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/* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre.pg {font-size: 85%;} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook of History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, Edited +by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I</p> +<p>Editor: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage</p> +<p>Release Date: February 7, 2009 [eBook #28020]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE, VOLUME I***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Richard J. Shiffer<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<div class="trans-note"> +<p class="heading">Transcriber's Note</p> +<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as +faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other +inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error +is noted at the <a href="#END">end</a> of this ebook.</p> +<p>Many occurrences of mismatched single and double quotes remain +as they were in the original.</p> +</div> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1 class="sc">HISTORY<br /><br /> +<small>of</small><br /><br /> +<big>Woman Suffrage.</big></h1> + +<p><br /></p> + +<h5>EDITED BY</h5> + +<p><br /></p> + +<h4>ELIZABETH CADY STANTON,<br /> + SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AND<br /> + MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.</h4> + +<p><br /></p> + +<h5>ILLUSTRATED WITH STEEL ENGRAVINGS.</h5> + +<p><br /></p> + +<h4>IN THREE VOLUMES.</h4> + + +<h4>VOL. I.</h4> + +<h4>1848-1861.</h4> + +<p><br /></p> + +<h6>"GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED."</h6> + +<hr class="tiny" /> + +<h5 class="sc">Second Edition.</h5> + + +<h4 class="sc">SUSAN B. ANTHONY.<br /> +Rochester, N. Y.: Charles Mann.<br /> +London: 25 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.<br /> +Paris. G. Fischbacher, 33 Rue de Seine.<br /> +1889.</h4> + + +<h4>Copyright, 1881, by<br /> +<span class="sc">Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and<br /> +Matilda Joslyn Gage.</span></h4> + +<hr class="tiny" /> + +<h4>Copyright, 1887, by <span class="sc">Susan B. Anthony</span>.</h4> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p class="center">THESE VOLUMES<br /><br /> +<small>ARE</small><br /><br /> +<b>AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED</b><br /><br /> +<small>TO THE</small><br /><br /> +<b>Memory of</b><br /><br /><br /> +<span class="sc">Mary Wollstonecraft,<br /> +Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Martineau, Lydia Maria Child,<br /> +Margaret Fuller, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Josephine S. Griffing,<br /> +Martha C. Wright, Harriot K. Hunt, M.D., Mariana W. Johnson,<br /> +Alice and Phebe Carey, Ann Preston, M.D., Lydia Mott,<br /> +Eliza W. Farnham, Lydia F. Fowler, M.D.,<br /> +Paulina Wright Davis,</span><br /><br /> + +Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding<br /> +Political Rights for Women, have been,<br /> +in the Preparation of these Pages,<br /> +a Constant Inspiration<br /><br /> +<small>TO</small><br /><br /> +<b>The Editors</b>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 342px;"> +<a name="v1_frontis" id="v1_frontis"> +<img src="images/v1_frontis.png" width="342" height="500" +alt="Frances Wright (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2> + +<p>In preparing this work, our object has been to put into permanent +shape the few scattered reports of the Woman Suffrage Movement still +to be found, and to make it an arsenal of facts for those who are +beginning to inquire into the demands and arguments of the leaders of +this reform. Although the continued discussion of the political rights +of woman during the last thirty years, forms a most important link in +the chain of influences tending to her emancipation, no attempt at its +history has been made. In giving the inception and progress of this +agitation, we who have undertaken the task have been moved by the +consideration that many of oar co-workers have already fallen asleep, +and that in a few years all who could tell the story will have passed +away.</p> + +<p>In collecting material for these volumes, most of those of whom we +solicited facts have expressed themselves deeply interested in our +undertaking, and have gladly contributed all they could, feeling that +those identified with this reform were better qualified to prepare a +faithful history with greater patience and pleasure, than those of +another generation possibly could.</p> + +<p>A few have replied, "It is too early to write the history of this +movement; wait until our object is attained; the actors themselves can +not write an impartial history; they have had their discords, +divisions, personal hostilities, that unfit them for the work." +Viewing the enfranchisement of woman as the most important demand of +the century, we have felt no temptation to linger over individual +differences. These occur in all associations, and may be regarded in +this case as an evidence of the growing self-assertion and +individualism in woman.</p> + +<p>Woven with the threads of this history, we have given some personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +reminiscences and brief biographical sketches. To the few who, through +ill-timed humility, have refused to contribute any of their early +experiences we would suggest, that as each brick in a magnificent +structure might have had no special value alone on the road-side, yet, +in combination with many others, its size, position, quality, becomes +of vital consequence; so with the actors in any great reform, though +they may be of little value in themselves; as a part of a great +movement they may be worthy of mention—even important to the +completion of an historical record.</p> + +<p>To be historians of a reform in which we have been among the chief +actors, has its points of embarrassment as well as advantage. Those +who fight the battle can best give what all readers like to know—the +impelling motives to action; the struggle in the face of opposition; +the vexation under ridicule; and the despair in success too long +deferred. Moreover, there is an interest in history written from a +subjective point of view, that may compensate the reader in this case +for any seeming egotism or partiality he may discover. As an +autobiography is more interesting than a sketch by another, so is a +history written by its actors, as in both cases we get nearer the soul +of the subject.</p> + +<p>We have finished our task, and we hope the contribution we have made +may enable some other hand in the future to write a more complete +history of "the most momentous reform that has yet been launched on +the world—the first organized protest against the injustice which has +brooded over the character and destiny of one-half the human race."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a><span class="ralign sc">page</span></p> + +<p class="center">PRECEDING CAUSES.</p> + + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></p> + +<p class="center">WOMAN IN NEWSPAPERS.</p> + + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></p> + +<p class="center">THE WORLD'S ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, LONDON, JUNE 13, 1840.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Individualism rather than Authority—Personal appearance of +Abolitionists—Attempt to silence Woman—Doable battle against the +tyranny of sex and color—Bigoted Abolitionists—James G. Birney likes +freedom on a Southern plantation, but not at his own fireside—John +Bull never dreamt that Woman would answer his call—The venerable +Thomas Clarkson received by the Convention standing—Lengthy debate on +"Female" delegates—The "Females" rejected—William Lloyd Garrison +refusing to sit in the Convention<span class="ralign">50</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p class="chapter-summary">The First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, July 19-80, +1848—Property Bights of Women secured—Judge Fine, George Geddes, and +Mr. Hadley pushing the Bill through—Danger of meddling with +well-settled conditions of domestic happiness—Mrs. Barbara Hertell's +will—Richard Hunt's tea-table—The eventful day—James Mott +President—Declaration of sentiments—Convention in +Rochester—Opposition with Bible arguments<span class="ralign">63</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></p> + +<p class="center">MRS. COLLINS' REMINISCENCES.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p class="chapter-summary">The first Suffrage Society—Methodist class-leader whips his +wife—Theology enchains the soul—The status of women and slaves the +same—The first medical college opened to women—Petitions to the +Legislature laughed at, and laid on the table—Dependence woman's best +protection; her weakness her sweetest charm—Dr. Elizabeth +Blackwell's letter—Sketch of Ernestine L. Rose<span class="ralign">88</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center">OHIO.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p class="chapter-summary">The promised land of fugitives—"Uncle Tom's Cabin"—Salem Convention, +1850—Akron, 1851—Massilon, 1853—The address to the women of +Ohio—The Mohammedan law forbidding pigs, dogs, women, and other +impure animals to enter a Mosque—The <i>New York Tribune</i>—Cleveland +Convention, 1853—Hon. Joshua K. Giddings—Letter from Horace +Greeley—A glowing eulogy to Mary Wollstonecraft—William Henry +Channing's Declaration—The pulpit and public sentiment—President Asa +Mahan debates—The Rev. Dr. Nevin pulls Mr. Garrison's +nose—Antoinette L. Brown describes her exit from the World's +Temperance Convention—Cincinnati Convention, 1855—Jane Elizabeth +Jones' Report, 1861<span class="ralign">101</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></p> + +<p class="center">REMINISCENCES BY CLARINA I. HOWARD NICHOLS.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p><span class="smcap">Vermont</span>: Editor <i>Windham County Democrat</i>—Property Laws, 1847 and +1849—Address to the Legislature on school suffrage, 1852.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wisconsin</span>: Woman's State Temperance Society—Lydia F. Fowler in +company—Opposition of Clergy—"Woman's Rights" wouldn't +do—Advertised "Men's Rights."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kansas</span>: Free State Emigration, 1854—Gov. Robinson and Senator +Pomeroy—Woman's Rights speeches on Steamboat, and at +Lawrence—Constitutional Convention, 1859—State Woman Suffrage +Association—John O. Wattles, President—Aid from the Francis Jackson +Fund—Canvassing the State—School Suffrage gained.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Missouri</span>: Lecturing at St. Joseph, 1858, on Col. Scott's +Invitation—Westport and the John Brown raid, 1859—St. Louis, +1854—Frances D. Gage, Rev. Wm. G. Eliot, and Rev. Mr. Weaver<span class="ralign">171</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></p> + +<p class="center">MASSACHUSETTS.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Women in the Revolution—Anti-Tea Leagues—Phillis Wheatley—Mistress +Anne Hutchinson—Heroines in the Slavery Conflict—Women Voting under +the Colonial Charter—Mary Upton Ferrin Petitions the Legislature in +1848—Woman's Rights Convention in 1850, '51—Letter of Harriet +Martineau from England—Letter of Jeannie Deroine from a Prison Cell +in Paris—Editorial from <i>The Christian Enquirer</i>—<i>The Una</i>, edited +by Paulina Wright Davis—Constitutional Convention in 1858—Before the +Legislature in 1857—Harriot K. Hunt's Protest against Taxation—Lucy +Stone's Protest against the Marriage Laws—Boston +Conventions—Theodore Parker on Woman's Position<span class="ralign">201</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></p> + +<p class="center">INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Indiana Missionary Station—Gen. Arthur St. Clair—Indian +surprises—The terrible war-whoop—One hundred women join the army, +and are killed fighting bravely—Prairie schooners—Manufactures in +the hands of women—Admitted to the Union in 1816—Robert Dale +Owen—Woman Suffrage Conventions—Wisconsin—C. L. Sholes' report<span class="ralign">290</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center">PENNSYLVANIA.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>William Penn—Independence Hall—British troops—Heroism of +women—Lydia Darrah—Who designed the Flag—Anti-slavery movements in +Philadelphia—Pennsylvania Hall destroyed by a mob—David Paul +Brown—Fugitives—Millard Fillmore—John Brown—Angelina Grimké—Abby +Kelly—Mary Grew—Temperance in 1848—Hannah Darlington and Ann +Preston before the Legislature—Medical College for Women in +1850—Westchester Woman's Rights Convention, 1852—Philadelphia +Convention, 1854—Lucretia Mott answers Richard H. Dana—Jane Grey +Swisshelm—Sarah Josepha Hale—Anna McDowell—Rachel Foster searching +the records—Sketch of Angelina Grimké<span class="ralign">320</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></p> + +<p class="center">LUCRETIA MOTT.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Eulogy at the Memorial Services held at Washington by the National +Woman Suffrage Association, January 19, 1881. By Elizabeth Cady +Stanton<span class="ralign">407</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></p> + +<p class="center">NEW JERSEY.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Tory feeling in New Jersey—Hannah Arnett rebuked the traitor +spirit—Mrs. Dissosway rejects all proposals to disloyalty—Triumphal +arch erected by the ladies of Trenton in honor of Washington—His +letter to the ladies—The origin of Woman Suffrage in New Jersey—A +paper read by William A. Whitehead before the Historical +Society—Defects in the Constitution of New Jersey—A singular +pamphlet called "Eumenes"—Opinion of Hon. Charles James Fox—Mr. +Whitehead reviewed<span class="ralign">441</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></p> + +<p class="center">MRS. STANTON'S REMINISCENCES.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Mrs. Stanton's and Miss Anthony's first meeting—An objective view of +these ladies from a friend's standpoint—A glimpse at their private +life—The pronunciamentos they issued from the fireside—Mrs. Wright, +Mrs. Seward, Mrs. Worden, Mrs. Mott, in council—How Mrs. Worden +voted—Ladies at Newport dancing with low necks and short sleeves, and +objecting to the publicity of the platform—Senator Seward discussing +Woman's Rights at a dinner-party—Mrs. Seward declares herself a +friend to the reform—A magnetic circle in Central New York—Matilda +Joslyn Gage: her early education and ancestors—A series of +Anti-Slavery Conventions from Buffalo to Albany—Mobbed at every +point—Mayor Thatcher maintains order in the Convention at the +Capital—Great excitement over a fugitive wife from the insane +asylum—The Bloomer costume—Gerrit Smith's home<span class="ralign">456</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>First Steps in New York—Woman's Temperance Convention, Albany, +January, 1852—New York Woman's State Temperance Society, Rochester, +April, 1852—Women before the Legislature pleading for a Maine +Law—Women rejected as Delegates to Men's State Conventions at Albany +and Syracuse, 1852; at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Brick Church Meeting and World's +Temperance Convention In New York, 1853—Horace Greeley defends the +Rights of Women In <i>The New York Tribune</i>—The Teachers' State +Conventions—The Syracuse National Woman's Rights Convention, +1852—Mob in the Broadway Tabernacle Woman's Rights Convention through +two days, 1853—State Woman's Rights Convention at Rochester, +December, 1853—Albany Convention, February, 1854, and Hearing before +the Legislature demanding the Right of Suffrage—A State Committee +appointed—Susan B. Anthony General Agent—Conventions at Saratoga +Springs, 1854, '55, '59—Annual State Conventions with Legislative +Hearings and Reports of Committees, until the War—Married Women's +Property Law, 1860—Bill before the Legislature Granting Divorce for +Drunkenness—Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed oppose it—Ernestine L. +Rose, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Address the +Legislature in favor of the Bill—Robert Dale Owen defends the Measure +in <i>The New York Tribune</i>—National Woman's Rights Conventions in New +York City, 1856, '58, '59, '60—Status of the Woman's Rights Movement +at the Opening of the War, 1861<span class="ralign">472</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="TOC-chapter"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></p> + +<p class="center">WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.</p> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Woman under old religions—Woman took part in offices of early +Christian Church Councils—Original sin—Celibacy of the clergy—Their +degrading sensuality—Feudalism—Marriage—Debasing externals and +daring ideas—Witchcraft—Three striking points for +consideration—Burning of Witches—Witchcraft in New England—Marriage +with devils—Rights of property not recognized in woman—Wife +ownership—Women legislated for as slaves—Marriage under the Greek +Church—The Salic and Cromwellian eras—The Reformation—Woman under +monastic rules in the home—The Mormon doctrine regarding woman; its +logical result—Milton responsible for many existing views in regard +to woman—Woman's subordination taught to-day—The See trial—Right +Rev. Coxe—Rev. Knox-Little—Pan-Presbyterians—Quakers not as liberal +as they have been considered—Restrictive action of the Methodist +Church—Offensive debate upon ordaining Miss Oliver—The Episcopal +Church and its restrictions—Sunday-school teachings—Week-day school +teachings—Sermon upon woman's subordination by the President of a +Baptist Theological Seminary—Professor Christlieb of Germany—"Dear, +will you bring me my shawl?"—Female sex looked upon as a +degradation—A sacrilegious child—Secretary Evarts, in the +Beecher-Tilton trial, upon woman's subordination—Women degraded in +science and education—Large-hearted men upon woman's +degradation—Wives still sold in the market-place as "mares," by a +halter around their necks—Degrading servile labor performed by woman +in Christian countries—A lower degradation—"Queen's +women"—"Government women"—Interpolations in the Bible—Letter from +Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D.<span class="ralign">752</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p><a href="#APPENDIX">APPENDIX</a><span class="ralign">801</span></p> +</div> + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ENGRAVINGS" id="LIST_OF_ENGRAVINGS"></a>LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.</h2> +<hr class="tiny tight" /> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Vol. I</span>.</p> +<hr class="tiny tight" /> +<div class='center'> +<table class="engravings" summary="Illustrations"> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Frances Wright</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Ernestine L. Wright</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1097">page 97</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Frances D. Gage</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1129">129</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Clarina Howard Nichols</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Paulina Wright Davis</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1273">273</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Lucretia Mott</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1369">369</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Antoinette L. Brown</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1449">449</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Amelia Bloomer</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1497">497</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Susan B. Anthony</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1577">577</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Martha C. Wright</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1641">641</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Elizabeth Cady Stanton</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1721">721</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Matilda Joslyn Gage</td><td align='right'><a href="#v1_1753">753</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="sc">The</span> prolonged slavery of woman is the darkest page in human history. A +survey of the condition of the race through those barbarous periods, +when physical force governed the world, when the motto, "might makes +right," was the law, enables one to account, for the origin of woman's +subjection to man without referring the fact to the general +inferiority of the sex, or Nature's law.</p> + +<p>Writers on this question differ as to the cause of the universal +degradation of woman in all periods and nations.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest minds of the century has thrown a ray of light on +this gloomy picture by tracing the origin of woman's slavery to the +same principle of selfishness and love of power in man that has thus +far dominated all weaker nations and classes. This brings hope of +final emancipation, for as all nations and classes are gradually, one +after another, asserting and maintaining their independence, the path +is clear for woman to follow. The slavish instinct of an oppressed +class has led her to toil patiently through the ages, giving all and +asking little, cheerfully sharing with man all perils and privations +by land and sea, that husband and sons might attain honor and success. +Justice and freedom for herself is her latest and highest demand.</p> + +<p>Another writer asserts that the tyranny of man over woman has its +roots, after all, in his nobler feelings; his love, his chivalry, and +his desire to protect woman in the barbarous periods of pillage, lust, +and war. But wherever the roots may be traced, the results at this +hour are equally disastrous to woman. Her best interests and happiness +do not seem to have been consulted in the arrangements made for her +protection. She has been bought and sold, caressed and crucified at +the will and pleasure of her master. But if a chivalrous desire to +protect woman has always been the mainspring of man's dominion over +her, it should have prompted him to place in her hands the same +weapons of defense he has found to be most effective against wrong and +oppression.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's +slave—subject—inferior—dependent, under all forms of government and +religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some +weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for +centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the +progress of civilization, have reached complete equality. And did we +not also see the great changes in woman's condition, the marvelous +transformation in her character, from a toy in the Turkish harem, or a +drudge in the German fields, to a leader of thought in the literary +circles of France, England, and America!</p> + +<p>In an age when the wrongs of society are adjusted in the courts and at +the ballot-box, material force yields to reason and majorities.</p> + +<p>Woman's steady march onward, and her growing desire for a broader +outlook, prove that she has not reached her normal condition, and that +society has not yet conceded all that is necessary for its attainment.</p> + +<p>Moreover, woman's discontent increases in exact proportion to her +development. Instead of a feeling of gratitude for rights accorded, +the wisest are indignant at the assumption of any legal disability +based on sex, and their feelings in this matter are a surer test of +what her nature demands, than the feelings and prejudices of the sex +claiming to be superior. American men may quiet their consciences with +the delusion that no such injustice exists in this country as in +Eastern nations, though with the general improvement in our +institutions, woman's condition must inevitably have improved also, +yet the same principle that degrades her in Turkey, insults her in +this republic. Custom forbids a woman there to enter a mosque, or call +the hour for prayers; here it forbids her a voice in Church Councils +or State Legislatures. The same taint of her primitive state of +slavery affects both latitudes.</p> + +<p>The condition of married women, under the laws of all countries, has +been essentially that of slaves, until modified, in some respects, +within the last quarter of a century in the United States. The change +from the old Common Law of England, in regard to the civil rights of +women, from 1848 to the advance legislation in most of the Northern +States in 1880, marks an era both in the status of woman as a citizen +and in our American system of jurisprudence. When the State of New +York gave married women certain rights of property, the individual +existence of the wife was recognized, and the old idea that "husband +and wife are one, and that one the husband," received its death-blow. +From that hour the statutes of the several States have been steadily +diverging from the old English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> codes. Most of the Western States +copied the advance legislation of New York, and some are now even more +liberal.</p> + +<p>The broader demand for political rights has not commanded the thought +its merits and dignity should have secured. While complaining of many +wrongs and oppressions, women themselves did not see that the +political disability of sex was the cause of all their special +grievances, and that to secure equality anywhere, it must be +recognized everywhere. Like all disfranchised classes, they begun by +asking to have certain wrongs redressed, and not by asserting their +own right to make laws for themselves.</p> + +<p>Overburdened with cares in the isolated home, women had not the time, +education, opportunity, and pecuniary independence to put their +thoughts clearly and concisely into propositions, nor the courage to +compare their opinions with one another, nor to publish them, to any +great extent, to the world.</p> + +<p>It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the +wise men of all nations and races, that to be unknown, is the highest +testimonial woman can have to her virtue, delicacy and refinement.</p> + +<p>A certain odium has ever rested on those who have risen above the +conventional level and sought new spheres for thought and action, and +especially on the few who demand complete equality in political +rights. The leaders in this movement have been women of superior +mental and physical organization, of good social standing and +education, remarkable alike for their domestic virtues, knowledge of +public affairs, and rare executive ability; good speakers and writers, +inspiring and conducting the genuine reforms of the day; everywhere +exerting themselves to promote the best interests of society; yet they +have been uniformly ridiculed, misrepresented, and denounced in public +and private by all classes of society.</p> + +<p>Woman's political equality with man is the legitimate outgrowth of the +fundamental principles of our Government, clearly set forth in the +Declaration of Independence in 1776, in the United States Constitution +adopted in 1784, in the prolonged debates on the origin of human +rights in the anti-slavery conflict in 1840, and in the more recent +discussions of the party in power since 1865, on the 13th, 14th, and +15th Amendments to the National Constitution; and the majority of our +leading statesmen have taken the ground that suffrage is a natural +right that may be regulated, but can not be abolished by State law.</p> + +<p>Under the influence of these liberal principles of republicanism that +pervades all classes of American minds, however vaguely, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> suddenly +called out, they might be stated, woman readily perceives the +anomalous position she occupies in a republic, where the government +and religion alike are based on individual conscience and +judgment—where the natural rights of all citizens have been +exhaustively discussed, and repeatedly declared equal.</p> + +<p>From the inauguration of the government, representative women have +expostulated against the inconsistencies between our principles and +practices as a nation. Beginning with special grievances, woman's +protests soon took a larger scope. Having petitioned State +legislatures to change the statutes that robbed her of children, +wages, and property, she demanded that the Constitutions—State and +National—be so amended as to give her a voice in the laws, a choice +in the rulers, and protection in the exercise of her rights as a +citizen of the United States.</p> + +<p>While the laws affecting woman's civil rights have been greatly +improved during the past thirty years, the political demand has made +but a questionable progress, though it must be counted as the chief +influence in modifying the laws. The selfishness of man was readily +enlisted in securing woman's civil rights, while the same element in +his character antagonized her demand for political equality.</p> + +<p>Fathers who had estates to bequeath to their daughters could see the +advantage of securing to woman certain property rights that might +limit the legal power of profligate husbands.</p> + +<p>Husbands in extensive business operations could see the advantage of +allowing the wife the right to hold separate property, settled on her +in time of prosperity, that might not be seized for his debts. Hence +in the several States able men championed these early measures. But +political rights, involving in their last results equality everywhere, +roused all the antagonism of a dominant power, against the +self-assertion of a class hitherto subservient. Men saw that with +political equality for woman, they could no longer keep her in social +subordination, and "the majority of the male sex," says John Stuart +Mill, "can not yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal." The +fear of a social revolution thus complicated the discussion. The +Church, too, took alarm, knowing that with the freedom and education +acquired in becoming a component part of the Government, woman would +not only outgrow the power of the priesthood, and religious +superstitions, but would also invade the pulpit, interpret the Bible +anew from her own stand-point, and claim an equal voice in all +ecclesiastical councils. With fierce warnings and denunciations from +the pulpit, and false interpretations of Scripture, women have been +intimidated and misled, and their religious feelings have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> been played +upon for their more complete subjugation. While the general principles +of the Bible are in favor of the most enlarged freedom and equality of +the race, isolated texts have been used to block the wheels of +progress in all periods; thus bigots have defended capital punishment, +intemperance, slavery, polygamy, and the subjection of woman. The +creeds of all nations make obedience to man the corner-stone of her +religious character. Fortunately, however, more liberal minds are now +giving us higher and purer expositions of the Scriptures.</p> + +<p>As the social and religious objections appeared against the demand for +political rights, the discussion became many-sided, contradictory, and +as varied as the idiosyncrasies of individual character. Some said, +"Man is woman's natural protector, and she can safely trust him to +make laws for her." She might with fairness reply, as he uniformly +robbed her of all property rights to 1848, he can not safely be +trusted with her personal rights in 1880, though the fact that he did +make some restitution at last, might modify her distrust in the +future. However, the calendars of our courts still show that fathers +deal unjustly with daughters, husbands with wives, brothers with +sisters, and sons with their own mothers. Though woman needs the +protection of one man against his whole sex, in pioneer life, in +threading her way through a lonely forest, on the highway, or in the +streets of the metropolis on a dark night, she sometimes needs, too, +the protection of all men against this one. But even if she could be +sure, as she is not, of the ever-present, all-protecting power of one +strong arm, that would be weak indeed compared with the subtle, +all-pervading influence of just and equal laws for all women. Hence +woman's need of the ballot, that she may hold in her own right hand +the weapon of self-protection and self-defense.</p> + +<p>Again it is said: "The women who make the demand are few in number, +and their feelings and opinions are abnormal, and therefore of no +weight in considering the aggregate judgment on the question." The +number is larger than appears on the surface, for the fear of public +ridicule, and the loss of private favors from those who shelter, feed, +and clothe them, withhold many from declaring their opinions and +demanding their rights. The ignorance and indifference of the majority +of women, as to their status as citizens of a republic, is not +remarkable, for history shows that the masses of all oppressed +classes, in the most degraded conditions, have been stolid and +apathetic until partial success had crowned the faith and enthusiasm +of the few.</p> + +<p>The insurrections on Southern plantations were always defeated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> by the +doubt and duplicity of the slaves themselves. That little band of +heroes who precipitated the American Revolution in 1776 were so +ostracised that they walked the streets with bowed heads, from a sense +of loneliness and apprehension. Woman's apathy to the wrongs of her +sex, instead of being a plea for her remaining in her present +condition, is the strongest argument against it. How completely +demoralized by her subjection must she be, who does not feel her +personal dignity assailed when all women are ranked in every State +Constitution with idiots, lunatics, criminals, and minors; when in the +name of Justice, man holds one scale for woman, another for himself; +when by the spirit and letter of the laws she is made responsible for +crimes committed against her, while the male criminal goes free; when +from altars where she worships no woman may preach; when in the +courts, where girls of tender age may be arraigned for the crime of +infanticide, she may not plead for the most miserable of her sex; when +colleges she is taxed to build and endow, deny her the right to share +in their advantages; when she finds that which should be her +glory—her possible motherhood—treated everywhere by man as a +disability and a crime! A woman insensible to such indignities needs +some transformation into nobler thought, some purer atmosphere to +breathe, some higher stand-point from which to study human rights.</p> + +<p>It is said, "the difference between the sexes indicates different +spheres." It would be nearer the truth to say the difference indicates +different duties in the same sphere, seeing that man and woman were +evidently made for each other, and have shown equal capacity in the +ordinary range of human duties. In governing nations, leading armies, +piloting ships across the sea, rowing life-boats in terrific gales; in +art, science, invention, literature, woman has proved herself the +complement of man in the world of thought and action. This difference +does not compel us to spread our tables with different food for man +and woman, nor to provide in our common schools a different course of +study for boys and girls. Sex pervades all nature, yet the male and +female tree and vine and shrub rejoice in the same sunshine and shade. +The earth and air are free to all the fruits and flowers, yet each +absorbs what best ensures its growth. But whatever it is, it requires +no special watchfulness on our part to see that it is maintained. This +plea, when closely analyzed, is generally found to mean woman's +inferiority.</p> + +<p>The superiority of man, however, does not enter into the demand for +suffrage, for in this country all men vote; and as the lower orders of +men are not superior, either by nature or grace, to the higher<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> orders +of women, they must hold and exercise the right of self-government on +some other ground than superiority to women.</p> + +<p>Again it is said, "Woman when independent and self-asserting will lose +her influence over man." In the happiest conditions in life, men and +women will ever be mutually dependent on each other. The complete +development of all woman's powers will not make her less capable of +steadfast love and friendship, but give her new strength to meet the +emergencies of life, to aid those who look to her for counsel and +support. Men are uniformly more attentive to women of rank, family, +and fortune, who least need their care, than to any other class. We do +not see their protecting love generally extending to the helpless and +unfortunate ones of earth. Wherever the skilled hands and cultured +brain of woman have made the battle of life easier for man, he has +readily pardoned her sound judgment and proper self-assertion. But the +prejudices and preferences of man should be a secondary consideration, +in presence of the individual happiness and freedom of woman. The +formation of her character and its influence on the human race, is a +larger question than man's personal liking. There is no fear, however, +that when a superior order of women shall grace the earth, there will +not be an order of men to match them, and influence over such minds +will atone for the loss of it elsewhere.</p> + +<p>An honest fear is sometimes expressed "that woman would degrade +politics, and politics would degrade woman." As the influence of woman +has been uniformly elevating in new civilizations, in missionary work +in heathen nations, in schools, colleges, literature, and in general +society, it is fair to suppose that politics would prove no exception. +On the other hand, as the art of government is the most exalted of all +sciences, and statesmanship requires the highest order of mind, the +ennobling and refining influence of such pursuits must elevate rather +than degrade woman. When politics degenerate into bitter persecutions +and vulgar court-gossip, they are degrading to man, and his honor, +virtue, dignity, and refinement are as valuable to woman as her +virtues, are to him.</p> + +<p>Again, it is said, "Those who make laws must execute them; government +needs force behind it,—a woman could not be sheriff or a policeman." +She might not fill these offices in the way men do, but she might far +more effectively guard the morals of society, and the sanitary +conditions of our cities. It might with equal force be said that a +woman of culture and artistic taste can not keep house, because she +can not wash and iron with her own hands, and clean the range and +furnace. At the head of the police, a woman could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> direct her forces +and keep order without ever using a baton or a pistol in her own +hands. "The elements of sovereignty," says Blackstone, "are three: +wisdom, goodness, and power." Conceding to woman wisdom and goodness, +as they are not strictly masculine virtues, and substituting moral +power for physical force, we have the necessary elements of government +for most of life's emergencies. Women manage families, mixed schools, +charitable institutions, large boarding-houses and hotels, farms and +steam-engines, drunken and disorderly men and women, and stop street +fights, as well as men do. The queens in history compare favorably +with the kings.</p> + +<p>But, "in the settlement of national difficulties," it is said, "the +last resort is war; shall we summon our wives and mothers to the +battle-field?" Women have led armies in all ages, have held positions +in the army and navy for years in disguise. Some fought, bled, and +died on the battle-field in our late war. They performed severe labors +in the hospitals and sanitary department. Wisdom would dictate a +division of labor in war as well as in peace, assigning each their +appropriate department.</p> + +<p>Numerous classes of men who enjoy their political rights are exempt +from military duty. All men over forty-five, all who suffer mental or +physical disability, such as the loss of an eye or a forefinger; +clergymen, physicians, Quakers, school-teachers, professors, and +presidents of colleges, judges, legislators, congressmen, State prison +officials, and all county, State and National officers; fathers, +brothers, or sons having certain relatives dependent on them for +support,—all of these summed up in every State in the Union make +millions of voters thus exempted.</p> + +<p>In view of this fact there is no force in the plea, that "if women +vote they must fight." Moreover, war is not the normal state of the +human family in its higher development, but merely a feature of +barbarism lasting on through the transition of the race, from the +savage to the scholar. When England and America settled the Alabama +Claims by the Geneva Arbitration, they pointed the way for the future +adjustment of all national difficulties.</p> + +<p>Some fear, "If women assume all the duties political equality implies, +that the time and attention necessary to the duties of home life will +be absorbed in the affairs of State." The act of voting occupies but +little time in itself, and the vast majority of women will attend to +their family and social affairs to the neglect of the State, just as +men do to their individual interests. The virtue of patriotism is +subordinate in most souls to individual and family aggrandizement. As +to offices, it is not to be supposed that the class of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> men now +elected will resign to women their chances, and if they should to any +extent, the necessary number of women to fill the offices would make +no apparent change in our social circles. If, for example, the Senate +of the United States should be entirely composed of women, but two in +each State would be withdrawn from the pursuit of domestic happiness. +For many reasons, under all circumstances, a comparatively smaller +proportion of women than men would actively engage in politics.</p> + +<p>As the power to extend or limit the suffrage rests now wholly in the +hands of man, he can commence the experiment with as small a number as +he sees fit, by requiring any lawful qualification. Men were admitted +on property and educational qualifications in most of the States, at +one time, and still are in some—so hard has it been for man to +understand the theory of self-government. Three-fourths of the women +would be thus disqualified, and the remaining fourth would be too +small a minority to precipitate a social revolution or defeat +masculine measures in the halls of legislation, even if women were a +unit on all questions and invariably voted together, which they would +not. In this view, the path of duty is plain for the prompt action of +those gentlemen who fear universal suffrage for women, but are willing +to grant it on property and educational qualifications. While those +who are governed by the law of expediency should give the measure of +justice they deem safe, let those who trust the absolute right +proclaim the higher principle in government, "equal rights to all."</p> + +<p>Many seeming obstacles in the way of woman's enfranchisement will be +surmounted by reforms in many directions. Co-operative labor and +co-operative homes will remove many difficulties in the way of woman's +success as artisan and housekeeper, when admitted to the governing +power. The varied forms of progress, like parallel lines, move forward +simultaneously in the same direction. Each reform, at its inception, +seems out of joint with all its surroundings; but the discussion +changes the conditions, and brings them in line with the new idea.</p> + +<p>The isolated household is responsible for a large share of woman's +ignorance and degradation. A mind always in contact with children and +servants, whose aspirations and ambitions rise no higher than the roof +that shelters it, is necessarily dwarfed in its proportions. The +advantages to the few whose fortunes enable them to make the isolated +household a more successful experiment, can not outweigh the +difficulties of the many who are wholly sacrificed to its +maintenance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>Quite as many false ideas prevail as to woman's true position in the +home as to her status elsewhere. Womanhood is the great fact in her +life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations. +Governments legislate for men; we do not have one code for bachelors, +another for husbands and fathers; neither have the social relations of +women any significance in their demands for civil and political +rights. Custom and philosophy, in regard to woman's happiness, are +alike based on the idea that her strongest social sentiment is love of +children; that in this relation her soul finds complete satisfaction. +But the love of offspring, common to all orders of women and all forms +of animal life, tender and beautiful as it is, can not as a sentiment +rank with conjugal love. The one calls out only the negative virtues +that belong to apathetic classes, such as patience, endurance, +self-sacrifice, exhausting the brain-forces, ever giving, asking +nothing in return; the other, the outgrowth of the two supreme powers +in nature, the positive and negative magnetism, the centrifugal and +centripetal forces, the masculine and feminine elements, possessing +the divine power of creation, in the universe of thought and action. +Two pure souls fused into one by an impassioned love—friends, +counselors—a mutual support and inspiration to each other amid life's +struggles, must know the highest human happiness;—this is marriage; +and this is the only corner-stone of an enduring home. Neither does +ordinary motherhood, assumed without any high purpose or preparation, +compare in sentiment with the lofty ambition and conscientious +devotion of the artist whose pure children of the brain in poetry, +painting, music, and science are ever beckoning her upward into an +ideal world of beauty. They who give the world a true philosophy, a +grand poem, a beautiful painting or statue, or can tell the story of +every wandering star; a George Eliot, a Rosa Bonheur, an Elizabeth +Barrett Browning, a Maria Mitchell—whose blood has flowed to the +higher arches of the brain,—have lived to a holier purpose than they +whose children are of the flesh alone, into whose minds they have +breathed no clear perceptions of great principles, no moral +aspiration, no spiritual life.</p> + +<p>Her rights are as completely ignored in what is adjudged to be woman's +sphere as out of it; the woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and +mother. Neither law, gospel, public sentiment, nor domestic affection +shield her from excessive and enforced maternity, depleting alike to +mother and child;—all opportunity for mental improvement, health, +happiness—yea, life itself, being ruthlessly sacrificed. The weazen, +weary, withered, narrow-minded wife-mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> of half a dozen +children—her interests all centering at her fireside, forms a painful +contrast in many a household to the liberal, genial, brilliant, +cultured husband in the zenith of his power, who has never given one +thought to the higher life, liberty, and happiness of the woman by his +side; believing her self-abnegation to be Nature's law.</p> + +<p>It is often asked, "if political equality would not rouse antagonisms +between the sexes?" If it could be proved that men and women had been +harmonious in all ages and countries, and that women were happy and +satisfied in their slavery, one might hesitate in proposing any change +whatever. But the apathy, the helpless, hopeless resignation of a +subjected class can not be called happiness. The more complete the +despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface. "Order +reigns in Warsaw." In right conditions, the interests of man and woman +are essentially one; but in false conditions, they must ever be +opposed. The principle of equality of rights underlies all human +sentiments, and its assertion by any individual or class must rouse +antagonism, unless conceded. This has been the battle of the ages, and +will be until all forms of slavery are banished from the earth. +Philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, alike paint woman the +victim ever of man's power and selfishness. And now all writers on +Eastern civilization tell us, the one insurmountable obstacle to the +improvement of society in those countries, is the ignorance and +superstition of the women. Stronger than the trammels of custom and +law, is her religion, which teaches that her condition is +Heaven-ordained. As the most ignorant minds cling with the greatest +tenacity to the dogmas and traditions of their faith, a reform that +involves an attack on that stronghold can only be carried by the +education of another generation. Hence the self-assertion, the +antagonism, the rebellion of woman, so much deplored in England and +the United States, is the hope of our higher civilization. A woman +growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion, +having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in +Chinese shoes, can not brook any disabilities based on sex alone, +without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it. +The change needed to restore good feeling can not be reached by +remanding woman to the spinning-wheel, and the contentment of her +grandmother, but by conceding to her every right which the spirit of +the age demands. Modern inventions have banished the spinning-wheel, +and the same law of progress makes the woman of to-day a different +woman from her grandmother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>With these brief replies to the oft-repeated objections made by the +opposition, we hope to rouse new thoughts in minds prepared to receive +them. That equal rights for woman have not long ago been secured, is +due to causes beyond the control of the actors in this reform. "The +success of a movement," says Lecky, "depends much less upon the force +of its arguments, or upon the ability of its advocates, than the +predisposition of society to receive it."</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>PRECEDING CAUSES.</h3> + +<p><span class="sc">As</span> civilization advances there is a continual change in the standard +of human rights. In barbarous ages the right of the strongest was the +only one recognized; but as mankind progressed in the arts and +sciences intellect began to triumph over brute force. Change is a law +of life, and the development of society a natural growth. Although to +this law we owe the discoveries of unknown worlds, the inventions of +machinery, swifter modes of travel, and clearer ideas as to the value +of human life and thought, yet each successive change has met with the +most determined opposition. Fortunately, progress is not the result of +pre-arranged plans of individuals, but is born of a fortuitous +combination of circumstances that compel certain results, overcoming +the natural inertia of mankind. There is a certain enjoyment in +habitual sluggishness; in rising each morning with the same ideas as +the night before; in retiring each night with the thoughts of the +morning. This inertia of mind and body has ever held the multitude in +chains. Thousands have thus surrendered their most sacred rights of +conscience. In all periods of human development, thinking has been +punished as a crime, which is reason sufficient to account for the +general passive resignation of the masses to their conditions and +environments.</p> + +<p>Again, "subjection to the powers that be" has been the lesson of both +Church and State, throttling science, checking invention, crushing +free thought, persecuting and torturing those who have dared to speak +or act outside of established authority. Anathemas and the stake have +upheld the Church, banishment and the scaffold the throne, and the +freedom of mankind has ever been sacrificed to the idea of protection. +So entirely has the human will been enslaved in all classes of society +in the past, that monarchs have humbled themselves to popes, nations +have knelt at the feet of monarchs, and individuals have sold +themselves to others under the subtle promise of "protection"—a word +that simply means release from all responsibility, all use of one's +own faculties—a word that has ever blinded people to its true +significance. Under authority and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> this false promise of "protection," +self-reliance, the first incentive to freedom, has not only been lost, +but the aversion of mankind for responsibility has been fostered by +the few, whose greater bodily strength, superior intellect, or the +inherent law of self-development has impelled to active exertion. +Obedience and self-sacrifice—the virtues prescribed for subordinate +classes, and which naturally grow out of their condition—are alike +opposed to the theory of individual rights and self-government. But as +even the inertia of mankind is not proof against the internal law of +progress, certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes +invented, in order to intimidate the masses. Hence, the Church made +free thought the worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of +blasphemies; while the State proclaimed her temporal power of divine +origin, and all rebellion high treason alike to God and the king, to +be speedily and severely punished. In this union of Church and State +mankind touched the lowest depth of degradation. As late as the time +of Bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit was obedience +to the temporal power.</p> + +<p>All these influences fell with crushing weight on woman; more +sensitive, helpless, and imaginative, she suffered a thousand fears +and wrongs where man did one. Lecky, in his "History of Rationalism in +Europe," shows that the vast majority of the victims of fanaticism and +witchcraft, burned, drowned, and tortured, were women. Guizot, in his +"History of Civilization," while decrying the influence of caste in +India, and deploring it as the result of barbarism, thanks God there +is no system of caste in Europe; ignoring the fact that in all its +dire and baneful effects, the caste of sex everywhere exists, creating +diverse codes of morals for men and women, diverse penalties for +crime, diverse industries, diverse religions and educational rights, +and diverse relations to the Government. Men are the Brahmins, women +the Pariahs, under our existing civilization. Herbert Spencer's +"Descriptive Sociology of England," an epitome of English history, +says: "Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man's rights, and +society exists to-day for woman only in so far as she is in the +keeping of some man." Thus society, including our systems of +jurisprudence, civil and political theories, trade, commerce, +education, religion, friendships, and family life, have all been +framed on the sole idea of man's rights. Hence, he takes upon himself +the responsibility of directing and controlling the powers of woman, +under that all-sufficient excuse of tyranny, "divine right." This same +cry of divine authority created the castes of India; has for ages +separated its people into bodies, with different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> industrial, +educational, civil, religious, and political rights; has maintained +this separation for the benefit of the superior class, and sedulously +taught the doctrine that any change in existing conditions would be a +sin of most direful magnitude.