5. Mercy Otis Warren used her pen to influence Independence and the Constitution
Mercy Otis, sister of Boston lawyer James Otis, married the influential patriot James Warren in 1754. She moved in the same circles as her husband, and became a correspondent and advisor to several Bostonians who led the early days of the Revolution. Among the leaders with whom she corresponded were Samuel Adams, John Hancock, John Adams, and later with the Virginians, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. Before the war, she supported their views and her own in pamphlets and poetry, published under the pseudonym A Columbian Patriot. She also wrote a 1772 play satirizing Loyalist Governor Thomas Hutchinson, which predicted the Revolution.
After the Constitutional Convention, Warren published a pamphlet titled Observations on the New Constitution. She opposed ratification of the document in its then present state, arguing against its lack of a Bill of Rights. She published a history of the Revolution three decades after the events of 1775, which Jefferson, then President, called a “…truthful and insightful account of the last thirty years” and “…a more instructive lesson to mankind than any equal period known in history. John Adams found the work less valuable, and that he was depicted in ungratifying terms throughout. The book led to an angry debate via correspondence between Adams and Warren, ending their long friendship.