Cokie Roberts describes the "fondling fathers" and the pregnant women they left behind after negotiating the Missouri Compromise

In 2008, Cokie Roberts was promoting her book Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation, and described her favorite letter discovered during her research:

It was the year of the Missouri Compromise, 1820 and Congress was in session muchlonger than it normally is. It stayed in session in that era until March, usually and becauseof hammering out the Compromise and having to do everything else they were here tillJune, which totally screwed up everything. They were running out of food. Nobody knewwhat to do about Washington with all these people in it until June. Finally, they go homeand Louisa Catherine Adams John Quincy Adams' wife -- He's Secretary of State at thispoint and running for President. Everybody is running for President which sounded familiarand so after the Congress finally goes home she goes to a meeting of the orphans' asylumtrustees.

After the War of 1812, Dolley Madison had worked with the women in Washington toestablish an orphans' asylum because there had been many orphans left by the Britishinvasion and so Louisa goes to this meeting of the orphan asylum trustees and is told thatthey're soon going to need more space because "Congress had left many females in suchdifficulties as to make it probable they would beg our assistance" and Louisa says, "Whatare you talking about?" and the answer comes back from the trustee "The session hadbeen very long. The fathers of the nation had left 40 cases to be provided for by the publicand our institution was the most likely to be called upon to maintain this illicit progeny."There were 40 pregnant women left behind as Congress goes home to its wives andLouisa Adams is writing these letters to old John Adams, who's home in Quincy.