</p> + +<p>The opposition of theologians, though first to be exhibited when any +change is proposed, for reason that change not only takes power from +them, but lessens the reverence of mankind for them, is not in its +final result so much to be feared as the opposition of those holding +political power. The Church, knowing this, has in all ages aimed to +connect itself with the State. Political freedom guarantees religious +liberty, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of one's own +conscience, fosters a spirit of inquiry, creates self-reliance, +induces a feeling of responsibility.</p> + +<p>The people who demand authority for every thought and action, who look +to others for wisdom and protection, are those who perpetuate tyranny. +The thinkers and actors who find their authority within, are those who +inaugurate freedom. Obedience to outside authority to which woman has +everywhere been trained, has not only dwarfed her capacity, but made +her a retarding force in civilization, recognized at last by statesmen +as a dangerous element to free institutions. A recent writer, speaking +of Turkey, says: "All attempts for the improvement of that nation must +prove futile, owing to the degradation of its women; and their +elevation is hopeless so long as they are taught by their religion +that their condition is ordained of heaven." Gladstone, in one of his +pamphlets on the revival of Catholicism in England, says: "The spread +of this religion is due, as might be expected, to woman;" thus +conceding in both cases her power to block the wheels of progress. +Hence, in the scientific education of woman, in the training of her +faculties to independent thought and logical reasoning, lies the hope +of the future.</p> + +<p>The two great sources of progress are intellect and wealth. Both +represent power, and are the elements of success in life. Education +frees the mind from the bondage of authority and makes the individual +self-asserting. Remunerative industry is the means of securing to its +possessor wealth and education, transforming the laborer to the +capitalist. Work in itself is not power; it is but the means to an +end. The slave is not benefited by his industry; he does not receive +the results of his toil; his labor enriches another—adds to the power +of his master to bind his chains still closer. Although woman has +performed much of the labor of the world, her industry and economy +have been the very means of increasing her degradation. Not being +free, the results of her labor have gone to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> build up and sustain the +very class that has perpetuated this injustice. Even in the family, +where we should naturally look for the truest conditions, woman has +always been robbed of the fruits of her own toil. The influence the +Catholic Church has had on religious free thought, that monarchies +have had on political free thought, that serfdom has had upon free +labor, have all been cumulative in the family upon woman. Taught that +father and husband stood to her in the place of God, she has been +denied liberty of conscience, and held in obedience to masculine will. +Taught that the fruits of her industry belonged to others, she has +seen man enter into every avocation most suitable to her, while she, +the uncomplaining drudge of the household, condemned to the severest +labor, has been systematically robbed of her earnings, which have gone +to build up her master's power, and she has found herself in the +condition of the slave, deprived of the results of her own labor. +Taught that education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she has +been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition, +and to glory in her own degradation. Taught that a low voice is an +excellent thing in woman, she has been trained to a subjugation of the +vocal organs, and thus lost the benefit of loud tones and their +well-known invigoration of the system. Forbidden to run, climb, or +jump, her muscles have been weakened, and her strength deteriorated. +Confined most of the time to the house, she has neither as strong +lungs nor as vigorous a digestion as her brother. Forbidden to enter +the pulpit, she has been trained to an unquestioning reverence for +theological authority and false belief upon the most vital interests +of religion. Forbidden the medical profession, she has at the most +sacred times of her life been left to the ignorant supervision of male +physicians, and seen her young children die by thousands. Forbidden to +enter the courts, she has seen her sex unjustly tried and condemned +for crimes men were incapable of judging.</p> + +<p>Woman has been the great unpaid laborer of the world, and although +within the last two decades a vast number of new employments have been +opened to her, statistics prove that in the great majority of these, +she is not paid according to the value of the work done, but according +to sex. The opening of all industries to woman, and the wage question +as connected with her, are most subtle and profound questions of +political economy, closely interwoven with the rights of +self-government.</p> + +<p>The revival of learning had its influence upon woman, and we find in +the early part of the fourteenth century a decided tendency<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> toward a +recognition of her equality. Christine of Pisa, the most eminent woman +of this period, supported a family of six persons by her pen, taking +high ground on the conservation of morals in opposition to the general +licentious spirit of the age. Margaret of Angoulême, the brilliant +Queen of Navarre, was a voluminous writer, her Heptaméron rising to +the dignity of a French classic. A paper in the <i>Revue des Deux +Mondes</i>, a few years since, by M. Henri Baudrillart, upon the +"Emancipation of Woman," recalls the fact that for nearly four hundred +years, men, too, have been ardent believers in equal rights for woman.</p> + +<p>In 1509, Cornelius Agrippa, a great literary authority of his time, +published a work of this character. Agrippa was not content with +claiming woman's equality, but in a work of thirty chapters devoted +himself to proving "the superiority of woman." In less than fifty +years (1552) Ruscelli brought out a similar work based on the Platonic +Philosophy. In 1599, Anthony Gibson wrote a book which in the prolix +phraseology of the times was called, "A Woman's Worth defended against +all the Men in the World, proving to be more Perfect, Excellent, and +Absolute, in all Virtuous Actions, than any man of What Quality +Soever." While these sturdy male defenders of the rights of woman met +with many opponents, some going so far as to assert that women were +beings not endowed with reason, they were sustained by many vigorous +writers among women. Italy, then the foremost literary country of +Europe, possessed many women of learning, one of whom, Lucrezia +Morinella, a Venetian lady, wrote a work entitled, "The Nobleness and +Excellence of Women, together with the Faults and Imperfections of +Men."</p> + +<p>The seventeenth century gave birth to many essays and books of a like +character, not confined to the laity, as several friars wrote upon the +same subject. In 1696, Daniel De Foe wished to have an institute +founded for the better education of young women. He said: "We reproach +the sex every day for folly and impertinence, while I am confident had +they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of +less than ourselves." Alexander's History of Women, John Paul Ribera's +work upon Women, the two huge quartos of De Costa upon the same +subject, Count Ségur's "Women: Their Condition and Influence," and +many other works showed the drift of the new age.</p> + +<p>The Reformation, that great revolution in religious thought, loosened +the grasp of the Church upon woman, and is to be looked upon as one of +the most important steps in this reform. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> reign of Elizabeth, +England was called the Paradise of Women. When Elizabeth ascended the +throne, it was not only as queen, but she succeeded her father as the +head of the newly-formed rebellious Church, and she held firm grasp on +both Church and State during the long years of her reign, bending +alike priest and prelate to her fiery will. The reign of Queen Anne, +called the Golden Age of English Literature, is especially noticeable +on account of Mary Astell and Elizabeth Elstob. The latter, speaking +nine languages, was most famous for her skill in the Saxon tongue. She +also replied to current objections made to woman's learning. Mary +Astell elaborated a plan for a Woman's College, which was favorably +received by Queen Anne, and would have been carried out, but for the +opposition of Bishop Burnett.</p> + +<p>During the latter part of the eighteenth century, there were public +discussions by women in England, under the general head of Female +Parliament. These discussions took wide range, touching upon the +entrance of men into those industries usually assigned to women, and +demanding for themselves higher educational advantages, and the right +to vote at elections, and to be returned members of Parliament.</p> + +<p>The American Revolution, that great political rebellion of the ages, +was based upon the inherent rights of the individual. Perhaps in none +but English Colonies, by descendants of English parents, could such a +revolution have been consummated. England had never felt the bonds of +feudalism to the extent of many countries; its people had defied its +monarchs and wrested from them many civil rights, rights which +protected women as well as men, and although its common law, warped by +ecclesiasticism, expended its chief rigors upon women, yet at an early +day they enjoyed certain ecclesiastical and political powers unknown +to women elsewhere. Before the Conquest, abbesses sat in councils of +the Church and signed its decrees; while kings were even dependent +upon their consent in granting certain charters. The synod of Whitby, +in the ninth century, was held in the convent of the Abbess Hilda, she +herself presiding over its deliberations. The famous prophetess of +Kent at one period communicated the orders of Heaven to the Pope +himself. Ladies of birth and quality sat in council with the Saxon +Witas—<i>i.e.</i>, wise men—taking part in the Witenagemot, the great +National Council of our Saxon ancestors in England. In the seventh +century this National Council met at Baghamstead to enact a new code +of laws, the queen, abbesses, and many ladies of quality taking part +and signing the decrees. Passing by other similar instances, we find +in the reign of Henry III, that four women took seats in Parliament, +and in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> reign of Edward I. ten ladies were called to Parliament, +while in the thirteenth century, Queen Elinor became keeper of the +Great Seal, sitting as Lord Chancellor in the <i>Aula Regia</i>, the +highest court of the Kingdom. Running back two or three centuries +before the Christian era, we find Martia, her seat of power in London, +holding the reins of government so wisely as to receive the surname of +Proba, the Just. She especially devoted herself to the enactment of +just laws for her subjects, the first principles of the common law +tracing back to her; the celebrated laws of Alfred, and of Edward the +Confessor, being in great degree restorations and compilations from +the laws of Martia, which were known as the "Martian Statutes."</p> + +<p>When the American colonies began their resistance to English tyranny, +the women—all this inherited tendency to freedom surging in their +veins—were as active, earnest, determined, and self-sacrificing as +the men, and although, as Mrs. Ellet in her "Women of the Revolution" +remarks, "political history says but little, and that vaguely and +incidentally, of the women who bore their part in the revolution," yet +that little shows woman to have been endowed with as lofty a +patriotism as man, and to have as fully understood the principles upon +which the struggle was based. Among the women who manifested deep +political insight, were Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail Smith Adams, and +Hannah Lee Corbin; all closely related to the foremost men of the +Revolution. Mrs. Warren was a sister of James Otis, whose fiery words +did so much to arouse and intensify the feelings of the colonists +against British aggression. This brother and sister were united to the +end of their lives in a friendship rendered firm and enduring by the +similarity of their intellects and political views. The home of Mrs. +Warren was the resort of patriotic spirits and the headquarters of the +rebellion. She herself wrote, "By the Plymouth fireside were many +political plans organized, discussed, and digested." Her +correspondence with eminent men of the Revolution was extensive and +belongs to the history of the country. She was the first one who based +the struggle upon "inherent rights," a phrase afterward made the +corner-stone of political authority. Mrs. Warren asserted that +"'inherent rights' belonged to all mankind, and had been conferred on +all by the God of nations." She numbered Jefferson among her +correspondents, and the Declaration of Independence shows the +influence of her mind. Among others who sought her counsel upon +political matters were Samuel and John Adams, Dickinson, that pure +patriot of Pennsylvania, Jefferson, Gerry, and Knox. She was the first +person who counseled separation and pressed those views upon John +Adams, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> he sought her advice before the opening of the first +Congress. At that time even Washington had no thought of the final +independence of the colonies, emphatically denying such intention or +desire on their part, and John Adams was shunned in the streets of +Philadelphia for having dared to hint such a possibility. Mrs. Warren +sustained his sinking courage and urged him to bolder steps. Her +advice was not only sought in every emergency, but political parties +found their arguments in her conversation. Mrs. Warren looked not to +the freedom of man alone, but to that of her own sex also.</p> + +<p>England itself had at least one woman who watched the struggle of +America with lively interest, and whose writings aided in the +dissemination of republican ideas. This was the celebrated Catharine +Sawbridge Macaulay, one of the greatest minds England has ever +produced—a woman so noted for her republican ideas that after her +death a statue was erected to her as the "Patroness of Liberty." +During the whole of the Revolutionary period, Washington was in +correspondence with Mrs. Macaulay, who did much to sustain him during +those days of trial. She and Mrs. Warren were also correspondents at +that time. She wrote several works of a republican character, for home +influence; among these, in 1775. "An Address to the people of England, +Scotland, and Ireland, on the present Important Crisis of Affairs," +designed to show the justice of the American cause. The gratitude +American's feel toward Edmund Burke for his aid, might well be +extended to Mrs. Macaulay.</p> + +<p>Abigail Smith Adams, the wife of John Adams, was an American woman +whose political insight was worthy of remark. She early protested +against the formation of a new government in which woman should be +unrecognized, demanding for her a voice and representation. She was +the first American woman who threatened rebellion unless the rights of +her sex were secured. In March, 1776, she wrote to her husband, then +in the Continental Congress, "I long to hear you have declared an +independency, and, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose +it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the +ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your +ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. +Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care +and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment +a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in +which we have no voice or representation." Again and again did Mrs. +Adams urge the establishment of an independency and the limitation of +man's power over woman, declaring all arbitrary power dangerous and +tending to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> revolution. Nor was she less mindful of equal advantages +of education. "If you complain of education in sons, what shall I say +in regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it?" She +expressed a strong wish that the new Constitution might be +distinguished for its encouragement of learning and virtue. Nothing +more fully shows the dependent condition of a class than the methods +used to secure their wishes. Mrs. Adams felt herself obliged to appeal +to masculine selfishness in showing the reflex action woman's +education would have upon man. "If," said she, "we mean to have +heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women." +Thus did the Revolutionary Mothers urge the recognition of equal +rights when the Government was in the process of formation. Although +the first plot of ground in the United States for a public school had +been given by a woman (Bridget Graffort), in 1700, her sex were denied +admission. Mrs. Adams, as well as her friend Mrs. Warren, had in their +own persons felt the deprivations of early educational advantages. The +boasted public school system of Massachusetts, created for boys only, +opened at last its doors to girls, merely to secure its share of +public money. The women of the South, too, early demanded political +equality. The counties of Mecklenberg and Rowan, North Carolina, were +famous for the patriotism of their women. Mecklenberg claims to have +issued the first declaration of independence, and, at the centennial +celebration of this event in May, 1875, proudly accepted for itself +the derisive name given this region by Tarleton's officers, "The +Hornet's Nest of America." This name—first bestowed by British +officers upon Mrs. Brevard's mansion, then Tarleton's headquarters, +where that lady's fiery patriotism and stinging wit discomfited this +General in many a sally—was at last held to include the whole county. +In 1778, only two years after the Declaration of Independence was +adopted, and while the flames of war were still spreading over the +country, Hannah Lee Corbin, of Virginia, the sister of General Richard +Henry Lee, wrote him, protesting against the taxation of women unless +they were allowed to vote. He replied that "women were already +possessed of that right," thus recognizing the fact of woman's +enfranchisement as one of the results of the new government, and it is +on record that women in Virginia did at an early day exercise the +right of voting. New Jersey also specifically secured this right to +women on the 2d of July, 1776—a right exercised by them for more than +a third of a century. Thus our country started into governmental life +freighted with the protests of the Revolutionary Mothers against being +ruled without their consent. From that hour to the present, women have +been continually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> raising their voices against political tyranny, and +demanding for themselves equality of opportunity in every department +of life.</p> + +<p>In 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Women," +published in London, attracted much attention from liberal minds. She +examined the position of woman in the light of existing civilizations, +and demanded for her the widest opportunities of education, industry, +political knowledge, and the right of representation. Although her +work is filled with maxims of the highest morality and purest wisdom, +it called forth such violent abuse, that her husband appealed for her +from the judgment of her contemporaries to that of mankind. So exalted +were her ideas of woman, so comprehensive her view of life, that +Margaret Fuller, in referring to her, said: "Mary Wollstonecraft—a +woman whose existence proved the need of some new interpretation of +woman's rights, belonging to that class who by birth find themselves +in places so narrow that, by breaking bonds, they become outlaws." +Following her, came Jane Marcet, Eliza Lynn, and Harriet +Martineau—each of whom in the early part of the nineteenth century, +exerted a decided influence upon the political thought of England. +Mrs. Marcet was one of the most scientific and highly cultivated +persons of the age. Her "Conversations on Chemistry," familiarized +that science both in England and America, and from it various male +writers filched their ideas. It was a text-book in this country for +many years. Over one hundred and sixty thousand copies were sold, +though the fact that this work emanated from the brain of a woman was +carefully withheld. Mrs. Marcet also wrote upon political economy, and +was the first person who made the subject comprehensive to the popular +mind. Her manner of treating it was so clear and vivid, that the +public, to whom it had been a hidden science, were able to grasp the +subject. Her writings were the inspiration of Harriet Martineau, who +followed her in the same department of thought at a later period. Miss +Martineau was a remarkable woman. Besides her numerous books on +political economy, she was a regular contributor to the London <i>Daily +News</i>, the second paper in circulation in England, for many years +writing five long articles weekly, also to Dickens' <i>Household Words</i>, +and the <i>Westminster Review</i>. She saw clearly the spirit and purpose +of the Anti-Slavery Movement in this country, and was a regular +contributor to the <i>National Anti-Slavery Standard</i>, published in New +York. Eliza Lynn, an Irish lady, was at this time writing leading +editorials for political papers. In Russia, Catharine II., the +absolute and irresponsible ruler of that vast nation, gave utterance +to views, of which, says La Harpe, the revolutionists of France<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> and +America fondly thought themselves the originators. She caused her +grandchildren to be educated into the most liberal ideas, and Russia +was at one time the only country in Europe where political refugees +could find safety. To Catharine, Russia is indebted for the first +proposition to enfranchise the serfs, but meeting strong opposition +she was obliged to relinquish this idea, which was carried to fruition +by her great-grandson, Alexander.</p> + +<p>This period of the eighteenth century was famous for the executions of +women on account of their radical political opinions, Madame Roland, +the leader of the liberal party in France, going to the guillotine +with the now famous words upon her lips, "Oh, Liberty, what crimes are +committed in thy name!" The beautiful Charlotte Corday sealed with her +life her belief in liberty, while Sophia Lapiérre barely escaped the +same fate; though two men, Siéyes and Condorcét, in the midst of the +French Revolution, proposed the recognition of woman's political +rights.</p> + +<p>Frances Wright, a person of extraordinary powers of mind, born in +Dundee, Scotland, in 1797, was the first woman who gave lectures on +political subjects in America. When sixteen years of age she heard of +the existence of a country in which freedom for the people had been +proclaimed; she was filled with joy and a determination to visit the +American Republic where the foundations of justice, liberty, and +equality had been so securely laid. In 1820 she came here, traveling +extensively North and South. She was at that time but twenty-two years +of age. Her letters gave Europeans the first true knowledge of +America, and secured for her the friendship of LaFayette. Upon her +second visit she made this country her home for several years. Her +radical ideas on theology, slavery, and the social degradation of +woman, now generally accepted by the best minds of the age, were then +denounced by both press and pulpit, and maintained by her at the risk +of her life. Although the Government of the United States was framed +on the basis of entire separation of Church and State, yet from an +early day the theological spirit had striven to unite the two, in +order to strengthen the Church by its union with the civil power. As +early as 1828, the standard of "The Christian Party in Politics" was +openly unfurled. Frances Wright had long been aware of its insidious +efforts, and its reliance upon women for its support. Ignorant, +superstitious, devout, woman's general lack of education made her a +fitting instrument for the work of thus undermining the republic. +Having deprived her of her just rights, the country was new to find in +woman its most dangerous foe. Frances Wright lectured that winter in +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> large cities of the West and Middle States, striving to rouse the +nation to the new danger which threatened it. The clergy at once +became her most bitter opponents. The cry of "infidel" was started on +every side, though her work was of vital importance to the country and +undertaken from the purest philanthropy. In speaking of her +persecutions she said: "The injury and inconvenience of every kind and +every hour to which, in these days, a really consistent reformer +stands exposed, none can conceive but those who experience them. Such +become, as it were, excommunicated after the fashion of the old +Catholic Mother Church, removed even from the protection of law, such +as it is, and from the sympathy of society, for whose sake they +consent to be crucified."</p> + +<p>Among those who were advocating the higher education of women, Mrs. +Emma Willard became noted at this period. Born with a strong desire +for learning, she keenly felt the educational disadvantages of her +sex. She began teaching at an early day, introducing new studies and +new methods in her school, striving to secure public interest in +promoting woman's education. Governor Clinton, of New York, impressed +with the wisdom of her plans, invited her to move her school from +Connecticut to New York. She accepted, and in 1819 established a +school in Watervleit, which soon moved to Troy, and in time built up a +great reputation. Through the influence of Governor Clinton, the +Legislature granted a portion of the educational fund to endow this +institution, which was the first instance in the United States of +Government aid for the education of women. Amos B. Eaton, Professor of +the Natural Sciences in the Rensselaer Institute, Troy, at this time, +was Mrs. Willard's faithful friend and teacher. In the early days it +was her custom, in introducing a new branch of learning into her +seminary, to study it herself, reciting to Professor Eaton every +evening the lesson of the next day. Thus she went through botany, +chemistry, mineralogy, astronomy, and the higher mathematics. As she +could not afford teachers for these branches, with faithful study she +fitted herself. Mrs. Willard's was the first girls' school in which +the higher mathematics formed part of the course, but such was the +prejudice against a liberal education for woman, that the first public +examination of a girl in geometry (1829) created as bitter a storm of +ridicule as has since assailed women who have entered the law, the +pulpit, or the medical profession. The derision attendant upon the +experiment of advancing woman's education, led Governor Clinton to say +in his message to the Legislature: "I trust you will not be deterred +by commonplace ridicule from extending your munificence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> to this +meritorious institution." At a school convention in Syracuse, 1845, +Mrs. Willard suggested the employment of woman as superintendents of +public schools, a measure since adopted in many States. She also +projected the system of normal schools for the higher education of +teachers. A scientific explorer as well as student, she wrote a work +on the "Motive Power in the Circulation of the Blood," in +contradiction to Harvey's theory, which at once attracted the +attention of medical men. This work was one of the then accumulating +evidences of woman's adaptation to medical study.</p> + +<p>In Ancient Egypt the medical profession was in the hands of women, to +which we may attribute that country's almost entire exemption from +infantile diseases, a fact which recent discoveries fully +authenticate. The enormous death-rate of young children in modern +civilized countries may be traced to woman's general enforced +ignorance of the laws of life, and to the fact that the profession of +medicine has been too exclusively in the hands of men. Though through +the dim past we find women still making discoveries, and in the feudal +ages possessing knowledge of both medicine and surgery, it is but +recently that they have been welcomed as practitioners into the +medical profession. Looking back scarcely a hundred years, we find +science much indebted to woman for some of its most brilliant +discoveries. In 1736, the first medical botany was given to the world +by Elizabeth Blackwell, a woman physician, whom the persecutions of +her male compeers had cast into jail for debt. As Bunyan prepared his +"Pilgrim's Progress" between prison walls, so did Elizabeth Blackwell, +no-wise disheartened, prepare her valuable aid to medical science +under the same conditions. Lady Montague's discovery of a check to the +small-pox, Madam Boivin's discovery of the hidden cause of certain +hemorrhages, Madam de Condrày's invention of the manikin, are among +the notable steps which opened the way to the modern Elizabeth +Blackwell, Harriot K. Hunt, Clemence S. Lozier, Ann Preston, Hannah +Longshore, Marie Jackson, Laura Ross Wolcott, Marie Zakrzewska, and +Mary Putnam Jacobi, who are some of the earlier distinguished American +examples of woman's skill in the healing art.</p> + +<p>Mary Gove Nichols gave public lectures upon anatomy in the United +States in 1838. Paulina Wright (Davis) followed her upon physiology in +1844, using a manikin in her illustrations.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Mariana<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> Johnson +followed Mrs. Davis, but it was 1848 before Elizabeth Blackwell—the +first woman to pass through the regular course of medical +study—received her diploma at Geneva.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> In 1845-6, preceding Miss +Blackwell's course of study, Dr. Samuel Gregory and his brother George +issued pamphlets advocating the education and employment of +women-physicians, and, in 1847, Dr. Gregory delivered a series of +lectures in Boston upon that subject, followed in 1848 by a school +numbering twelve ladies, and an association entitled the "American +Female Medical Education Society." In 1832, Lydia Maria Child +published her "History of Woman," which was the first American +storehouse of information upon the whole question, and undoubtedly +increased the agitation. In 1836, Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish +lady—banished from her native country by the Austrian tyrant, Francis +Joseph, for her love of liberty—came to America, lecturing in the +large cities North and South upon the "Science of Government." She +advocated the enfranchisement of woman. Her beauty, wit, and eloquence +drew crowded houses. About this period Judge Hurlbut, of New York, a +leading member of the Bar, wrote a vigorous work on "Human Rights,"<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +in which he advocated political equality for women. This work +attracted the attention of many legal minds throughout that State. In +the winter of 1836, a bill was introduced into the New York +Legislature by Judge Hertell, to secure to married women their rights +of property. This bill was drawn up under the direction of Hon. John +Savage, Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, and Hon. John C. Spencer, +one of the revisers of the statutes of New York. It was in furtherance +of this bill that Ernestine L. Rose and Paulina Wright at that early +day circulated petitions. The very few names they secured show the +hopeless apathy and ignorance of the women as to their own rights. As +similar bills<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> were pending in New York until finally passed in +1848, a great educational work was accomplished in the constant +discussion of the topics involved. During the winters of 1844-5-6, +Elizabeth Cady Stanton,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> living in Albany, made the acquaintance of +Judge Hurlbut and a large circle of lawyers and legislators, and, +while exerting herself to strengthen their convictions in favor of the +pending bill, she resolved at no distant day to call a convention for +a full and free discussion of woman's rights and wrongs.</p> + +<p>In 1828, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, daughters of a wealthy planter of +Charleston, South Carolina, emancipated their slaves and came North to +lecture on the evils of slavery, leaving their home and native place +forever because of their hatred of this wrong. Angelina was a natural +orator. Fresh from the land of bondage, there was a fervor in her +speech that electrified her hearers and drew crowds wherever she went. +Sarah published a book reviewing the Bible arguments the clergy were +then making in their pulpits to prove that the degradation of the +slave and woman were alike in harmony with the expressed will of God. +Thus women from the beginning took an active part in the Anti-Slavery +struggle. They circulated petitions, raised large sums of money by +fairs, held prayer-meetings and conventions. In 1835, Angelina wrote +an able letter to William Lloyd Garrison, immediately after the Boston +mob. These letters and appeals were considered very effective +abolition documents.</p> + +<p>In May, 1837, a National Woman's Anti-Slavery Convention was held in +New York, in which eight States were represented by seventy-one +delegates. The meetings were ably sustained through two days. The +different sessions were opened by prayer and reading of the Scriptures +by the women themselves. A devout, earnest spirit prevailed. The +debates, resolutions, speeches, and appeals were fully equal to those +in any Convention held by men of that period. Angelina Grimke was +appointed by this Convention to prepare an appeal for the slaves to +the people of the free States, and a letter to John Quincy Adams +thanking him for his services in defending the right of petition for +women and slaves, qualified with the regret that by expressing himself +"adverse to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia," he +did not sustain the cause of freedom and of God. She wrote a stirring +appeal to the Christian women of the South, urging them to use their +influence against slavery. Sarah also wrote an appeal to the clergy of +the South, conjuring them to use their power for freedom.</p> + +<p>Among those who took part in these conventions we find the names of +Lydia Maria Child, Mary Grove, Henrietta Sargent, Sarah Pugh, Abby +Kelley, Mary S. Parker, of Boston, who was president of the +Convention; Anne Webster, Deborah Shaw, Martha Storrs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Mrs. A. L. +Cox, Rebecca B. Spring, and Abigail Hopper Gibbons, a daughter of that +noble Quaker philanthropist, Isaac T. Hopper.</p> + +<p>Abby Kelley was the most untiring and the most persecuted of all the +women who labored throughout the Anti-Slavery struggle. She traveled +up and down, alike in winter's cold and summer's heat, with scorn, +ridicule, violence, and mobs accompanying her, suffering all kinds of +persecutions, still speaking whenever and wherever she gained an +audience; in the open air, in school-house, barn, depot, church, or +public hall; on week-day or Sunday, as she found opportunity. For +listening to her, on Sunday, many men and women were expelled from +their churches. Thus through continued persecution was woman's +self-assertion and self-respect sufficiently developed to prompt her +at last to demand justice, liberty, and equality for herself.</p> + +<p>In 1840, Margaret Fuller published an essay in the <i>Dial</i>, entitled +"The Great Lawsuit, or Man <i>vs.</i> Woman: Woman <i>vs.</i> Man." In this +essay she demanded perfect equality for woman, in education, industry, +and politics. It attracted great attention and was afterward expanded +into a work entitled "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." This, with her +parlor conversations, on art, science, religion, politics, philosophy, +and social life, gave a new impulse to woman's education as a +thinker.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>"Woman and her Era," by Eliza Woodson Farnham, was another work that +called out a general discussion on the status of the sexes, Mrs. +Farnham taking the ground of woman's superiority. The great social and +educational work done by her in California, when society there was +chiefly male, and rapidly tending to savagism, and her humane +experiment in the Sing Sing (N. Y.), State Prison, assisted by +Georgiana Bruce Kirby and Mariana Johnson, are worthy of mention.</p> + +<p>In the State of New York, in 1845, Rev. Samuel J. May preached a +sermon at Syracuse, upon "The Eights and Conditions of Women," in +which he sustained their right to take part in political life, saying +women need not expect "to have their wrongs fully redressed, until +they themselves have a voice and a hand in the enactment and +administration of the laws."</p> + +<p>In 1847, Clarina Howard Nichols, in her husband's paper, addressed to +the voters of the State of Vermont a series of editorials, setting +forth the injustice of the property disabilities of married women.</p> + +<p>In 1849, Lucretia Mott published a discourse on woman, delivered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> in +the Assembly Building, Philadelphia, in answer to a Lyceum lecture +which Richard H. Dana, of Boston, was giving in many of the chief +cities, ridiculing the idea of political equality for woman. Elizabeth +Wilson, of Ohio, published a scriptural view of woman's rights and +duties far in advance of the generally received opinions. At even an +earlier day, Martha Bradstreet, of Utica, plead her own case in the +courts of New York, continuing her contest for many years. The +temperance reform and the deep interest taken in it by women; the +effective appeals they made, setting forth their wrongs as mother, +wife, sister, and daughter of the drunkard, with a power beyond that +of man, early gave them a local place on this platform as a favor, +though denied as a right. Delegates from woman's societies to State +and National conventions invariably found themselves rejected. It was +her early labors in the temperance cause that first roused Susan B. +Anthony to a realizing sense of woman's social, civil, and political +degradation, and thus secured her life-long labors for the +enfranchisement of woman. In 1847 she made her first speech at a +public meeting of the Daughters of Temperance in Canajoharie, N. Y. +The same year Antoinette L. Brown, then a student at Oberlin College, +Ohio, the first institution that made the experiment of co-education, +delivered her first speech on temperance in several places in Ohio, +and on Woman's Rights, in the Baptist church at Henrietta, N. Y. Lucy +Stone, a graduate of Oberlin, made her first speech on Woman's Rights +the same year in her brother's church at Brookfield, Mass.</p> + +<p>Nor were the women of Europe inactive during these years. In 1824 +Elizabeth Heyrick, a Quaker woman, cut the gordian knot of difficulty +in the anti-slavery struggle in England, by an able essay in favor of +immediate, unconditional emancipation. At Leipsic, in 1844, Helene +Marie Weber—her father a Prussian officer, and her mother an English +woman—wrote a series of ten tracts on "Woman's Rights and Wrongs," +covering the whole question and making a volume of over twelve hundred +pages. The first of these treated of the intellectual faculties; the +second, woman's rights of property; the third, wedlock—deprecating +the custom of woman merging her civil existence in that of her +husband; the fourth claimed woman's right to all political emoluments; +the fifth, on ecclesiasticism, demanded for woman an entrance to the +pulpit; the sixth, upon suffrage, declared it to be woman's right and +duty to vote. These essays were strong, vigorous, and convincing. Miss +Weber also lectured in Vienna, Berlin, and several of the large German +cities. In England, Lady Morgan's "Woman and her Master" appeared;—a +work filled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> with philosophical reflections, and of the same general +bearing as Miss Weber's. Also an "Appeal of Women," the joint work of +Mrs. Wheeler and William Thomson—a strong and vigorous essay, in +which woman's limitations under the law were tersely and pungently set +forth and her political rights demanded. The active part women took in +the Polish and German revolutions and in favor of the abolition of +slavery in the British West Indies, all taught their lessons of +woman's rights. Madam Mathilde Anneke, on the staff of her husband, +with Hon. Carl Schurz, carried messages to and fro in the midst of +danger on the battle-fields of Germany.</p> + +<p>Thus over the civilized world we find the same impelling forces, and +general development of society, without any individual concert of +action, tending to the same general result; alike rousing the minds of +men and women to the aggregated wrongs of centuries and inciting to an +effort for their overthrow.</p> + +<p>The works of George Sand, Frederika Bremer, Charlotte Bronté, George +Eliot, Catharine Sedgwick, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, in literature; +Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in poetry; +Angelica Kauffman, Rosa Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer, in art; Mary +Somerville, Caroline Herschell, Maria Mitchell, in science; Elizabeth +Fry, Dorothea Dix, Mary Carpenter, in prison reform; Florence +Nightingale and Clara Barton in the camp—are all parts of the great +uprising of women out of the lethargy of the past, and are among the +forces of the complete revolution a thousand pens and voices herald at +this hour.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> As showing woman's ignorance and prejudice, Mrs. Davis +used to relate that when she uncovered her manikin some ladies would +drop their veils because of its indelicacy, and others would run from +the room; sometimes ladies even fainted.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The writer's father, a physician, as early as 1843-4, +canvassed the subject of giving his daughter (Matilda Joslyn Gage) a +medical education, looking to Geneva—then presided over by his old +instructor—to open its doors to her. But this bold idea was dropped, +and Miss Blackwell was the first and only lady who was graduated from +that Institution until its incorporation with the Syracuse University +and the removal of the college to that city.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Judge Hurlbut, with a lawyer's prejudice, first prepared +a paper against the rights of woman. Looking it over, he saw himself +able to answer every argument, which he proceeded to do—the result +being his "Human Rights."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> In the New York chapter a fuller account of the +discussion and action upon these bills will be given.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>WOMAN IN NEWSPAPERS.</h3> + + +<p><span class="sc">In</span> newspaper literature woman made her entrance at an early period and +in an important manner. The first <i>daily</i> newspaper in the world was +established and edited by a woman, Elizabeth Mallet, in London, March, +1702. It was called <i>The Daily Courant</i>. In her salutatory, Mrs. +Mallet declared she had established her paper to "spare the public at +least half the impertinences which the ordinary papers contain." Thus +the first daily paper was made reformatory in its character by its +wise woman-founder.</p> + +<p>The first newspaper printed in Rhode Island was by Anna Franklin in +1732. She was printer to the colony, supplied blanks to the public +officers, published pamphlets, etc., and in 1745 she printed for the +colonial government an edition of the laws comprising three hundred +and forty pages. She was aided by her two daughters, who were correct +and quick compositors. The woman servant of the house usually worked +the press. The third paper established in America was <i>The Mercury</i>, +in Philadelphia. After the death of its founder, in 1742, it was +suspended for a week, when his widow, Mrs. Cornelia Bradford, revived +it and carried it on for many years, making it both a literary and a +pecuniary success. The second newspaper started in the city of New +York, entitled the <i>New York Weekly Journal</i>, was conducted by Mrs. +Zeuger for years after the death of her husband. She discontinued its +publication in 1748. The <i>Maryland Gazette</i>, the first paper in that +colony, and among the oldest in America, was established by Anna K. +Greene in 1767. She did the colony printing and continued the business +till her death, in 1775. Mrs. Hassebatch also established a paper in +Baltimore in 1773. Mrs. Mary K. Goddard published the <i>Maryland +Journal</i> for eight years. Her editorials were of so spirited and +pronounced a character that only her sex saved her from sound +floggings. She took in job work. She was the first postmaster after +the Revolution, holding the office for eight years. Two papers were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +early published in Virginia by women. Each was established in +Williamsburg, and each was called <i>The Virginia Gazette</i>. The first, +started by Clementina Reid, in 1772, favored the Colonial cause, +giving great offense to many royalists. To counteract its influence, +Mrs. H. Boyle, of the same place, started another paper in 1774, in +the interests of the Crown, and desirous that it should seem to +represent the true principles of the colony, she borrowed the name of +the colonial paper. It lived but a short time. The Colonial <i>Virginia +Gazette</i> was the first paper in which was printed the Declaration of +Independence. A synopsis was given July 19th, and the whole document +the 26th. Mrs. Elizabeth Timothee published a paper in Charleston, +South Carolina, from 1773 to 1775, called <i>The Gazette</i>. Anna Timothee +revived it after the Revolution, and was appointed printer to the +State, holding the office till 1792. Mary Crouch also published a +paper in Charleston, S. C., until 1780. It was founded in special +opposition to the Stamp Act. She afterward removed to Salem, Mass., +and continued its publication for several years. Penelope Russell +printed <i>The Censor</i> in Boston, Mass., in 1771. She set her own type, +and was such a ready compositor as to set up her editorials without +written copy, while working at her case. The most tragical and +interesting events were thus recorded by her. The first paper +published in America, living to a second issue, was the <i>Massachusetts +Gazette and North Boston News Letter</i>. It was continued by Mrs. +Margaret Draper, two years after the death of her husband, and was the +only paper of spirit in the colony, all but hers suspending +publication when Boston was besieged by the British. Mrs. Sarah +Goddard printed a paper at Newport, R. I., in 1776. She was a +well-educated woman, and versed in general literature. For two years +she conducted her journal with great ability, afterward associating +John Carter with her, under the name of Sarah Goddard & Co., retaining +the partnership precedence so justly belonging to her. <i>The Courant</i> +at Hartford, Ct., was edited for two years by Mrs. Watson, after the +death of her husband, in 1777. In 1784 Mrs. Mary Holt edited and +published the <i>New York Journal</i>, continuing the business several +years. She was appointed State printer. In 1798, <i>The Journal and +Argus</i> fell into the hands of Mrs. Greenleaf, who for some time +published both a daily and semi-weekly edition. In Philadelphia, after +the death of her father in 1802, Mrs. Jane Aitkins continued his +business of printing. Her press-work bore high reputation. She was +specially noted for her correctness in proof-reading. The <i>Free +Enquirer</i>, edited in New York by Frances Wright in 1828, "was the +first periodical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> established in the United States for the purpose of +fearless and unbiased inquiry on all subjects." It had already been +published two years under the name of <i>The New Harmony Gazette</i>, in +Indiana, by Robert Dale Owen, for which Mrs. Wright had written many +leading editorials, and in which she published serially "A Few Days in +Athens."</p> + +<p>Sarah Josepha Hale established a ladies' magazine in Boston in 1827, +which she afterward removed to Philadelphia, there associating with +herself Louis Godey, and assuming the editorship of <i>Godey's Lady's +Book</i>. This magazine was followed by many others, of which Mrs. +Kirkland, Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Ellet, Mrs. Sigourney, and women of like +character were editors or contributors. These early magazines +published many steel and colored engravings, not only of fashions, but +reproductions of works of art, giving the first important impulse to +the art of engraving in this country.</p> + +<p>Many other periodicals and papers by women now appeared over the +country. Mrs. Anne Royal edited for a quarter of a century a paper +called <i>The Huntress</i>. In 1827 Lydia Maria Child published a paper for +children called <i>The Juvenile Miscellany</i>, and in 1841 assumed the +editorship of <i>The Anti-Slavery Standard</i>, in New York, which she ably +conducted for eight years. <i>The Dial</i>, in Boston, a transcendental +quarterly, edited by Margaret Fuller, made its appearance in 1840; its +contributors, among whom were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, +Theodore Parker, Wm. H. Channing, and the nature-loving Thoreau, were +some of the most profound thinkers of the time. Charlotte Fowler +Wells, the efficient coadjutor of her brothers and husband for the +last forty-two years in the management of <i>The Phrenological Journal</i> +and Publishing House of Fowler & Wells in New York city, and since her +husband's death in 1875 the sole proprietor and general manager, has +also conducted an extensive correspondence and written occasional +articles for the <i>Journal. The Lowell Offering</i>, edited by the "mill +girls" of that manufacturing town, was established in 1840, and +exercised a wide influence. It lived till 1849. Its articles were +entirely written by the girl operatives, among whom may be mentioned +Lucy Larcom, Margaret Foley, the sculptor, who recently died in Rome; +Lydia S. Hall, who at one time filled an important clerkship in the +United States Treasury, and Harriet J. Hansan, afterward the wife of +W. S. Robinson (Warrington), and herself one of the present workers in +Woman Suffrage. Harriet F. Curtis, author of two popular novels, and +Harriet Farley, both "mill girls," had entire editorial charge during +the latter part of its existence. In Vermont, Clarina Howard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> Nichols +edited the <i>Windham County Democrat</i> from 1843 to 1853. It was a +political paper of a pronounced character; her husband was the +publisher. Jane G. Swisshelm edited <i>The Saturday Visitor</i>, at +Pittsburg, Pa., in 1848. Also the same year <i>The True Kindred</i> +appeared, by Rebecca Sanford, at Akron, Ohio. <i>The Lily</i>, a temperance +monthly, was started in Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1849, by Amelia +Bloomer, as editor and publisher. It also advocated Woman's Rights, +and attained a circulation in nearly every State and Territory of the +Union. <i>The Sybil</i> soon followed, Dr. Lydia Sayre Hasbrook, editor; +also <i>The Pledge of Honor</i>, edited by N. M. Baker and E. Maria +Sheldon, Adrian, Michigan.</p> + +<p>In 1849, <i>Die Frauen Zeitung</i>, edited by Mathilde Franceska Anneke, +was published in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1850, Lydia Jane Pierson +edited a column of the <i>Lancaster</i> (Pa.) <i>Gazette</i>; Mrs. Prewett +edited the <i>Yazoo</i> (Miss.) <i>Whig</i>, in Mississippi; and Mrs. Sheldon +the <i>Dollar Weekly</i>. In 1851, Julia Ward Howe edited, with her +husband, <i>The Commonwealth</i>, a newspaper dedicated to free thought, +and zealous for the liberty of the slave. In 1851, Mrs. C. C. Bentley +was editor of the <i>Concord Free Press</i>, in Vermont, and Elizabeth +Aldrich of the <i>Genius of Liberty</i>, in Ohio. In 1852, Anna W. Spencer +started the <i>Pioneer and Woman's Advocate</i>, in Providence, R. I. Its +motto was, "Liberty, Truth, Temperance, Equality." It was published +semi-monthly, and advocated a better education for woman, a higher +price for her labor, the opening of new industries. It was the +earliest paper established in the United States for the advocacy of +Woman's Rights. In 1853, <i>The Una</i>, a paper devoted to the +enfranchisement of woman, owned and edited by Paulina Wright Davis, +was first published in Providence, but afterward removed to Boston, +where Caroline H. Dall became associate editor. In 1855, Anna McDowell +founded <i>The Woman's Advocate</i> in Philadelphia, a paper in which, like +that of Mrs. Anna Franklin, the owner, editor, and compositors were +all women. About this period many well-known literary women filled +editorial chairs. Grace Greenwood started a child's paper called <i>The +Little Pilgrim</i>; Mrs. Bailey conducted the <i>Era</i>, an anti-slavery +paper, in Washington, D. C., after her husband's death.