As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- "Mama, Look Sharp" is one of the most gut-wrenching songs ever performed on Broadway.Them soldiers, they fired. Oh ma, did we runBut then we turned round and the battle begunThen I went under, oh ma, am I done?Hey, hey, momma look sharp...
- To give further context: the audience spends most of the first act in the company of the Founding Fathers, and watches their wrangling, debating, and excuses as lighthearted comedy. Then, after they've all left Independence Hall for the night, a courier enters and speaks to the building's janitor and a workman. They talk about how they feel unable to truly understand what the Founding Fathers are discussing—and yet they (and, by extension, the class of people they represent) are the citizens bearing the brunt of British policies and the rapidly approaching conflict. The courier remarks that his two best friends died at the Battle of Lexington and Concord (the first battle of the Revolutionary War) and sings about what he imagines was going through their minds as they died calling to their mothers while bleeding out. It's a harsh reminder that, despite the pomp and circumstance of the Founding Fathers' debate, there was a devastating battle happening just outside that took the lives of countless men who will never be remembered as the statesmen are.
- The 2021 Broadway revival managed to make the number even sadder by adding undercurrents of the Black Lives Matter Movement to the song, reminding audiences of the murder of Black men by people in power. As the courier sings, we see a Black mother actually searching for her son, then finding his body and silently howling in unimaginable grief as the rest of the cast sings the bridge ("I'll close your eyes, my Billy...").
- Slavery exists in this story, as a legitimate industry. This is an appalling, abominable but true portrayal of the times the story is set. Slightly mitigated by the anti-slavery movements also existing.
- The slavery debate between Adams, Jefferson and Franklin and Rutledge comes to a head when Rutledge refuses to sign the Declaration of Independence unless the passage about slavery is removed from it. Adams and Jefferson are unhappy, but Franklin agrees to the concession. He's unhappy too, but he recognizes that they can't have everything all at once: America must free itself before it can free its slaves.
Franklin: We're men, no more, no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John: Independence, America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?- Adams's realization that he'll have to allow slavery in America to avoid a civil war. And in real life, he (or rather, his cousin Sam) actually did predict that one was inevitable within a hundred years, which wasn't included in the play because people wouldn't believe it.
- A more minor one in "Yours, Yours, Yours." Adams, seeing Jefferson with Martha, is reminded of how far he is from Abigail, and he's clearly trying to stave off the loneliness when he invites Franklin to dinner and is rebuffed because Franklin has a date. Then he goes into "Yours, Yours, Yours" with Abby where they both lament their separation from each other with such lines as "I've forgotten the feel of your hand." It's made more poignant by the fact that the most sentimental lines were lifted directly from John and Abigail's real letters to each other. More restrained they may be in expression, but there's no doubt how much they love each other.
- Specific example of the above, Abigail really did ask John to write with more 'sentimental effusion,' meaning she wanted him to be more open and loving in his language. The historical Adams often refrained from such because he was afraid of his letters being intercepted.
- Write to me with sentimental effusionLet me revel in romantic illusion
- The Adamses' exchange just before "Is Anybody There", where John tells Abigail just how miserable he is.
- But lately, I find that I reek with miscontentment. It fills my throat, and it floods my brain. Sometimes, I fear there is no longer a dream but... only the discontentment.
- Thomson reads General Washington's last letter, before the Battle of Long Island:
- As I write these words, the enemy is plainly in sight beyond the river, and I begin to notice that many of us are lads under fifteen and old men, none of whom can truly be called soldiers. How it will end, only providence can direct. (He starts breaking down in tears) But dear God, what brave men... I shall lose... before this business... ends.
- The knowledge that George Washington actually gasped that last sentence almost word for word in the heat of the Battle of Long Island as he watched one of his regiments sacrifice itself against overwhelming odds makes the sentiment even more heart-wrenching.
- When Caesar Rodney's cancer takes a turn for the worse, it's gutting to see the entire congress stop dead as he has to be escorted home, and it's explained that he probably won't be able to leave his house ever again.
- Albeit that this is somewhat blunted by the fact that historically, he lived until 1784 and became Governor of Delaware.
- The 2022 Broadway revival (starring women, transgender, non-binary people in the roles of the Founding Fathers) where the behind curtain is pulled to reveal towering arrangements of barrels, symbolic of the slaveships and profits. The cast, removing their coats, sing "Is anybody there?" as if reminding the audience of all the marginalized people the Declaration was not for.
