![ADAMS, John, President. Autograph letter signed ("John Adams") to "Madam Mercy [Otis] Warren," Quincy, 2 February 1814. PRESENT AT THE CREATION: ADAMS CORRECTS A FELLOW SIGNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE VOTE FOR THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1999/NYR/1999_NYR_09178_0147_000(115056).jpg?w=1)
细节
ADAMS, John, President. Autograph letter signed ("John Adams") to "Madam Mercy [Otis] Warren," Quincy, 2 February 1814. PRESENT AT THE CREATION: ADAMS CORRECTS A FELLOW SIGNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE VOTE FOR THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Writing to an old friend and fellow author, Adams forwards a recent letter from fellow Signer Thomas McKean describing the events surrounding Congress' vote for independence in 1776. (McKean's 7 January 1814 letter appears in Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Ser.4, vol.4:506-508). Adams is perturbed that McKean had been wrong as to the date of the crucial vote itself. "...Mr. McKean is mistaken in a day or two. The final Vote of Independence, after the last debate, was passed on the 2nd or 3rd of July, and the Declaration prepared and Signed on the 4th."
But McKean's garbled version of such an important event is disturbing to Adams' sense of history: "What are we to think of History," he laments, "When in less than 40 years such Diversities appear in the Memories of living Persons who were witnesses." He asks for the return of McKean's original, requesting that "after noting what you please, I pray you to return the Letter. I should like to communicate it to [Elbridge] Gerry, [Thomas] Paine, and Jefferson, to Stirr up their pure Minds." Interestingly, it was Adams who, years earlier, had identified July 2 as the day which should be commemorated and celebrated since it was "the day he believed the clinching debate had occurred in the Continental Congress" (Ellis, John Adams: Passionate Sage, p.234).
Mercy Otis Warren (1728-Oct.19, 1814), sister of patriot James Otis and sister-in-law of the hero of Bunker Hill, Joseph Warren, was "without much doubt, the most intellectually accomplished woman in revolutionary America" (Ellis p.69). Itimately involved in the agitation preceding independence, she "became in a manner the poet laureate and later historical apologist for the patriot cause...At a later date she would doubtless have been termed a feminist for her aggressive concern with public affairs and her insistence upon the right of women to have other than domestic interests" (DAB). She was the author of a book of verse, several political satires and an important History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (1805), the publication of which severely alienated Adams, who believed that her account minimized his own contributions to the American cause and the independence movement, and wrongly taxed him with a fondness for monarchy, dating from his sojourn at the court of St. James. Their 50-year friendship ended in a bitter estrangement, which was only reconciled by the intervention of a mutual friend, Signer Gerry. "Loving letters were exchanged and locks of hair as tokens of peace," and their correspondence resumed, if somewhat formal in tone, as in the present letter. But in a letter to Gerry, Adams still could express the opinion that "History is not the province of ladies."
Writing to an old friend and fellow author, Adams forwards a recent letter from fellow Signer Thomas McKean describing the events surrounding Congress' vote for independence in 1776. (McKean's 7 January 1814 letter appears in Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Ser.4, vol.4:506-508). Adams is perturbed that McKean had been wrong as to the date of the crucial vote itself. "...Mr. McKean is mistaken in a day or two. The final Vote of Independence, after the last debate, was passed on the 2nd or 3rd of July, and the Declaration prepared and Signed on the 4th."
But McKean's garbled version of such an important event is disturbing to Adams' sense of history: "What are we to think of History," he laments, "When in less than 40 years such Diversities appear in the Memories of living Persons who were witnesses." He asks for the return of McKean's original, requesting that "after noting what you please, I pray you to return the Letter. I should like to communicate it to [Elbridge] Gerry, [Thomas] Paine, and Jefferson, to Stirr up their pure Minds." Interestingly, it was Adams who, years earlier, had identified July 2 as the day which should be commemorated and celebrated since it was "the day he believed the clinching debate had occurred in the Continental Congress" (Ellis, John Adams: Passionate Sage, p.234).
Mercy Otis Warren (1728-Oct.19, 1814), sister of patriot James Otis and sister-in-law of the hero of Bunker Hill, Joseph Warren, was "without much doubt, the most intellectually accomplished woman in revolutionary America" (Ellis p.69). Itimately involved in the agitation preceding independence, she "became in a manner the poet laureate and later historical apologist for the patriot cause...At a later date she would doubtless have been termed a feminist for her aggressive concern with public affairs and her insistence upon the right of women to have other than domestic interests" (DAB). She was the author of a book of verse, several political satires and an important History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (1805), the publication of which severely alienated Adams, who believed that her account minimized his own contributions to the American cause and the independence movement, and wrongly taxed him with a fondness for monarchy, dating from his sojourn at the court of St. James. Their 50-year friendship ended in a bitter estrangement, which was only reconciled by the intervention of a mutual friend, Signer Gerry. "Loving letters were exchanged and locks of hair as tokens of peace," and their correspondence resumed, if somewhat formal in tone, as in the present letter. But in a letter to Gerry, Adams still could express the opinion that "History is not the province of ladies."