esquire.com – In this election year, in which kickass women seem to have the upper hand, it’s probably good to return to one of the avatars of this here shebeen—Mercy Otis Warren, poet, playwright, pamphleteer, propagandist, patriot, and blessedly ill-behaved society lady of Revolutionary Boston. In her magisterial history of the Revolution, Mrs. Warren had some words concerning the Declaration of Independence, which she generally admired. (Don’t get her started on the Constitution, however.) She recognized the Declaration—”drawn by the genius and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from Virginia”—as a gamechanger.