes poems dealing with race, such as the often-anthologized “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” She returned to America in 1773.
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