</p> + +<p>In 1868, <i>The Revolution</i>, a pronounced Woman's Rights paper, was +started in New York city; Susan B. Anthony, publisher and proprietor, +Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, editors. Its motto, +"Principles, not policy; justice, not favor; men, their rights and +nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less." In 1870 it passed +into the hands of Laura Curtis Bullard, who edited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> it two years with +the assistance of Phebe Carey and Augusta Larned, and in 1872 it found +consecrated burial in <i>The Liberal Christian</i>, the leading Unitarian +paper in New York. From the advent of <i>The Revolution</i> can be dated a +new era in the woman suffrage movement. Its brilliant, aggressive +columns attracted the comments of the press, and drew the attention of +the country to the reform so ably advocated. Many other papers devoted +to the discussion of woman's enfranchisement soon arose. In 1869, <i>The +Pioneer</i>, in San Francisco, Cal., Emily Pitts Stevens, editor and +proprietor. <i>The Woman's Advocate</i>, at Dayton, O., A. J. Boyer and +Miriam M. Cole, editors, started the same year. <i>The Sorosis</i> and <i>The +Agitator</i>, in Chicago, Ill., the latter owned and edited by Mary A. +Livermore, and <i>The Woman's Advocate</i>, in New York, were all alike +short-lived. <i>L'Amérique</i>, a semi-weekly French paper published in +Chicago, Ill., by Madam Jennie d'Héricourt, and <i>Die Neue Zeit</i>, a +German paper, in New York, by Mathilde F. Wendt, this same year, show +the interest of our foreign women citizens in the cause of their sex. +In 1870, <i>The Woman's Journal</i> was founded in Boston, Lucy Stone, +Julia Ward Howe, and Henry B. Blackwell, editors. <i>Woodhull and +Claflin's Weekly</i>, an erratic paper, advocating many new ideas, was +established in New York by Victoria Woodhull and Tennie C. Claflin, +editors and proprietors. <i>The New Northwest</i>, in Portland, Oregon, in +1871, Abigail Scott Duniway, editor and proprietor. <i>The Golden Dawn</i>, +at San Francisco, Cal., in 1876, Mrs. Boyer, editor.</p> + +<p><i>The Ballot-Box</i> was started in 1876, at Toledo, O., Sarah Langdon +Williams, editor, under the auspices of the city Woman's Suffrage +Association. It was moved to Syracuse in 1878, and is now edited by +Matilda Joslyn Gage, under the name of <i>The National Citizen and +Ballot-Box</i>, as an exponent of the views of the National Woman +Suffrage Association. Its motto, "Self-government is a natural right, +and the ballot is the method of exercising that right." Laura de Force +Gordon for some years edited a daily democratic paper in California. +In opposition to this large array of papers demanding equality for +woman, a solitary little monthly was started a few years since, in +Baltimore, Md., under the auspices of Mrs. General Sherman and Mrs. +Admiral Dahlgren. It was called <i>The True Woman</i>, but soon died of +inanition and inherent weakness of constitution.</p> + +<p>In the Exposition of 1876, in Philadelphia, the <i>New Century</i>, edited +and published under the auspices of the Woman's Centennial Committee, +was made-up and printed by women on a press of their own, in the +Woman's Pavilion. In 1877 Mrs. Theresa Lewis started <i>Woman's Words</i> +in Philadelphia. For some time, Penfield,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> N. Y., boasted its +thirteen-year-old girl editor, in Miss Nellie Williams. Her paper, the +<i>Penfield Enterprise</i>, was for three years written, set up, and +published by herself. It attained a circulation of three thousand.</p> + +<p>Many foreign papers devoted to woman's interests have been established +within the last few years. The <i>Women's Suffrage Journal</i>, in England, +Lydia E. Becker, of Manchester, editor and proprietor; the +<i>Englishwoman's Journal</i>, in London, edited by Caroline Ashurst Biggs; +<i>Woman and Work</i> and the <i>Victoria Magazine</i>, by Emily Faithful, are +among the number. Miss Faithful's magazine having attained a +circulation of fifty thousand. <i>Des Droits des Femmes</i>, long the organ +of the Swiss woman suffragists, Madame Marie Goegg, the head, was +followed by the <i>Solidarite</i>. <i>L'Avenir des Femmes</i>, edited by M. Leon +Richer, has Mlle. Maria Dairésmes, the author of a spirited reply to +the work of M. Dumas, <i>fils</i>, on Woman, as its special contributor. +<i>L'Ésperance</i>, of Geneva, an Englishwoman its editor, was an early +advocate of woman's cause. <i>La Donna</i>, at Venice, edited by Signora +Gualberti Aläide Beccari (a well-known Italian philanthropic name); +<i>La Cornelia</i>, at Florence, Signora Amelia Cunino Foliero de Luna, +editor, prove Italian advancement. Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands +must not be omitted from the list of those countries which have +published Woman's Rights papers. In Lima, Peru, we find a paper edited +and controlled entirely by women; its name, <i>Alborada</i>, <i>i.e.</i>, the +Dawn, a South American prophecy and herald of that dawn of justice and +equality now breaking upon the world. The Orient, likewise, shows +progress. At Bukarest, in Romaine, a paper, the <i>Dekebalos</i>, upholding +the elevation of woman, was started in 1874. The <i>Euridike</i>, at +Constantinople, edited by Emile Leonzras, is of a similar character. +The <i>Bengalee Magazine</i>, devoted to the interests of Indian ladies, +its editorials all from woman's pen, shows Asiatic advance.</p> + +<p>In the United States the list of women's fashion papers, with their +women editors and correspondents, is numerous and important. For +fourteen years <i>Harper's Bazaar</i> has been ably edited by Mary L. +Booth; other papers of similar character are both owned and edited by +women. <i>Madame Demorest's Monthly</i>, a paper that originated the vast +pattern business which has extended its ramifications into every part +of the country and given employment to thousands of women. As +illustrative of woman's continuity of purpose in newspaper work, we +may mention the fact that for fifteen years Fanny Fern did not fail to +have an article in readiness each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> week for the <i>Ledger</i>, and for +twenty years Jennie June (Mrs. Croly) has edited <i>Demorest's Monthly</i> +and contributed to many other papers throughout the United States. +Mary Mapes Dodge has edited the <i>St. Nicholas</i> the past eight years. +So important a place do women writers hold, <i>Harper's Monthly</i> +asserts, that the exceptionally large prices are paid to women +contributors. The spiciest critics, reporters, and correspondents +to-day, are women—Grace Greenwood, Louise Chandler Moulton, Mary +Clemmer. Laura C. Holloway is upon the editorial staff of the Brooklyn +<i>Eagle</i>. The New York <i>Times</i> boasts a woman (Midi Morgan) cattle +reporter, one of the best judges of stock in the country. In some +papers, over their own names, women edit columns on special subjects, +and fill important positions on journals owned and edited by men. +Elizabeth Boynton Harbert edits "The Woman's Kingdom" in the +<i>Inter-Ocean</i>, one of the leading dailies of Chicago. Mary Forney +Weigley edits a social department in her father's—John W. +Forney—paper, the <i>Progress</i>, in Philadelphia. The political columns +of many papers are prepared by women, men often receiving the credit. +Among the best editorials in the New York <i>Tribune</i>, from Margaret +Fuller to Lucia Gilbert Calhoun, have been from the pens of women.</p> + +<p>If the proverb that "the pen is mightier than the sword" be true, +woman's skill and force in using this mightier weapon must soon change +the destinies of the world.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>THE WORLD'S ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, LONDON, JUNE 12, 1840.</h3> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Individualism rather than Authority—Personal appearance of +Abolitionists—Clerical attempt to silence Woman—Double battle +against the tyranny of sex and color—Bigoted +Abolitionists—James G. Birney likes freedom on a Southern +plantation, but not at his own fireside—John Bull never dreamt +that Woman would answer his call—The venerable Thomas Clarkson +received by the Convention standing—Lengthy debate on "Female" +delegates—The "Females" rejected—William Lloyd Garrison refused +to sit in the Convention.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">In</span> gathering up the threads of history in the last century, and +weaving its facts and philosophy together, one can trace the liberal +social ideas, growing out of the political and religious revolutions +in France, Germany, Italy, and America; and their tendency to +substitute for the divine right of kings, priests, and orders of +nobility, the higher and broader one of individual conscience and +judgment in all matters pertaining to this life and that which is to +come. It is not surprising that in so marked a transition period from +the old to the new, as seen in the eighteenth century, that women, +trained to think and write and speak, should have discovered that +they, too, had some share in the new-born liberties suddenly announced +to the world. That the radical political theories, propagated in +different countries, made their legitimate impress on the minds of +women of the highest culture, is clearly proved by their writings and +conversation. While in their ignorance, women are usually more +superstitious, more devoutly religious than men; those trained to +thought, have generally manifested more interest in political +questions, and have more frequently spoken and written on such themes, +than on those merely religious. This may be attributed, in a measure, +to the fact that the tendency of woman's mind, at this stage of her +development, is toward practical, rather than toward speculative +science.</p> + +<p>Questions of political economy lie within the realm of positive +knowledge; those of theology belong to the world of mysteries and +abstractions, which those minds, only, that imagine they have +compassed the known, are ambitious to enter and explore. And yet, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +quickening power of the Protestant Reformation roused woman, as well +as man, to new and higher thought. The bold declarations of Luther, +placing individual judgment above church authority, the faith of the +Quaker that the inner light was a better guide than arbitrary law, the +religious idealism of the Transcendentalists, and their teachings that +souls had no sex, had each a marked influence in developing woman's +self-assertion. Such ideas making all divine revelations as veritable +and momentous to one soul, as another, tended directly to equalize the +members of the human family, and place men and women on the same plane +of moral responsibility.</p> + +<p>The revelations of science, too, analyzing and portraying the wonders +and beauties of this material world, crowned with new dignity, man and +woman,—Nature's last and proudest work. Combe and Spurzheim, proving +by their Phrenological discoveries that the feelings, sentiments, and +affections of the soul mould and shape the skull, gave new importance +to woman's thought as mother of the race. Thus each new idea in +religion, politics, science, and philosophy, tending to individualism, +rather than authority, came into the world freighted with new hopes of +liberty for woman.</p> + +<p>And when in the progress of civilization the time had fully come for +the recognition of the feminine element in humanity, women, in every +civilized country unknown to each other, began simultaneously to +demand a broader sphere of action. Thus the first public demand for +political equality by a body of women in convention assembled, was a +link in the chain of woman's development, binding the future with the +past, as complete and necessary in itself, as the events of any other +period of her history. The ridicule of facts does not change their +character. Many who study the past with interest, and see the +importance of seeming trifles in helping forward great events, often +fail to understand some of the best pages of history made under their +own eyes. Hence the woman suffrage movement has not yet been accepted +as the legitimate outgrowth of American ideas—a component part of the +history of our republic—but is falsely considered the willful +outburst of a few unbalanced minds, whose ideas can never be realized +under any form of government.</p> + +<p>Among the immediate causes that led to the demand for the equal +political rights of women, in this country, we may note three:</p> + +<p>1. The discussion in several of the State Legislatures on the property +rights of married women, which, heralded by the press with comments +grave and gay, became the topic of general interest around many +fashionable dinner-tables, and at many humble firesides.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> In this way +all phases of the question were touched upon, involving the relations +of the sexes, and gradually widening to all human +interests—political, religious, civil, and social. The press and +pulpit became suddenly vigilant in marking out woman's sphere, while +woman herself seemed equally vigilant in her efforts to step outside +the prescribed limits.</p> + +<p>2. A great educational work was accomplished by the able lectures of +Frances Wright, on political, religious, and social questions. +Ernestine L. Rose, following in her wake, equally liberal in her +religious opinions, and equally well informed on the science of +government, helped to deepen and perpetuate the impression Frances +Wright had made on the minds of unprejudiced hearers.</p> + +<p>3. And above all other causes of the "Woman Suffrage Movement," was +the Anti-Slavery struggle in this country. The ranks of the +Abolitionists were composed of the most eloquent orators, the ablest +logicians, men and women of the purest moral character and best minds +in the nation. They were usually spoken of in the early days as "an +illiterate, ill-mannered, poverty-stricken, crazy set of long-haired +Abolitionists." While the fact is, some of the most splendid specimens +of manhood and womanhood, in physical appearance, in culture, +refinement, and knowledge of polite life, were found among the early +Abolitionists. James G. Birney, John Pierpont, Gerrit Smith, Wendell +Phillips, Charles Sumner, Maria Weston Chapman, Helen Garrison, Ann +Green Phillips, Abby Kelly, Paulina Wright Davis, Lucretia Mott, were +all remarkably fine-looking.</p> + +<p>In the early Anti-Slavery conventions, the broad principles of human +rights were so exhaustively discussed, justice, liberty, and equality, +so clearly taught, that the women who crowded to listen, readily +learned the lesson of freedom for themselves, and early began to take +part in the debates and business affairs of all associations. Woman +not only felt every pulsation of man's heart for freedom, and by her +enthusiasm inspired the glowing eloquence that maintained him through +the struggle, but earnestly advocated with her own lips human freedom +and equality. When Angelina and Sarah Grimke began to lecture in New +England, their audiences were at first composed entirely of women, but +gentlemen, hearing of their eloquence and power, soon began timidly to +slip into the back seats, one by one. And before the public were +aroused to the dangerous innovation, these women were speaking in +crowded, promiscuous assemblies. The clergy opposed to the abolition +movement first took alarm, and issued a pastoral letter, warning their +congregations against the influence of such women. The clergy +identified<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> with anti-slavery associations took alarm also, and the +initiative steps to silence the women, and to deprive them of the +right to vote in the business meetings, were soon taken. This action +culminated in a division in the Anti-Slavery Association. In the +annual meeting in May, 1840, a formal vote was taken on the +appointment of Abby Kelly on a business committee and was sustained by +over one hundred majority in favor of woman's right to take part in +the proceedings of the Society. Pending the discussion, clergymen in +the opposition went through the audience, <i>urging every woman who +agreed with them, to vote against</i> the motion, thus asking them to do +then and there, what with fervid eloquence, on that very occasion, +they had declared a sin against God and Scripture for them to do +anywhere. As soon as the vote was announced, and Abby Kelly's right on +the business committee decided, the men, two of whom were clergymen, +asked to be excused from serving on the committee.</p> + +<p>Thus Sarah and Angelina Grimke and Abby Kelly, in advocating liberty +for the black race, were early compelled to defend the right of free +speech for themselves. They had the double battle to fight against the +tyranny of sex and color at the same time, in which, however, they +were well sustained by the able pens of Lydia Maria Child and Maria +Weston Chapman. Their opponents were found not only in the ranks of +the New England clergy, but among the most bigoted Abolitionists in +Great Britain and the United States. Many a man who advocated equality +most eloquently for a Southern plantation, could not tolerate it at +his own fireside.</p> + +<p>The question of woman's right to speak, vote, and serve on committees, +not only precipitated the division in the ranks of the American +Anti-Slavery Society, in 1840, but it disturbed the peace of the +World's Anti-Slavery Convention, held that same year in London. The +call for that Convention invited delegates from all Anti-Slavery +organizations. Accordingly several American societies saw fit to send +women, as delegates, to represent them in that august assembly. But +after going three thousand miles to attend a World's Convention, it +was discovered that women formed no part of the constituent elements +of the moral world. In summoning the friends of the slave from all +parts of the two hemispheres to meet in London, John Bull never +dreamed that woman, too, would answer to his call. Imagine then the +commotion in the conservative anti-slavery circles in England, when it +was known that half a dozen of those terrible women who had spoken to +promiscuous assemblies, voted on men and measures, prayed and +petitioned against slavery, women who had been mobbed, ridiculed by +the press, and denounced by the pulpit,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> who had been the cause of +setting all American Abolitionists by the ears, and split their ranks +asunder, were on their way to England. Their fears of these formidable +and belligerent women must have been somewhat appeased when Lucretia +Mott, Sarah Pugh, Abby Kimber, Elizabeth Neal, Mary Grew, of +Philadelphia, in modest Quaker costume, Ann Green Phillips, Emily +Winslow, and Abby Southwick, of Boston, all women of refinement and +education, and several, still in their twenties, landed at last on the +soil of Great Britain. Many who had awaited their coming with much +trepidation, gave a sigh of relief, on being introduced to Lucretia +Mott, learning that she represented the most dangerous elements in the +delegation. The American clergymen who had landed a few days before, +had been busily engaged in fanning the English prejudices into active +hostility against the admission of these women to the Convention. In +every circle of Abolitionists this was the theme, and the discussion +grew more bitter, personal, and exasperating every hour.</p> + +<p>The 12th of June dawned bright and beautiful on these discordant +elements, and at an early hour anti-slavery delegates from different +countries wended their way through the crooked streets of London to +Freemasons' Hall. Entering the vestibule, little groups might be seen +gathered here and there, earnestly discussing the best disposition to +make of those women delegates from America. The excitement and +vehemence of protest and denunciation could not have been greater, if +the news had come that the French were about to invade England. In +vain those obdurate women had been conjured to withhold their +credentials, and not thrust a question that must produce such discord +on the Convention. Lucretia Mott, in her calm, firm manner, insisted +that the delegates had no discretionary power in the proposed action, +and the responsibility of accepting or rejecting them must rest on the +Convention.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock, the spacious Hall being filled, the Convention was +called to order. The venerable Thomas Clarkson, who was to be +President, on entering, was received by the large audience standing; +owing to his feeble health, the chairman requested that there should +be no other demonstrations. As soon as Thomas Clarkson withdrew, +Wendell Phillips made the following motion:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"That a Committee of five be appointed to prepare a correct list +of the members of this Convention, with instructions to include +in such list, all persons bearing credentials from any +Anti-Slavery body."</p></blockquote> + +<p>This motion at once opened the debate on the admission of women +delegates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. Phillips: When the call reached America we found that it was +an invitation to the friends of the slave of every nation and of +every clime. Massachusetts has for several years acted on the +principle of admitting women to an equal seat with men, in the +deliberative bodies of anti-slavery societies. When the +Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society received that paper, it +interpreted it, as it was its duty, in its broadest and most +liberal sense. If there be any other paper, emanating from the +Committee, limiting to one sex the qualification of membership, +there is no proof; and, as an individual, I have no knowledge +that such a paper ever reached Massachusetts. We stand here in +consequence of your invitation, and knowing our custom, as it +must be presumed you did, we had a right to interpret "friends of +the slave," to include women as well as men. In such +circumstances, we do not think it just or equitable to that +State, nor to America in general, that, after the trouble, the +sacrifice, the self-devotion of a part of those who leave their +families and kindred and occupations in their own land, to come +three thousand miles to attend this World's Convention, they +should be refused a place in its deliberations.</p> + +<p>One of the Committee who issued the call, said: As soon as we +heard the liberal interpretation Americans had given to our first +invitation, we issued another as early as Feb. 15, in which the +description of those who are to form the Convention is set forth +as consisting of "gentlemen."</p> + +<p>Dr. Bowring: I think the custom of excluding females is more +honored in its breach than in its observance. In this country +sovereign rule is placed in the hands of a female, and one who +has been exercising her great and benignant influence in opposing +slavery by sanctioning, no doubt, the presence of her illustrious +consort at an anti-slavery meeting. We are associated with a body +of Christians (Quakers) who have given to their women a great, +honorable, and religious prominence. I look upon this delegation +from America as one of the most interesting, the most +encouraging, and the most delightful symptoms of the times. I can +not believe that we shall refuse to welcome gratefully the +co-operation which is offered us.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The Rev. J. Burnet, an Englishman, made a most touching appeal to the +American ladies, to conform to English prejudices and custom, so far +as to withdraw their credentials, as it never did occur to the British +and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society that they were inviting ladies. It is +better, said he, that this Convention should be dissolved at this +moment than this motion should be adopted.</p> + +<blockquote><p>The Rev. Henry Grew, of Philadelphia: The reception of women as a +part of this Convention would, in the view of many, be not only a +violation of the customs of England, but of the ordinance of +Almighty God, who has a right to appoint our services to His +sovereign will.</p> + +<p>Rev. Eben Galusha, New York: In support of the other side of this +question, reference has been made to your Sovereign. I most +cordially approve of her policy and sound wisdom, and commend to +the consideration of our American female friends who are so +deeply interested in the subject, the example of your noble +Queen, who by sanctioning her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> consort, His Royal Highness Prince +Albert, in taking the chair on an occasion not dissimilar to +this, showed her sense of propriety by putting her Head foremost +in an assembly of gentlemen. I have no objection to woman's being +the neck to turn the head aright, but do not wish to see her +assume the place of the head.</p> + +<p>George Bradburn, of Mass.: We are told that it would be outraging +the customs of England to allow women to sit in this Convention. +I have a great respect for the customs of old England. But I ask, +gentlemen, if it be right to set up the customs and habits, not +to say prejudices of Englishmen, as a standard for the government +on this occasion of Americans, and of persons belonging to +several other independent nations. I can see neither reason nor +policy in so doing. Besides, I deprecate the principle of the +objection. In America it would exclude from our conventions all +persons of color, for there customs, habits, tastes, prejudices, +would be outraged by <i>their</i> admission. And I do not wish to be +deprived of the aid of those who have done so much for this +cause, for the purpose of gratifying any mere custom or +prejudice. Women have furnished most essential aid in +accomplishing what has been done in the State of Massachusetts. +If, in the Legislature of that State, I have been able to do +anything in furtherance of that cause, by keeping on my legs +eight or ten hours day after day, it was mainly owing to the +valuable assistance I derived from the women. And shall such +women be denied seats in this Convention? My friend George +Thompson, yonder, can testify to the faithful services rendered +to this cause by those same women. He can tell you that when +"gentlemen of property and standing" in "broad day" and +"broadcloth," undertook to drive him from Boston, putting his +life in peril, it was our women who made their own persons a +bulwark of protection around him. And shall such women be refused +seats here in a Convention seeking the emancipation of slaves +throughout the world? What a misnomer to call this a World's +Convention of Abolitionists, when some of the oldest and most +thorough-going Abolitionists in the world are denied the right to +be represented in it by delegates of their own choice.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And thus for the space of half an hour did Mr. Bradburn, six feet high +and well-proportioned, with vehement gesticulations and voice of +thunder, bombard the prejudices of England and the hypocrisies of +America.</p> + +<blockquote><p>George Thompson: I have listened to the arguments advanced on +this side and on that side of this vexed question. I listened +with profound attention to the arguments of Mr. Burnet, expecting +that from him, as I was justified in expecting, I should hear the +strongest arguments that could be adduced on this, or any other +subject upon which he might be pleased to employ his talents, or +which he might adorn with his eloquence. What are his arguments? +Let it be premised, as I speak in the presence of American +friends, that that gentleman is one of the best controversialists +in the country, and one of the best authorities upon questions of +business, points of order, and matters of principle. What are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +the strongest arguments, which one of the greatest champions on +any question which he chooses to espouse, has brought forward? +They are these:</p> + +<blockquote><p>1st. That English phraseology should be construed according +to English usage.</p> + +<p>2d. That it was never contemplated by the anti-slavery +committee that ladies should occupy a seat in this +Convention.</p> + +<p>3d. That the ladies of England are not here as delegates.</p> + +<p>4th. That he has no desire to offer an affront to the ladies +now present.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Here I presume are the strongest arguments the gentleman has to +adduce, for he never fails to use to the best advantage the +resources within his reach. I look at these arguments, and I +place on the other side of the question, the fact that there are +in this assembly ladies who present themselves as delegates from +the oldest societies in America. I expected that Mr. Burnet +would, as he was bound to do, if he intended to offer a +successful opposition to their introduction into this Convention, +grapple with the constitutionality of their credentials. I +thought he would come to the question of title. I thought he +would dispute the right of a convention assembled in +Philadelphia, for the abolition of slavery, consisting of +delegates from different States in the Union, and comprised of +individuals of both sexes, to send one or all of the ladies now +in our presence. I thought he would grapple with the fact, that +those ladies came to us who have no slavery from a country in +which they have slaves, as the representatives of two millions +and a half of captives. Let gentlemen, when they come to vote on +this question, remember, that in receiving or rejecting these +ladies, they acknowledge or despise [loud cries of No, no]. I ask +gentlemen, who shout "no," if they know the application I am +about to make. I did not mean to say you would despise the +ladies, but that you would, by your vote, acknowledge or despise +the parties whose cause they espouse. It appears we are prepared +to sanction ladies in the employment of all means, so long as +they are confessedly unequal with ourselves. It seems that the +grand objection to their appearance amongst us is this, that it +would be placing them on a footing of equality, and that would be +contrary to principle and custom. For years the women of America +have carried their banner in the van, while the men have humbly +followed in the rear. It is well known that the National Society +solicited Angelina Grimke to undertake a mission through New +England, to rouse the attention of the women to the wrongs of +slavery, and that that distinguished woman displayed her talents +not only in the drawing-room, but before the Senate of +Massachusetts. Let us contrast our conduct with that of the +Senators and Representatives of Massachusetts who did not disdain +to hear her. It was in consequence of her exertions, which +received the warmest approval of the National Society, that that +interest sprung up which has awakened such an intense feeling +throughout America. Then with reference to efficient management, +the most vigorous anti-slavery societies are those which are +managed by ladies.</p> + +<p>If now, after the expression of opinion on various sides, the +motion should be withdrawn with the consent of all parties, I +should be glad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> But when I look at the arguments against the +title of these women to sit amongst us, I can not but consider +them frivolous and groundless. The simple question before us is, +whether these ladies, taking into account their credentials, the +talent they have displayed, the sufferings they have endured, the +journey they have undertaken, should be acknowledged by us, in +virtue of these high titles, or should be shut out for the +reasons stated.</p> + +<p>Mr. Phillips, being urged on all sides to withdraw his motion, +said: It has been hinted very respectfully by two or three +speakers that the delegates from the State of Massachusetts +should withdraw their credentials, or the motion before the +meeting. The one appears to me to be equivalent to the other. If +this motion be withdrawn we must have another. I would merely ask +whether any man can suppose that the delegates from Massachusetts +or Pennsylvania can take upon their shoulders the responsibility +of withdrawing that list of delegates from your table, which +their constituents told them to place there, and whom they +sanctioned as their fit representatives, because this Convention +tells us that it is not ready to meet the ridicule of the morning +papers, and to stand up against the customs of England. In +America we listen to no such arguments. If we had done so we had +never been here as Abolitionists. It is the custom there not to +admit colored men into respectable society, and we have been told +again and again that we are outraging the decencies of humanity +when we permit colored men to sit by our side. When we have +submitted to brick-bats, and the tar tub and feathers in America, +rather than yield to the custom prevalent there of not admitting +colored brethren into our friendship, shall we yield to parallel +custom or prejudice against women in Old England? We can not +yield this question if we would; for it is a matter of +conscience. But we would not yield it on the ground of +expediency. In doing so we should feel that we were striking off +the right arm of our enterprise. We could not go back to America +to ask for any aid from the women of Massachusetts if we had +deserted them, when they chose to send out their own sisters as +their representatives here. We could not go back to Massachusetts +and assert the unchangeableness of spirit on the question. We +have argued it over and over again, and decided it time after +time, in every society in the land, in favor of the women. We +have not changed by crossing the water. We stand here the +advocates of the same principle that we contend for in America. +We think it right for women to sit by our side there, and we +think it right for them to do the same here. We ask the +Convention to admit them; if they do not choose to grant it, the +responsibility rests on their shoulders. Massachusetts can not +turn aside, or succumb to any prejudices or customs even in the +land she looks upon with so much reverence as the land of +Wilberforce, of Clarkson, and of O'Connell. It is a matter of +conscience, and British virtue ought not to ask us to yield.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ashurst: You are convened to influence society upon a subject +connected with the kindliest feelings of our nature; and being +the first assembly met to shake hands with other nations, and +employ your combined efforts to annihilate slavery throughout the +world, are you to commence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> by saying, you will take away the +rights of one-half of creation! This is the principle which you +are putting forward.</p> + +<p>The Rev. A. Harvey, of Glasgow: It was stated by a brother from +America, that with him it is a matter of conscience, and it is a +question of conscience with me too. I have certain views in +relation to the teaching of the Word of God, and of the +particular sphere in which woman is to act. I must say, whether I +am right in my interpretations of the Word of God or not, that my +own decided convictions are, if I were to give a vote in favor of +females, sitting and deliberating in such an assembly as this, +that I should be acting in opposition to the plain teaching of +the Word of God. I may be wrong, but I have a conscience on the +subject, and I am sure there are a number present of the same +mind.</p> + +<p>Captain Wanchope, R. N., delegate from Carlisle: I entreat the +ladies not to push this question too far. I wish to know whether +our friends from America are to cast off England altogether. Have +we not given £20,000,000 of our money for the purpose of doing +away with the abominations of slavery? Is not that proof that we +are in earnest about it?</p> + +<p>James C. Fuller: One friend said that this question should have +been settled on the other side of the Atlantic. Why, it was there +decided in favor of woman a year ago.</p> + +<p>James Gillespie Birney: It has been stated that the right of +women to sit and act in all respects as men in our anti-slavery +associations, was decided in the affirmative at the annual +meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in May, 1839. It is +true the claim was so decided on that occasion, but not by a +large majority; whilst it is also true that the majority was +swelled by the votes of the women themselves. I have just +received a letter from a gentleman in New York (Louis Tappan), +communicating the fact, that the persistence of the friends of +promiscuous female representation in pressing that practice on +the American Anti-Slavery Society, at its annual meeting on the +twelfth of last month, had caused such disagreement among the +members present, that he and others who viewed the subject as he +did, were then deliberating on measures for seceding from the old +organization.</p> + +<p>Rev. C. Stout: My vote is that we confirm the list of delegates, +that we take votes on that as an amendment, and that we +henceforth entertain this question no more. Are we not met here +pledged to sacrifice all but everything, in order that we may do +something against slavery, and shall we be divided on this +<i>paltry question</i> and suffer the whole tide of benevolence to be +stopped by a <i>straw</i>? No! You talk of being men, then be men! +Consider what is worthy of your attention.</p> + +<p>Rev. Dr. Morrison: I feel, I believe, as our brethren from +America and many English friends do at this moment, that we are +treading on the brink of a precipice; and that precipice is the +awaking in our bosoms by this discussion, feelings that will not +only be averse to the great object for which we have assembled, +but inconsistent, perhaps, in some degree, with the Christian +spirit which, I trust, will pervade all meetings connected with +the Anti-Slavery cause. We have been unanimous against the common +foe, but we are this day in danger of creating division among +heartfelt friends. Will our American brethren put us in this +position?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Will they keep up a discussion in which the delicacy, +the honor, the respectability of those excellent females who have +come from the Western world are concerned? I tremble at the +thought of discussing the question in the presence of these +ladies—for whom I entertain the most profound respect—and I am +bold to say, that but for the introduction of the question of +woman's rights, it would be impossible for the shrinking nature +of woman to subject itself to the infliction of such a discussion +as this.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As the hour was late, and as the paltry arguments of the opposition +were unworthy much consideration—as the reader will see from the +specimens given—Mr. Phillips' reply was brief, consisting of the +correction of a few mistakes made by different speakers. The vote was +taken, and the women excluded as delegates of the Convention, by an +overwhelming majority.</p> + +<blockquote><p>George Thompson: I hope, as the question is now decided, that Mr. +Phillips will give us the assurance that we shall proceed with +one heart and one mind.</p> + +<p>Mr. Phillips replied: I have no doubt of it. There is no +unpleasant feeling in our minds. I have no doubt the women will +sit with as much interest behind the bar<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> as though the +original proposition had been carried in the affirmative. All we +asked was an expression of opinion, and, having obtained it, we +shall now act with the utmost cordiality.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Would there have been no unpleasant feelings in Wendell Phillips' +mind, had Frederick Douglass and Robert Purvis been refused their +seats in a convention of reformers under similar circumstances? and, +had <i>they</i> listened one entire day to debates on their peculiar +fitness for plantation life, and unfitness for the forum and public +assemblies, and been rejected as delegates on the ground of color, +could Wendell Phillips have so far mistaken their real feelings, and +been so insensible to the insults offered them, as to have told a +Convention of men who had just trampled on their most sacred rights, +that "they would no doubt sit with as much interest behind the bar, as +in the Convention"? To stand in that august assembly and maintain the +unpopular heresy of woman's equality was a severe ordeal for a young +man to pass through, and Wendell Phillips, who accepted the odium of +presenting this question to the Convention, and thus earned the +sincere gratitude of all womankind, might be considered as above +criticism, though he may have failed at one point to understand the +feelings of woman. The fact is important to mention, however, to show +that it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> almost impossible for the most liberal of men to +understand what liberty means for woman. This sacrifice of human +rights, by men who had assembled from all quarters of the globe to +proclaim universal emancipation, was offered up in the presence of +such women as Lady Byron, Anna Jameson, Amelia Opie, Mary Howitt, +Elizabeth Fry, and our own Lucretia Mott. The clergy with few +exceptions were bitter in their opposition. Although, as +Abolitionists, they had been compelled to fight both Church and Bible +to prove the black man's right to liberty, conscience forbade them to +stretch those sacred limits far enough to give equal liberty to woman.</p> + +<p>The leading men who championed the cause of the measure in the +Convention and voted in the affirmative, were Wendell Phillips, George +Thompson, George Bradburn, Mr. Ashurst, Dr. Bowring, and Henry B. +Stanton. Though Daniel O'Connell was not present during the +discussion, having passed out with the President, yet in his first +speech, he referred to the rejected delegates, paying a beautiful +tribute to woman's influence, and saying he should have been happy to +have added the right word in the right place and to have recorded his +vote in favor of human equality..</p> + +<p>William Lloyd Garrison, having been delayed at sea, arrived too late +to take part in the debates. Learning on his arrival that the women +had been rejected as delegates, he declined to take his seat in the +Convention; and, through all those interesting discussions on a +subject so near his heart, lasting ten days, he remained a silent +spectator in the gallery. What a sacrifice for a principle so dimly +seen by the few, and so ignorantly ridiculed by the many! Brave, noble +Garrison! May this one act keep his memory fresh forever in the hearts +of his countrywomen!</p> + +<p>The one Abolitionist who sustained Mr. Garrison's position, and sat +with him in the gallery, was Nathaniel P. Rogers, editor of the +<i>Herald of Freedom</i>, in Concord, New Hampshire, who died in the midst +of the Anti-Slavery struggle. However, the debates in the Convention +had the effect of rousing English minds to thought on the tyranny of +sex, and American minds to the importance of some definite action +toward woman's emancipation.</p> + +<p>As Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wended their way arm in +arm down Great Queen Street that night, reviewing the exciting scenes +of the day, they agreed to hold a woman's rights convention on their +return to America, as the men to whom they had just listened had +manifested their great need of some education on that question. Thus a +missionary work for the emancipation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> woman in "the land of the +free and the home of the brave" was then and there inaugurated. As the +ladies were not allowed to speak in the Convention, they kept up a +brisk fire morning, noon, and night at their hotel on the unfortunate +gentlemen who were domiciled at the same house. Mr. Birney, with his +luggage, promptly withdrew after the first encounter, to some more +congenial haven of rest, while the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, from Boston, +who always fortified himself with six eggs well beaten in a large bowl +at breakfast, to the horror of his host and a circle of æsthetic +friends, stood his ground to the last—his physical proportions being +his shield and buckler, and his Bible (with Colver's commentaries) his +weapon of defence.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>The movement for woman's suffrage, both in England and America, may be +dated from this World's Anti-Slavery Convention.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The ladies of the Convention were fenced off behind a bar +and curtain, similar to those used in churches to screen the choir +from the public gaze.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Some of the English clergy, dancing around with Bible in +hand, shaking it in the faces of the opposition, grew so vehement, +that one would really have thought that they held a commission from +high heaven as the possessors of all truth, and that all progress in +human affairs was to be squared by their interpretation of Scripture. +At last George Bradburn, exasperated with their narrowness and +bigotry, sprang to the floor, and stretching himself to his full +height, said: "Prove to me, gentlemen, that your Bible sanctions the +slavery of woman—the complete subjugation of one-half the race to the +other—and I should feel that the best work I could do for humanity +would be to make a grand bonfire of every Bible in the Universe."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>NEW YORK.</h3> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>The First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, July 19-20, +1848—Property Rights of Women secured—Judge Fine, George +Geddes, and Mr. Hadley pushed the Bill through—Danger of +meddling with well-settled conditions of domestic happiness—Mrs. +Barbara Hertell's will—Richard Hunt's tea-table—The eventful +day—James Mott President—Declaration of sentiments—Convention +in Rochester—Clergy again in opposition with Bible arguments.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">New York</span> with its metropolis, fine harbors, great lakes and rivers; +its canals and railroads uniting the extremest limits, and controlling +the commerce of the world; with its wise statesmen and wily +politicians, long holding the same relation to the nation at large +that Paris is said to hold to France, has been proudly called by her +sons and daughters the Empire State.</p> + +<p>But the most interesting fact in her history, to woman, is that she +was the first State to emancipate wives from the slavery of the old +common law of England, and to secure to them equal property rights. +This occurred in 1848. Various bills and petitions, with reference to +the civil rights of woman, had been under discussion twelve years, and +the final passage of the property bill was due in no small measure to +two facts. 1st. The constitutional convention in 1847, which compelled +the thinking people of the State, and especially the members of the +convention, to the serious consideration of the fundamental principles +of government. As in the revision of a Constitution the State is for +the time being resolved into its original elements in recognizing the +equality of all the people, one would naturally think that a chance +ray of justice might have fallen aslant the wrongs of woman and +brought to the surface some champion in that convention, especially as +some aggravated cases of cruelty in families of wealth and position +had just at that time aroused the attention of influential men to the +whole question. 2d. Among the Dutch aristocracy of the State there was +a vast amount of dissipation; and as married women could hold neither +property nor children under the common law, solid, thrifty Dutch +fathers were daily confronted with the fact that the inheritance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> of +their daughters, carefully accumulated, would at marriage pass into +the hands of dissipated, impecunious husbands, reducing them and their +children to poverty and dependence. Hence this influential class of +citizens heartily seconded the efforts of reformers, then demanding +equal property rights in the marriage relation. Thus a wise +selfishness on one side, and principle on the other, pushed the +conservatives and radicals into the same channel, and both alike found +anchor in the statute law of 1848. This was the death-blow to the old +Blackstone code for married women in this country, and ever since +legislation has been slowly, but steadily, advancing toward their +complete equality.</p> + +<p>Desiring to know who prompted the legislative action on the Property +Bill in 1848, and the names of our champions who carried it +successfully through after twelve years of discussion and petitioning, +a letter of inquiry was addressed to the Hon. George Geddes of the +twenty-second district—at that time Senator—and received the +following reply:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"> +<span class="smcap">Fairmount, Onondaga Co., N. Y.,</span><br /> +<i>November 25, 1880</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage:</span></p> + +<p><i>Dear Madam</i>:—I was much gratified at the receipt of your letter +of the 22d inst., making inquiries into the history of the law of +1848 in regard to married women holding property independently of +their husbands. That the "truth of history" may be made plain, I +have looked over the journals of the Senate and Assembly, and +taken full notes, which I request you to publish, if you put any +part of this letter in print.</p> + +<p>I have very distinct recollections of the whole history of this +very radical measure. Judge Fine, of St. Lawrence, was its +originator, and he gave me his reasons for introducing the bill. +He said that he married a lady who had some property of her own, +which he had, all his life, tried to keep distinct from his, that +she might have the benefit of her own, in the event of any +disaster happening to him in pecuniary matters. He had found much +difficulty, growing out of the old laws, in this effort to +protect his wife's interests.</p> + +<p>Judge Fine was a stately man, and of general conservative +tendencies, just the one to hold on to the past, but he was a +just man, and did not allow his practice as a lawyer, or his +experience on the bench, to obscure his sense of right. I +followed him, glad of such a leader.</p> + +<p>I, too, had special reasons for desiring this change in the law. +I had a young daughter, who, in the then condition of my health, +was quite likely to be left in tender years without a father, and +I very much desired to protect her in the little property I might +be able to leave. I had an elaborate will drawn by my old law +preceptor, Vice-Chancellor Lewis H. Sandford, creating a trust +with all the care and learning he could bring to my aid. But when +the elaborate paper was finished,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> neither he or I felt satisfied +with it. When the law of 1848 was passed, all I had to do was to +burn this will.</p> + +<p>In this connection I wish to say that the Speaker of the +Assembly, Mr. Hadley, gave aid in the passage of this law that +was essential. Very near the end of the session of the +Legislature he assured me that if the bill passed the Senate, he +would see that it passed the House. By examining my notes of the +Assembly's action, you will see that the bill never went to a +committee of the whole in that body, but was sent directly to a +select committee to report complete. It was the power of the +Speaker that in this summary manner overrode the usual +legislative forms. The only reason Mr. Hadley gave me for his +zeal in this matter, was that it was a good bill and ought to +pass.</p> + +<p>I believe this law originated with Judge Fine, without any +outside prompting. On the third day of the session he gave notice +of his intention to introduce it, and only one petition was +presented in favor of the bill, and that came from Syracuse, and +was due to the action of my personal friends—I presented it +nearly two months after the bill had been introduced to the +Senate.</p> + +<p>The reception of the bill by the Senate showed unlooked-for +support as well as opposition. The measure was so radical, so +extreme, that even its friends had doubts; but the moment any +important amendment was offered, up rose the whole question of +woman's proper place in society, in the family, and everywhere. +We all felt that the laws regulating married women's, as well as +married men's rights, demanded careful revision and adaptation to +our times and to our civilization. But no such revision could be +perfected then, nor has it been since. We meant to strike a hard +blow, and if possible shake the old system of laws to their +foundations, and leave it to other times and wiser councils to +perfect a new system.</p> + +<p>We had in the Senate a man of matured years, who had never had a +wife. He was a lawyer well-read in the old books, and versed in +the adjudications which had determined that husband and wife were +but one person, and the husband that person; and he expressed +great fears in regard to meddling with this well-settled +condition of domestic happiness. This champion of the past made +long and very able arguments to show the ruin this law must work, +but he voted for the bill in the final decision.</p> + +<p>The bill hung along in Committee of the Whole until March 21st, +when its great opponent being absent, I moved its reference to a +select Committee, with power to report it complete; that is, +matured ready for its passage. So the bill was out of the arena +of debate, and on my motion was ordered to its third reading.</p> + +<p>In reply to your inquiries in regard to debates that preceded the +action of 1848, I must say I know of none, and I am quite sure +that in our long discussions no allusion was made to anything of +the kind. Great measures often occupy the thoughts of men and +women, long before they take substantial form and become things +of life, and I shall not dispute any one who says that this +reform had been thought of before 1848. But I do insist the +record shows that Judge Fine is the author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of the law which +opened the way to clothe woman with full rights, in regard to +holding, using, and enjoying in every way her own property, +independently of any husband.</p> + +<p>I add the following extracts taken from the journals of the +Senate and Assembly of 1848, viz:</p> + +<p>Senate journal for 1848, p. 35. January 7th. "Mr. Fine gave +notice that he would, at an early day, ask leave to introduce a +bill for the more effectual protection of the property of married +women."</p> + +<p>Jan. 8th, p. 47. "Mr. Fine introduced 'the bill,' and it was +referred to the Judiciary Committee," which consisted of Mr. +Wilkin, Mr. Fine, and Mr. Cole.</p> + +<p>Feb. 7th, p. 157. Mr. Wilkin reported the bill favorably, and it +was sent to the Committee of the Whole.