Patriotism in the female Sex is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honours and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Goverment from having held a place of Eminence...Yet all History and every age exhibit Instances of patriotick virtue in the female Sex; which considering our situation equals the most Heroick of yours.

Abigail Adams

Letter to John Adams, June 17, 1782

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Adams, Abigail. Letter to John Adams. 17 June 1782.

Current Citation

Adams, Abigail. Quoted in Abigail and John Adams: The Americanization of Sensibility, written by G. J. Barker-Benfield. University of Chicago Press, 2010, ch. 8.