ded in the
dissemination of republican ideas. This was the celebrated Catharine
Sawbridge Macaulay, one of the greatest minds England has ever
produced--a woman so noted for her republican ideas that after her
death a statue was erected to her as the "Patroness of Liberty."
During the whole of the Revolutionary period, Washington was in
correspondence with Mrs. Macaulay, who did much to sustain him during
those days of trial. She and Mrs. Warren were also correspondents at
that time. She wrote several works of a republican character, for home
influence; among these, in 1775. "An Address to the people of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, on the present Important Crisis of Affairs,"
designed to show the justice of the American cause. The gratitude
American's feel toward Edmund Burke for his aid, might well be
extended to Mrs. Macaulay.

Abigail Smith Adams, the wife of John Adams, was an American woman
whose political insight was worthy of remark. She early protested
against the formation of a new government in which woman should be
unrecognized, demanding for her a voice and representation. She was
the first American woman who threatened rebellion unless the rights of
her sex were secured. In March, 1776, she wrote to her husband, then
in the Continental Congress, "I long to hear you have declared an
independency, 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. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands.
Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care
and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment
a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in
which we have no voice or representation." Again and again did Mrs.
Adams urge the establishment of an independency and the limitation of
man's power over woman, declaring all arbitrary power dangerous and
tending to revolution. Nor was she less mindful of equal advantages
of education. "If you complain of education in sons, what shall I say
in regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it?" She
expressed a strong wish that the new Constitution might be
distinguished for its encouragement of learning and virtue. Nothing
more fully shows the dependent condition of a class than the methods
used to secure their wishes. Mrs. Adams felt herself o