</p> + +<p>Feb. 23d. Mr. Geddes presented the petition of three hundred +citizens of Syracuse praying for the passage of a law to protect +the rights of married women.</p> + +<p>March 1st, p. 242. "The Senate spent some time in Committee of +the Whole" on the bill, and reported progress, and had leave to +sit again.</p> + +<p>March 3d, p. 250. The Senate again in Committee of the Whole on +this bill.</p> + +<p>March 15th, p. 314. The Senate again in Committee of the Whole on +this bill.</p> + +<p>March 21st, p. 352. Mr. Lawrence, from Committee of the Whole, +reported the bill with some amendments. "Thereupon ordered that +said bill be referred to a Select Committee consisting of Mr. +Fine, Mr. Geddes, and Mr. Hawley to report complete."</p> + +<p>March 21st, p. 354. "Mr. Geddes, from the Select Committee, +reported complete, with amendments, the bill entitled 'An Act for +the more effectual protection of the property of married women,' +which report was laid on the table."</p> + +<p>March 28th, p. 420. "On motion of Mr. Geddes, the Senate then +proceeded to the consideration of the report of the Select +Committee on the bill entitled '(as above)', which report was +agreed to, and the bill ordered to a third reading."</p> + +<p>March 29th, p. 443. The bill entitled "(as above)" was read the +third time, and passed—ayes, 23; nays, 1, as follows:</p> + +<p><i>Ayes</i>—Messrs. Betts, Bond, Brownson, Burch, Coffin, Cole, Cook, +Cornwell, Fine, Floyd, Fox, Fuller, Geddes, S. H. P. Hall, +Hawley, Johnson, Lawrence, Little, Martin, Smith, Wallon, Wilkin, +Williams, 23.</p> + +<p><i>Nays</i>—Clark, 1.</p> + +<p>April 7th, p. 541. The bill was returned from the Assembly with +its concurrence.</p> + +<p>Its history in the Assembly (<i>see its Journal</i>):</p> + +<p>March 29th, p. 966. A message from the Senate, requesting the +concurrence of the Assembly to "An Act for the more effectual +protection of the property of married women." On motion of Mr. +Campbell, the bill was sent to a Committee consisting of Messrs. +Campbell, Brigham, Myers, Coe, and Crocker, to report complete +(<i>see page</i> 967).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>April 1st, page 1025. Mr. Campbell reported in favor of its +passage, p. 1026. Report agreed to by the House.</p> + +<p>April 6, p. 1129. Mr. Collins moved to recommit to a Select +Committee for amendment. His motion failed, and the bill passed +(p. 1130). Ayes, 93. Nays, 9.</p> + +<p>The Governor put his name to the bill and thus it became a law.</p> + +<p>Please reply to me and let me know whether I have made this +matter clear to you.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Very respectfully,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">Geo. Geddes.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>When the first bill was introduced by Judge Hertell in 1836, he made a +very elaborate argument in its favor, covering all objections, and +showing the incontestable justice of the measure. Being too voluminous +for a newspaper report it was published in pamphlet form. His wife, +Barbara Amelia Hertell, dying a few years since, by her will left a +sum for the republication of this exhaustive argument, thus keeping +the memory of her husband green in the hearts of his countrywomen, and +expressing her own high appreciation of its value.</p> + +<p>Step by step the Middle and New England States began to modify their +laws, but the Western States, in their Constitutions, were liberal in +starting. Thus the discussions in the constitutional convention and +the Legislature, heralded by the press to every school district, +culminated at last in a woman's rights convention.</p> + +<p>The <i>Seneca County Courier</i>, a semi-weekly journal, of July 14, 1848, +contained the following startling announcement:</p> + +<blockquote><p class="heading">SENECA FALLS CONVENTION.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Woman's Rights Convention</span>.—A Convention to discuss the social, +civil, and religious condition and rights of woman, will be held +in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on Wednesday and +Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July, current; commencing at 10 +o'clock <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> During the first day the meeting will be exclusively +for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public +generally are invited to be present on the second day, when +Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen, +will address the convention.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This call, without signature, was issued by Lucretia Mott, Martha C. +Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Ann McClintock. At this time +Mrs. Mott was visiting her sister Mrs. Wright, at Auburn, and +attending the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Western New York. Mrs. +Stanton, having recently removed from Boston to Seneca Falls, finding +the most congenial associations in Quaker families, met Mrs. Mott +incidentally for the first time since her residence there. They at +once returned to the topic they had so often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> discussed, walking arm +in arm in the streets of London, and Boston, "the propriety of holding +a woman's convention." These four ladies, sitting round the tea-table +of Richard Hunt, a prominent Friend near Waterloo, decided to put +their long-talked-of resolution into action, and before the twilight +deepened into night, the call was written, and sent to the Seneca +County Courier. On Sunday morning they met in Mrs. McClintock's parlor +to write their declaration, resolutions, and to consider subjects for +speeches.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> As the convention was to assemble in three days, the time +was short for such productions; but having no experience in the <i>modus +operandi</i> of getting up conventions, nor in that kind of literature, +they were quite innocent of the herculean labors they proposed. On the +first attempt to frame a resolution; to crowd a complete thought, +clearly and concisely, into three lines; they felt as helpless and +hopeless as if they had been suddenly asked to construct a steam +engine. And the humiliating fact may as well now be recorded that +before taking the initiative step, those ladies resigned themselves to +a faithful perusal of various masculine productions. The reports of +Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions were examined, but all +alike seemed too tame and pacific for the inauguration of a rebellion +such as the world had never before seen. They knew women had wrongs, +but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased from +the fact that they themselves were fortunately organized and +conditioned; they were neither "sour old maids," "childless women," +nor "divorced wives," as the newspapers declared them to be. While +they had felt the insults incident to sex, in many ways, as every +proud, thinking woman must, in the laws, religion, and literature of +the world, and in the invidious and degrading sentiments and customs +of all nations, yet they had not in their own experience endured the +coarser forms of tyranny resulting from unjust laws, or association +with immoral and unscrupulous men, but they had souls large enough to +feel the wrongs of others, without being scarified in their own flesh.</p> + +<p>After much delay, one of the circle took up the Declaration of 1776, +and read it aloud with much spirit and emphasis, and it was at once +decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight changes such +as substituting "all men" for "King George." Knowing that women must +have more to complain of than men under any circumstances possibly +could, and seeing the Fathers had eighteen grievances, a protracted +search was made through statute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> books, church usages, and the customs +of society to find that exact number. Several well-disposed men +assisted in collecting the grievances, until, with the announcement of +the eighteenth, the women felt they had enough to go before the world +with a good case. One youthful lord remarked, "Your grievances must be +grievous indeed, when you are obliged to go to books in order to find +them out."</p> + +<p>The eventful day dawned at last, and crowds in carriages and on foot, +wended their way to the Wesleyan church. When those having charge of +the Declaration, the resolutions, and several volumes of the Statutes +of New York arrived on the scene, lo! the door was locked. However, an +embryo Professor of Yale College was lifted through an open window to +unbar the door; that done, the church was quickly filled. It had been +decided to have no men present, but as they were already on the spot, +and as the women who must take the responsibility of organizing the +meeting, and leading the discussions, shrank from doing either, it was +decided, in a hasty council round the altar, that this was an occasion +when men might make themselves pre-eminently useful. It was agreed +they should remain, and take the laboring oar through the Convention.</p> + +<p>James Mott, tall and dignified, in Quaker costume, was called to the +chair; Mary McClintock appointed Secretary, Frederick Douglass, Samuel +Tillman, Ansel Bascom, E. W. Capron, and Thomas McClintock took part +throughout in the discussions. Lucretia Mott, accustomed to public +speaking in the Society of Friends, stated the objects of the +Convention, and in taking a survey of the degraded condition of woman +the world over, showed the importance of inaugurating some movement +for her education and elevation. Elizabeth and Mary McClintock, and +Mrs. Stanton, each read a well-written speech; Martha Wright read some +satirical articles she had published in the daily papers answering the +diatribes on woman's sphere. Ansel Bascom, who had been a member of +the Constitutional Convention recently held in Albany, spoke at length +on the property bill for married women, just passed the Legislature, +and the discussion on woman's rights in that Convention. Samuel +Tillman, a young student of law, read a series of the most +exasperating statutes for women, from English and American jurists, +all reflecting the <i>tender mercies</i> of men toward their wives, in +taking care of their property and protecting them in their civil +rights.</p> + +<p>The Declaration having been freely discussed by many present, was +re-read by Mrs. Stanton, and with some slight amendment adopted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS.</p> + +<p>When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one +portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the +earth a position different from that which they have hitherto +occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God +entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind +requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to +such a course.</p> + +<p>We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women +are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with +certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, +and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights +governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the +consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes +destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer +from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the +institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such +principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them +shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. +Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established +should not be changed for light and transient causes; and +accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more +disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right +themselves by abolishing the forms to which they were accustomed. +But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing +invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under +absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such +government, and to provide new guards for their future security. +Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this +government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them +to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.</p> + +<p>The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and +usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct +object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To +prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.</p> + +<p>He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to +the elective franchise.</p> + +<p>He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which +she had no voice.</p> + +<p>He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most +ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.</p> + +<p>Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the +elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in +the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.</p> + +<p>He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.</p> + +<p>He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages +she earns.</p> + +<p>He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can +commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the +presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is +compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to +all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to +deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the +proper causes, and in case of separation, to whom the +guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly +regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, +going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and +giving all power into his hands.</p> + +<p>After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single, +and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a +government which recognizes her only when her property can be +made profitable to it.</p> + +<p>He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and +from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty +remuneration. He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and +distinction which he considers most honorable to himself. As a +teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.</p> + +<p>He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough +education, all colleges being closed against her.</p> + +<p>He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a subordinate +position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the +ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public +participation in the affairs of the Church.</p> + +<p>He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a +different code of morals for men and women, by which moral +delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only +tolerated, but deemed of little account in man.</p> + +<p>He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as +his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs +to her conscience and to her God.</p> + +<p>He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her +confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to +make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.</p> + +<p>Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the +people of this country, their social and religious +degradation—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and +because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and +fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that +they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges +which belong to them as citizens of the United States.</p> + +<p>In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small +amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we +shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our +object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the +State and National legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the +pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will +be followed by a series of Conventions embracing every part of +the country.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The following resolutions were discussed by Lucretia Mott, Thomas and +Mary Ann McClintock, Amy Post, Catharine A. F. Stebbins, and others, +and were adopted:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The great precept of nature is conceded to be, that "man +shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness." Blackstone +in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Commentaries remarks, that this law of Nature being +coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course +superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the +globe, in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of +any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid, +derive all their force, and all their validity, and all their +authority, mediately and immediately, from this original; +therefore.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true +and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great +precept of nature and of no validity, for this is "superior in +obligation to any other."</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such +a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which +place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to +the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or +authority.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by +the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she +should be recognized as such.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the women of this country ought to be +enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that +they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring +themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their +ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself +intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, +it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak and teach, +as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and +refinement of behavior that is required of woman in the social +state, should also be required of man, and the same +transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man +and woman.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, +which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a +public audience, comes with a very ill-grace from those who +encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in +the concert, or in feats of the circus.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the +circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted +application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that +it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great +Creator has assigned her.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That it is the duty of the women of this country to +secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective +franchise.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the equality of human rights results necessarily +from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and +responsibilities.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved, therefore</i>, That, being invested by the Creator with +the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of +responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right +and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous +cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the +great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her +right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in +private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any +instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper +to be held; and this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> being a self-evident truth growing out of +the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or +authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary +sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident +falsehood, and at war with mankind.</p></blockquote> + +<p>At the last session Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following +resolution:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the +zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the +overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to +woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, +professions, and commerce.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The only resolution that was not unanimously adopted was the ninth, +urging the women of the country to secure to themselves the elective +franchise. Those who took part in the debate feared a demand for the +right to vote would defeat others they deemed more rational, and make +the whole movement ridiculous.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Stanton and Frederick Douglass seeing that the power to +choose rulers and make laws, was the right by which all others could +be secured, persistently advocated the resolution, and at last carried +it by a small majority.</p> + +<p>Thus it will be seen that the Declaration and resolutions in the very +first Convention, demanded all the most radical friends of the +movement have since claimed—such as equal rights in the universities, +in the trades and professions; the right to vote; to share in all +political offices, honors, and emoluments; to complete equality in +marriage, to personal freedom, property, wages, children; to make +contracts; to sue, and be sued; and to testify in courts of justice. +At this time the condition of married women under the Common Law, was +nearly as degraded as that of the slave on the Southern plantation. +The Convention continued through two entire days, and late into the +evenings. The deepest interest was manifested to its close.</p> + +<p>The proceedings were extensively published, unsparingly ridiculed by +the press, and denounced by the pulpit, much to the surprise and +chagrin of the leaders. Being deeply in earnest, and believing their +demands pre-eminently wise and just, they were wholly unprepared to +find themselves the target for the jibes and jeers of the nation. The +Declaration was signed by one hundred men, and women, many of whom +withdrew their names as soon as the storm of ridicule began to break. +The comments of the press were carefully preserved,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and it is +curious to see that the same old arguments, and objections rife at the +start, are reproduced by the press<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> of to-day. But the brave protests +sent out from this Convention touched a responsive chord in the hearts +of women all over the country.</p> + +<p>Conventions were held soon after in Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, +Pennsylvania, and at different points in New York.</p> + +<p>Mr. Douglass, in his paper, <i>The North Star</i>, of July 28, 1848, had +the following editorial leader:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">The Rights of Women</span>.—One of the most interesting events of the +past week, was the holding of what is technically styled a +Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. The speaking, +addresses, and resolutions of this extraordinary meeting were +almost wholly conducted by women; and although they evidently +felt themselves in a novel position, it is but simple justice to +say that their whole proceedings were characterized by marked +ability and dignity. No one present, we think, however much he +might be disposed to differ from the views advanced by the +leading speakers on that occasion, will fail to give them credit +for brilliant talents and excellent dispositions. In this +meeting, as in other deliberative assemblies, there were frequent +differences of opinion and animated discussion; but in no case +was there the slightest absence of good feeling and decorum. +Several interesting documents setting forth the rights as well as +grievances of women were read. Among these was a Declaration of +Sentiments, to be regarded as the basis of a grand movement for +attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of +women. We should not do justice to our own convictions, or to the +excellent persons connected with this infant movement, if we did +not in this connection offer a few remarks on the general subject +which the Convention met to consider and the objects they seek to +attain. In doing so, we are not insensible that the bare mention +of this truly important subject in any other than terms of +contemptuous ridicule and scornful disfavor, is likely to excite +against us the fury of bigotry and the folly of prejudice. A +discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far +more complacency by many of what are called the <i>wise</i> and the +<i>good</i> of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of +women. It is, in their estimation, to be guilty of evil thoughts, +to think that woman is entitled to equal rights with man. Many +who have at last made the discovery that the negroes have some +rights as well as other members of the human family, have yet to +be convinced that women are entitled to any. Eight years ago a +number of persons of this description actually abandoned the +anti-slavery cause, lest by giving their influence in that +direction they might possibly be giving countenance to the +dangerous heresy that woman, in respect to rights, stands on an +equal footing with man. In the judgment of such persons the +American slave system, with all its concomitant horrors, is less +to be deplored than this <i>wicked</i> idea. It is perhaps needless to +say, that we cherish little sympathy for such sentiments or +respect for such prejudices. Standing as we do upon the +watch-tower of human freedom, we can not be deterred from an +expression of our approbation of any movement,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> however humble, +to improve and elevate the character of any members of the human +family. While it is impossible for us to go into this subject at +length, and dispose of the various objections which are often +urged against such a doctrine as that of female equality, we are +free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold woman to +be justly entitled to all we claim for man. We go farther, and +express our conviction that all political rights which it is +expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for woman. All +that distinguishes man as an intelligent and accountable being, +is equally true of woman; and if that government only is just +which governs by the free consent of the governed, there can be +no reason in the world for denying to woman the exercise of the +elective franchise, or a hand in making and administering the +laws of the land. Our doctrine is that "right is of no sex." We +therefore bid the women engaged in this movement our humble +Godspeed.</p></blockquote> + +<h3>THE ROCHESTER CONVENTION, AUGUST 2, 1848.</h3> + +<p>Those who took part in the Convention at Seneca Falls, finding at the +end of the two days, there were still so many new points for +discussion, and that the gift of tongues had been vouchsafed to them, +adjourned, to meet in Rochester in two weeks. Amy Post, Sarah D. Fish, +Sarah C. Owen, and Mary H. Hallowell, were the Committee of +Arrangements. This Convention was called for August 2d, and so well +advertised in the daily papers, that at the appointed hour, the +Unitarian Church was filled to overflowing.</p> + +<p>Amy Post called the meeting to order, and stated that at a gathering +the previous evening in Protection Hall, Rhoda De Garmo, Sarah Fish, +and herself, were appointed a committee to nominate officers for the +Convention, and they now proposed Abigail Bush, for President; Laura +Murray, for Vice-President; Elizabeth McClintock, Sarah Hallowell, and +Catherine A. F. Stebbins, for Secretaries. Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, +and Mrs. McClintock, thought it a most hazardous experiment to have a +woman President, and stoutly opposed it.</p> + +<p>To write a Declaration and Resolutions, to make a speech, and debate, +had taxed their powers to the uttermost; and now, with such feeble +voices and timid manners, without the slightest knowledge of Cushing's +Manual, or the least experience in public meetings, how could a woman +preside? They were on the verge of leaving the Convention in disgust, +but Amy Post and Rhoda De Garmo assured them that by the same power by +which they had resolved, declared, discussed, debated, they could also +preside at a public meeting, if they would but make the experiment. +And as the vote of the majority settled the question on the side of +woman, Abigail Bush took the chair, and the calm way she assumed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +duties of the office, and the admirable manner in which she discharged +them, soon reconciled the opposition to the seemingly ridiculous +experiment.</p> + +<p>The proceedings were opened with prayer, by the Rev. Mr. Wicher, of +the Free-will Baptist Church. Even at that early day, there were many +of the liberal clergymen in favor of equal rights for women. During +the reading of the minutes of the preliminary meeting by the +Secretary, much uneasiness was manifested concerning the low voices of +women, and cries of "Louder, louder!" drowned every other sound, when +the President, on rising, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Friends, we present ourselves here before you, as an oppressed +class, with trembling frames and faltering tongues, and we do not +expect to be able to speak so as to be heard by all at first, but +we trust we shall have the sympathy of the audience, and that you +will bear with our weakness now in the infancy of the movement. +Our trust in the omnipotency of right is our only faith that we +shall succeed.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As the appointed Secretaries could not be heard, Sarah Anthony Burtis, +an experienced Quaker school-teacher, whose voice had been well +trained in her profession, volunteered to fill the duties of that +office, and she read the reports and documents of the Convention with +a clear voice and confident manner, to the great satisfaction of her +more timid coadjutors.</p> + +<p>Several gentlemen took part in the debates of this Convention. Some in +favor, some opposed, and others willing to make partial concessions to +the demands as set forth in the Declaration and Resolutions. Frederick +Douglass, William C. Nell, and William C. Bloss advocated the +emancipation of women from all the artificial disabilities, imposed by +false customs, creeds, and codes. Milo Codding, Mr. Sulley, Mr. +Pickard, and a Mr. Colton, of Connecticut, thought "woman's sphere was +home," and that she should remain in it; he would seriously deprecate +her occupying the pulpit.</p> + +<p>Lucretia Mott replied, that the gentleman from New Haven had objected +to woman occupying the pulpit, and indeed she could scarcely see how +any one educated in New Haven, Ct., could think otherwise than he did. +She said, we had all got our notions too much from the clergy, instead +of the Bible. The Bible, she contended, had none of the prohibitions +in regard to women; and spoke of the "honorable women not a few," +etc., and desired Mr. Colton to read his Bible over again, and see if +there was anything there to prohibit woman from being a religious +teacher. She then complimented the members of that church for opening +their doors to a Woman's Eights Convention, and said that a few years +ago, the Female Moral Reform Society of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> Philadelphia applied for the +use of a church in that city, in which to hold one of their meetings; +they were only allowed the use of the basement, and on condition that +none of the women should speak at the meeting. Accordingly, a D.D. was +called upon to preside, and another to read the ladies' report of the +Society.</p> + +<p>Near the close of the morning session, a young bride in traveling +dress,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> accompanied by her husband, slowly walked up the aisle, and +asked the privilege of saying a few words, which was readily granted. +Being introduced to the audience, she said, on her way westward, +hearing of the Convention, she had waited over a train, to add her +mite in favor of the demand now made, by the true women of this +generation:</p> + +<blockquote><p>It is with diffidence that I speak upon this question before us, +not a diffidence resulting from any doubt of the worthiness of +the cause, but from the fear that its depth and power can be but +meagerly portrayed by me.... Woman's rights—her civil +rights—equal with man's—not an equality of moral and religious +influence, for who dares to deny her that?—but an equality in +the exercise of her own powers, and a right to use all the +sources of erudition within the reach of man, to build unto +herself a name for her talents, energy, and integrity. We do not +positively say that our intellect is as capable as man's to +assume, and at once to hold, these rights, or that our hearts are +as willing to enter into his actions; for if we did not believe +it, we would not contend for them, and if men did not believe it, +they would not withhold them with a smothered silence.... In +closing, she said: There will be one effect, perhaps unlooked +for, if we are raised to equal administration with man. It will +classify intellect. The heterogeneous triflings which now, I am +very sorry to say, occupy so much of our time, will be neglected; +fashion's votaries will silently fall off; dishonest exertions +for rank in society will be scorned; extravagance in toilet will +be detested; that meager and worthless pride of station will be +forgotten; the honest earnings of dependents will be paid; +popular demagogues crushed; impostors unpatronized; true genius +sincerely encouraged; and, above all, pawned integrity redeemed! +And why? Because enfranchised woman then will feel the burdens of +her responsibilities, and can strive for elevation, and will +reach all knowledge within her grasp.... If all this is +accomplished, man need not fear pomposity, fickleness, or an +unhealthy enthusiasm at his dear fireside; we can be as dutiful, +submissive, endearing as daughters, wives, and mothers, even if +we hang the wreath of domestic harmony upon the eagle's talons.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus for twenty minutes the young and beautiful stranger held her +audience spell-bound with her eloquence, in a voice whose pathos +thrilled every heart. Her husband, hat and cane in hand, remained +standing, leaning against a pillar near the altar, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> seemed a most +delighted, nay, reverential listener. It was a scene never to be +forgotten, and one of the most pleasing incidents of the Convention.</p> + +<p>Sarah Owen read an address on woman's place and pay in the world of +work. In closing, she said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>An experienced cashier of this city remarked to me that women +might be as good book-keepers as men; but men have monopolized +every lucrative situation, from the dry-goods merchant down to +whitewashing. Who does not feel, as she sees a stout, athletic +man standing behind the counter measuring lace, ribbons, and +tape, that he is monopolizing a woman's place, while thousands of +rich acres in our western world await his coming? This year, a +woman, for the first time, has taken her place in one of our +regular medical colleges. We rejoice to hear that by her dignity +of manner, application to study, and devotion to the several +branches of the profession she has chosen, she has secured the +respect of her professors and class, and reflected lasting honor +upon her whole sex. Thus we hail, in Elizabeth Blackwell, a +pioneer for woman in this profession.</p> + +<p>It is by this inverted order of society that woman is obliged to +ply the needle by day and by night, to procure even a scanty +pittance for her dependent family. Let men become producers, as +nature has designed them, and women be educated to fill all those +stations which require less physical strength, and we should soon +modify many of our social evils. I am informed by the +seamstresses of this city, that they get but thirty cents for +making a satin vest, and from twelve to thirty for making pants, +and coats in the same proportion. Man has such a contemptible +idea of woman, that he thinks she can not even sew as well as he +can; and he often goes to a tailor, and pays him double and even +treble for making a suit, when it merely passes through his +hands, after a woman has made every stitch of it so neatly that +he discovers no difference. Who does not see gross injustice in +this inequality of wages and violation of rights? To prove that +woman is capable of prosecuting the mercantile business, we have +a noble example in this city in Mrs. Gifford, who has sustained +herself with credit. She has bravely triumphed over all obloquy +and discouragement attendant on such a novel experiment, and made +for herself an independent living.</p> + +<p>In the fields of benevolence, woman has done great and noble +works for the safety and stability of the nation. When man shall +see the wisdom of recognizing a co-worker in her, then may be +looked for the dawning of a perfect day, when woman shall stand +where God designed she should, on an even platform with man +himself.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Roberts, who had been requested to investigate the wrongs of the +laboring classes, and to invite that oppressed portion of the +community to attend the Convention, and take part in its +deliberations, made some appropriate remarks relative to the +intolerable servitude and small remuneration paid to the working-class +of women.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> She reported the average price of labor for seamstresses to +be from 31 to 38 cents a day, and board from $1.25 to $1.50 per week +to be deducted therefrom, and they were generally obliged to take half +or more in due bills, which were payable in goods at certain stores, +thereby obliging them many times to pay extortionate prices.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Galloy corroborated the statement, having herself experienced +some of the oppressions of this portion of our citizens, and expressed +her gratitude that the subject was claiming the attention of this +benevolent and intelligent class of community. It did not require much +argument, to reconcile all who took part in the debates, to woman's +right to equal wages for equal work, but the gentlemen seemed more +disturbed as to the effect of equality in the family. With the old +idea of a divinely ordained head, and that, in all cases, the man, +whether wise or foolish, educated or ignorant, sober or drunk, such a +relation to them did not seem feasible. Mr. Sully asked, when the two +heads disagree, who must decide? There is no Lord Chancellor to whom +to apply, and does not St. Paul strictly enjoin obedience to husbands, +and that man shall be head of the woman?</p> + +<p>Lucretia Mott replied that in the Society of Friends she had never +known any difficulty to arise on account of the wife's not having +promised <i>obedience</i> in the marriage contract. She had never known any +mode of decision except an appeal to reason; and, although in some of +the meetings of this Society, women are placid on an equality, none of +the results so much dreaded had occurred. She said that many of the +opposers of Woman's Rights, who bid us to obey the bachelor St. Paul, +themselves reject his counsel. He advised them not to marry. In +general answer she would quote, "One is your master, even Christ." +Although Paul enjoins silence on women in the Church, yet he gives +directions how they should appear when publicly speaking, and we have +scriptural accounts of honorable women not a few who were religious +teachers, viz: Phebe, Priscilla, Tryphena, Triphosa, and the four +daughters of Philip, and various others.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton thought the gentleman might be easily answered; saying +that the strongest will or the superior intellect now governs the +household, as it will in the new order. She knew many a woman, who, to +all intents and purposes, is at the head of her family.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pickard asked who, after marriage, should hold the property, and +whose name should be retained. He thought an umpire necessary. He did +not see but all business must cease until the consent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> of both parties +be obtained. He saw an impossibility of introducing such rules into +society. The Gospel had established the unity and oneness of the +married pair.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton said she thought the Gospel, rightly understood, pointed +to a oneness of equality, not subordination, and that property should +be jointly held. She could see no reason why marriage by false creeds +should be made a degradation to woman; and, as to the name, the custom +of taking the husband's name is not universal. When a man has a bad +name in any sense, he might be the gainer by burying himself under the +good name of his wife. This last winter a Mr. Cruikshanks applied to +our Legislature to have his name changed. Now, if he had taken his +wife's name in the beginning, he might have saved the Legislature the +trouble of considering the propriety of releasing the man from such a +burden to be entailed on the third and fourth generation. When a slave +escapes from a Southern plantation, he at once takes a name as the +first step in liberty—the first assertion of individual identity. A +woman's dignity is equally involved in a life-long name, to mark her +individuality. We can not overestimate the demoralizing effect on +woman herself, to say nothing of society at large, for her to consent +thus to merge her existence so wholly in that of another.</p> + +<p>A well-written speech was read by William C. Nell, which Mrs. Mott +thought too flattering. She said woman is now sufficiently developed +to prefer justice to compliment.</p> + +<p>A letter was read from Gerrit Smith, approving cordially of the object +of the Convention.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton read the Declaration that was adopted at Seneca Falls, +and urged those present who did not agree with its sentiments, to make +their objections then and there. She hoped if there were any clergymen +present, they would not keep silent during the Convention and then on +Sunday do as their brethren did in Seneca Falls—use their pulpits +throughout the city to denounce them, where they could not, of course, +be allowed to reply.</p> + +<p>The resolutions<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> were freely discussed by Amy Post, Rhoda De Garmo, +Ann Edgeworth, Sarah D. Fish, and others. While Mrs. Mott and Mrs. +Stanton spoke in their favor, they thought they were too tame, and +wished for some more stirring declarations. Elizabeth McClintock read, +in an admirable manner, a spirited poetical reply, from the pen of +Maria Weston Chapman, to "A Clerical Appeal" published in 1840. Mrs. +Chapman was one of the grand women in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Boston, who, during the early +days of Anti-Slavery, gave her unceasing efforts to that struggle. Her +pen was a power in the journals and magazines, and her presence an +inspiration in their fairs and conventions. When Abby Kelly, Angelina +Grimke, and Lucretia Mott first began to speak to promiscuous +assemblies in Anti-Slavery Conventions, "a clerical appeal" was issued +and sent to all the clergymen in New England, calling on them to +denounce in their pulpits this unmannerly and unchristian proceeding. +Sermons were preached, portraying in the darkest colors the fearful +results to the Church, the State, and the home, in thus encouraging +women to enter public life.</p> + + +<h3>"PASTORAL LETTER."</h3> + +<p>Extract from a Pastoral Letter of "the General Association of +Massachusetts (Orthodox) to the Churches under their care"—1837:</p> + +<blockquote><p>III. We invite your attention to the dangers which at present +seem to threaten the female character with wide-spread and +permanent injury.</p> + +<p>The appropriate duties and influence of woman are clearly stated +in the New Testament. Those duties and that influence are +unobtrusive and private, but the source of mighty power. When the +mild, dependent, softening influence of woman upon the sternness +of man's opinions is fully exercised, society feels the effects +of it in a thousand forms. The power of woman is her dependence, +flowing from the consciousness of that weakness which God has +given her for her protection, (!) and which keeps her in those +departments of life that form the character of individuals, and +of the nation. There are social influences which females use in +promoting piety and the great objects of Christian benevolence +which we can not too highly commend.</p> + +<p>We appreciate the unostentatious prayers and efforts of woman in +advancing the cause of religion at home and abroad; in +Sabbath-schools; in leading religious inquirers to the pastors +(!) for instruction; and in all such associated effort as becomes +the modesty of her sex; and earnestly hope that she may abound +more and more in these labors of piety and love. But when she +assumes the place and tone of man as a public reformer, our care +and protection of her seem unnecessary; we put ourselves in +self-defence (!) against her; she yields the power which God has +given her for her protection, and her character becomes +unnatural. If the vine, whose strength and beauty is to lean upon +the trellis-work, and half conceal its clusters, thinks to assume +the independence and the overshadowing nature of the elm, it will +not only cease to bear fruit, but fall in shame and dishonor into +the dust. We can not, therefore, but regret the mistaken conduct +of those who encourage females to bear an obtrusive and +ostentatious part in measures of reform, and countenance any of +that sex who so far forget themselves as to itinerate in the +character of public lecturers and teachers. We especially deplore +the intimate acquaintance and promiscuous conversation of females +with regard to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> things which ought not to be named; by which that +modesty and delicacy which is the charm of domestic life, and +which constitutes the true influence of woman in society, is +consumed, and the way opened, as we apprehend, for degeneracy and +ruin.</p> + +<p>We say these things not to discourage proper influences against +sin, but to secure such reformation (!) as we believe is +Scriptural, and will be permanent.</p></blockquote> + +<p>William Lloyd Garrison, in a cordial letter, accompanying the above +extract, which he had copied for us with his own hand from the files +of <i>The Liberator</i>, said: "This 'Clerical Bull' was fulminated with +special reference to those two noble South Carolina women, Sarah M. +and Angelina E. Grimke, who were at that time publicly pleading for +those in bonds as bound with them, while on a visit to Massachusetts. +It was written by the Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, author of 'A +South-side View of Slavery.'"</p> + +<p>Maria Weston Chapman's amusing answer in rhyme, shows that the days +for ecclesiastical bulls were fast passing away, when women, even, +could thus make light of them.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading sc">Mrs. CHAPMAN'S POEM.</p> + +<p class="heading">"THE TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Confusion has seized us, and all things go wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The women have leaped from "their spheres,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, instead of fixed stars, shoot as comets along,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And are setting the world by the ears!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In courses erratic they're wheeling through space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In brainless confusion and meaningless chase.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In vain do our knowing ones try to compute<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Their return to the orbit designed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They're glanced at a moment, then onward they shoot,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And are neither "to hold nor to bind;"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So freely they move in their chosen ellipse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The "Lords of Creation" do fear an eclipse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They've taken a notion to speak for themselves,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And are wielding the tongue and the pen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They've mounted the rostrum; the termagant elves,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And—oh horrid!—are talking to men!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With faces unblanched in our presence they come<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To harangue us, they say, in behalf of the dumb.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">They insist on their right to petition and pray,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That St. Paul, in Corinthians, has given them rules<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For appearing in public; despite what those say<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whom we've trained to instruct them in schools;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">But vain such instructions, if women may scan<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And quote texts of Scripture to favor their plan.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our grandmothers' learning consisted of yore<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In spreading their generous boards;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In twisting the distaff, or mopping the floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And <i>obeying the will of their lords</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, misses may reason, and think, and debate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till unquestioned submission is quite out of date.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our clergy have preached on the sin and the shame<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of woman, when out of "her sphere,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And labored <i>divinely</i> to ruin her fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And shorten this horrid career;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But for spiritual guidance no longer they look<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To Fulsom, or Winslow, or learned Parson Cook.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our wise men have tried to exorcise in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The turbulent spirits abroad;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As well might we deal with the fetterless main,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or conquer ethereal essence with sword;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the devils of Milton, they rise from each blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With spirit unbroken, insulting the foe.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our patriot fathers, of eloquent fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Waged war against tangible forms;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aye, <i>their</i> foes were men—and if ours were the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>We</i> might speedily quiet their storms;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, ah! their descendants enjoy not such bliss—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The assumptions of Britain were nothing to this.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Could we but array all our force in the field,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">We'd teach these usurpers of power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That their bodily safety demands they should yield,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And in the presence of manhood should cower;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, alas! for our tethered and impotent state,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chained by notions of knighthood—we can but debate.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh! shade of the prophet Mahomet, arise!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Place woman again in "her sphere,"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And teach that her soul was not born for the skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">But to flutter a brief moment here.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This doctrine of Jesus, as preached up by Paul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If embraced in its spirit, will ruin us all.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">—<i>Lords of Creation</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +</blockquote> + +<p>On reading the "Pastoral Letter," our Quaker poet, John Greenleaf +Whittier, poured out his indignation on the New England clergy in +thrilling denunciations. Mr. Whittier early saw that woman's only +protection against religious and social tyranny, could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> be found in +political equality. In the midst of the fierce conflicts in the +Anti-Slavery Conventions of 1839 and '40, on the woman question <i>per +se</i>, Mr. Whittier remarked to Lucretia Mott, "<i>Give woman the right to +vote</i>, and you end all these persecutions by reform and church +organizations."</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THE PASTORAL LETTER.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, this is all—the utmost reach<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of priestly power the mind to fetter!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When laymen think—when women preach—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A war of words—a "Pastoral Letter!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Was it thus with those, your predecessors,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who sealed with racks, and fire, and ropes<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Their loving-kindness to transgressors?