Abigail Adams was a woman ahead of her time. Although no major social changes took place during her lifetime, she was an early advocate for many issues including women's rights, and the rights of slaves. The letters she exchanged with her husband, John Adams, reveal a relationship unmatched in its time for both personal and intellectual intimacy.
             According to Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature, Abigail Adams once wrote, "If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women" (1: 3). Abigail Adams learned to read at home as a child but felt strongly that women should have the same opportunities as men when it came to formal education. Her education and her letter writing skills give us great insight into the events that took place during the time our nation was being formed. Perhaps Abigail's most famous plea for women's rights during these times came in a letter she wrote to her husband on March 31, 1776, while he was in Philadelphia.
             "I long to hear that you have declared independence – and 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" (Shepherd 76). Abigail's words appeared to have little effect on her husband. Although John Adams valued his wife's input, Abigail's desire was not recognized. In a letter dated April 14, 1776, John replied: As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government everywhere. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient – that Indians slighted their Guardians, and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown discontented (77).
             Although John Adams claimed that the men were superior to the women in title only ...