John Adam's Letter to His Wife

Whenever Vanity, and Gaiety, a Love of Pomp and Dress, Furniture, Equipage, Buildings, great Company, expensive Diversions, and elegant Entertainments get the better of the Principles and Judgements of Men or Women there is no knowing where they will stop, nor into what Evils, natural, moral, or political, they will lead us.
          John Adams is telling his wife that when higher members of society set principles that benefit their material riches it will cause negative effects on their society. This is clearly present when the founding fathers, including John Adams, created the laws that built America. For example the right to vote was reserved for white, property owning men. These men where the lawmakers and almost all the laws benefit them but not their lower society members. Southern lawmakers often owned slaves to work their land. They made their money and their living off of the labor of these slaves. For this reason slavery was not outlawed in the Articles of Confederation or the Constitution which only caused conflict later in the development of America. Women were not giving any rights at all which led to suffrage movements in the early 1900s. The lawmakers created laws that best benefited them and lowered the power of anyone else. The elite lawmakers continued to get rich while everyone else was not even giving an opportunity to succeed. The focus of gaining riches on the lawmaking of early America caused inequality and immorality among Americans.
          Adams capitalizes certain nouns in his statement. In the first part of the sentence the capitalized words are materialistic qualities: Vanity, Gaiety, Love, Pomp, Dress, Furniture, Equipage, Buildings, Company, Diversions, Entertainments. Then the capitalized words continue to show the effects of those qualities: Principles, Judgements, Men, Women, Evils. All of the words are nouns that create the meaning of the sentence. Adams capitalized these to emphasize them and indicate their importance to his statement.
          Adams' wife had asked him not to forget to give women rights and importance in the American laws. Adams tells her that the selfishness of the men will interfere with the fairness and justness of the laws.