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A "Pastoral Letter," grave and dull—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Alas! in hoof and horns and features,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How different is your Brookfield bull,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From him who bellows from St. Peter's!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your pastoral rights and powers from harm,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Think ye, can words alone preserve them?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your wiser fathers taught the arm<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And sword of temporal power to serve them.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, glorious days—when Church and State<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Were wedded by your spiritual fathers!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on submissive shoulders sat<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Yours Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No vile "itinerant" then could mar<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The beauty of your tranquil Zion,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But at his peril of the scar<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of hangman's whip and branding-iron.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of heretic and mischief-maker.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And priest and bailiff joined in search,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stocks were at each church's door,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The gallows stood on Boston Common,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Papist's ears the pillory bore—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Your fathers dealt not as ye deal<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With "non-professing" frantic teachers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They bored the tongue with red-hot steel,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And flayed the backs of "female preachers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Newbury, had her fields a tongue,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And Salem's streets could tell their story,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of fainting woman dragged along,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Gashed by the whip, accursed and gory!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And will ye ask me, why this taunt<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of memories sacred from the scorner?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And why with reckless hand I plant<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A nettle on the graves ye honor?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not to reproach New England's dead<br /></span> +<span class="i1">This record from the past I summon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of manhood to the scaffold led,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And suffering and heroic woman.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No—for yourselves alone, I turn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The pages of intolerance over,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, in their spirit, dark and stern,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ye haply may your own discover!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For, if ye claim the "pastoral right,"<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To silence freedom's voice of warning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from your precincts shut the light<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of Freedom's day around ye dawning;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If when an earthquake voice of power,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And signs in earth and heaven, are showing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That forth, in the appointed hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The Spirit of the Lord is going!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, with that Spirit, Freedom's light<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On kindred, tongue, and people breaking,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose slumbering millions, at the sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In glory and in strength are waking!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When for the sighing of the poor,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And for the needy, God hath risen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And chains are breaking, and a door<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Is opening for the souls in prison!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If then ye would, with puny hands,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Arrest the very work of Heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bind anew the evil bands<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Which God's right arm of power hath riven,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What marvel that, in many a mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Those darker deeds of bigot madness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are closely with your own combined,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Yet "less in anger than in sadness"?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What marvel, if the people learn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To claim the right of free opinion?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What marvel, if at times they spurn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The ancient yoke of your dominion?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A glorious remnant linger yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whose lips are wet at Freedom's fountains,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The coming of whose welcome feet<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Is beautiful upon our mountains!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men, who the gospel tidings bring<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of Liberty and Love forever,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose joy is an abiding spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whose peace is as a gentle river!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of Carolina's high-souled daughters,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which echoes here the mournful wail<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of sorrow from Edisto's waters,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close while ye may the public ear—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With malice vex, with slander wound them—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pure and good shall throng to hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And tried and manly hearts surround them.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, ever may the power which led<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Their way to such a fiery trial,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strengthened womanhood to tread<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The wine-press of such self-denial,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be round them in an evil land,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With wisdom and with strength from Heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And Deborah's song, for triumph given!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And what are ye who strive with God<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Against the ark of His salvation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moved by the breath of prayer abroad,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With blessings for a dying nation?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What, but the stubble and the hay<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To perish, even as flax consuming,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all that bars His glorious way,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Before the brightness of His coming?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And thou, sad Angel, who so long<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hast waited for the glorious token,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Earth from all her bonds of wrong<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To liberty and light has broken—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Angel of Freedom! soon to thee<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The sounding trumpet shall be given,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And over Earth's full jubilee<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In answer to the many objections made, by gentlemen present, to +granting to woman the right of suffrage, Frederick Douglass replied in +a long, argumentative, and eloquent appeal, for the complete equality +of woman in all the rights that belong to any human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> soul. He thought +the true basis of rights was the capacity of individuals; and as for +himself, he should not dare claim a right that he would not concede to +woman.</p> + +<p>This Convention continued through three sessions, and was crowded with +an attentive audience to the hour of adjournment. The daily papers +made fair reports, and varied editorial comments, which, being widely +copied, called out spicy controversies in different parts of the +country. The resolutions and discussions regarding woman's right to +enter the professions, encouraged many to prepare themselves for +medicine and the ministry. Though few women responded to the demand +for political rights, many at once saw the importance of equality in +the world of work.</p> + +<p>The Seneca Falls Declaration was adopted, and signed by large numbers +of influential men and women of Rochester and vicinity, and at a late +hour the Convention adjourned, in the language of its President, "with +hearts overflowing with gratitude."</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The antique mahogany center-table on which this historic +document was written now stands in the parlor of the McClintock family +in Philadelphia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Rebecca Sanford, now Postmaster at Mt. Morris, N. Y.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>REMINISCENCES.</h3> + +<h4>EMILY COLLINS.</h4> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>The first Suffrage Society—Methodist class-leader whips his +wife—Theology enchains the soul—The status of women and slaves +the same—The first medical college opened to women, Geneva, N. +Y.—Petitions to the Legislature laughed at, and laid on the +table—Dependence woman's best protection; her weakness her +sweetest charm—Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's letter.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">I was</span> born and lived almost forty years in South Bristol, Ontario +County—one of the most secluded spots in Western New York; but from +the earliest dawn of reason I pined for that freedom of thought and +action that was then denied to all womankind. I revolted in spirit +against the customs of society and the laws of the State that crushed +my aspirations and debarred me from the pursuit of almost every object +worthy of an intelligent, rational mind. But not until that meeting at +Seneca Falls in 1848, of the pioneers in the cause, gave this feeling +of unrest form and voice, did I take action. Then I summoned a few +women in our neighborhood together and formed an Equal Suffrage +Society, and sent petitions to our Legislature; but our efforts were +little known beyond our circle, as we were in communication with no +person or newspaper. Yet there was enough of wrong in our narrow +horizon to rouse some thought in the minds of all.</p> + +<p>In those early days a husband's supremacy was often enforced in the +rural districts by corporeal chastisement, and it was considered by +most people as quite right and proper—as much so as the correction of +refractory children in like manner. I remember in my own neighborhood +a man who was a Methodist class-leader and exhorter, and one who was +esteemed a worthy citizen, who, every few weeks, gave his wife a +beating with his horsewhip. He said it was necessary, in order to keep +her in subjection, and because she scolded so much. Now this wife, +surrounded by six or seven little children, whom she must wash, dress, +feed, and attend to day and night, was obliged to spin and weave cloth +for all the garments of the family. She had to milk the cows, make +butter and cheese, do all the cooking,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> washing, making, and mending +for the family, and, with the pains of maternity forced upon her every +eighteen months, was whipped by her pious husband, "because she +scolded." And pray, why should he not have chastised her? The laws +made it his privilege—and the Bible, as interpreted, made it his +duty. It is true, women repined at their hard lot; but it was thought +to be fixed by a divine decree, for "The man shall rule over thee," +and "Wives, be subject to your husbands," and "Wives, submit +yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord," caused them to +consider their fate inevitable, and to feel that it would be +contravening God's law to resist it. It is ever thus; where Theology +enchains the soul, the Tyrant enslaves the body. But can any one, who +has any knowledge of the laws that govern our being—of heredity and +pre-natal influences—be astonished that our jails and prisons are +filled with criminals, and our hospitals with sickly specimens of +humanity? As long as the mothers of the race are subject to such +unhappy conditions, it can never be materially improved. Men exhibit +some common sense in breeding all animals except those of their own +species.</p> + +<p>All through the Anti-Slavery struggle, every word of denunciation of +the wrongs of the Southern slave, was, I felt, equally applicable to +the wrongs of my own sex. Every argument for the emancipation of the +colored man, was equally one for that of woman; and I was surprised +that all Abolitionists did not see the similarity in the condition of +the two classes. I read, with intense interest, everything that +indicated an awakening of public or private thought to the idea that +woman did not occupy her rightful position in the organization of +society; and, when I read the lectures of Ernestine L. Rose and the +writings of Margaret Fuller, and found that other women entertained +the same thoughts that had been seething in my own brain, and realized +that I stood not alone, how my heart bounded with joy! The arguments +of that distinguished jurist, Judge Hurlburt, encouraged me to hope +that men would ultimately see the justice of our cause, and concede to +women their natural rights.</p> + +<p>I hailed with gladness any aspiration of women toward an enlargement +of their sphere of action; and when, in the early part of 1848, I +learned that Miss Elizabeth Blackwell had been admitted as a student +to the medical college at Geneva, N. Y., being the first lady in the +United States that had attained that privilege, and knowing the tide +of public sentiment she had to stem, I could not refrain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> from writing +her a letter of approval and encouragement. In return I received the +following:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>August 12, 1848</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:—Your letter, I can assure you, met with a hearty +welcome from me. And I can not refrain from writing to you a warm +acknowledgment of your cordial sympathy, and expressing the +pleasure with which I have read your brave words. It is true, I +look neither for praise nor blame in pursuing the path which I +have chosen. With firm religious enthusiasm, no opinion of the +world will move me, but when I receive from a woman an approval +so true-hearted and glowing, a recognition so clear of the +motives which urge me on, then my very soul bounds at the +thrilling words, and I go on with renewed energy, with hope, and +holy joy in my inmost being.</p> + +<p>My whole life is devoted unreservedly to the service of my sex. +The study and practice of medicine is in my thought but one means +to a great end, for which my very soul yearns with in tensest +passionate emotion, of which I have dreamed day and night, from +my earliest childhood, for which I would offer up my life with +triumphant thanksgiving, if martyrdom could secure that glorious +end:—the true ennoblement of woman, the full harmonious +development of her unknown nature, and the consequent redemption +of the whole human race. "Earth waits for her queen." Every noble +movement of the age, every prophecy of future glory, every throb +of that great heart which is laboring throughout Christendom, +call on woman with a voice of thunder, with the authority of a +God, to listen to the mighty summons to awake from her guilty +sleep, and rouse to glorious action to play her part in the great +drama of the ages, and finish the work that man has begun.</p> + +<p>Most fully do I respond to all the noble aspirations that fill +your letter. Women are feeble, narrow, frivolous at present: +ignorant of their own capacities, and undeveloped in thought and +feeling; and while they remain so, the great work of human +regeneration must remain incomplete; humanity will continue to +suffer, and cry in vain for deliverance, for woman has her work +to do, and no one can accomplish it for her. She is bound to +rise, to try her strength, to break her bonds;—not with noisy +outcry, not with fighting or complaint; but with quiet strength, +with gentle dignity, firmly, irresistibly, with a cool +determination that never wavers, with a clear insight into her +own capacities, let her do her duty, pursue her highest +conviction of right, and firmly grasp whatever she is able to +carry.</p> + +<p>Much is said of the oppression woman suffers; man is reproached +with being unjust, tyrannical, jealous. I do not so read human +life. The exclusion and constraint woman suffers, is not the +result of purposed injury or premeditated insult. It has arisen +naturally, without violence, simply because woman has desired +nothing more, has not felt the soul too large for the body. But +when woman, with matured strength, with steady purpose, presents +her lofty claim, all barriers will give way, and man will +welcome, with a thrill of joy, the new birth of his sister +spirit, the advent of his partner, his co-worker, in the great +universe of being.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>If the present arrangements of society will not admit of woman's +free development, then society must be remodeled, and adapted to +the great wants of all humanity. Our race is one, the interests +of all are inseparably united, and harmonic freedom for the +perfect growth of every human soul is the great want of our time. +It has given me heartfelt satisfaction, dear madam, that you +sympathize in my effort to advance the great interests of +humanity. I feel the responsibility of my position, and I shall +endeavor, by wisdom of action, purity of motive, and unwavering +steadiness of purpose, to justify the noble hope I have excited. +To me the future is full of glorious promise, humanity is +arousing to accomplish its grand destiny, and in the fellowship +of this great hope, I would greet you, and recognize in your +noble spirit a fellow-laborer for the true and the good.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Elizabeth Blackwell.</p> +<p class="ltr-to"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Emily Collins</span>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>But, it was the proceedings of the Convention, in 1848, at Seneca +Falls, that first gave a direction to the efforts of the many women, +who began to feel the degradation of their subject condition, and its +baneful effects upon the human race. They then saw the necessity for +associated action, in order to obtain the elective franchise, the only +key that would unlock the doors of their prison. I wrote to Miss Sarah +C. Owen, Secretary of the Women's Protective Union, at Rochester, as +to the line of procedure that had been proposed there. In reply, under +date of October 1, 1848, she says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Your letter has just reached me, and with much pleasure I reply +to the echo of inquiry, beyond the bounds of those personally +associated with us in this enterprise. It is indeed encouraging +to hear a voice from South Bristol in such perfect unison with +our own.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Possibly, extracts from my next letter to Miss Owen, dated Oct. 23, +1848, will give you the best idea of the movement:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I should have acknowledged the receipt of yours of the 1st inst. +earlier, but wished to report somewhat of progress whenever I +should write. Our prospects here are brightening. Every lady of +any worth or intelligence adopts unhesitatingly our view, and +concurs in our measures. On the 19th inst. we met and organized a +Woman's Equal Rights Union. Living in the country, where the +population is sparse, we are consequently few; but hope to make +up in zeal and energy for our lack of numbers. We breathe a +freer, if not a purer atmosphere here among the mountains, than +do the dwellers in cities,—have more independence,—are less +subject to the despotism of fashion, and are less absorbed with +dress and amusements.... A press entirely devoted to our cause +seems indispensable. If there is none such, can you tell me of +any paper that advocates our claims more warmly than the <i>North +Star</i>?<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> A lecturer in the field would be most desirable; but +how to raise funds to sustain one is the question. I never really +wished for Aladdin's lamp till now. Would to Heaven that women +could be persuaded to use the funds they acquire by their +sewing-circles and fairs, in trying to raise their own condition +above that of "infants, idiots, and lunatics," with whom our +statutes class them, instead of spending the money in decorating +their churches, or sustaining a clergy, the most of whom are +striving to rivet the chains still closer that bind, not only our +own sex, but the oppressed of every class and color.</p> + +<p>The elective franchise is now the one object for which we must +labor; that once attained, all the rest will be easily acquired. +Moral Reform and Temperance Societies may be multiplied <i>ad +infinitum</i>, but they have about the same effect upon the evils +they seek to cure, as clipping the top of a hedge would have +toward extirpating it. Please forward me a copy of the petition +for suffrage. We will engage to do all we can, not only in our +own town, but in the adjoining ones of Richmond, East Bloomfield, +Canandaigua, and Naples. I have promises of aid from people of +influence in obtaining signatures. In the meantime we wish to +disseminate some able work upon the enfranchisement of women. We +wish to present our Assemblyman elect, whoever he may be, with +some work of this kind, and solicit his candid attention to the +subject. People are more willing to be convinced by the calm +perusal of an argument, than in a personal discussion....</p></blockquote> + +<p>Our Society was composed of some fifteen or twenty ladies, and we met +once in two weeks, in each other's parlors, alternately, for +discussion and interchange of ideas. I was chosen President; Mrs. +Sophia Allen, Vice-President; Mrs. Horace Pennell, Treasurer; and one +of several young ladies who were members was Secretary. Horace +Pennell, Esq., and his wife were two of our most earnest helpers. We +drafted a petition to the Legislature to grant women the right of +suffrage, and obtained the names of sixty-two of the most intelligent +people, male and female, in our own and adjoining towns, and sent it +to our Representative in Albany. It was received by the Legislature as +something absurdly ridiculous, and laid upon the table. We introduced +the question into the Debating Clubs, that were in those days such +popular institutions in the rural districts, and in every way sought +to agitate the subject. I found a great many men, especially those of +the better class, disposed to accord equal rights to our sex. And, +now, as the highest tribute that I can pay to the memory of a husband, +I may say that during our companionship of thirty-five years, I was +most cordially sustained by mine, in my advocacy of equal rights to +women. Amongst my own sex, I found too many on whom ages of repression +had wrought their natural effect, and whose ideas and aspirations were +narrowed down to the confines of "woman's sphere," beyond whose limits +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> was not only impious, but infamous to tread. "Woman's sphere" +<i>then</i>, was to discharge the duties of a housekeeper, ply the needle, +and teach a primary or ladies' school. From press, and pulpit, and +platform, she was taught that "to be unknown was her highest praise," +that "dependence was her best protection," and "her weakness her +sweetest charm." She needed only sufficient intelligence to comprehend +her husband's superiority, and to obey him in all things. It is not +surprising, then, that I as often heard the terms "strong-minded" and +"masculine" as opprobrious epithets used against progressive women, by +their own sex as by the other; another example only of the stultifying +effect of subjection, upon the mind, exactly paralleled by the +Southern slaves, amongst many of whom the strongest term of contempt +that could be used was "<i>Free Nigger</i>." Our Equal Rights Association +continued to hold its meetings for somewhat over a year, and they were +at last suspended on account of bad weather and the difficulty of +coming together in the country districts. We, however, continued to +send petitions to the Legislature for the removal of woman's +disabilities.</p> + +<p>From 1858 to 1869 my home was in Rochester, N. Y. There, by brief +newspaper articles and in other ways, I sought to influence public +sentiment in favor of this fundamental reform. In 1868 a Society was +organized there for the reformation of abandoned women. At one of its +meetings I endeavored to show how futile all their efforts would be, +while women, by the laws of the land, were made a subject class; that +only by enfranchising woman and permitting her a more free and +lucrative range of employments, could they hope to suppress the +"social evil." My remarks produced some agitation in the meeting and +some newspaper criticisms. In Rochester, I found many pioneers in the +cause of Woman Suffrage, and from year to year we petitioned our +Legislature for it.</p> + +<p>Since 1869 I have been a citizen of Louisiana. Here, till recently, +political troubles engrossed the minds of men to the exclusion of +every other consideration. They glowed with fiery indignation at +being, themselves, deprived of the right of suffrage, or at having +their votes annulled, and regarded it as an intolerable outrage; yet, +at the same time, they denied it to all women, many of whom valued the +elective franchise as highly, and felt as intensely, as did men, the +injustice that withheld it from them. In 1879, when the Convention met +to frame a new Constitution for the State, we strongly petitioned it +for an enlargement of our civil rights and for the ballot. Mrs. +Elizabeth L. Saxon was indefatigable in her efforts, and went before +the Convention in person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> and plead our cause. But the majority of the +members thought there were cogent reasons for not granting our +petitions; but they made women eligible to all school offices—an +indication that Louisiana will not be the last State in the Union to +deny women their inalienable rights.</p> + +<p class="author">Emily Collins.</p> + +<p>The newspaper comments on Elizabeth Blackwell as a physician, both in +the French and American papers, seem very ridiculous to us at this +distance of time. <i>The American</i>, Rochester, N. Y., July, 1848:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">A Novel Circumstance</span>.—Our readers will perhaps remember that +some time ago a lady, Miss Elizabeth Blackwell, applied for +admission as a student in one of the medical colleges of +Philadelphia, her purpose being to go through an entire course of +the study of medicine. The application was denied, and the lady +subsequently entered the Geneva Medical College, where, at the +Annual Commencement on the 23d instant, she graduated with high +honors and received the degree of M.D., the subject of her thesis +being "ship fever." On receiving her diploma she thus addressed +the President: "With the help of the Most High, it shall be the +effort of my life to shed honor on this diploma." Professor Lee, +who delivered the customary oration, complimented the lady by +saying that she had won the distinction of her class by attending +faithfully to every duty required of candidates striving for the +honor. Eighteen young gentlemen received the degree of M.D. at +the same time.</p></blockquote> + +<p>After graduating with high honors in this country, Dr. Elizabeth +Blackwell went to France to secure still higher advantages of +education than could be found here. What was thought of her there will +be seen by the following letter of a Paris correspondent in the New +York <i>Journal of Commerce</i>:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">An American Doctress</span>.—The medical community of Paris is all agog +by the arrival of the celebrated American doctor, Miss Blackwell. +She has quite bewildered the learned faculty by her diploma, all +in due form, authorizing her to dose and bleed and amputate with +the best of them. Some of them think Miss Blackwell must be a +socialist of the most rabid class, and that her undertaking is +the entering wedge to a systematic attack on society by the whole +sex. Others, who have seen her, say that there is nothing very +alarming in her manner; that, on the contrary, she is modest and +unassuming, and talks reasonably on other subjects. The ladies +attack her in turn. One said to me a few days since, "Oh, it is +too horrid! I'm sure I never could touch her hand! Only to think +that those long fingers of hers had been cutting up dead people." +I have seen the doctor in question, and must say in fairness, +that her appearance is quite prepossessing. She is young, and +rather good-looking; her manner indicates great energy of +character, and she seems to have entered on her singular career +from motives of duty, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> encouraged by respectable ladies of +Cincinnati. After about ten days' hesitation, on the part of the +directors of the Hospital of Maternity, she has at last received +permission to enter the institution as a pupil.</p></blockquote> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<h3>ERNESTINE L. ROSE.</h3> + +<p class="heading">BY L. E. BARNARD.</p> + +<p>Ernestine L. Rose—maiden name Siismund Potoski—was born January 13, +1810, at Pyeterkow, in Poland. Her father, a very pious and learned +rabbi, was so conscientious that he would take no pay for discharging +the functions of his office, saying he would not convert his duty into +a means of gain. As a child she was of a reflective habit, and though +very active and cheerful, she scarcely ever engaged with her young +companions in their sports, but took great delight in the company of +her father, for whom she entertained a remarkable affection.</p> + +<p>At a very early age she commenced reading the Hebrew Scriptures, but +soon became involved in serious difficulties respecting the formation +of the world, the origin of evil, and other obscure points suggested +by the sacred history and cosmogony of her people. The reproofs which +met her at every step of her biblical investigations, and being +constantly told that "little girls must not ask questions," made her +at that early day an advocate of religious freedom and woman's rights; +as she could not see, on the one hand, why subjects of vital interest +should be held too sacred for investigation, nor, on the other, why a +"little girl" should not have the same right to ask questions as a +little boy. Despite her early investigation of the Bible, she was +noted for her strict observance of all the rites and ceremonies of the +Jewish faith, though some of them, on account of her tender age, were +not demanded of her. She was, however, often painfully disturbed by +her "carnal reason" questioning the utility of these multifarious +observances. As an illustration, she one day asked her father, with +much anxiety, why he fasted<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> so much more than others, a habit +which was seriously impairing his health and spirits; and being told +that it was to please God, who required this sacrifice at his hands, +she, in a serious and most emphatic tone, replied, "If God is pleased +in making you sick and unhappy, I hate God." This idea of the cruelty +of God toward her father had a remarkable influence upon her; and at +the age of fourteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> she renounced her belief in the Bible and the +religion of her father, which brought down upon her great trouble and +persecution alike from her own Jewish friends and from Christians.</p> + +<p>At the age of sixteen she had the misfortune to lose her mother. A +year afterward her father married again, and through misdirected +kindness involved her in a lawsuit, in which she plead her own case +and won it; but she left the property with her father, declaring that +she cared nothing for it, but only for justice, and that her +inheritance might not fall into mercenary hands. She subsequently +traveled in Poland, Russia, the Germanic States, Holland, Belgium, +France, and England; during which time she witnessed and took part in +some interesting and important affairs. While in Berlin she had an +interview with the King of Prussia concerning the right of Polish Jews +to remain in that city. The Jews of Russian Poland were not permitted +to continue in Prussia, unless they could bring forward as security +Prussian citizens who were holders of real estate. But even then they +could get a permit to tarry only on a visit, and not to transact any +business for themselves. Mlle. Potoski, being from Poland and a +Jewess, was subject to this disability. Though she could have obtained +the requisite security by applying for it, she preferred to stand upon +her natural rights as a human being. She remonstrated against the +gross injustice of the law, and obtained the right to remain as long +as she wished, and to do what she pleased.</p> + +<p>In Hague, she became acquainted with a very distressing case of a poor +sailor, the father of four children, whose wife had been imprisoned +for an alleged crime of which he insisted she was innocent. Inquiring +into the case, Mlle. Potoski drew up a petition which she personally +presented to the King of Holland, and had the satisfaction of seeing +the poor woman restored to her family. She was in Paris during the +Revolution of July, 1830, and witnessed most of its exciting scenes. +On seeing Louis Phillipe presented by Lafayette to the people of Paris +from the balcony of the Tuilleries, she remarked to a friend, "That +man, as well as Charles X., will one day have good reason to wish +himself safely off the throne of France."</p> + +<p>In England she became acquainted with Lord Grosvenor and family, with +Frances Farrar, sister of Oliver Farrar, M.P., the Miss Leeds, and +others of the nobility; also with many prominent members of the +Society of Friends, among them Joseph Gurney and his sister Elizabeth +Fry, the eminent philanthropist, in whose company she visited Newgate +Prison. In 1832 she made the acquaintance of Robert Owen, and warmly +espoused his principles. In 1834 she presided at the formation of a +society called "The Association of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> Classes of all Nations, +without distinction of sect, sex, party condition, or color." While in +England she married William E. Rose, and in the spring of 1836, came +to the United States, and resided in the city of New York. Soon after +her arrival she commenced lecturing on the evils of the existing +social system, the formation of human character, slavery, the rights +of woman, and other reform questions.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 355px;"> +<a name="v1_1097" id="v1_1097"> +<img src="images/v1_1097.png" width="355" height="500" +alt="Ernestine L. Rose (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>At a great public meeting in the Broadway Tabernacle to consider the +necessity of an improved system of Free Schools, J. S. Buckingham, +M.P., of England, and Rev. Robert Breckenridge, of Kentucky, were +among the speakers. Mrs. Rose, sitting in the gallery, called the +reverend gentleman to order for violating the sense of the audience, +in entirely overlooking the important object which had called the +people together, and indulging in a violent clerical harangue against +a class whom he stigmatized as infidels. This bold innovation of a +woman upon the hitherto unquestioned prerogatives of the clergy, at +once caused a tremendous excitement. Loud cries of "Throw her down!" +"Drag her out!" "She's an infidel!" resounded in all parts of the +building. She, however, held her ground, calm and collected while the +tumult lasted, and after quiet was restored, continued her remarks in +a most dignified manner, making a deep impression upon all present. +Certain religious papers declared it a forewarning of some terrible +calamity, that a woman should call a minister to account, and that, +too, in a church.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rose has lectured in not less than twenty-three different States +of the Union. Some of them she has visited often, and on several +occasions she has addressed legislative bodies with marked effect, +advocating the necessity of legal redress for the wrongs and +disabilities to which her sex are subject. As an advocate of woman's +rights, anti-slavery and religious liberty, she has earned a +world-wide celebrity. For fifty years a public speaker, during which +period she has associated with the influential classes in Europe and +America, and borne an active part in the great progressive movements +which mark the present as the most glorious of historical epochs, +Ernestine L. Rose has accomplished for the elevation of her sex and +the amelioration of social conditions, a work which can be ascribed to +few women of our time.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1854, Mrs. Rose and Miss Anthony took a trip together +to Washington, Alexandria, Baltimore, Philadelphia, speaking two or +three times in each place. This was after the introduction of the +Kansas-Nebraska Bill in Congress, and the excitement of the country +upon the slavery question was intense. Mrs. Rose's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> third lecture in +Washington was on the "Nebraska Question." This lecture was scarcely +noticed, the only paper giving it the least report, being <i>The +Washington Globe</i>, which, though it spoke most highly of her as a +lecturer, misrepresented her by ascribing to her the arguments of the +South. <i>The National Era</i>, the only anti-slavery paper in Washington, +was entirely silent, taking no notice of the fact that Mrs. Rose had +spoken in that city against the further spread of slavery. Whether +this was due to editorial prejudice against sex, or against freedom of +religious belief, is unknown.</p> + +<p>In the winter of 1855, Mrs. Rose spoke in thirteen of the fifty-four +County Conventions upon woman suffrage held in the State of New York, +and each winter took part in the Albany Conventions and hearings +before the Legislature, which in 1860 resulted in the passage of the +bill securing to women the right to their wages and the equal +guardianship of their children.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rose was sustained in her work by the earnest sympathy of her +husband, who gladly furnished her the means of making her extensive +tours, so that through his sense of justice she was enabled to preach +the Gospel of Woman's Rights, Anti-Slavery, and Free Religion without +money and without price.</p> + +<p><i>The Boston Investigator</i> of January 15, 1881, speaking of a letter +just received from her, says: "Thirty years ago Mrs. Rose was in her +prime—an excellent lecturer, liberal, eloquent, witty, and we must +add, decidedly handsome—'the Rose that all were praising.' Her +portrait, life-size and very natural, hangs in Investigator Hall, and +her intelligent-looking and expressive countenance, and black glossy +curls, denote intellect and beauty. As an anti-slavery lecturer, a +pioneer in the cause of woman's rights, and an advocate of Liberalism, +she did good service, and is worthy to be classed with such devoted +friends of humanity and freedom as Frances Wright, Harriet Martineau, +Lucretia Mott, and Lydia Maria Child, who will long be pleasantly +remembered for their 'works' sake.'"</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>January 9, 1877</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Miss Anthony</span>:—Sincerely do I thank you for your kind +letter. Believe me it would give me great pleasure to comply with +your request, to tell you all about myself and my past labors; +but I suffer so much from neuralgia in my head and general +debility, that I could not undertake the task, especially as I +have nothing to refer to. I have never spoken from notes; and as +I did not intend to publish anything about myself, for I had no +other ambition except to work for the cause of humanity, +irrespective of sex, sect, country, or color, and did not expect +that a Susan B. Anthony would wish to do it for me, I made no +memorandum of places, dates, or names; and thirty or forty years +ago<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> the press was not sufficiently educated in the rights of +woman, even to notice, much less to report speeches as it does +now; and therefore I have not anything to assist me or you.</p> + +<p>All that I can tell you is, that I used my humble powers to the +uttermost, and raised my voice in behalf of Human Rights in +general, and the elevation and Rights of Woman in particular, +nearly all my life. And so little have I spared myself, or +studied my comfort in summer or winter, rain or shine, day or +night, when I had an opportunity to work for the cause to which I +had devoted myself, that I can hardly wonder at my present state +of health.</p> + +<p>Yet in spite of hardships, for it was not as easy to travel at +that time as now, and the expense, as I never made a charge or +took up a collection, I look back to that time, when a stranger +and alone, I went from place to place, in high-ways and by-ways, +did the work and paid my bills with great pleasure and +satisfaction; for the cause gained ground, and in spite of my +heresies I had always good audiences, attentive listeners, and +was well received wherever I went.</p> + +<p>But I can mention from memory the principal places where I have +spoken. In the winter of 1836 and '37, I spoke in New York, and +for some years after I lectured in almost every city in the +State; Hudson, Poughkeepsie, Albany, Schenectady; Saratoga, +Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Elmira, and other places; in +New Jersey, in Newark and Burlington; in 1837, in Philadelphia, +Bristol, Chester, Pittsburg, and other places in Pennsylvania, +and at Wilmington in Delaware; in 1842, in Boston, Charlestown, +Beverly, Florence, Springfield, and other points in +Massachusetts, and in Hartford, Connecticut; in 1844, in +Cincinnati, Dayton, Zanesville, Springfield, Cleveland, Toledo, +and several settlements in the backwoods of Ohio, and also in +Richmond, Indiana; in 1845 and '46, I lectured three times in the +Legislative Hall in Detroit, and at Ann Arbor and other places in +Michigan; and in 1847 and '48, I spoke in Charleston and +Columbia, in South Carolina.</p> + +<p>In 1850, I attended the first National Woman's Rights Convention +in Worcester, and nearly all the National and State Conventions +since, until I went to Europe in 1869. Returning to New York in +1874, I was present at the Convention in Irving Hall, the only +one held during my visit to America.</p> + +<p>I sent the first petition to the New York Legislature to give a +married woman the right to hold real estate in her own name, in +the winter of 1836 and '37, to which after a good deal of trouble +I obtained five signatures. Some of the ladies said the gentlemen +would laugh at them; others, that they had rights enough; and the +men said the women had too many rights already. Woman at that +time had not learned to know that she had any rights except those +that man in his generosity allowed her; both have learned +something since that time which they will never forget. I +continued sending petitions with increased numbers of signatures +until 1848 and '49, when the Legislature enacted the law which +granted to woman the right to keep what was her own. But no +sooner did it become legal than all the women said, "Oh! that is +right! We ought always to have had that."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>During the eleven years from 1837 to 1848, I addressed the New +York Legislature five times, and since 1848 I can not say +positively, but a good many times; you know all that better than +any one else.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Ernestine L. Rose.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Your affectionate friend,</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In collecting the reminiscences of those who took the initiative steps +in this movement, Mrs. Rose was urged to send us some of her +experiences, but in writing that it was impossible for her to do so, +and yet giving us the above summary of all she has accomplished, +<i>multum in parvo</i>, she has in a good measure complied with our +request.</p> + +<p>All through these eventful years Mrs. Rose has fought a double battle; +not only for the political rights of her sex as women, but for their +religious rights as individual souls; to do their own thinking and +believing. How much of the freedom they now enjoy, the women of +America owe to this noble Polish woman, can not be estimated, for +moral influences are too subtle for measurement.</p> + +<p>Those who sat with her on the platform in bygone days, well remember +her matchless powers as a speaker; and how safe we all felt while she +had the floor, that neither in manner, sentiment, argument, nor +repartee, would she in any way compromise the dignity of the occasion.</p> + +<p>She had a rich musical voice, with just enough of foreign accent and +idiom to add to the charm of her oratory. As a speaker she was +pointed, logical, and impassioned. She not only dealt in abstract +principles clearly, but in their application touched the deepest +emotions of the human soul.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Published by Frederick Douglass, the first colored man +that edited a paper in this country. His press was presented to him by +the women of England, who sympathized with the anti-slavery movement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Fasting with Jews meant abstaining from food and drink +from before sunset one evening, until after the stars were out the +next evening.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>OHIO.</h3> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>The promised land of fugitives—"Uncle Tom's Cabin"—Salem +Convention, 1850—Akron, 1851—Massilon, 1852—The address to the +women of Ohio—The Mohammedan law forbids pigs, dogs, women, and +other impure animals to enter a Mosque—The <i>New York +Tribune</i>—Cleveland Convention, 1853—Hon. Joshua R. +Giddings—Letter from Horace Greeley—A glowing eulogy to Mary +Wollstonecroft—William Henry Channing's Declaration—The pulpit +responsible for public sentiment—President Asa Mahan +debates—The Rev. Dr. Nevin pulls Mr. Garrison's nose—Antoinette +L. Brown describes her exit from the World's Temperance +Convention—Cincinnati Convention, 1855—Jane Elizabeth Jones' +Report, 1861.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">There</span> were several reasons for the early, and more general agitation +of Woman's Rights in Ohio at this period, than in other States. Being +separated from the slave border by her river only, Ohio had long been +the promised land of fugitives, and the battle-ground for many +recaptured victims, involving much litigation.</p> + +<p>Most stringent laws had been passed, called "the black laws of Ohio," +to prevent these escapes through her territory. Hence, this State was +the ground for some of the most heated anti-slavery discussions, not +only in the Legislature, but in frequent conventions. Garrison and his +followers, year after year, had overrun the "Western Reserve," +covering the north-eastern part of the State, carrying the gospel of +freedom to every hamlet.</p> + +<p>A radical paper, called <i>The Anti-Slavery Bugle</i>, edited by Oliver +Johnson, was published in Salem. It took strong ground in favor of +equal rights for woman, and the editor did all in his power to sustain +the conventions, and encourage the new movement.</p> + +<p>Again, Abby Kelly's eloquent voice had been heard all through this +State, denouncing "the black laws of Ohio," appealing to the ready +sympathies of woman for the suffering of the black mothers, wives, and +daughters of the South. This grand woman, equally familiar with the +tricks of priests and politicians, the action of Synods, General +Assemblies, State Legislatures, and Congresses, who could maintain an +argument with any man on the slavery question, had immense influence, +not only in the anti-slavery conflict, but by her words and example +she inspired woman with new self-respect.</p> + +<p>These anti-slavery conventions, in which the most logical reasoners, +and the most eloquent, impassioned orators the world ever produced, +kept their audiences wrought up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +hour after hour, were the school in which woman's rights found its +ready-made disciples. With such women as Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy +Cutler, Josephine S. Griffing, J. Elizabeth Jones, Mariana Johnson, +Emily Robinson, Maria Giddings, Betsey Cowles, Caroline M. Severance, +Martha J. Tilden, Rebecca A. S. Janney, to listen to the exhaustive +arguments on human rights, verily the seed fell on good ground, and +the same justice, that in glowing periods was claimed for the black +man, they now claimed for themselves, and compelled the law-makers of +this State to give some consideration to the wrongs of woman.</p> + +<p>Again, in 1850, Ohio held a Constitutional Convention, and these +women, thoroughly awake to their rights, naturally thought, that if +the fundamental laws of the State were to be revised and amended, it +was a fitting time for them to ask to be recognized.</p> + +<p>In 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe commenced the publication of "Uncle +Tom's Cabin" in the <i>National Era</i>, in Washington, D. C., which made +Ohio, with its great river, classic soil, and quickened the pulsations +of every woman's heart in the nation.</p> + +<p>Reports of the New York Conventions, widely copied and ridiculed in +leading journals, from Maine to Texas, struck the key-note for similar +gatherings in several of the Northern States. Without the least +knowledge of one another, without the least concert of action, women +in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, sprang up as if by +magic, and issued calls for similar conventions. The striking +uniformity in their appeals, petitions, resolutions, and speeches; +making the same complaints and asking the same redress for grievances, +shows that all were moved by like influences. Those who made the +demand for political freedom in 1848, in Europe as well as America, +were about the same age. Significant facts to show that new liberty +for woman was one of the marked ideas of the century, and that as the +chief factor in civilization, the time had come for her to take her +appropriate place.</p> + +<p>The actors in this new movement were not, as the London and New York +journals said, "sour old maids," but happy wives and faithful mothers, +who, in a higher development, demanded the rights and privileges +befitting the new position. And if they may be judged by the vigor and +eloquence of their addresses, and the knowledge of parliamentary +tactics they manifested in their conventions, the world must accord +them rare common-sense, good judgment, great dignity of character, and +a clear comprehension of the principles of government. In order to +show how well those who inaugurated this movement, understood the +nature of our republican<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> institutions, and how justly they estimated +their true position in a republic, we shall give rather more of these +early speeches and letters than in any succeeding chapters.</p> + +<p>In 1849, Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson, of Cadiz, Ohio, aroused some attention +to the general question, by the publication of "A Scriptural View of +Woman's Rights and Duties," clearly demonstrating the equality of man +and woman in the creation, as well as the independent, self-reliant +characteristics sanctioned in woman, by the examples of the sex given +in the Bible. As woman has ever been degraded by the perversion of the +religious element of her nature, the scriptural arguments were among +the earliest presentations of the question. When opponents were +logically cornered on every other side, they uniformly fell back on +the decrees of Heaven. The ignorance of women in general as to what +their Bibles really do teach, has been the chief cause of their +bondage. They have accepted the opinions of men for the commands of +their Creator. The fulminations of the clergy against the +enfranchisement of woman, were as bitter and arrogant as against the +emancipation of the African, and they defended their position in both +cases by the Bible. This led Abolitionists and women to a very careful +study of the Scriptures, and enabled them to meet their opponents most +successfully. No clergyman ever quoted Scripture with more readiness +and force than did Lucretia Mott and William Lloyd Garrison, who alike +made the Bible a power on the side of freedom.