[327] Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts about 1780, when it was forbidden by implication in the Declaration of Rights that John Adams wrote into the Massachusetts Constitution.[328] Abigail Adams vocally opposed slavery.[329]

Accusations of monarchism
Throughout his lifetime Adams expressed controversial and shifting views regarding the virtues of monarchical and hereditary political institutions.[330] At times he conveyed substantial support for these approaches, suggesting for example that "hereditary monarchy or aristocracy" are the "only institutions that can possibly preserve the laws and liberties of the people."[331] Yet at other times he distanced himself from such ideas, calling himself "a mortal and irreconcilable enemy to Monarchy" and "no friend to hereditary limited monarchy in America."[153] Such denials did not assuage his critics, and Adams was often accused of being a monarchist.[332] Historian Clinton Rossiter portrays Adams not as a monarchist but a revolutionary conservative who sought to balance republicanism with the stability of monarchy to create "ordered liberty."[333] His 1790 Discourses on Davila published in the Gazette of the United States warned once again of the dangers of unbridled democracy.