Mercy Otis Warren (1728 – 1814) was known as the “Conscience of the American Revolution” because of her influence upon our founding fathers and her dedication to women’s rights. She was stalwart in her devotion to the cause of liberty and the righteousness of the Revolution. Mercy and her husband James were the original in-home grassroots kitchen table hosts, regularly welcoming the Sons of Liberty and other Patriots into their home.
Mrs. Warren was our nation's original Leading Lady. Patriot leaders including Samuel Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams regularly corresponded with and relied upon her keen insights. She and Abigail Adams were friends throughout the Revolution and beyond. 
A trailblazer in her time (long before Helen Reddy was belting out "I am woman, hear me roar"), Mercy Otis Warren authored the first book on the American Revolution in 1805 entitled, “History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution”. President Thomas Jefferson ordered advance copies and distributed them to his cabinet. She was our nation’s first woman playwright, best known for “The Adulator” in 1772 and continued to write several more satirical political plays and poems.
During the Constitutional Conventions of the 1780s, she anonymously authored a pamphlet titled “Observations on the New Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions”. Warren opposed the ratification of the Constitution without an accompanying Bill of Rights. She was a staunch advocate for natural rights.
Mercy Otis Warren was a Massachusetts native and descendant of the Mayflower. Her father was a Colonel in the Continental Army. Her brother James Otis fought side by side with her husband at The Battle of Bunker Hill. She was the mother of 5 sons and survived her beloved husband, James. A strong woman in all aspects, she lived to the ripe age of 86.
As if her voluminous lifelong accomplishments weren't enough, during World War II the US Navy commissioned the USS Mercy Warren in her honor as part of a fleet known as the Liberty ships.
According to revolutionary-war.net, Mercy Otis Warren “took up her pen on behalf of the liberty of America.” It would come as no surprise that she wholeheartedly would support a 21st century Convention of States. After all, she was a robust activist during the Constitutional Conventions of the 1780s. In her history of the American Revolution, she wrote:
Citizens who wish to see the American republic fixed--under a federal government that's increasingly bloated, corrupt, reckless, and invasive--have a constitutional option. We can call a Convention of States to bring power back to the states and the people, where it belongs.
Be a 21st Century patriot and 1 of 50,000 Marylanders join our Race to Liberty by signing the petition at Convention of States Action today. Help us return our nation to be the admiration of the world.