</p> + + +<h3>SALEM CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p>In 1850 the first convention in Ohio was held at Salem, April 19th and +20th, in the Second Baptist Church.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The meeting convened at 10 +o'clock, and was called to order by Emily Robinson, who proposed +Mariana W. Johnson as President <i>pro tem.</i>, Sarah Coates, Secretary +<i>pro tem.</i> On taking the chair, Mrs. Johnson read the following call:</p> + +<blockquote><p>We, the undersigned, earnestly call on the women of Ohio to meet +in Convention, on Friday, the 19th of April, 1850, at 10 o'clock +<span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, in the town of Salem, to concert measures to secure to all +persons the recognition of equal rights, and the extension of the +privileges of government without distinction of sex, or color; to +inquire into the origin and design of the rights of humanity, +whether they are coeval with the human race, of universal +inheritage and inalienable, or merely conventional, held by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +sufferance, dependent for a basis on location, position, color, +and sex, and like government scrip, or deeds of parchment, +transferable, to be granted or withheld, made immutable or +changeable, as caprice, popular favor, or the pride of power and +place may dictate, changing ever, as the weak and the strong, the +oppressed and the oppressor, come in conflict or change places. +Feeling that the subjects proposed for discussion are vitally +important to the interests of humanity, we unite in most +earnestly inviting every one who sincerely desires the progress +of true reform to be present at the Convention.</p> + +<p>The meeting of a convention of men to amend the Constitution of +our (?) State, presents a most favorable opportunity for the +agitation of this subject. Women of Ohio! we call upon you to +come up to this work in womanly strength and with womanly energy. +Don't be discouraged at the prospect of difficulties. Remember +that contest with difficulty gives strength. Come and inquire if +the position you now occupy is one appointed by wisdom, and +designed to secure the best interests of the human race. Come, +and let us ascertain what bearing the circumscribed sphere of +woman has on the great political and social evils that curse and +desolate the land. Come, for this cause claims your most +invincible perseverance; come in single-heartedness, and with a +personal self-devotion that will yield everything to Right, +Truth, and Reason, but not an iota to dogmas or theoretical +opinions, no matter how time-honored, or by what precedent +established.</p> + +<p>Randolph—Elizabeth Steadman, Cynthia M. Price, Sophronia +Smalley, Cordelia L. Smalley, Ann Eliza Lee, Rebecca Everit. New +Garden—Esther Ann Lukens. Ravenna—Lucinda King, Mary Skinner, +Frances Luccock.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The officers of the Convention were: Betsey M. Cowles, President; +Lydia B. Irish, Harriet P. Weaver, and Rana Dota, Vice-Presidents. +Caroline Stanton, Ann Eliza Lee, and Sallie B. Gove, Secretaries. +Emily Robinson, J. Elizabeth Jones, Josephine S. Griffing, Mariana +Johnson, Esther Lukens, Mary H. Stanton, Business Committee.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jones read a very able speech, which was printed in full in their +published report, also a discourse of Lucretia Mott's, "On Woman," +delivered Dec. 17, 1849, in the Assembly Building in Philadelphia. +Interesting letters were read from Mrs. Mott, Lucy Stone, Sarah Pugh, +Lydia Jane Pierson, editor of the Lancaster <i>Literary Gazette</i>, +Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet N. Torrey.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Twenty-two +resolutions, covering the whole range of woman's political, religious, +civil, and social rights, were discussed and adopted. The following +memorial to the Constitutional Convention, was presented by Mariana +Johnson:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">MEMORIAL.</p> + +<p>We believe the whole theory of the Common Law in relation to +woman is unjust and degrading, tending to reduce her to a level +with the slave, depriving her of political existence, and forming +a positive exception to the great doctrine of equality as set +forth in the Declaration of Independence. In the language of +Prof. Walker, in his "Introduction to American Law": "Women have +no part or lot in the foundation or administration of the +government. They can not vote or hold office. They are required +to contribute their share, by way of taxes, to the support of the +Government, but are allowed no voice in its direction. They are +amenable to the laws, but are allowed no share in making them. +This language, when applied to males, would be the exact +definition of political slavery." Is it just or wise that woman, +in the largest and professedly the freest and most enlightened +republic on the globe, in the middle of the nineteenth century, +should be thus degraded?</p> + +<p>We would especially direct the attention of the Convention to the +legal condition of married women. Not being represented in those +bodies from which emanate the laws, to which they are obliged to +submit, they are protected neither in person nor property. "The +merging of woman's name in that of her husband is emblematical of +the fate of all her legal rights." At the marriage-altar, the law +divests her of all distinct individuality. Blackstone says: "The +very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during +marriage, or at least incorporated or consolidated into that of +her husband." Legally, she ceases to exist, and becomes +emphatically a new creature, and is ever after denied the dignity +of a rational and accountable being. The husband is allowed to +take possession of her estates, as the law has proclaimed her +legally dead. All that she has, becomes legally his, and he can +collect and dispose of the profits of her labor without her +consent, as he thinks fit, and she can own nothing, have nothing, +which is not regarded by the law as belonging to her husband. +Over her person he has a more limited power. Still, if he render +life intolerable, so that she is forced to leave him, he has the +power to retain her children, and "seize her and bring her back, +for he has a right to her society which he may enforce, either +against herself or any other person who detains her" (Walker, +page 226). Woman by being thus subject to the control, and +dependent on the will of man, loses her self-dependence; and no +human being can be deprived of this without a sense of +degradation. The law should sustain and protect all who come +under its sway, and not create a state of dependence and +depression in any human being. The laws should not make woman a +mere pensioner on the bounty of her husband, thus enslaving her +will and degrading her to a condition of absolute dependence.</p> + +<p>Believing that woman does not suffer alone when subject to +oppressive and unequal laws, but that whatever affects +injuriously her interests, is subversive of the highest good of +the race, we earnestly request that in the New Constitution you +are about to form for the State of Ohio, women shall be secured, +not only the right of suffrage, but all the political and legal +rights that are guaranteed to men.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>After some discussion the memorial was adopted. With the hope of +creating a feeling of moral responsibility on this vital question, an +earnest address<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> to the women of the State was also presented, +discussed, and adopted.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">ADDRESS TO THE WOMEN OF OHIO.</p> + +<p>How shall the people be made wiser, better, and happier, is one +of the grand inquiries of the present age. The various benevolent +associations hold up to our view special forms of evil, and +appeal to all the better feelings of our nature for sympathy, and +claim our active efforts and co-operation to eradicate them. +Governments, at times, manifest an interest in human suffering; +but their cold sympathy and tardy efforts seldom avail the +sufferer until it is too late. Philanthropists, philosophers, and +statesmen study and devise ways and means to ameliorate the +condition of the people. Why have they so little practical +effect? It is because the means employed are not adequate to the +end sought for. To ameliorate the effects of evil seems to have +been the climax of philanthropic effort. We respectfully suggest +that lopping the branches of the tree but causes the roots to +strike deeper and cling more closely to the soil that sustains +it. Let the amelioration process go on, until evil is +exterminated root and branch; and for this end the people must be +instructed in the Rights of Humanity;—not in the rights of men +and the rights of women; the rights of the master and those of +the slave;—but in the perfect equality of the Rights of Man. The +rights of man! Whence came they? What are they? What is their +design? How do we know them? They are of God! Those that most +intimately affect us as human beings are life, liberty, and the +pursuit of happiness. Their design is happiness. The human +organization is the charter deed by which we hold them. Hence we +learn that rights are coeval with the human race, of universal +heritage, and inalienable; that every human being, no matter of +what color, sex, condition, or clime, possesses those rights upon +perfect equality with all others. The monarch on the throne, and +the beggar at his feet, have the same. Man has no more, woman no +less.</p> + +<p>Rights may not be usurped on one hand, nor surrendered on the +other, because they involve a responsibility that can be +discharged only by those to whom they belong, those for whom they +were created; and because, without those certain inalienable +rights, human beings can not attain the end for which God the +Father gave them existence. Where and how can the wisdom and +ingenuity of the world find a truer, stronger, broader basis of +human rights. To secure these rights, says the Declaration of +Independence, "Governments were instituted among men, deriving +their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and +"whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those +ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and +to substitute a new government, laying its foundation on such +principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them +shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." +The Government of this country, in common with all others, has +never recognized or attempted to protect women as persons +possessing the rights of humanity. They have been recognized and +protected as appendages to men, without independent rights or +political existence, unknown to the law except as victims of its +caprice and tyranny. This government, having therefore exercised +powers underived from the consent of the governed, and having +signally failed to secure the end for which all just government +is instituted, should be immediately altered, or abolished.</p> + +<p>We can not better describe the political condition of woman, than +by quoting from a distinguished lawyer of our own State. +Professor Walker, in his "Introduction to American Law," says</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">OF HUSBAND AND WIFE,</p> + +<p>"We have a few statutory provisions on the subject, but for +the most part the law of husband and wife is <i>Common Law</i>, +and you will find that it savors of its origin in all its +leading features. The whole theory is a slavish one, +compared even with the civil law. I do not hesitate to say, +by way of arousing your attention to the subject, that the +law of husband and wife, as you gather it from the books, is +a disgrace to any civilized nation. I do not mean to say +that females are degraded in point of fact. I only say, that +the theory of the law degrades them almost to the level of +slaves." We thank Prof. Walker for his candor. He might have +added that the practice of the law does degrade woman to the +level of the slave. He also says: "With regard to political +rights, females form a positive exception to the general +doctrine of equality. They have no part nor lot in the +formation or administration of government. They can not vote +or hold office. We require them to contribute their share in +the way of taxes for the support of government, but allow +them no voice in its direction. We hold them amenable to the +laws when made, but allow them no share in making them. This +language applied to males, would be the exact definition of +political slavery; applied to females, custom does not teach +us so to regard it."</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>Of married women he says: "The legal theory is, marriage makes +the husband and wife one person, and that person is the husband. +He the substantive, she the adjective. In a word, there is +scarcely a legal act of any description that she is competent to +perform. If she leaves him without cause, (legal) he may seize +and bring her back, for he has a right to her society, which he +may enforce, either against herself, or any other person. All her +personality in regard to property becomes the husband's by +marriage, unless the property has been specially secured to her. +If the property be not in his possession, he may take measures to +reduce it to possession. He can thus dispose of it in spite of +her. If debts were due to her, he may collect them. If he was +himself the debtor, the marriage cancels the debt. If she has +earned money during marriage, he may collect it. In regard to +realty (real estate) he controls the income, and without her +consent he can not encumber, or dispose of the property beyond +his own life." Women, married or single, have no political rights +whatever. While single, their legal rights are the same as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> those +of men; when married, their legal rights are chiefly suspended. +"The condition of the wife may be inferred from what has already +been said. She is almost at the mercy of her husband; she can +exercise no control over his property or her own. As a general +rule, she can make no contracts binding herself or him. Her +contracts are not merely voidable, but absolutely void. Nor can +she make herself liable for his contracts, torts, or crimes. Her +only separate liability is for her own crimes. Her only joint +liability, is for her own torts committed without his +participation, and for contracts for which the law authorizes her +to unite with him. She has no power over his person, and her only +claim upon his property is for a bare support. In no instance can +she sue or be sued alone in a civil action; and there are but few +cases in which she can be joined in a suit with him. In Ohio, but +hardly anywhere else, is she allowed to make a will, if haply she +has anything to dispose of."</p> + +<p>Women of Ohio! Whose cheek does not blush, whose blood does not +tingle at this cool, lawyer-like recital of the gross indignities +and wrongs which Government has heaped upon our sex? With these +marks of inferiority branded upon our persons, and interwoven +with the most sacred relations of human existence, how can we +rise to the true dignity of human nature, and discharge +faithfully the important duties assigned us as responsible, +intelligent, self-controlling members of society? No wonder that +so many of our politicians are dough-faced serviles, without +independence or manhood; no wonder our priests are time-serving +and sycophantic: no wonder that so many men are moral cowards and +cringing poltroons. What more could be expected of a progeny of +slaves? Slaves are we, politically and legally. How can we, who, +it is said, are the educators of our children, present to this +nation anything else but a generation of serviles, while we, +ourselves, are in a servile condition, and padlocks are on our +lips? No! if men would be men worthy of the name, they must cease +to disfranchise and rob their wives and mothers; they must +forbear to consign to political and legal slavery their sisters +and their daughters. And, would we be women worthy the +companionship of true and noble men, we must cease longer to +submit to tyranny. Let us rise in the might of self-respect, and +assert our rights, and by the aid of truth, the instincts of +humanity, and a just application of the principles of equality, +we shall be able to maintain them.</p> + +<p>You ask, would you have woman, by engaging in political party +bickerings and noisy strife, sacrifice her integrity and purity? +No, neither would we have men do it.... We hold that whatever is +essentially wrong for woman to do, can not be right for man. If +deception and intrigue, the elements of political craft, be +degrading to woman, can they be ennobling to man? If patience and +forbearance adorn a woman, are they not equally essential to a +manly character? If anger and turbulence disgrace woman, what can +they add to the dignity of man? Nothing; because nothing can be +morally right for man, that is morally wrong for woman. Woman, by +becoming the executioner of man's vengeance on his fellow-man, +could inflict no greater wrong on society than the same done by +man; but it would create an intenser feeling of shuddering +horror, and would, we conceive, rouse to more healthful activity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +man's torpid feelings of justice, mercy, and clemency. And so, +also, if woman had free scope for the full exercise of the +heavenly graces that men so gallantly award her, truth, love, and +mercy would be invested with a more sacred charm. But while they +continue to enforce obedience to arbitrary commands, to encourage +love of admiration and a desire for frivolous amusements; while +they crush the powers of the mind, by opposing authority and +precedent to reason and progress; while they arrogate to +themselves the right to point us to the path of duty, while they +close the avenues of knowledge through public institutions, and +monopolize the profits of labor, mediocrity and inferiority must +be our portion. Shall we accept it, or shall we strive against +it?</p> + +<p>Men are not destitute of justice or humanity; and let it be +remembered that there are hosts of noble and truthful ones among +them who deprecate the tyranny that enslaves us; and none among +ourselves can be more ready than they to remove the mountain of +injustice which the savagism of ages has heaped upon our sex. If, +therefore, we remain enslaved and degraded, the cause may justly +be traced to our own apathy and timidity. We have at our disposal +the means of moral agitation and influence, that can arouse our +country to a saving sense of the wickedness and folly of +disfranchising half the people. Let us no longer delay to use +them.</p> + +<p>Let it be remembered too, that tyrannical and illiberal as our +Government is, low as it places us in the scale of existence, +degrading as is its denial of our capacity for self-government, +still it concedes to us more than any other Government on earth. +Woman, over half the globe, is now and always has been but a +chattel. Wives are bargained for, bought and sold, as other +merchandise, and as a consequence of the annihilation of natural +rights, they have no political existence. In Hindustan, the +evidence of woman is not received in a court of justice. The +Hindu wife, when her husband dies, must yield implicit obedience +to the oldest son. In Burmah, they are not allowed to ascend the +steps of a court of justice, but are obliged to give their +testimony outside of the building. In Siberia, women are not +allowed to step across the footprints of men or reindeer. The +Mohammedan law forbids pigs, dogs, women, and other impure +animals to enter the Mosque. The Moors, for the slightest +offense, beat their wives most cruelly. The Tartars believe that +women were sent into the world for no other purpose than to be +useful, convenient slaves. To these heathen precedents our +Christian brethren sometimes refer to prove the inferiority of +woman, and to excuse the inconsistency of the only Government on +earth that has proclaimed the equality of man. An argument worthy +its source.</p> + +<p>In answer to the popular query, "Why should woman desire to +meddle with public affairs?" we suggest the following questions:</p> + +<p>1st. Is the principle of taxation without representation less +oppressive and tyrannical, than when our fathers expended their +blood and treasure, rather than submit to its injustice?</p> + +<p>2d. Is it just, politic, and wise, that universities and colleges +endowed by Government should be open only to men?</p> + +<p>3d. Is it easier for Government to reform lazy, vicious, +ignorant, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> hardened felons, than for enlightened +humanity—loving parents, to "train up a child in the way it +should go"?</p> + +<p>4th. How can a mother, who does not understand, and therefore can +not appreciate the rights of humanity, train up her child in the +way it should go?</p> + +<p>5th. Whence originates the necessity of a penal code?</p> + +<p>6th. It is computed that over ten millions of dollars are +annually expended in the United States for the suppression of +crime. How much of this waste of treasure is traceable to +defective family government?</p> + +<p>7th. Can antiquity make wrong right?</p> + +<p>In conclusion, we appeal to our sisters of Ohio to arise from the +lethargy of ages; to assert their rights as independent human +beings; to demand their true position as equally responsible +co-workers with their brethren in this world of action. We urge +you by your self-respect, by every consideration for the human +race, to arise and take possession of your birthright to freedom +and equality. Take it not as the gracious boon tendered by the +chivalry of superiors, but as your <i>right</i>, on every principle of +justice and equality.</p> + +<p>The present is a most favorable time for the women of Ohio to +demand a recognition of their rights. The organic law of the +State is about to undergo a revision. Let it not be our fault if +the rights of humanity, and not alone those of "free white male +citizens," are recognized and protected. Let us agitate the +subject in the family circle, in public assemblies, and through +the press. Let us flood the Constitutional Convention with +memorials and addresses, trusting to truth and a righteous cause +for the success of our efforts.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This Convention had one peculiar characteristic. It was officered +entirely by women; not a man was allowed to sit on the platform, to +speak, or vote. <i>Never did men so suffer.</i> They implored just to say a +word; but no; the President was inflexible—no man should be heard. If +one meekly arose to make a suggestion he was at once ruled out of +order. For the first time in the world's history, men learned how it +felt to sit in silence when questions in which they were interested +were under discussion. It would have been an admirable way of closing +the Convention, had a rich banquet been provided, to which the men +should have had the privilege of purchasing tickets to the gallery, +there to enjoy the savory odors, and listen to the after-dinner +speeches. However, the gentlemen in the Convention passed through this +severe trial with calm resignation; at the close, organized an +association of their own, and generously endorsed all the ladies had +said and done.</p> + +<p>Though the women in this Convention were unaccustomed to public +speaking and parliamentary tactics, the interest was well sustained +for two days, and the deliberations were conducted with dignity and +order. It was here Josephine S. Griffing uttered her first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> brave +words for woman's emancipation, though her voice had long been heard +in pathetic pleading for the black man's rights. This Convention, +which was called and conducted by Mrs. Emily Robinson, with such aid +as she could enlist, was largely attended and entirely successful.</p> + +<p>A favorable and lengthy report found its way into the <i>New York +Tribune</i> and other leading journals, both East and West, and the +proceedings of the Convention were circulated widely in pamphlet form. +All this made a very strong impression upon the public mind. From the +old world, too, the officers of the Convention received warm +congratulations and earnest words of sympathy, for the new gospel of +woman's equality was spreading in England as well as America.</p> + + +<h3>AKRON CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p>The advocates for the enfranchisement of woman had tripled in that one +short year. The very complimentary comments of the press, and the +attention awakened throughout the State, by the presentation of "the +memorial" to the Constitutional Convention, had accomplished a great +educational work. Soon after this, another convention was called in +Akron. The published proceedings of the first convention, were like +clarion notes to the women of Ohio, rousing them to action, and when +the call to the second was issued, there was a generous response. In +1851, May 28th and 29th, many able men and women rallied at the stone +church, and hastened to give their support to the new demand, and most +eloquently did they plead for justice to woman.</p> + +<p>Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Jane G. Swisshelm, Caroline M. +Severance, Emma R. Coe, Maria L. Giddings, Celia C. Burr (afterward +Burleigh), Martha J. Tilden, and many other noble women who were +accustomed to speaking in temperance and anti-slavery meetings, helped +to make this Convention most successful. Frances D. Gage was chosen +President of the Convention. On taking the chair she said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I am at a loss, kind friends, to know whether to return you +thanks, or not, for the honor conferred upon me. And when I tell +you that I have never in my life attended a regular business +meeting, and am entirely inexperienced in the forms and +ceremonies of a deliberative body, you will not be surprised that +I do not feel remarkably grateful for the position. For though +you have conferred an honor upon me, I very much fear I shall not +be able to reflect it back. I will try.</p> + +<p>When our forefathers left the old and beaten paths of New +England, and struck out for themselves in a new and unexplored +country, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> went forth with a slow and cautious step, but with +firm and resolute hearts. The land of their fathers had become +too small for their children. Its soil answered not their wants. +The parents shook their heads and said, with doubtful and +foreboding faces: "Stand still, stay at home. This has sufficed +for us; we have lived and enjoyed ourselves here. True, our +mountains are high and our soil is rugged and cold; but you won't +find a better; change, and trial, and toil, will meet you at +every step. Stay, tarry with us, and go not forth to the +wilderness."</p> + +<p>But the children answered: "Let us go; this land has sufficed for +you, but the one beyond the mountains is better. We know there is +trial, toil, and danger; but for the sake of our children, and +our children's children, we are willing to meet all." They went +forth, and pitched their tents in the wilderness. An herculean +task was before them; the rich and fertile soil was shadowed by a +mighty forest, and giant trees were to be felled. The Indians +roamed the wild, wide hunting-grounds, and claimed them as their +own. They must be met and subdued. The savage beasts howled +defiance from every hill-top, and in every glen. They must be +destroyed. Did the hearts of our fathers fail? No; they entered +upon their new life, their new world, with a strong faith and a +mighty will. For they saw in the prospection a great and +incalculable good. It was not the work of an hour, nor of a day; +not of weeks or months, but of long struggling, toiling, painful +years. If they failed at one point, they took hold at another. If +their paths through the wilderness were at first crooked, rough, +and dangerous, by little and little they improved them. The +forest faded away, the savage disappeared, the wild beasts were +destroyed, and the hopes and prophetic visions of their +far-seeing powers in the new and untried country, were more than +realized.</p> + +<p>Permit me to draw a comparison between the situation of our +forefathers in the wilderness, without even so much as a +bridle-path through its dark depths, and our present position. +The old land of moral, social, and political privilege, seems too +narrow for our wants; its soil answers not to our growing, and we +feel that we see clearly a better country that we might inhabit. +But there are mountains of established law and custom to +overcome; a wilderness of prejudice to be subdued; a powerful foe +of selfishness and self-interest to overthrow; wild beasts of +pride, envy, malice, and hate to destroy. But for the sake of our +children and our children's children, we have entered upon the +work, hoping and praying that we may be guided by wisdom, +sustained by love, and led and cheered by the earnest hope of +doing good.</p> + +<p>I shall enter into no labored argument to prove that woman does +not occupy the position in society to which her capacity justly +entitles her. The rights of mankind emanate from their natural +wants and emotions. Are not the natural wants and emotions of +humanity common to, and shared equally by, both sexes? Does man +hunger and thirst, suffer cold and heat more than woman? Does he +love and hate, hope and fear, joy and sorrow more than woman? +Does his heart thrill with a deeper pleasure in doing good? Can +his soul writhe in more bitter agony under the consciousness of +evil or wrong? Is the sunshine more glorious, the air more quiet, +the sounds of harmony more soothing, the perfume of flowers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> more +exquisite, or forms of beauty more soul-satisfying to his senses, +than to hers? To all these interrogatories every one will answer, +No!</p> + +<p>Where then did man get the authority that he now claims over +one-half of humanity? From what power the vested right to place +woman—his partner, his companion, his helpmeet in life—in an +inferior position? Came it from nature? Nature made woman his +superior when she made her his mother; his equal when she fitted +her to hold the sacred position of wife. Does he draw his +authority from God, from the language of holy writ? No! For it +says that "Male and female created he <i>them</i>, and gave <i>them</i> +dominion." Does he claim it under law of the land? Did woman meet +with him in council and voluntarily give up all her claim to be +her own law-maker? Or did the majesty of might place this power +in his hands?—The power of the strong over the weak makes man +the master! Yes, there, and there only, does he gain his +authority.</p> + +<p>In the dark ages of the past, when ignorance, superstition, and +bigotry held rule in the world, might made the law. But the +undertone, the still small voice of Justice, Love, and Mercy, +have ever been heard, pleading the cause of humanity, pleading +for truth and right; and their low, soft tones of harmony have +softened the lion heart of might, and little by little, he has +yielded as the centuries rolled on; and man, as well as woman, +has been the gainer by every concession. We will ask him to yield +still; to allow the voice of woman to be heard; to let her take +the position which her wants and emotions seem to require; to let +her enjoy her natural rights. Do not answer that woman's position +is now all her natural wants and emotions require. Our meeting +here together this day proves the contrary; proves that we have +aspirations that are not met. Will it be answered that we are +factious, discontented spirits, striving to disturb the public +order, and tear up the old fastnesses of society? So it was said +of Jesus Christ and His followers, when they taught peace on +earth and good-will to men. So it was said of our forefathers in +the great struggle for freedom. So it has been said of every +reformer that has ever started out the car of progress on a new +and untried track.</p> + +<p>We fear, not man as an enemy. He is our friend, our brother. Let +woman speak for herself, and she will be heard. Let her claim +with a calm and determined, yet loving spirit, her place, and it +will be given her. I pour out no harsh invectives against the +present order of things—against our fathers, husbands, and +brothers; they do as they have been taught; they feel as society +bids them; they act as the law requires. Woman must act for +herself.</p> + +<p>Oh, if all women could be impressed with the importance of their +own action, and with one united voice, speak out in their own +behalf, in behalf of humanity, they could create a revolution +without armies, without bloodshed, that would do more to +ameliorate the condition of mankind, to purify, elevate, ennoble +humanity, than all that has been done by reformers in the last +century.</p></blockquote> + +<p>When we consider that Mrs. Gage had led the usual arduous domestic +life, of wife, mother, and housekeeper, in a new country, overburdened +with the care and anxiety incident to a large family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> reading and +gathering general information at short intervals, taken from the hours +of rest and excessive toil, it is remarkable, that she should have +presided over the Convention, in the easy manner she is said to have +done, and should have given so graceful and appropriate an +extemporaneous speech, on taking the chair. Maria L. Giddings, +daughter of Joshua R. Giddings, who represented Ohio many years in +Congress, presented a very able digest on the common law. Betsey M. +Cowles gave a report equally good on "Labor," and Emily Robinson on +"Education."</p> + +<p>In all the early Conventions the resolutions were interminable. It was +not thought that full justice was done to the subject, if every point +of interest or dissatisfaction in this prolific theme was not +condensed into a resolution. Accordingly the Akron Convention +presented, discussed, and adopted fifteen resolutions. At Salem, the +previous year, the number reached twenty-two.</p> + +<p>Letters were read from Amelia Bloomer, Elizabeth Wilson, Lydia F. +Fowler, Susan Ormsby, Elsie M. Young, Gerrit Smith, Henry C. Wright, +Paulina Wright Davis, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Clarina Howard Nichols, +and others. The Hutchinson family enlivened this Convention with such +inspiring songs as "The Good Time Coming." Ever at the post of duty, +they have sung each reform in turn to partial success. Jesse expressed +his sympathy in the cause in a few earnest remarks.</p> + +<p>This Convention was remarkable for the large number of men who took an +active part in the proceedings. And as we have now an opportunity to +express our gratitude by handing their names down to posterity, and +thus make them immortal, we here record Joseph Barker, Marius +Robinson, Rev. D. L. Webster, Jacob Heaton, Dr. K. G. Thomas, L. A. +Hine, Dr. A. Brooke, Rev. Mr. Howels, Rev. Geo. Schlosser, Mr. Pease, +and Samuel Brooke. The reports of this Convention are so meagre that +we can not tell who were in the opposition; but from Sojourner Truth's +speech, we fear that the clergy, as usual, were averse to enlarging +the boundaries of freedom.</p> + +<p>In those early days the sons of Adam crowded our platform, and often +made it the scene of varied pugilistic efforts, but of late years we +invite those whose presence we desire. Finding it equally difficult to +secure the services of those we deem worthy to advocate our cause, and +to repress those whose best service would be silence, we ofttimes find +ourselves quite deserted by the "stronger sex" when most needed.</p> + +<p>Sojourner Truth, Mrs. Stowe's "Lybian Sibyl," was present at this +Convention. Some of our younger readers may not know that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> Sojourner +Truth was once a slave in the State of New York, and carries to-day as +many marks of the diabolism of slavery, as ever scarred the back of a +victim in Mississippi. Though she can neither read nor write, she is a +woman of rare intelligence and common-sense on all subjects. She is +still living, at Battle Creek, Michigan, though now 110 years old. +Although the exalted character and personal appearance of this noble +woman have been often portrayed, and her brave deeds and words many +times rehearsed, yet we give the following graphic picture of +Sojourner's appearance in one of the most stormy sessions of the +Convention, from</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">REMINISCENCES BY FRANCES D. GAGE.</p> + +<p class="heading">SOJOURNER TRUTH.</p> + +<p>The leaders of the movement trembled on seeing a tall, gaunt +black woman in a gray dress and white turban, surmounted with an +uncouth sun-bonnet, march deliberately into the church, walk with +the air of a queen up the aisle, and take her seat upon the +pulpit steps. A buzz of disapprobation was heard all over the +house, and there fell on the listening ear, "An abolition +affair!" "Woman's rights and niggers!" "I told you so!" "Go it, +darkey!"</p> + +<p>I chanced on that occasion to wear my first laurels in public +life as president of the meeting. At my request order was +restored, and the business of the Convention went on. Morning, +afternoon, and evening exercises came and went. Through all these +sessions old Sojourner, quiet and reticent as the "Lybian +Statue," sat crouched against the wall on the corner of the +pulpit stairs, her sun-bonnet shading her eyes, her elbows on her +knees, her chin resting upon her broad, hard palms. At +intermission she was busy selling the "Life of Sojourner Truth," +a narrative of her own strange and adventurous life. Again and +again, timorous and trembling ones came to me and said, with +earnestness, "Don't let her speak, Mrs. Gage, it will ruin us. +Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed up with +abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterly denounced." My +only answer was, "We shall see when the time comes."</p> + +<p>The second day the work waxed warm. Methodist, Baptist, +Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Universalist ministers came in to +hear and discuss the resolutions presented. One claimed superior +rights and privileges for man, on the ground of "superior +intellect"; another, because of the "manhood of Christ; if God +had desired the equality of woman, He would have given some token +of His will through the birth, life, and death of the Saviour." +Another gave us a theological view of the "sin of our first +mother."</p> + +<p>There were very few women in those days who dared to "speak in +meeting"; and the august teachers of the people were seemingly +getting the better of us, while the boys in the galleries, and +the sneerers among the pews, were hugely enjoying the +discomfiture, as they supposed, of the "strong-minded." Some of +the tender-skinned friends were on the point of losing dignity, +and the atmosphere betokened a storm. When, slowly from her seat +in the corner rose Sojourner Truth, who, till now, had scarcely +lifted her head. "Don't let her speak!" gasped half a dozen in my +ear. She moved slowly and solemnly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> the front, laid her old +bonnet at her feet, and turned her great speaking eyes to me. +There was a hissing sound of disapprobation above and below. I +rose and announced "Sojourner Truth," and begged the audience to +keep silence for a few moments.</p> + +<p>The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this +almost Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, +and eyes piercing the upper air like one in a dream. At her first +word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, +though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and away through +the throng at the doors and windows.</p> + +<p>"Wall, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar must be somethin' +out o' kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de niggers of de Souf and de +womin at de Norf, all talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be +in a fix pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout?</p> + +<p>"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into +carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place +everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober +mud-puddles, or gibs me any best place!" And raising herself to +her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, +she asked. "And a'n't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! (and +she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous +muscular power). I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into +barns, and no man could head me! And a'n't I a woman? I could +work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and +bear de lash as well! And a'n't, I a woman? I have borne thirteen +chilern, and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I +cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And +a'n't I a woman?</p> + +<p>"Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?" +("Intellect," whispered some one near.) "Dat's it, honey. What's +dat got to do wid womin's rights or nigger's rights? If my cup +won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be +mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" And she +pointed her significant finger, and sent a keen glance at the +minister who had made the argument. The cheering was long and +loud.</p> + +<p>"Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can't have as much +rights as men, 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ +come from?" Rolling thunder couldn't have stilled that crowd, as +did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with +outstretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still +louder, she repeated, "Whar did your Christ come from? From God +and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him." Oh, what a rebuke +that was to that little man.</p> + +<p>Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of +Mother Eve. I can not follow her through it all. It was pointed, +and witty, and solemn; eliciting at almost every sentence +deafening applause; and she ended by asserting: "If de fust woman +God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all +alone, dese women togedder (and she glanced her eye over the +platform) ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side +up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let 'em." +Long-continued cheering greeted this. "'Bleeged to ye for hearin' +on me, and now ole Sojourner han't got nothin' more to say."</p> + +<p>Amid roars of applause, she returned to her corner, leaving more +than one of us with streaming eyes, and hearts beating with +gratitude. She had taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> us up in her strong arms and carried us +safely over the slough of difficulty turning the whole tide in +our favor. I have never in my life seen anything like the magical +influence that subdued the mobbish spirit of the day, and turned +the sneers and jeers of an excited crowd into notes of respect +and admiration. Hundreds rushed up to shake hands with her, and +congratulate the glorious old mother, and bid her God-speed on +her mission of "testifyin' agin concerning the wickedness of this +'ere people."</p></blockquote> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">WOMAN'S RIGHTS MEETING IN A BARN—"JOHN'S CONVENTION."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. M. E. J. Gage</span>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:—Your postal and note requesting items of history of +the almost forgotten doings of thirty years ago, is at hand.</p> + +<p>In 1850 Ohio decided by the votes of her male population to +"alter and amend her Constitution." The elected delegates +assembled in Cincinnati in the spring of that year.</p> + +<p>In view of affecting this legislation the "Woman's Rights +Convention" at Salem, Columbiana Co., was called in April, 1850, +and memorialized the Delegate Convention, praying that Equal +Rights to all citizens of the State be guaranteed by the new +Constitution. In May a county meeting was called in +McConnelsville, Morgan Co., Ohio. Mrs. H. M. Little, Mrs. M. T. +Corner, Mrs. H. Brewster, and myself, were all the women that I +knew in that region, even favorable to a movement for the help of +women. Two of these only asked for more just laws for married +women. One hesitated about the right of suffrage. I alone in the +beginning asked for the ballot,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> and equality before the law +for all adult citizens of sound minds, without regard to sex or +color. The Freemasons gave their hall for our meeting, but no men +were admitted. I drew up a memorial for signatures, praying that +the words "white" and "male" be omitted in the new Constitution. +I also drew up a paper copying the unequal laws on our statute +books with regard to women. We met, Mrs. Harriet Brewster +presiding. Some seventy ladies of our place fell in through the +day. I read my paper, and Mrs. M. T. Corner gave a historical +account of noted women of the past. It was a new thing. At the +close, forty names were placed on the memorial For years I had +been talking and writing, and people were used to my "craziness." +But who expected Mrs. Corner and others to take such a stand! Of +course, we were heartily abused.</p> + +<p>This led to the calling of a county meeting at Chesterfield, +Morgan County. It was advertised to be held in the M. E. Church. +There were only present some eight ladies, including the four +above mentioned We four "scoffers" hired a hack and rode sixteen +miles over the hill, before 10 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, to be denied admittance to +church or school-house Rev. Philo Matthews had found us shelter +on the threshing-floor of a fine barn, and we found about three +or four hundred of the farmers, and their wives, sons, and +daughters, assembled. They were nearly all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> "Quakers" and +Abolitionists, but then not much inclined to "woman's rights." I +had enlarged my argument, and there the "ox-sled" speech was +made, the last part of May, 1850, date of day not remembered.</p> + +<p>A genuine "Quaker Preacher" said to me at the close, "Frances, +thee had great Freedom. The ox-cart inspired thee." The farmers' +wives brought huge boxes and pans of provisions. Men and women +made speeches, and many names were added to our memorial. On the +whole, we had a delightful day. It was no uncommon thing in those +days for Abolitionist, or Methodist, or other meetings, to be +held under the trees, or in large barns, when school-houses would +not hold the people. But to shut up doors against women was a new +thing.</p> + +<p>In December of 1851 I was invited to attend a Woman's Rights +Convention at the town of Mount Gilead, Morrow Co., Ohio. A +newspaper call promised that celebrities would be on hand, etc. I +wrote I would be there. It was two days' journey, by steamboat +and rail. The call was signed "John Andrews," and John Andrews +promised to meet me at the cars. I went. It was fearfully cold, +and John met me. He was a beardless boy of nineteen, looking much +younger. We drove at once to the "Christian Church." On the way +he cheered me by saying "he was afraid nobody would come, for all +the people said nobody would come for his asking." When we got to +the house, there was not one human soul on hand, no fire in the +old rusty stove, and the rude, unpainted board benches, all +topsy-turvy. I called some boys playing near, asked their names, +put them on paper, five of them, and said to them, "Go to every +house in this town and tell everybody that 'Aunt Fanny' will +speak here at 11 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, and if you get me fifty to come and hear, +I will give you each ten cents." They scattered off upon the run. +I ordered John to right the benches, picked up chips and +kindlings, borrowed a brand of fire at the next door, had a good +hot stove, and the floor swept, and was ready for my audience at +the appointed time. John had done his work well, and fifty at +least were on hand, and a minister to make a prayer and quote St. +Paul before I said a word. I said my say, and before 1 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, we +adjourned, appointing another session at 3, and one for 7 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, +and three for the following day. Mrs. C. M. Severance came at 6 +<span class="smcap">p.m.</span>, and we had a good meeting throughout.</p> + +<p>John's Convention was voted a success after all. He died young, +worn out by his own enthusiasm and conflicts.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Frances D. Gage.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In September, 1851, a Woman's Temperance Convention was held in +Cincinnati, Ohio, in Foster Hall, corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets. +Mrs. Mary B. Slough, President; Mrs. George Parcells, Vice-President: +Mrs. William Pinkham, Secretary. Resolutions were discussed, and a +Declaration of Independence adopted. Mrs. Slough was the "Grand +Presiding Sister of Ohio." This meeting was held to raise funds for a +banner, they had promised the firemen, Co. No. 1, if they would vote +the Temperance ticket.</p> + +<p>Of the temperance excitement in the State, Mrs. Gage says:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>In the winter of 1852-53, there was great excitement on the +Temperance question in this country, originating in Maine and +spreading West. Some prominent women in Ohio, who were at +Columbus, the State capital, with their husbands—who were there +from all parts of the State, as Senators, Representatives, +jurists, and lobbyists—feeling a great interest, as many of them +had need to, in the question, were moved to call a public meeting +on the subject. This resulted in the formation of a "Woman's +State Temperance Society," which sent out papers giving their +by-laws and resolutions, and calling for auxiliary societies in +different parts of the State. This call in many places met with +hearty responses.</p> + +<p>In the following autumn, 1853, officers of the State Society, +Mrs. Professor Coles, of Oberlin, President, called a convention +of their members and friends of the cause, at the city of Dayton, +Ohio.</p> + +<p>The famous "Whole World's Convention" had just been held in New +York City, followed by the "World's Convention," at which the +Rev. Antoinette L. Brown was expelled from the platform, simply +because she was a woman. The Hon. Samuel Carey presented a +resolution, which I quote from memory, something as follows:</p> + +<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That we recognize women as efficient aids and +helpers in the home, but not on the platform."</p> + +<p>This was not perhaps the exact wording, but it was the purport of +the resolution, and was presented while Neal Dow, the President +of the Convention, was absent from the chair, and after much +angry and abusive discussion, it was passed by that body of great +men.</p> + +<p>The Committee of Arrangements, appointed at Dayton, could find no +church, school-house, or hall in which to hold their convention, +till the Sons of Temperance consented to yield their lodge-room, +provided there were no men admitted to their meetings. Alas! the +Committee consented. I traveled two hundred miles, and, on +reaching Dayton at a late hour, I repaired at once to the hall. +Our meeting was organized. But hardly were we ready to proceed +when an interruption occurred. I had been advertised for the +first speech, and took my place on the platform, when a column of +well-dressed ladies, very fashionable and precise, marched in, +two and two, and spread themselves in a half circle in front of +the platform, and requested leave to be heard.</p> + +<p>Our President asked me to suspend my reading, to which I +assented, and she—a beautiful, graceful lady—bowed them her +assent. Forthwith they proceeded to inform us, that they were +delegated by a meeting of Dayton ladies to come hither and read +to us a remonstrance against "the unseemly and unchristian +position" we had assumed in calling conventions, and taking our +places upon the platform, and seeking notoriety by making +ourselves conspicuous before men. They proceeded to shake the +dust from their own skirts of the whole thing. They discussed +wisely the disgraceful conduct of Antoinette L. Brown at the +World's Temperance Convention, as reported to them by Hon. Samuel +Carey, with more of the same sort, which I beg to be excused from +trying to recall to mind, or to repeat. When their mission was +ended, in due form they filed out of the low dark door, descended +the stair-way, and disappeared from our sight.</p> + +<p>When we had recovered our equilibrium after such a knock-down +surprise,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> Mrs. Bateman requested me to proceed. I rose, and +asked leave to change my written speech for one not from my pen, +but from my heart.</p> + +<p>The protest of the Dayton "Mrs. Grundys" had been well larded +with Scripture, so I added: "Out of the abundance of the heart +the mouth speaketh," and never before, possibly never since, have +I had greater liberty in relieving my mind, as the Quakers would +say. I had been at New York and had boarded with Antoinette L. +Brown, so I knew whereof I was bearing testimony, when I assured +my hearers that Samuel Carey had certainly been lying—under a +mistake. I gave my testimony, not cringingly, but as one who +knew, and drew a comparison between Antoinette L. Brown, modestly +but firmly standing her ground as a delegate from her society, +with politicians and clergymen crying, "Shame on the woman," and +stamping and clamoring till the dust on the carpet of the +platform enveloped them in a cloud. Meanwhile, her best friends, +William H. Channing, William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, +Wendell Phillips and others stood by her, bidding her stand firm. +The conduct of these ladies in marching through the streets of +Dayton, in the most crowded thoroughfares, in the midst of a +State fair, to tell some other women that they were making +themselves "conspicuous." What I said, or how it was said, +mattereth not.