There is no doubt that Abigail Adams, wife of the founding father John Adams, was a wise and intelligent woman. In fact, her wisdom and intelligence still holds up today through her writing, specifically expressed through letters that John had written to her, and ones that she wrote to John and her son, John Quincy Adams, in which is the subject of this essay. Despite John Adams being, according to the musical 1776, “obnoxious and disliked”, it is shown through these writings that Abigail still loves him and his posterity. This particular letter, written in 1780 to John Quincy Adams when he was travelling with his father to France, demonstrates such maternal love through many different ways. The motherly love and advice in the tone of this…show more content… The main, and only example, is a reference to a historical event. “Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an orator if he had not been roused, kindled, and inflamed by the tyranny of Catiline, Verres, and Mark Anthony?”, she rhetorically asks John Quincy. Someone may not know of Cicero or the “tyranny of Catiline”, but a reader of this letter would understand the main point of this allusion. A translation without the allusion may read to this: “Would any public speaker get anywhere without being pushed by some current event that had moved them immensely?” Abigail adds extra clarification on her allusion, “The habits of a vigorous mind are formed with contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this…”. History is an effective method of advising the youth, or anyone really, because it’s already happened. Looking upon victories or failures of the past could at least stimulate someone to think upon their own lives to try to correct the mistakes of those who came before. “Yet it is your lot, my son, to be an eyewitness of these calamities in your own native land…” Abigail instructs her son in these regards, for “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat
