John Adams

My oldest brother graduated with a degree in History. I asked him what is his favorite time period to study, and he said that it was either WWII or the French Revolution. We got to talking about the French Revolution and then of course stumbled onto American soil. I told him about my biography project and he knew exactly who Abigail Adams is/was! I was so impressed. I am reading a biography of Mrs. Adams right now and it contains a large portion of her letters. Jeff continued to talk about the Adamses, he even owns the whole HBO series which I intend to steal sometime soon, and I got to thinking about what kinds of letters did not survive. Abigail concludes many letters with a 'burn after reading' type of comment. So what kinds of things did she think about and write about to her husband that we have no knowledge of now? There could have been something quite fascinating that disappeared. Isn't it interesting to think about all the documents that could piece together history of which we now have no trace? For example, if divers drafts of the constitution did not survive, we would not know that the abolition of slavery was initially considered. How would the discovery of a new letter or draft of the constitution or a diary or a treatise or a novel or a business transaction or whatever change the way we view history?