</p> + +<p>That evening, the Sons of Temperance Hall, which our committee +had promised to "keep clear of men," was well filled with women. +But all around the walls, and between the benches, on the +platform—and in the aisles, there were men from every part of +the State. These ladies had given us a grand advertisement.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The following is the report of said meeting clipped from the <i>Evening +Post</i> twenty-seven years ago, by Mrs. Gage:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THE OHIO WOMEN'S CONVENTION.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Dayton</span>, <i>Sept. 24, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p>To-day the Ohio State Women's Temperance Society held a meeting +at this place. The attendance was not large, but was respectable, +both in number and talents. Mrs. Bateman, of Columbus, presided, +and a good officer she made. Parliamentary rules prevailed in +governing the assembly, and were enforced with much promptness +and dignity. She understood enough of these to put both sides of +the question—an attainment which, I have noticed, many Mr. +Presidents have often not reached.</p> + +<p>The enactment of the Maine law in Ohio is the principal object at +which they appeared to aim. Its constitutionality and effect were +both discussed, decisions of courts criticised, and all with much +acuteness and particularly happy illustrations. In reference to +the practicability of enforcing it, when once passed, one woman +declared, that "if the men could not do it, the women would give +them effectual aid."</p> + +<p>In the course of the meeting, two original poems were read, one +by Mrs. Gage, formerly of this State, and now of St. Louis, and +one by Mrs. Hodge, of Oberlin. There were also delivered three +formal addresses, one by Mrs. Dryer, of Delaware County, Ohio, +one by Mrs. Griffing, of Salem, Ohio, and the other by Mrs. Gage, +either of which would not have dishonored any of our public +orators<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> if we consider the matter, style, or manner of delivery. +Men can deal in statistics and logical deductions, but women only +can describe the horrors of intemperance—can draw aside the +curtain and show us the wreck it makes of domestic love and home +enjoyment—can paint the anguish of the drunkard's wife and the +miseries of his children. Wisdom would seem to dictate that those +who feel the most severely the effects of any evil, should best +know how to remove it. If this be so, it would be difficult to +give a reason why women should not act, indeed lead off in this +great temperance movement.</p> + +<p>A most exciting and interesting debate arose on some resolutions +introduced by the Secretary, Mrs. Griffing, condemnatory of the +action of the World's Temperance Convention in undelegating Miss +Brown, and excluding her from the platform.</p> + +<p>These resolutions are so pithy, that I can not refrain from +furnishing them in full. They are as follows:</p> + +<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That we regard the tyrannical and cowardly +conformation to the 'usages of society,' in thrusting woman from +the platform in the late so-called, but mis-called World's +Temperance Convention, as a most daring and insulting outrage +upon all of womankind; and it is with the deepest shame and +mortification that we learn that our own State of Ohio furnished +the delegate to officiate in writing and presenting the +resolutions, and presiding at the session when the desperate act +was accomplished.</p> + +<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That our thanks are due to the Hon. Neal Dow, of +Maine, the President of the Convention, for so manfully and +persistently deciding and insisting upon and in favor of the +right of all the friends of temperance, duly delegated, 10 seats +and participation in all the proceedings."</p> + +<p>The friends of General Carey rallied, and with real parliamentary +tact moved to lay the resolutions on the table. There was much +excitement and some nervousness. The remarks made <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i> +were pithy and to the point. The motion to lay on the table was +lost by a large majority. Mrs. Griffing supported her resolutions +with much coolness and conscious strength. The General had few +defenders, and most of those soon abandoned him to his fate, and +fell back upon the position of deprecating the introduction of +what they called the question of Woman's Rights into the +Convention. All, however, was of no avail; the resolutions passed +by a large majority, and amid much applause.</p> + +<p>After recess an attempt was made to reconsider this vote. The +President urged some one who voted in the affirmative to move a +reconsideration, that a substitute might be offered, condemning +the action of the World's Convention in reference to Miss Brown, +"as uncourteous, unchristian, and unparliamentary." The motion +was made evidently from mere courtesy; but, when put to vote, was +lost by a very large majority. The delegates from Oberlin, and +some others, joined in the following protest:</p> + +<p>"We beg leave to request that it be recorded in the minutes of +the meeting, that the delegation from Oberlin, and some others, +although we regard as uncourteous, unchristian, and +unparliamentary, the far-famed proceedings at New York, yet we +can not endorse the language of censure as administered by our +most loved and valued sisters."</p> + +<p>Thus fell General Carey, probably mortally wounded. His vitality, +indeed, must be very great, if he can outlive the thrusts given +him on this occasion. What rendered his conduct in New York more +aggravating is the fact that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> heretofore, he has encouraged the +women of Ohio in their advocacy of temperance, and promised to +defend them.</p> + +<p>It is not, however, for Ohio men to interfere in this matter. +Ohio women have shown themselves abundantly able to take care of +themselves and the General too.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>LETTERS FROM FRIENDS IN OHIO.</h3> + +<p>Mrs. R. A. S. Janney, in reply to our request for a chapter of her +recollections, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The agitation of "Woman's Rights" began in Ohio in 1843 and '44, +after Abby Kelly lectured through the State on Anti-slavery.</p> + +<p>The status of the public mind at that time is best illustrated by +the fact that Catharine Beecher, in 1846, gave an address in +Columbus on education, by sitting on the platform and getting her +brother Edward to read it for her.</p> + +<p>In 1849, Lucy Stone and Antoinette L. Brown, then students at +Oberlin College, lectured at different places in the State on +"Woman's Rights."</p> + +<p>In 1850 a Convention was held at Salem; Mariana Johnson presented +a memorial, which was numerously signed and sent to the +Constitutional Convention. The same week Mrs. F. D. Gage called a +meeting in Masonic Hall, McConnellsville, and drew up a memorial, +which was also largely signed, and presented to the +Constitutional Convention. Memorials were sent from other parts +of the State, and other county conventions held.</p> + +<p>The signatures to the petition for "Equal Rights," numbered +7,901, and for the Right of Suffrage, 2,106.</p> + +<p>The discussions in the Constitutional Convention were voted to be +dropped from the records, because they were so low and obscene. +Dr. Townsend, of Lorain, and William Hawkins, of McConnellsville, +were our friends in the Convention.</p> + + +<p class="heading">MRS. CORNER'S LETTER.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Cleveland, O.</span>, <i>Nov. 14, 1876</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Bloomer</span>:—Your postal recalls to mind an event which +occurred before the women of Ohio had in any sense broken the +cords which bound them. A wife was not then entitled to her own +earnings, and if a husband were a drunkard, or a gambler, no +portion of his wages could she take, without his consent, for the +maintenance of herself and family.</p> + +<p>Some small gain has been attained in the letter of the law, and +much in public opinion. Less stigma rests upon one who chooses an +avocation suited to her own taste and ability. We have struggled +for little; but it is well for us to remember that the world was +not made in a day.</p> + +<p>The meeting to which you allude was held in Chesterfield, Morgan +County, Ohio. I went in company with Mrs. Gage, and remember well +what a spirited meeting it was. When it was found that the church +could not be had, the ladies of the place secured a barn, made it +nice and clean, had a platform built at one end of the large +floor for the speakers and invited guests, and seats arranged in +every available place.</p> + +<p>The audience was large and respectful, as well as respectable. +The leading subjects were: The injustice of the laws, as to +property and children, in their results to married women; the +ability of woman to occupy positions of trust now withheld from +her; her limited means for acquiring an education; etc.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Gage spoke with great enthusiasm and warmth. I think it must +have been almost her first effort, to be followed by years of +persistent work by voice and pen, to secure a wider field of +labor for her sex, and to spur dull woman to do for herself; to +make use of the means within her grasp; to become fit to bear the +higher responsibilities which the coming years might impose.</p> + +<p>Her dear voice is almost silent now, still she lingers as if to +catch some faint glimpse of hoped-for results, ere she drops this +mortal coil.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Mary T. Corner.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Very truly yours,</p> + +</blockquote> + +<h3>MASSILON CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p>On May 27, 1852, another State Convention was held in Massilon. We +give the following brief notice from the <i>New York Tribune</i>:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The third Woman's Rights Convention of Ohio has just closed its +session. It was held in the Baptist church, in this place, and +was numerously attended, there being a fair representation of +men, as well as women; for though the object of these, and +similar meetings, is to secure woman her rights, as an equal +member of the human family, neither speaking nor membership was +here confined to the one sex, but <i>all</i> who had sentiments to +utter in reference to the object of the Convention—whether for +or against it—were invited to speak with freedom, and those who +wished to aid the movement to sit as members, without distinction +of sex. All honorable classes were represented, from the +so-called highest to the so-called lowest—the seamstress who +works for twenty-five cents a day; the daughters of the farmer, +fresh from the dairy and the kitchen; the wives of the laborer, +the physician, the lawyer, and the banker, the legislator, and +the minister, were all there—all interested in one common cause, +and desirous that every right God gave to woman should be fully +recognized by the laws and usages of society, that every faculty +he has bestowed upon her should have ample room for its proper +development. Is this asking too much? And yet this is the sum and +substance of the Woman's Rights Reform—a movement which fools +ridicule, and find easier to sneer at than meet with argument.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Before they separated they organized "The Ohio Woman's Rights +Association," and chose Hannah Tracy Cutler for President.</p> + +<p>The first annual meeting of this Association was held at Ravenna, May +25th and 26th, 1853. In the absence of the President, Mrs. Caroline M. +Severance presided. The speakers were Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, Mrs. +Lawrence, Emma R. Coe, Josephine S. Griffing, Martha J. Tilden, and +many others. Emily Robinson presented an able and encouraging report +on the progress of the work. Mrs. Severance was appointed to prepare a +memorial to the Legislature, which was presented March 23, 1854, laid +on the table and ordered to be printed. This document is found in the +June number of <i>The Una</i>, 1854, and is a very carefully written paper +on the legal status of woman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>CLEVELAND NATIONAL CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p>In 1853, October 6th, 7th, and 8th, the Fourth National Convention was +held in Cleveland. There were delegates present from New York, +Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and +Missouri. The <i>Plain Dealer</i> said all the ladies prominent in this +movement were present, some in full Bloomer costume. At the appointed +time Lucretia Mott arose and said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>As President of the last National Convention at Syracuse, it +devolves on me to call this meeting to order. It was decided in a +preliminary gathering last evening, that Frances D. Gage, of St. +Louis, was the suitable person to fill the office of President on +this occasion.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gage, being duly elected, on taking the chair, said: Before +proceeding farther, it is proper that prayer should be offered. +The Rev. Antoinette L. Brown will address the throne of grace.</p></blockquote> + +<p>She came forward and made a brief, but eloquent prayer. It was +considered rather presumptuous in those days for a woman to pray in +public, but as Miss Brown was a graduate of Oberlin College, had gone +through the theological department, was a regularly ordained preacher, +and installed as a pastor, she felt quite at home in all the forms and +ceremonies of the Church.</p> + +<blockquote><p>The Cleveland <i>Journal</i>, in speaking of her, said: She has one +distinction, she is the handsomest woman in the Convention. Her +voice is silvery, and her manner pleasing. It is generally known +that she is the pastor of a Congregational church in South +Butler, N. Y.</p> + +<p>In her opening remarks, Mrs. Gage said: It is with fear and +trembling that I take up the duties of presiding over your +deliberations: not fear and trembling for the cause, but lest I +should not have the capacity and strength to do all the position +requires of me. She then gave a review of what had been +accomplished since the first Convention was held in Seneca Falls, +N. Y., July 19, 1848, and closed by saying: I hope our +discussions will be a little more extensive than the call would +seem to warrant, which indicates simply our right to the +political franchise.</p> + +<p>To which, Mrs. Mott replied: I would state that the limitation of +the discussions was not anticipated at the last Convention. The +issuing of the call was left to the Central Committee, but it was +not supposed that they would specify any particular part of the +labor of the Convention, but that the broad ground of the +presentation of the wrongs of woman, the assertion of her rights, +and the encouragement to perseverance in individual and combined +action, and the restoration of those rights, should be taken.</p> + +<p>After which, Mrs. Gage added: I would remark once for all, to the +Convention, that there is perfect liberty given here to speak +upon the subject under discussion, both for and against; and that +we urge all to do so. If there are any who have objections, we +wish to hear them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> If arguments are presented which convince us +that we are doing wrong, we wish to act upon them. I extremely +regret that while we have held convention after convention, where +the same liberty has been given, no one has had a word to say +against us at the time, but that some have reserved their hard +words of opposition to our movement, only to go away and vent +them through the newspapers, amounting, frequently, to gross +misrepresentation. I hope every one here will remember, with deep +seriousness, that the same Almighty finger which traced upon the +tablets of stone the commands, "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt +not steal," traced also these words, "Thou shalt not bear false +witness against thy neighbor."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The other officers of the Convention were then elected, as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Vice-Presidents</i>—Antoinette L. Brown, New York; Lucretia Mott, +Pennsylvania; Caroline M. Severance, Ohio; Joseph Barker, Ohio; +Emily Robinson, Ohio; Mary B. Birdsall, Indiana; Sibyl Lawrence, +Michigan; Charles P. Wood, New York; Amy Post, New York.</p> + +<p><i>Secretaries</i>—Martha C. Wright, New York; Caroline Stanton, +Ohio; H. B. Blackwell, Ohio.</p> + +<p><i>Treasurer</i>—T. C. Severance, Ohio.</p> + +<p><i>Business Committee</i>—Ernestine L. Rose, New York; James Mott, +Pennsylvania; Lucy Stone, Massachusetts; Wm. Lloyd Garrison, +Mass.; Abby Kelly Foster, Mass.; Mary T. Corner, Ohio; C. C. +Burleigh, Connecticut; Martha J. Tilden, Ohio; John O. Wattles, +Indiana.</p> + +<p><i>Finance Committee</i>—Susan B. Anthony, Rochester; Phebe H. +Merritt, Michigan; H. M. Addison, Ohio; Hettie Little, Ohio; E. +P. Heaton, Ohio.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Letters were read from distinguished people. Notably the following +from Horace Greeley:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>Oct. 2, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:—I have received yours of the 26th, this moment. I do +not see that my presence in Cleveland could be of any service. +The question to be considered concerns principally woman, and +women should mostly consider it. I recognize most thoroughly the +right of woman to choose her own sphere of activity and +usefulness, and to evoke its proper limitations. If she sees fit +to navigate vessels, print newspapers, frame laws, select +rulers—any or all of these—I know no principle that justifies +man in interposing any impediment to her doing so. The only +argument entitled to any weight against the fullest concession of +the rights you demand, rests in the assumption that woman does +not claim any such rights, but chooses to be ruled, guided, +impelled, and have her sphere prescribed for her by man.</p> + +<p>I think the present state of our laws respecting property and +inheritance, as respects married women, show very clearly that +woman ought not to be satisfied with her present position; yet it +may be that she is so. If all those who have never given this +matter a serious thought are to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> considered on the side of +conservatism, of course that side must preponderate. Be this as +it may, woman alone can, in the present state of the controversy, +speak effectively for woman, since none others can speak with +authority, or from the depths of a personal experience.</p> + +<p>Hoping that your Convention may result in the opening of many +eyes, and the elevation of many minds from light to graver +themes,</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">I remain yours,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc close">Horace Greeley.</p> +<p class="ltr-to"><span class="smcap">Mrs. C. M. Severance</span>,<br /> +Cleveland, Ohio.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And here let us pay our tribute of gratitude to Horace Greeley. In +those early days when he, as editor of the <i>New York Tribune</i>, was one +of the most popular men in the nation, his word almost law to the +people, his journal was ever true to woman. No ridicule of our cause, +no sneers at its advocates, found a place in <i>The Tribune</i>; but more +than once, he gave columns to the proceedings of our conventions.</p> + +<p>To this letter, Henry B. Blackwell, brother of Dr. Elizabeth +Blackwell, and the future husband of Lucy Stone, pertinently replied, +saying:</p> + +<blockquote><p>It is suggested that woman's cause should be advocated by women +only. The writer of that letter is a true friend of this reform, +and yet I feel that I owe you no apology for standing on this +platform. But if I do, this is sufficient, that I am the son of a +woman, and the brother of a woman. I know that this is their +cause, but I feel that it is mine also. Their happiness is my +happiness, their misery my misery.</p> + +<p>The interests of the sexes are inseparably connected, and in the +elevation of one lies the salvation of the other. Therefore I +claim a part in the last and grandest movement of the ages; for +whatever concerns woman concerns the race. In every human +enterprise the sexes should go hand in hand. Experience sanctions +the statement. I know of but few movements in history, which have +gone on successfully without the aid of woman. One of these is +war—the work of human slaughter. Another has been the digging of +gold in California. I have yet to learn what advantages the world +has derived from either. Whenever the sexes have been severed in +politics, in business, in religion, the result has been +demoralization.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Blackwell spoke with great eloquence for nearly an hour, +advocating the political, civil, and moral equality of woman. He +showed the power of the ballot in combating unjust laws, opening +college doors, securing equal pay for equal work, dignifying the +marriage relation, by making woman an equal partner, not a subject. He +paid a glowing eulogy to Mary Wollstonecroft. He said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>We need higher ideas of marriage. There is scarcely a young man +here who does not hope to be a husband and a father; nor a young +woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> who does not expect to be a wife and a mother. But who +does not revolt at the idea of perpetuating a race inferior to +ourselves? For myself I could not desire a degenerate family. I +would not wish for a race which would not be head and shoulders +above what I had been. Let me say to men, select women worthy to +be wives. The world is overstocked with these mis-begotten +children of undeveloped mothers. No man who has ever seen the +symmetrical character of a true woman, can be happy in a union +with such. Ladies! the day is coming when men who have seen more +well-developed women, will scorn the present standard of female +character. Will you not teach them to do so? You may have to +sacrifice much, but you will be repaid. This history of the world +is rich with glorious examples. Mary Wollstonecroft, the writer +of that brave book, "The Rights of Woman," published two +generations ago, dared to be true to her convictions of duty in +spite of the prejudices of the world. What was the result? She +attained a noble character. She found in Godwin a nature worthy +of her own, and left a child who became the wife and worthy +biographer of the great poet Shelley. Let us imitate that child +of glorious parents—parents who dared to make all their +relations compatible with absolute right, to give all their +powers the highest development.</p> + +<p>People say a married woman can not have ulterior objects; that +her position is incompatible with a high intellectual culture; +that her thoughts and sympathies must be restricted to the four +walls of her dwelling. Why, if I were a woman (I speak only as a +man) and believed this popular doctrine, that she who is a wife +and a mother, being that, must be nothing more, but must cramp +her thoughts into the narrow circle of her own home, and indulge +no grander aspirations for universal interests—believing that, I +would forswear marriage. I would withdraw myself from human +society, and go out into the forest and the prairie to live out +my own true life in the communion and sympathy of my God. So far +as I was concerned, the race might become worthily extinct—it +should never be unworthily perpetuated. I could do no otherwise. +For we are not made merely to eat and drink, and give children to +the world. We are placed here upon the threshold of an immortal +life. We are but the chrysalis of the future. If immortality +means anything, it means unceasing progress for individuals and +for the race.</p> + +<p>Mr. Blackwell complimented those women who were just inaugurating +a movement for a new costume, promising greater freedom and +health. He thought the sneers and ridicule so unsparingly +showered on the "Bloomers," might with more common sense be +turned on the "tight waists, paper shoes, and trailing skirts of +the fashionable classes."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The facts of history may as well be stated here in regard to the +"Bloomer" costume. Mrs. Bloomer was among the first to wear the dress, +and stoutly advocated its adoption in her paper, <i>The Lily</i>, published +at Seneca Falls, N. Y. But it was introduced by Elizabeth Smith +Miller, the daughter of the great philanthropist, Gerrit Smith, in +1850. She wore it for many years, even in the most fashionable circles +of Washington during her father's term in Congress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> Lucy Stone, Miss +Anthony, and Mrs. Stanton, also wore it a few years. But it invoked so +much ridicule, that they feared the odium attached to the dress might +injure the suffrage movement, of which they were prominent +representatives. Hence a stronger love for woman's political freedom, +than for their own personal comfort, compelled them to lay it aside. +The experiment, however, was not without its good results. The dress +was adopted for skating and gymnastic exercises, in seminaries and +sanitariums. At Dr. James C. Jackson's, in Dansville, N. Y., it is +still worn. Many farmers' wives, too, are enjoying its freedom in +their rural homes.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bloomer, editor of <i>The Lily</i>, at Seneca Falls, New York, was +introduced at the close of Mr. Blackwell's remarks, and read a +well-prepared digest of the laws for married women.</p> + +<p>Reporting one of the sessions, the <i>Plain Dealer</i> said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. Gage, ever prompt in her place, called the Convention to +order at the usual hour. The Melodean at this time contained +1,500 people. We think the women may congratulate themselves on +having most emphatically "made a hit" in the forest city.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of the <i>personnel</i> of the Convention, it says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. Mott is matronly-looking, wearing the Quaker dress, and +apparently a good-natured woman. Her face does not indicate her +character as a fiery and enthusiastic advocate of reform. Mrs. +Gage is not a handsome woman, but her appearance altogether is +prepossessing. You can see genius in her eye. She presided with +grace at all the sessions of the Convention. The house was +thronged with intelligent audiences. The President frequently +contrasted the order, decorum, and kindness of the Cleveland +audiences, with the noisy and tumultuous demonstrations which +recently disgraced the city of New York, at the Convention held +there.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Hon. <span class="smcap">Joshua R. Giddings</span>, on being called to the stand, remarked:</p> + +<blockquote><p>That he was present to express, and happy of the opportunity to +express, his sincere interest in the cause, and regard for the +actors in this movement; but that on almost any other occasion he +could speak with less embarrassment than here, with such +advocates before him; and as he had not come prepared to address +the Convention, declined occupying its time longer.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In reading over the debates of these early Conventions, we find the +speakers dwelling much more on the wrongs in the Church and the Home, +than in the State. But few of the women saw clearly, and felt deeply +that the one cause of their social and religious degradation was their +disfranchisement, hence the discussions often turned on the +surface-wrongs of society.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 343px;"> +<a name="v1_1129" id="v1_1129"> +<img src="images/v1_1129.png" width="343" height="500" +alt="Frances D. Gage (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>Many of the friends present thought the Convention should issue an +original Declaration of Rights, as nothing had been adopted as yet, +except the parody on the Fathers' of' 76. Although that, and the one +William Henry Channing prepared, were both before the Convention, it +adjourned without taking action on either.</p> + +<p>As so many of these noble leaders in the anti-slavery ranks have +passed away, we give in this chapter large space to their brave words. +Also to the treatment of Miss Brown, in the World's Temperance +Convention, for its exceptional injustice and rudeness.</p> + +<p>Miss Brown read a letter from William H. Channing, in which he +embodied his ideas of a Declaration. Lucy Stone also read a very able +letter from Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Both of these letters contain +valuable suggestions for the adoption of practical measures for +bringing the wrongs of woman to the notice of the world.</p> + +<h3>MR. CHANNING'S LETTER.</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Rochester, N. Y.</span>, <i>Oct. 3, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p><i>To the President and Members of the Woman's Rights Convention:</i></p> + +<p>As I am prevented, to my deep regret, from being present at the +Convention, let me suggest in writing what I should prefer to +speak. First, however, I would once again avow that I am with you +heart, mind, soul, and strength for the Equal Rights of Women. +This great reform will prove to be, I am well assured, the +salvation and glory of this Republic, and of all Christian and +civilized States:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And if at once we may not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Declare the greatness of the work we plan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be sure at least that ever in our eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It stands complete before us as a dome<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of light beyond this gloom—a house of stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Encompassing these dusky tents—a thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Near as our hearts, and perfect as the heavens.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be this our aim and model, and our hands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall not wax faint, until the work is done."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>The Woman's Rights Conventions, which, since 1848, have been so +frequently held in New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, +etc., have aroused respectful attention, and secured earnest +sympathy, throughout the United States. It becomes the advocates +of the Equal Rights of Women, then, to take advantage of this +wide-spread interest and to press the Reform, at once, onward to +practical results.</p> + +<p>Among other timely measures, these have occurred to me as +promising to be effective:</p> + +<p>I. There should be prepared, printed, and widely circulated, <span class="smcap">A +Declaration of Woman's Rights</span>.</p> + +<p>This Declaration should distinctly announce the inalienable +rights of women:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>1st. As human beings,—irrespective of the distinction of +sex—actively to co-operate in all movements for the elevation of +mankind.</p> + +<p>2d. As rational, moral, and responsible agents, freely to think, +speak, and do, what truth and duty dictate, and to be the +ultimate judges of their own sphere of action.</p> + +<p>3d. As women, to exert in private and in public, throughout the +whole range of Social Relations, that special influence which God +assigns as their appropriate function, in endowing them with +feminine attributes.</p> + +<p>4th. As members of the body politic, needing the protection, +liable to the penalties, and subject to the operation of the +laws, to take their fair part in legislation and administration, +and in appointing the makers and administrators of the laws.</p> + +<p>5th. As constituting one-half of the people of these free and +United States, and as nominally, free women, to possess and use +the power of voting, now monopolized by that other half of the +people, the free men.</p> + +<p>6th. As property holders, numbered and registered in every +census, and liable to the imposition of town, county, state, and +national taxes, either to be represented if taxed, or to be left +untaxed if unrepresented, according to the established precedent +of No taxation without representation.</p> + +<p>7th. As producers of wealth to be freed from all restrictions on +their industry; to be remunerated according to the work done, and +not the sex of the workers, and whether married or single, to be +secured in the ownership of their gains, and the use and +distribution of their property.</p> + +<p>8th. As intelligent persons, to have ready access to the best +means of culture, afforded by schools, colleges, professional +institutions, museums of science, galleries of art, libraries, +and reading-rooms.</p> + +<p>9th. As members of Christian churches and congregations, heirs of +Heaven and children of God, to preach the truth, to administer +the rites of baptism, communion, and marriage, to dispense +charities, and in every way to quicken and refine the religious +life of individuals and of society.</p> + +<p>The mere announcement of these rights, is the strongest argument +and appeal that can be made, in behalf of granting them. The +claim to their free enjoyment is undeniably just. Plainly such +rights are inalienable, and plainly too, woman is entitled to +their possession equally with man. Our whole plan of government +is a hypocritical farce, if one-half the people can be governed +by the other half without their consent being asked or granted. +Conscience and common sense alike demand the equal rights of +women. To the conscience and common sense of their +fellow-citizens, let women appeal untiringly, until their just +claims are acknowledged throughout the whole system of +legislation, and in all the usages of society.</p> + +<p>And this introduces the next suggestion I have to offer.</p> + +<p>II. Forms of petition should be drawn up and distributed for +signatures, to be offered to the State Legislatures at their next +sessions. These petitions should be directed to the following +points:</p> + +<p>1st. That the right of suffrage be granted to the people, +universally, without distinction of sex; and that the age for +attaining legal and political majority, be made the same for +women as for men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>2d. That all laws relative to the inheritance and ownership of +property, to the division and administration of estates, and to +the execution of Wills, be made equally applicable to women and +men.</p> + +<p>3d. That mothers be entitled, equally with fathers, to become +guardians of their children.</p> + +<p>4th. That confirmed and habitual drunkenness, of either husband +or wife, be held as sufficient ground for divorce; and that the +temperate partner be appointed legal guardian of the children.</p> + +<p>5th. That women be exempted from taxation until their right of +suffrage is practically acknowledged.</p> + +<p>6th. That women equally with men be entitled to claim trial +before a jury of their peers.</p> + +<p>These petitions should be firm and uncompromising in tone; and a +hearing should be demanded before Committees specially empowered +to consider and report them. In my judgment, the time is not +distant, when such petitions will be granted, and when justice, +the simple justice they ask, will be cordially, joyfully +rendered.</p> + +<p>I call then for the publication of a Declaration of Woman's +Rights, accompanied by Forms of Petitions, by the National +Woman's Rights Convention at their present session. In good hope,</p> + +<p class="ltr-right1 sc">William Henry Channing.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Your friend and brother,</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Miss Brown remarked:</p> + +<blockquote><p>There is one of these demands, the fourth, which for myself, I +should prefer to have amended thus—instead of the word +"divorce," I would insert "legally separated." The letter +otherwise meets my cordial and hearty approbation.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>MR. HIGGINSON'S LETTER.</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Worcester</span>, <i>Sept. 15, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—In writing to the New York Woman's Rights +Convention, I mentioned some few points of argument which no +opponents of this movement have ever attempted to meet. Suffer +me, in addressing the Cleveland Convention, to pursue a different +course, and mention some things which the friends of the cause +have not yet attempted to do.</p> + +<p>I am of a practical habit of mind, and have noticed with some +regret that most of the friends of the cause have rested their +hopes, thus far, chiefly upon abstract reasoning. This is +doubtless of great importance, and these reasonings have already +made many converts; because the argument is so entirely on one +side that every one who really listens to it begins instantly to +be convinced. The difficulty is, that the majority have not yet +begun to listen to it, and this, in great measure, because their +attention has not been called to the facts upon which it is +founded.</p> + +<p>Suppose, now, that an effort were made to develop the facts of +woman's wrongs. For instance:</p> + +<p>1st. We say that the laws of every State of this Union do great +wrong to woman, married and single, as to her person and +property, in her private and public relations. Why not procure a +digest of the laws on these subjects, then;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> prepared carefully, +arranged systematically, corrected up to the latest improvements, +and accompanied by brief and judicious commentaries? No such work +exists, except that by Mansfield, which is now obsolete, and in +many respects defective.</p> + +<p>2d. We complain of the great educational inequalities between the +sexes. Why not have a report, elaborate, statistical, and +accurate, on the provision for female education, public and +private, throughout the free States of this Union, at least? No +such work now exists.</p> + +<p>3d. We complain of the industrial disadvantages of women, and +indicate at the same time, their capacities for a greater variety +of pursuits. Why not obtain a statement, on as large a scale as +possible, first, of what women are doing now, commercially and +mechanically, throughout the Union (thus indicating their +powers); and secondly, of the embarrassments with which they +meet, the inequality of their wages, and all the other +peculiarities of their position, in these respects? An essay, in +short, on the Business Employments and Interests of Women; such +an essay as Mr. Hunt has expressed to me his willingness to +publish in his Merchants' Magazine. No such essay now exists.</p> + +<p>Each of these three documents would be an arsenal of arms for the +Woman's Rights advocate. A hundred dollars, appropriated to each +of these, would more than repay itself in the increased +subscriptions it would soon bring into the treasury of the cause. +That sum would, however, be hardly sufficient to repay even the +expenses of correspondence and traveling necessary for the last +two essays, or the legal knowledge necessary for the first.</p> + +<p>If there is, however, known to the Convention at Cleveland any +person qualified and ready to undertake either of the above +duties for the above sum (no person should undertake more than +one of the three investigations), I would urge you to make the +appointment. It will require, however, an accurate, clear-headed, +and industrious person, with plenty of time to bestow. Better not +have it done at all, than not have it done thoroughly, carefully, +and dispassionately. Let me say distinctly, that I can not be a +candidate for either duty, in my own person, for want of time to +do it in; though I think I could render some assistance, +especially in preparing materials for the third essay. I would +also gladly subscribe toward a fund for getting the work done.</p> + +<p>Permit me, finally, to congratulate you on the valuable results +of every Convention yet held to consider this question. I find +the fact everywhere remarked, that so large a number of women of +talent and character have suddenly come forward into a public +sphere. This phenomenon distinguishes this reform from all others +that have appeared in America, and illustrates with new meaning +the Greek myth of Minerva, born full-grown from the head of Jove. +And if (as some late facts indicate) this step forward only +promotes the Woman's Rights movement from the sphere of contempt +into the sphere of hostility and persecution—it is a step +forward, none the less. And I would respectfully suggest to the +noble women who are thus attacked, that they will only be the +gainers by such opposition, unless it lead to dissensions or +jealousies among themselves.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Yours cordially,</p> +<p class="ltr-right1 sc close">Thomas Wentworth Higginson.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0 close"><span class="smcap">Miss Lucy Stone</span>.</p> + +<p class="ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> remarked: This letter, you see, proposes that we shall +find some way, if possible, by which our complaints may be spread +before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> people. We find men and women in our conventions, +earnest and thoughtful, who are not drawn by mere curiosity, but +from a conscious want of just such a movement as this. They go +away and carry to their villages and hamlets the ideas they have +gathered here; and it is a cause for thankfulness to God that so +many go away to repeat what they have heard. But we have wanted +the documents to scatter among the people, as the Tract Society +scatters its sheets. And now Mr. Higginson proposes that we have +these essays.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The President of Oberlin College, Rev. Asa Mahan, was present during +all the sessions of the Convention, and took part in the debates. On +the subject of the Seneca Falls Declaration, he said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I can only judge of the effect of anything upon the public mind, +by its effect upon my own. It has been suggested that that +Declaration is a parody. Now you can not present a parody, +without getting up a laugh; and wherever it goes, it will never +be seriously considered. If a declaration is to be made, it +should be one that will be seriously considered by the public. I +would suggest that the Declaration of this Convention be entirely +independent of the other.</p> + +<p>I have a remark to make upon a sentiment advanced by Mrs. Rose. I +have this objection to the Declaration upon which she commented. +It is asserted there, that man has created a certain public +sentiment, and it is brought as a charge against the male sex. +Now I assert, that man never created that sentiment. I say it is +a wrong state of society totally, when, if woman shall be +degraded, a man committing the same offense shall not be degraded +also. There is perfect agreement between us there. But, that +Declaration charges that sentiment upon man. Now I assert that it +is chargeable upon woman herself; and that as she was first in +man's original transgression, she is first here.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: I heartily agree that we are both in fault; and yet we +are none in fault. I also said, that woman, on account of the +position in which she has been placed, by being dependent upon +man, by being made to look up to man, is the first to cast out +her sister. I know it and deplore it; hence I wish to give her +her rights, to secure her dependence upon herself. In regard to +that sentiment in the Declaration, our friend said that woman +created it. Is woman really the creator of the sentiment? The +laws of a country create sentiments. Who make the laws? Does +woman? Our law-makers give the popular ideas of morality.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Barker</span>: And the pulpit.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: I ought to have thought of it: not only do the +law-makers give woman her ideas of morality, but our pulpit +preachers. I beg pardon—no, I do not either—for Antoinette L. +Brown is not a priest. Our priests have given us public sentiment +called morals, and they have always made or recognized in daily +life, distinctions between man and woman. Man, from the time of +Adam to the present, has had utmost license, while woman must not +commit the slightest degree of "impropriety," as it is termed. +Why, even to cut her skirts shorter than the fashion, is +considered a moral delinquency, and stigmatized as such by more +than one pulpit, directly or indirectly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>You ask me who made this sentiment; and my friend yonder, says +woman. She is but the echo of man. Man utters the sentiment, and +woman echoes it. As I said before—for I have seen and felt it +deeply—she even appears to be quite flattered with her cruel +tyrant, for such he has been made to be—she is quite flattered +with the destroyer of woman's character—aye, worse than that, +the destroyer of woman's self-respect and peace of mind—and when +she meets him, she is flattered with his attentions. Why should +she not be? He is admitted into Legislative halls, and to all +places where men "most do congregate;" why, then, should she not +admit him to her parlor? The woman is admitted into no such +places; the Church casts her out; and a stigma is cast upon her, +for what is called the slightest "impropriety." Prescribed by no +true moral law, but by superstition and prejudice, she is cast +out not only from public places, but from private homes. And if +any woman would take her sister to her heart, and warm her there +again by sympathy and kindness, if she would endeavor once more +to infuse into her the spark of life and virtue, of morality and +peace, she often dare not so far encounter public prejudice as to +do it. It requires a courage beyond what woman can now possess, +to take the part of the woman against the villain. There are few +such among us, and though few, they have stood forward nobly and +gloriously. I will not mention names, though it is often a +practice to do so; I must, however, mention our sister, Lucretia +Mott, who has stood up and taken her fallen sister by the hand, +and warmed her at her own heart. But we can not expect every +woman to possess that degree of courage.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Abby Kelly Foster</span>: I want to say here that I believe the law is +but the writing out of public sentiment, and back of that public +sentiment, I contend lies the responsibility. Where shall we find +it? "'Tis education forms the common mind." It is allowed that we +are what we are educated to be. Now if we can ascertain who has +had the education of us, we can ascertain who is responsible for +the law, and for public sentiment. Who takes the infant from its +cradle and baptizes it "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy +Ghost;" and when that infant comes to childhood, who takes it +into Sabbath-schools; who on every Sabbath day, while its mind is +"like clay in the hands of the potter," moulds and fashions it as +he will; and when that child comes to be a youth, where is he +found, one-seventh part of the time; and when he comes to maturer +age, does he not leave his plow in the furrow, and his tools in +the shop, and one-seventh part of the time go to the place where +prayer is wont to be made? On that day no sound is heard but the +roll of the carriage wheels to church; all are gathered there, +everything worldly is laid aside, all thoughts are given entirely +to the Creator; for we are taught that we must not think our own +thoughts, but must lay our own wills aside, and come to be +moulded and fashioned by the priest. It is "holy time," and we +are to give ourselves to be wholly and entirely fashioned and +formed by another. That place is a holy place, and when we enter, +our eye rests on the "holy of holies;" he within it is a +"divine." The "divines" of the thirteenth century, the "divines" +of the fifteenth century, and the "divines" of the nineteenth +century, are no less "divines."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> What I say to-day is taken for +what it is worth, or perhaps for less than it is worth, because +of the prejudice against me; but when he who educates the people +speaks, "he speaks as one having authority," and is not to be +questioned. He claims, and has his claim allowed, to be specially +ordained and specially anointed from God. He stands mid-way +between Deity and man, and therefore his word has power.</p> + +<p>Aye, not only in middle age does the man come, leaving everything +behind him; but, in old age, "leaning on the top of his staff," +he finds himself gathered in the place of worship, and though his +ear may be dull and heavy, he leans far forward to catch the last +words of duty—of duty to God and duty to man. Duty is the +professed object of the pulpit, and if it does not teach that, +what in Heaven's name does it teach? This anointed man of God +speaks of moral duty to God and man. He teaches man from the +cradle to the coffin; and when that aged form is gathered within +its winding-sheet, it is the pulpit that says, "Dust to dust and +ashes to ashes."</p> + +<p>It is the pulpit, then, which has the entire ear of the +community, one-seventh part of the time. If you say there are +exceptions, very well, that proves the rule. If there is one +family who do not go to church, it is no matter, its teachings +are engendered by those who do go; hence I would say, not only +does the pulpit have the ear of the community one-seventh part of +the time of childhood, but it has it under circumstances for +forming and moulding and fashioning the young mind, as no other +educating influence can have it. The pulpit has it, not only +under these circumstances; it has it on occasions of marriage, +when two hearts are welded into one; on occasions of sickness and +death, when all the world beside is shut out, when the mind is +most susceptible of impressions from the pulpit, or any other +source.</p> + +<p>I say, then, that woman is not the author of this sentiment +against her fallen sister, and I roll back the assertion on its +source. Having the public ear one-seventh part of the time, if +the men of the pulpit do not educate the public mind, who does +educate it? Millions of dollars are paid for this education, and +if they do not educate the public mind in its morals, what, I +ask, are we paying our money for? If woman is cast out of +society, and man is placed in a position where he is respected, +then I charge upon the pulpit that it has been recreant to its +duty. If the pulpit should speak out fully and everywhere, upon +this subject, would not woman obey it? Are not women under the +special leading and direction of their clergymen? You may tell +me, that it is woman who forms the mind of the child; but I +charge it back again, that it is the minister who forms the mind +of the woman. It is he who makes the mother what she is; +therefore her teaching of the child is only conveying the +instructions of the pulpit at second hand. If public sentiment is +wrong on this (and I have the testimony of those who have spoken +this morning, that it is), the pulpit is responsible for it, and +has the power of changing it. The clergy claim the credit of +establishing public schools. Granted. Listen to the pulpit in any +matter of humanity, and they will claim the originating of it, +because they are the teachers of the people. Now, if we give +credit to the pulpit for establishing public schools, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> I +charge them with having a bad influence over those schools; and +if the charge can be rolled off, I want it to be rolled off; but +until it can be done, I hope it will remain there.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Mahan</span>: No class of persons had better be drawn into our +discussions to be denounced, unless there is serious occasion for +it. I name the pulpit with solemn awe, and unless there is +necessity for it, charges had better not be made against it. Now, +I say that no practice and no usage in the Church can be found, +by which a criminal man, in reference to the crimes referred to, +may be kept in the Church and a criminal woman cast out. There is +no such custom in any of the churches of God. After twenty years' +acquaintance with the Church, I affirm that the practice does not +exist. Now, in regard to the origin of public sentiment, can a +pulpit be found, will the lady who has just sat down, name a +pulpit in the wide world, where the principle is advocated, that +a criminal woman should be excluded, and the man upheld? Whatever +faults may be in it, that fault is not there.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: Not in theory, but in practice.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Mahan</span>: Neither in theory nor in practice. Where a wrong state +of society exists, the pulpit may be in fault for not reprobating +it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Abby K. Foster</span>: I do not wish to mention names, or I could do so. +I could give many cases where ministers have been charged with +such crimes, and where the evidence of guilt was almost +insurmountable, and yet they were not disciplined. They were +afraid it would injure the Church, I remember one minister who +was brought up for trial, and meantime they suspended him from +office, and paid him only half his salary, but retained him as a +church member; when, if it had been the case of a woman, and had +the slightest shade of suspicion been cast upon her, they would +not have waited even for trial and judgment. They would have cast +her out of the church at once.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">William Lloyd Garrison</span> said: I have but a few words to submit to +the meeting at the present time. In regard to the position of the +Church and clergy, on the subject of purity, I think it is +sufficient to remind the people here, that whatever may be the +external form observed by the Church toward its members, +pertaining to licentiousness, one thing is noticeable, and that +is, that the marriage relation is abolished among three and a +half millions of people; and the abolition of marriage on that +frightful scale, is in the main sanctioned and sustained by the +American Church and clergy. And if this does not involve them in +all that is impure, and licentious, and demoralizing, I know not +what can do so.</p> + +<p>As it respects the objection to our adopting the Declaration of +Independence as put forth at Seneca Falls, on the ground that it +is a parody, and that, being a parody, it will only excite the +mirthfulness of those who hear or read it in that form; I would +simply remark, that I very much doubt, whether, among candid and +serious men, there would be any such mirthfulness excited. At the +time that document was published, I read it, but I had forgotten +it till this morning, and on listening to it, my mind was deeply +impressed with its pertinacity and its power. It seemed to me, +the <i>argumentium ad hominum</i>, to this nation. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> measuring +the people of this country by their own standard. It was taking +their own words and applying their own principles to women, as +they have been applied to men. At the same time, I liked the +suggestion that we had better present an original paper to the +country; and on conferring with the Committee after the +adjournment, they agreed that it would be better to have such a +paper; and that paper will undoubtedly be prepared, although we +are not now ready to lay it before the Convention.</p> + +<p>It was this morning objected to the Declaration of sentiments, +that it implied that man was the only transgressor, that he had +been guilty of injustice and usurpation, and the suggestion was +also made, that woman should not be criminated, in this only, but +regarded rather as one who had erred through ignorance; and our +eloquent friend, Mrs. Rose, who stood on this platform and +pleaded with such marked ability, as she always does plead in any +cause she undertakes to speak upon, told us her creed. She told +us she did not blame anybody, really, and did not hold any man to +be criminal, or any individual to be responsible for public +sentiment, as regards the difference of criminality of man and +woman.</p> + +<p>For my own part, I am not prepared to respect that philosophy. I +believe in sin, therefore in a sinner; in theft, therefore in a +thief; in slavery, therefore in a slaveholder; in wrong, +therefore in a wrong-doer; and unless the men of this nation are +made by woman to see that they have been guilty of usurpation, +and cruel usurpation, I believe very little progress will be +made. To say all this has been done without thinking, without +calculation, without design, by mere accident, by a want of +light; can anybody believe this who is familiar with all the +facts in the case? Certainly, for one, I hope ever to lean to the +charitable side, and will try to do so. I, too, believe things +are done through misconception and misapprehension, which are +injurious, yes, which are immoral and unchristian; but only to a +limited extent. There is such a thing as intelligent wickedness, +a design on the part of those who have the light to quench it, +and to do the wrong to gratify their own propensities, and to +further their own interests. So, then, I believe, that as man has +monopolized for generations all the rights which belong to woman, +it has not been accidental, not through ignorance on his part; +but I believe that man has done this through calculation, +actuated by a spirit of pride, a desire for domination which has +made him degrade woman in her own eyes, and thereby tend to make +her a mere vassal.</p> + +<p>It seems to me, therefore, that we are to deal with the +consciences of men. It is idle to say that the guilt is common, +that the women are as deeply involved in this matter as the men. +Never can it be said that the victims are as much to be blamed as +the victimizer; that the slaves are to be as much blamed as the +slaveholders and slave-drivers; that the women who have no +rights, are to be as much blamed as the men who have played the +part of robbers and tyrants. We must deal with conscience. The +men of this nation, and the men of all nations, have no just +respect for woman. They have tyrannized over her deliberately, +they have not sinned through ignorance, but theirs is not the +knowledge that saves. Who can say truly, that in all things he +acts up to the light he enjoys, that he does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> not do something +which he knows is not the very thing, or the best thing he ought +to do? How few there are among mankind who are able to say this +with regard to themselves. Is not the light all around us? Does +not this nation know how great its guilt is in enslaving +one-sixth of its people? Do not the men of this nation know ever +since the landing of the pilgrims, that they are wrong in making +subject one-half of the people? Rely upon it, it has not been a +mistake on their part. It has been sin. It has been guilt; and +they manifest their guilt to a demonstration, in the manner in +which they receive this movement. Those who do wrong ignorantly, +do not willingly continue in it, when they find they are in the +wrong. Ignorance is not an evidence of guilt certainly. It is +only an evidence of a want of light. They who are only ignorant, +will never rage, and rave, and threaten, and foam, when the light +comes; but being interested and walking in the light, will always +present a manly front, and be willing to be taught, and be +willing to be told they are in the wrong.</p> + +<p>Take the case of slavery: How has the anti-slavery cause been +received? Not argumentatively, not by reason, not by entering the +free arena of fair discussion and comparing notes; the arguments +have been rotten eggs, and brickbats and calumny, and in the +southern portion of the country, a spirit of murder, and threats +to cut out the tongues of those who spoke against them. What has +this indicated on the part of the nation? What but conscious +guilt? Not ignorance, not that they had not the light. They had +the light and rejected it.</p> + +<p>How has this Woman's Rights movement been treated in this +country, on the right hand and on the left? This nation ridicules +and derides this movement, and spits upon it, as fit only to be +cast out and trampled underfoot. This is not ignorance. They know +all about the truth. It is the natural outbreak of tyranny. It is +because the tyrants and usurpers are alarmed. They have been and +are called to judgment, and they dread the examination and +exposure of their position and character.</p> + +<p>Women of America! you have something to blame yourselves for in +this matter, something to account for to God and the world. +Granted. But then you are the victims in this land, as the women +of all lands are, to the tyrannical power and godless ambition of +man; and we must show who are responsible in this matter. We must +test everybody here. Every one of us must give an account of +himself to God. It is an individual testing of character. Mark +the man or the woman who derides this movement, who turns his or +her back upon it; who is disposed to let misrule keep on, and you +will find you have a sure indication of character. You will find +that such persons are destitute of principles; for if you can +convict a man of being wanting in principle anywhere, it will be +everywhere. He who loves the right for its own sake, loves the +right everywhere. He who is a man of principle, is a man of +principle always. Let me see the man who is willing to have any +one of God's rational creatures sacrificed to promote anything, +aside from the well-being of that creature himself, and I will +show you an unprincipled man.</p> + +<p>It is so in this movement. Nobody argues against it, nobody +pretends<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> to have an argument. Your platform is free everywhere, +wherever, these Conventions are held. Yet no man comes forward in +a decent, respectable manner, to show you that you are wrong in +the charges you bring against the law-makers of the land. There +is no argument against it. The thing is self-evident. I should +not know how to begin to frame an argument. That which is +self-evident is greater than argument, and beyond logic. It +testifies of itself. You and I, as human beings, claim to have +rights, but I never think of going into an argument with anybody, +to prove that I ought to have rights. I have the argument and +logic here, it is in my own breast and consciousness; and the +logic of the schools becomes contemptible beside these. The more +you try to argue, the worse you are off. It is not the place for +metaphysics, it is the place for affirmation. Woman is the +counterpart of man; she has the same divine image, having the +same natural and inalienable rights as man. To state the +proposition is enough; it contains the argument, and nobody can +gainsay it, in an honorable way.</p> + +<p>I rose simply to say, that though I should deprecate making our +platform a theological arena, yet believing that men are guilty +of intentional wrong, in keeping woman subject, I believe in +having them criminated. You talk of injustice, then there is an +unjust man somewhere. Even Mrs. Rose could talk of the guilt of +society. Society! I know nothing of society. I know the guilt of +individuals. Society is an abstract term: it is made up of +individuals, and the responsibility rests with individuals. So +then, if we are to call men to repentance, there is such a thing +as wrong-doing intelligently, sinning against God and man, with +light enough to convict us, and to condemn us before God and the +world. Let this cause then be pressed upon the hearts and +consciences, against those who hold unjust rights in their +possession.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: I want to make a suggestion to the meeting. This is +the afternoon of the last day of our Convention. We have now +heard here the Bible arguments on both sides, and I may say to +them that I agree with both, that is, I agree with neither. A +gentleman, Dr. Nevin, I believe, said this morning that he also +would reply to Mr. Barker, this afternoon. We have already had +Mr. Barker answered. If any one else speaks farther on Miss +Brown's side, somebody will have to reply upon the other. "There +is a time and a season for everything," and this is no time to +discuss the Bible. I appeal to the universal experience of men, +to sustain me in asking whether the introduction of theological +quibbles, has not been a firebrand wherever they have been +thrown? We have a political question under discussion; let us +take that question and argue it with reference to right and +wrong, and let us argue it in the same way that your fathers and +mothers did, when they wanted to throw off the British yoke.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Nevin</span>: It will be unjust, not to permit me to speak.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span> moved that he be allowed, since he had already got the +floor, without attempting to limit him at all; but that +immediately after, the Convention should take up the resolutions.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> objected, because, if a third person should speak, then +a fourth must speak, or plead injustice, if not permitted to do +so.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>Considerable confusion ensued, Dr. Nevin, however, persisting in +speaking, whereupon, the President invited him to the platform. He +took the stand, assuring the President and officers, as he passed +them, that he wished only to reply to some misinterpretations of Mr. +Barker's, and would take but little of the time which they so much +needed for business. After commencing, however, with Bible in hand, he +launched out into an irrelevant eulogium upon "his Christ," etc.; from +that to personalities against Mr. Barker and his associates upon the +platform, calling him a "renegade priest," "an infidel from foreign +shores, who had come to teach Americans Christianity!"</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Garrison</span> rose to a point of order, with regard to the +speaker's personalities as to the nativity of anybody.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Nevin</span> retorted: The gentleman has been making personalities +against the whole priesthood.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Barker</span>: I expressly and explicitly made exceptions. I only +wish that Mr. Nevin may not base his remarks upon a phantom.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Nevin</span> continued wandering on for some time, when Stephen S. +Foster rose, to a point of order, as follows: "The simple +question before us, is whether woman is entitled to all the +rights to which the other sex is entitled. I want to say, that +the friend is neither speaking to the general question, nor +replying to Mr. Barker." Mr. Foster continued his remarks +somewhat, when Dr. Nevin demanded that the Chair protect him in +his right to the floor. The Chair decided that Mr. Foster was out +of order, in continuing to speak so long upon his point of order.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Foster</span> said he would not appeal to the house from the +decision of the Chair, because he wished to save time. He +continued a moment longer, and sat down.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Nevin</span> proceeded, and in the course of his remarks drew +various unauthorized inferences, as the belief of Mr. Barker, in +the doctrines of Christ. Mr. Barker repeatedly corrected him, but +Dr. Kevin very ingeniously continued to reaffirm them in another +shape. Finally, Mr. Garrison, in his seat, addressing the +President, said: "It is utterly useless to attempt to correct the +individual. He is manifestly here in the spirit of a blackguard +and rowdy." (A storm of hisses and cries of "down!" "down!")</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Nevin</span>: I am sorry friend Garrison has thought fit to use +those words. He has been in scenes and situations like these, and +has himself stood up and spoken in opposition to the opinions of +audiences, too often not to have by this time been taught +patience.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Clark</span>: Mr. Garrison is accustomed to call things by their +right names.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Nevin</span>: Very well, then I should call him—turning upon Mr. +G.—worse names than those. Only one word has fallen from woman +in this Convention, to which I can take exception, and that fell +from the lips of a lady whom I have venerated from my +childhood—it was, that the pulpit was the castle of cowards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span>: I said it was John Chambers' cowards' castle; and I do +say, that such ministers make it a castle of cowards; but I did +not wish to make the remark general, or apply it to all pulpits.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Nevin</span> continued some time longer.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Foster</span> asked, at the close of his remarks, if he believed it +was right for woman to speak what she believed to be the truth, +from the pulpit; to which he replied affirmatively, "there and +everywhere."</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: I might claim my right to reply to the gentleman who +has just taken his seat. I might be able to prove from the +arguments he brought forward, that he was incorrect in the +statements he made, but I waive that right, the time has been so +unjustly consumed already. To one thing only, I will reply. He +charged France with being licentious, and spoke of the degraded +position of French women, as the result of the infidelity of that +nation. I throw back the slander he uttered, in regard to French +women. I am not a French woman, but if there is no other here to +vindicate them, I will do it. The French women are as moral as +any other people in any country; and when they have not been as +moral, it has been because they have been priest-ridden. I love +to vindicate the rights of those who are not present to defend +themselves.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Stephen S. Foster</span>: Our "reverend" friend spoke of <i>dragging</i> +infidelity into this Convention, as though infidelity had to be +"dragged" here. I want to know if Christianity has been "dragged" +here, when the speakers made it the basis of their arguments. Who +ever dreamed of "dragging" Christianity here when they came to +advocate the rights of woman in the name of Christ? Why then +should any one stand up here and charge a speaker with "dragging" +infidelity when he advocates the rights of woman under the name +of an infidel. I supposed that Greek and Jew, Barbarian and +Scythian, Christian and Infidel had been invited to this +platform. One thing I know, we have had barbarians here, whether +we invited them or not; and I like to have barbarians here; I +know of no place where they are so likely to be civilized. I have +never yet been in a meeting managed by men when there was such +conflict of feelings, where there was not also ten times as much +confusion. And I think this meeting a powerful proof of the +superiority of our principles over those who oppose us.</p> + +<p>Tell me if Christianity has not ever held the reins in this +country; and what has it done for woman? I am talking now of the +popular idea of Christianity. What has Christianity done for +woman for two hundred years past? Why, to-day, in this Christian +nation, there are a million and a half of women bought and sold +like cattle; a million and a half of women who can not say who +are the fathers of their children! I ask, are we to depend on a +Christianity like that to restore woman her rights? I am speaking +of your idea of Christianity—of Dr. Nevin's idea of +Christianity—I shall come to the true Christianity by and by.</p> + +<p>One of two things is certain. The Church and Government deny to +woman her rights. There is not a denomination in this country +which places woman on an equality with man. Not one. Can you deny +it?</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span>: Except the Progressive Friends.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Foster</span>: They are not a denomination, they have broken from +all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> bands and taken the name of the Friends of Progress. I say +there is not a religious society, having an organized body of +ministers, which admits woman's equality in the Gospel. Now, tell +me, in God's name, what we are to hope from the Church, when she +leaves a million and a half of women liable to be brought upon +the auction-block to-day? If the Bible is against woman's +equality, what are you to do with it? One of two things: either +you must sit down and fold up your hands, or you must discard the +divine authority of the Bible. Must you not? You must acknowledge +the correctness of your position, or deny the authority of the +Bible. If you admit the construction put upon the Bible by friend +Barker, to be a false one, or Miss Brown's construction to be the +true one, what then? Why, then, the priesthood of the country are +blind leaders of the blind. We have got forty thousand of them, +Dr. Nevin included with the rest. He stands as an accredited +Presbyterian, giving the hand of fellowship to the fraternity, +and withholding it from Garrison and others—he could not even +pray a few years ago in an anti-slavery meeting. Now, either the +Bible is against the Church and clergy, or else they have +misinterpreted it for two hundred years, yes, for six thousand +years. You must then either discard the Bible or the priesthood, +or give up Woman's Rights.</p> + +<p>A friend says he does not regret this discussion. Why, it is the +only thing we have done effectively since we have been here. When +we played with jack-straws, we were hail-fellow with those who +now oppose us. When you come to take up the great questions of +the movement, when you propose to man, to divide with woman the +right to rule, then a great opposition is aroused. The ballot-box +is not worth a straw until woman is ready to use it. Suppose a +law were passed to-morrow, declaring woman's rights equal with +those of men, why, the facts would remain the same. The moment +that woman is ready to go to the ballot-box, there is not a +Constitution that will stand in the country. In this very city, +in spite of the law, I am told that negroes go to the ballot-box +and vote, without let or hindrance; and woman will go when she +resolves upon it. What we want for woman is the right of speech; +and in Dr. Nevin's reply to Mrs. Foster, does he mean that he +would be willing to accord the right of speech to woman and admit +her into the pulpit? I don't believe he would admit Antoinette +Brown to his pulpit. I was sorry Mrs. Foster did not ask him if +he would. I don't believe he dares to do it. I would give him a +chance to affirm or deny it. I hope some other friend will give +him that opportunity, and that Antoinette Brown may be able to +say that she was invited by the pastor of one of the largest +churches in this beautiful city, to speak to his people in his +pulpit; but if he does it, he is not merely one among a thousand, +but one among ten thousand.</p> + +<p>I wish to have it understood that an infidel is as much at home +here as a Christian; and that his principles are no more +"dragged" here than those of a Christian. For myself, I claim to +be a Christian. No man ever heard me speak of Christ or of His +doctrines, but with the profoundest reverence. Still, I welcome +upon this platform those who differ as far as possible from me. +And the Atheist no more "drags" in his Atheism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> provided he only +shows that Atheism itself demands woman's equality, and is no +more out of order than I, when I undertake to show that +Christianity preaches one law, one faith, and one line of duty +for all.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span>: We ought to thank Dr. Nevin for his kindly fears, lest +we women should be brought out into the rough conflicts of life, +and overwhelmed by infidelity. I thank him, but at the same time +I must say, that if we have been able this afternoon to sit +uninjured by the hard conflict in which he has been engaged, if +we can maintain our patience at seeing him so laboriously build +up a man of straw, and then throw it down and destroy it, I think +we may be suffered to go into the world and bear many others +unharmed.</p> + +<p>Again, I would ask in all seriousness, by what right does +Orthodoxy give the invidious name of Infidel, affix the stigma of +infidelity, to those who dissent from its cherished opinions? +What right have the advocates of moral reform, woman's rights, +abolition, temperance, etc., to call in question any man's +religious opinions? It is the assumption of bigots. I do not want +now to speak invidiously, and say sectarian bigots, but I mean +the same kind of bigotry which Jesus rebuked so sharply, when He +called certain men "blind leaders of the blind."</p> + +<p>Now, we hold Jesus up as an example, when we perceive the +assumption of clergymen, that all who venture to dissent from a +given interpretation, must necessarily be infidels; and thus +denounce them as infidels; for it was only by inference, that one +clergyman this afternoon made Joseph Barker deny the Son of God. +By inference in the same way, he might be made to deny everything +that is good, and praiseworthy, and true.</p> + +<p>I want we should consider these things upon this platform. I am +not troubled with difficulties about the Bible. My education has +been such that I look to that Source whence all the inspiration +of the Bible comes. I love the truths of the Bible. I love the +Bible because it contains so many truths; but I never was +educated to love the errors of the Bible; therefore it does not +startle me to hear Joseph Barker point to some of those errors. +And I can listen to the ingenious interpretation of the Bible, +given by Antoinette Brown, and am glad to hear those who are so +skilled in the outward, when I perceive that they are beginning +to turn the Bible to so good an account. It gives evidence that +the cause is making very good progress. Why, my friend Nevin has +had to hear the temperance cause denounced as infidel, and proved +so by Solomon; and he has, no doubt, seen the minister in the +pulpit, turning over the pages of the Bible to find examples for +the wrong. But the Bible will never sustain him in making this +use of its pages, instead of using it rationally, and selecting +such portions of it as would tend to corroborate the right; and +these are plentiful; for notwithstanding the teaching of +theology, and men's arts in the religious world, men have ever +responded to righteousness and truth, when it has been advocated +by the servants of God, so that we need not fear to bring truth +to an intelligent examination of the Bible. It is a far less +dangerous assertion to say that God is unchangeable, than that +man is infallible.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>In this debate on the Bible-position of woman, Mr. Garrison having +always been a close student of that Book, was so clear in his +positions, and so ready in his quotations, that he carried the +audience triumphantly with him. The Rev. Dr. Nevin came out of the +contest so chagrined, that, losing all sense of dignity, on meeting +Mr. Garrison in the vestibule of the hall, at the close of the +Convention, he seized him by the nose and shook him vehemently. Mr. +Garrison made no resistance, and when released, he calmly surveyed his +antagonist and said, "Do you feel better, my friend? do you hope thus +to break the force of my argument?" The friends of the Rev. Mr. Nevin +were so mortified with his ungentlemanly behavior that they suppressed +the scene in the vestibule as far as possible, in the Cleveland +journals, and urged the ladies who had the report of the Convention in +charge, to make no mention of it in their publication. Happily, the +fact has been resurrected in time to point a page of history.</p> + +<p>A question arising in the Convention as to the colleges, Antoinette +Brown remarked:</p> + +<blockquote><p>That much and deeply as she loved Oberlin, she must declare that +it has more credit for liberality to woman than it deserves. +Girls are not allowed equal privileges and advantages there; they +are not allowed instructions in elocution, nor to speak on +commencement day. The only college in the country that places all +students on an equal footing, without distinction of sex or +color, is McGrawville College in Central New York. Probably +Antioch College, Ohio (President Horace Mann), will also admit +pupils on the same ground.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> said she knew of no college where both sexes enjoyed +equal advantages. It matters not, however, if there be. We do not +deal with exceptions, but with general principles.</p> + +<p>A sister has well remarked that we do not believe that man is the +cause of all our wrongs. We do not fight men—we fight bad +principles. We war against the laws which have made men bad and +tyrannical. Some will say, "But these laws are made by men." +True, but they were made in ignorance of right and wrong, made in +ignorance of the eternal principles of justice and truth. They +were sanctioned by superstition, and engrafted on society by long +usage. The Declaration issued by the Seneca Falls Convention is +an instrument no less great, no less noble than that to which it +bears a resemblance.</p> + +<p>In closing she alluded to that portion of Mr. Channing's +Declaration which referred to the code of morals by which a +fallen woman is forever ruined, while the man who is the cause +of, or sharer in her crime, is not visited by the slightest +punishment. "It is time to consider whether what is wrong in one +sex can be right in another. It is time to consider why if a +woman commits a fault, too often from ignorance, from +inexperience, from poverty, because of degradation and +oppression—aye! because of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> designing, cruel man; being made +cruel by ignorance of laws and institutions,—why such a being, +in her helplessness, in her ignorance, in her inexperience and +dependency—why a being thus situated, not having her mind +developed, her faculties called out: and not allowed to mix in +society to give her experience, not being acquainted with human +nature, is drawn down, owing often to her best and tenderest +feelings; in consequence also of being accustomed to look up to +man as her superior, as her guardian, as her master,—why such a +being should be cast out of the pale of humanity, while he who +committed the crime, or who is, if not the main, the great +secondary cause of it,—he who is endowed with superior +advantages of education and experience, he who has taken +advantage of that weakness and confiding spirit, which the young +always have,—I ask, if the victim is cast out of the pale of +society, shall the despoiler go free?" The question was answered +by a thunder of "No! no! no!" from all parts of the house. A +profound sensation was observable. "And yet," said Mrs. Rose, "he +does go free!!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Ernestine L. Rose, says the <i>Plain Dealer</i>, is the master-spirit of +the Convention. She is described as a Polish lady of great beauty, +being known in this country as an earnest advocate of human liberty. +Though a slight foreign accent is perceptible, her delivery is +effective. She spoke with great animation. The impression made by her +address was favorable both to the speaker and the cause. In speaking +of the <i>personnel</i> of the platform, it says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. Lydia Ann Jenkins, of New York, who made an effective +speech, is habited in the Bloomer costume, and appears to much +advantage on the stage. Her face is amiable, and her delivery +excellent. She is as fine a female orator as we have heard. The +address embodied the usual arguments offered in favor of this +cause, and were put in a forcible and convincing manner. We say +convincing, because such a speaker would convince the most +obdurate unbeliever against his will.</p> + +<p>Miss Stone is somewhat celebrated for an extraordinary enthusiasm +in the cause of her sex, and for certain eccentricities of speech +and thought, as well as of outward attire. She is as independent +in mind as in dress. She is as ready to throw off the restraints +society seems to have placed on woman's mind, as she is to cast +aside what she considers an absurd fashion in dress. Without +endorsing the eliminated petticoats, we can not but admire Miss +Stone's "stern old Saxon pluck," and her total independence of +the god, Fashion. Her dress is first a black velvet coat with +collar, fastened in front with buttons, next a skirt of silk, +reaching to the knees, then "she wears the breeches" of black +silk, with neat-fitting gaiters. Her hair is cut short and combed +straight back. Her face is not beautiful, but there is mind in +it; it is earnest, pleasant, prepossessing. Miss Stone must be +set down as a lady of no common abilities, and of uncommon energy +in the pursuit of a cherished idea. She is a marked favorite in +the Conventions.</p></blockquote> + +<p>During the proceedings, Miss Brown, in a long speech on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> Bible, +had expounded many doctrines and passages of Scripture in regard to +woman's position, in direct opposition to the truths generally +promulgated by General Assemblies, and the lesser lights of the +Church. Mrs. Emma R. Coe took an equally defiant position toward the +Bench and the Bar, coolly assuming that she understood the spirit of +Constitutions and Statute Laws. Some lawyer had made a criticism on +the woman's petition then circulating in Ohio, and essayed to give the +Convention some light on the laws of the State, to all of which Mrs. +Coe says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I have very little to say this evening beyond reading a letter, +received by me to-day. (Here follows the letter). I beg leave to +inform the gentleman, if he is present, that I believe I +understand these laws, and this point particularly, very nearly +as well as himself; and that I am well acquainted with the laws +passed since 1840, as with those enacted previous to that time. I +would also inform him that the committee, some of whom are much +better read in law than myself, were perfectly aware of the +existence of the statutes he mentions, but did not see fit to +incorporate them into the petition, not only on account of their +great length, but because they do not at all invalidate the +position which the petition affects to establish, viz: the +inequality of the sexes before the law. Their insertion, +therefore, would have been utterly superfluous. This letter +refers, evidently, to that portion of the petition which treats +of the equalization of property, which I will now read. (Then +follows the reading of one paragraph of the petition). Again I +refer you to the letter, the first paragraph of which is as +follows:</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Emma R. Coe, will you look at Vol. 44, General Laws of +Ohio, page 75, where you will find that the property of the wife +can not be taken for the debts of her husband, etc.; and all +articles of household furniture, and goods which a wife shall +have brought with her in marriage, or which shall have come to +her by bequest, gift, etc., after marriage, or purchased with her +separate money or other property, shall be exempt from liability +for the debts of her husband, during her life, and during the +life of any heir of her body."</p> + +<p>Very true: we readily admit the law of which the gentleman has +given an abstract; and so long as the wife holds the property in +her hands, just as she received it, it can not be taken for the +husband's debts, but the moment she permits her husband to +convert that property into another shape, it becomes his, and may +be taken for his debts. The gentleman I presume will admit this +at once.</p> + +<p>The next paragraph of the letter reads thus: "Also in Vol. 51, +General Laws of Ohio, page 449, the act regulating descent, etc., +provides, that real estate, which shall have come to the wife by +descent, devise, or gift, from her ancestor, shall +descend—first, to her children, or their legal representatives. +Second, if there be no children, or their legal representatives +living, the estate shall pass to the brothers and sisters of the +intestate, who may be of the blood of the ancestor from whom the +estate came, or their legal representatives," etc. True again: So +long as the wife<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> holds real estate in her own name, in title, +and in title only, it is hers; for her husband even then controls +its profits, and if she leave it so, it will descend to her heirs +so long as she has an heir, and so long as she can trace the +descent. But if she suffers her husband to sell that property and +receive the money, it instantly becomes his; and instead of +descending to her heirs, it descends to his heirs. This the +gentleman will not deny. Now, we readily admit, that while the +wife abides by the statutes, of which our article has given us an +abstract, her husband can not take the property from her, he can +only take the use of it. But the moment she departs from the +statute, she comes under the provisions of the common law; which, +when they do not conflict, is equally binding in Ohio, as the +statute law. And in this case the common and statute laws do not +conflict. Departing from the statute, that is, suffering her +property to be exchanged, the provision is thus: (Here follows +the common law, taken from the petition). I have nothing further +to add on this point, but will quote the last paragraphs in the +letter.</p> + +<p>"If you would know what our laws are, you must refer to the laws +passed in Ohio since 1840."</p> + +<p>This has already been answered.</p> + +<p>"You said last night, that the property of the wife passed to the +husband, even to his sixteenth cousin! Will you correct your +error? And oblige</p> + +<p class="author close">A Buckeye."</p> + +<p>I should be extremely happy to oblige the gentleman, but having +committed no error there is nothing to correct; and I do not, +therefore, see that I can in conscience comply with his request. +I am, however, exceedingly thankful for any expression of +interest from that quarter. There are other laws which might be +mentioned, which really give woman an apparent advantage over +man; yet, having no relevancy to the subject in the petition, we +did not see fit to introduce them. One of these is, that no woman +shall be subject to arrest and imprisonment for debt; while no +man, that is, no ordinary man, none unless he has a halo of +military glory around his brow, is held sacred from civil process +of this kind. But this exemption is of very little benefit to +woman, since, if the laws were as severe to her as to man, she +would seldom risk the penalty. For this there are two very good +reasons. One is, that conscious of her inability to discharge +obligations of this kind, she has little disposition to run +deeply into debt; and the other is, that she has not the credit +to do it if she wished! If, however, she does involve herself in +this way, the law exempts her from imprisonment. This, perhaps, +is offered as a sort of palliation for the disabilities which she +suffers in other respects. The only object of the petition is, I +believe, that the husband and wife be placed upon a legal and +political equality. If the law gives woman an advantage over man, +we deprecate it as much as he can. Partiality to either, to the +injury of the other, is wrong in principle, and we must therefore +oppose it. We do not wish to be placed in the position which the +husband now occupies. We do not wish that control over his +interests, which he may now exercise over the interests of the +wife. We would no sooner intrust this power to woman than to man. +We would never place her in authority over her husband.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<p>The question of woman's voting, of the propriety of woman's +appearing at the polls, is already settled. See what has been +done in Detroit: On the day of the late election, the women went +to the offices and stores of gentlemen, asking them if they had +voted. If the reply happened to be in the negative, as was often +the case, the next question was, "Will you be kind enough to take +this vote, sir, and deposit it in the ballot-box for me?" Which +was seldom, if ever, refused. And so, many a man voted for the +"Maine Law," who would not, otherwise, have voted at all. But +this was not all; many women kept themselves in the vicinity of +the polls, and when they found a man undecided, they ceased not +their entreaties until they had gained him to the Temperance +cause. More than this, two women finding an intemperate man in +the street, talked to him four hours, before they could get him +to promise to vote as they wished. Upon his doing so, they +escorted him, one on each side, to the ballot-box, saw him +deposit the vote they had given him, and then treated him to a +good supper.</p> + +<p>Now, this is more than any Woman's Rights advocate ever thought +of proposing. Yet no one thinks of saying a word against it, +because it was done for temperance. But how much worse would it +have been for those women to have gone to the polls with a +brother or husband, instead of with this man? Or to have +deposited two votes in perhaps five minutes' time, than to have +spent four hours in soliciting some other person to give one? Why +is it worse to go to the ballot-box with our male friends, than +to the church, parties, or picnics, etc.? If a man should control +the political principles of his wife, he should also control her +religious principles.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Charles C. Burleigh</span>: Among the resolutions which have been acted +upon and adopted by this meeting is one which affirms that for +man to attempt to fix the sphere of woman, is cool assumption. I +purpose to take that sentiment for the text of a few words of +remark this evening, for it is just there that I think the whole +controversy hinges. It is not so much what is woman's appropriate +sphere; it is not so much what she may do and what she may not +do, that we have to contend about; as whether one human being or +one class of human beings is to fix for another human being, or +another class of human beings, the proper field of action and the +proper mode of employing the faculties which God has given them. +If I understand aright the principles of liberty, just here is +the point of controversy, between the despot and the champion of +human rights, in any department. Just when one human being +assumes to decide for another what is that other's sphere of +action, just then despotism begins. Everything else is but the +legitimate consequence of this.</p> + +<p>I have said it is not so much a matter of controversy what woman +may do or may not do. Why, it would be a hard matter to say what +has been recognized by men themselves, as the legitimate sphere +of woman. We have a great deal of contradiction and opposition +nowadays when woman attempts to do this, that, or the other +thing, although that very thing has sometime or other, and +somewhere or other, been performed or attempted to be performed +by woman, with man's approval. If you talk about politics, why, +woman's participation in politics is no new thing, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> no mere +assumption on her part, but has been recognized as right and +proper by men.</p> + +<p>You have already been told of distinguished women who have borne +a very prominent part in politics, both in ancient and modern +times, and yet the multitude of men have believed and +acknowledged that it was all right; and are now acknowledging it +with all the enthusiasm of devoted loyalty. They are now +acknowledging it in the case of an Empire on which it has been +said that the sun never sets—an Empire, "The morning drumbeat of +whose military stations circles the earth with one continued peal +of the martial airs of England." It is recognized, too, not by +the ignorant and thoughtless only, or the radical and heretical +alone, but also by multitudes of educated and pious men. That +bench of Bishops, sitting in the House of Lords, receiving its +very warrant to act politically, from the hands of a woman, +listening to a speech from a woman on the throne, endorses every +day the doctrine that a woman may engage in politics.</p> + +<p>If you seize the young tree, when it just begins to put forth to +the air and sunshine and dews, and bend it in all directions for +fear it will not grow in proper shape, do not hold the tree +accountable for its distortion. There is no danger that from +acorns planted last year, pine trees will grow, if you do not +take some special care to prevent it. There is no danger that +from an apple will grow an oak, or, from a peach-stone an elm; +leave nature to work out her own results, or, in other words, +leave God to work out His own purpose, and be not so anxious to +intrude yourselves upon Him and to help Him govern the Universe +He has made. Some of us have too high an estimation of His +goodness and wisdom to be desirous of thrusting ourselves into +His government. We are willing to leave the nature of woman to +manifest itself in its own aptitudes. Try it. Did one ever trust +in God and meet with disappointment? Never! Tyrants always say it +is not safe to trust their subjects with freedom. Austria says it +is not safe to trust the Hungarian with freedom. Man says woman +is not safe in freedom, she will get beyond her sphere.</p> + +<p>After having oppressed her for centuries, what wonder if she +should rebound, and at the first spring, even manifest that law +of reaction somewhat to your inconvenience, and somewhat even +beyond the dictates of the wisest judgment. What then? Is the +fault to be charged to the removal of the restraint; or is it to +be charged to the first imposition of the restraint? The +objection of our opponents remind one of the Irishman walking +among the bushes just behind his companion, who caught hold of a +branch, and passing on, let it fly back into the face of his +friend; "Indade I am thankful to ye!" said the injured man, "for +taking hold of that same; it a'most knocked the brains out of me +body as it was, an' sure, if ye hadn't caught hold of it, it +would have kilt me intirely!"</p> + +<p>The winds come lashing over your lake, the waters piling upon +each other, wave rolling upon wave, and you may say what a pity +we could not bridge the lake over with ice, so as to keep down +these billows which may rise so high as to submerge us. But stand +still! God has fixed the law upon the waters, "thus far shalt +thou come"; and as you watch the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> ever piling floods, it secures +their timely downfall. When they come as far as their appointed +limits, the combing crest of the wave tells that the hour of +safety has arrived, proving that God was wiser than you in +writing down laws for His creation. We need not bridge over +woman's nature with the ice of conventionalism, for fear she will +swell up, aye, and overflow the continent of manhood. There is no +danger. Trust to the nature God has given to humanity, and do not +except the nature He has given to this portion of humanity.</p> + +<p>But I need not dwell upon such an argument before an audience who +have witnessed the bearing of women in this Convention. It is a +cool, aye, insolent assumption for man to prescribe the sphere of +woman. What is the sphere of woman? Clearly, you say, her powers, +her natural instincts and desires determine her sphere. Who, +then, best knows those instincts and desires? Is it he who has +all his knowledge at second-hand, rather than she who has it in +all her consciousness?</p> + +<p>If, then, you find in the progress of the race hitherto, that +woman has revealed herself pure, true, and beautiful, and lofty +in spirit, just in proportion as she has enjoyed the right to +reveal herself; if this is the testimony of all past experience, +I ask you where you will find the beginning of an argument +against the claim of woman to the right to enlarge her sphere yet +more widely, than she has hitherto done. Wait until you see some +of these apprehended evils, aye, a little later even, than that, +until you see the natural subsidence of the reaction from the +first out-bound of their oppression, before you tell us it is not +safe or wise to permit woman the enlargement of her own sphere.</p> + +<p>The argument which I have thus based upon the very nature of man, +and of humanity and God, is confirmed in every particular—is +most impregnably fortified on every point, by the facts of all +past experience and all present observation; and out of all this +evidence of woman's right and fitness to determine her own +sphere, I draw a high prophecy of the future. I look upon this +longing of hers for a yet higher and broader field, as an +evidence that God designed her to enter upon it.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Want, is the garner of our bounteous Sire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hunger, the promise of its own supply."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I might even add the rest of the passage as an address to woman +herself, who still hesitates to assert the rights which she feels +to be hers and longs to enjoy; I might repeat to her in the words +of the same poet:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We weep, because the good we seek is not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When but for <i>this</i> it is not, that we weep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We creep in dust to wail our lowly lot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which were not lowly, if we scorned to creep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That which we <i>dare</i> we shall be, when the will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bows to prevailing Hope, its would-be to fulfill."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It can be done. This demand of woman can be nobly and +successfully asserted. It can be, because it is but the +out-speaking of the divine sentiment of woman. Let us not then +tremble, or falter, or despair—I know we shall not. I know that +those who have taken hold of this great work, and carried it +forward hitherto, against obloquy, and persecution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> and +contempt, will not falter now. No! Every step is bearing us to a +higher eminence, and thus revealing a broader promise of hope, a +brighter prospect of success. Though they who are foremost in +this cause must bear obloquy and reproach, and though it may seem +to the careless looker-on, that they advance but little or not at +all; they know that the instinct which impels them being divine, +it can not be that they shall fail. They know that every quality +of their nature, every attribute of their Creator, is pledged to +their success.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"They never fail who gravely plead for right,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">God's faithful martyrs can not suffer loss.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their blazing faggots sow the world with light,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Heaven's gate swings open on their bloody cross."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Pres. <span class="smcap">Mahan</span>: If I would not be interrupting at all, there are a +few thoughts having weight upon my mind which I should be very +happy to express. I have nothing to say to excite controversy at +all, but there are things which are said, the ultimate bearing of +which I believe is not always understood. I have heard during +these discussions, things said which bear this aspect—that the +relation of ruler and subject is that of master and slave. The +idea of the equality of woman with man, seems to be argued upon +this idea. I am not now to speak whether it is lawful for man to +rule the woman at all; but I wish to make a remark upon the +principles of governor and governed. The idea seems to be +suggested that if the wife is subject to the husband, the wife is +a slave to the man—if He has said, in the sense in which some +would have it, even that the woman should be subject to the man, +and the wife to the husband, you will find that in no other +position will woman attain her dignity; for God has never dropped +an inadvertent thought, never penned an inadvertent line. There +is not a law or principle of His being, that whoever penned that +Book did not understand. There is not a right which that Book +does not recognize; and there is not a duty which man owes to +woman, or woman to man, that is not there enjoined. It is my firm +conviction, that there is but one thing to be done on this +subject—if the women of this State want the elective franchise, +they can have it. I don't believe it is in the heart of man to +refuse it. Only spread the truth, adhere to Woman's Rights, and +adhere to that one principle, and when the people are convinced +that her claim is just, it will be allowed.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of Charles C. Burleigh the <i>Plain Dealer</i> says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>This noble poet had not said much in the Convention. He had taken +no part in the interferences and interruptions of other +gentlemen, Mr. Barker and Mr. Nevin for instance.</p> + +<p>When at length he took the stand he did indeed speak out a noble +defense of woman's rights. It was the only speech made before the +Convention by man in which the cause of woman was advocated +exclusively. When Mr. Burleigh arose, two or three geese hissed; +when he closed, a shower of applause greeted him.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We hope the reader will not weary of these debates. As the efforts of +many of our early speakers were extemporaneous, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> little of what +they said will be preserved beyond this generation unless recorded +now. These debates show the wit, logic, and readiness of our women; +the clear moral perception, the courage, and honesty of our noble +Garrison; the skill and fiery zeal of Stephen Foster; the majesty and +beauty of Charles Burleigh; and, in Asa Mahan, the vain struggles of +the wily priest, to veil with sophistry the degrading slavery of +woman, in order to reconcile her position as set forth in certain +man-made texts of Scripture with eternal justice and natural law. Mr. +Mahan would not have been willing himself, to accept even the mild +form of subjection he so cunningly assigns to woman. The deadliest +opponents to the recognition of the equal rights of woman, have ever +been among the orthodox clergy as a class.</p> + + +<h3>WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p>Just previous to this, two stormy Conventions had been held in the +city of New York; one called to discuss Woman's Rights, the other a +World's Temperance Convention. Thus many of the leaders of each +movement met for the first time to measure their powers of logic and +persuasion.</p> + +<p>Antoinette L. Brown was appointed a delegate by two Temperance +associations. Her credentials were accepted, and she took her seat as +a member of the Convention; but when she arose to speak a tempest of +indignation poured upon her from every side. As this page in history +was frequently referred to in the Cleveland Convention, we will let +Miss Brown here tell her own story:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Why did we go to that World's Convention? We went there because +the call was extended to "the world." On the 12th of May a +preliminary meeting had been held at New York—the far-famed +meeting at the Brick Chapel. There, because of the objection +taken by some who were not willing to have the "rest of mankind" +come into the Convention, a part of those present withdrew. They +thought they would have a "Whole World's Temperance Convention," +and they thought well, as the result proved. When it was known +that such a Convention would be called, that all persons would be +invited to consider themselves members of the Convention, who +considered themselves members of the world, some of the leaders +of the other Convention—the half world's Convention—felt that +if it were possible, they would not have such a meeting held; +therefore they took measures to prevent it. Now, let me read a +statement from another delegate to that Convention, Rev. Wm. H. +Channing, of Rochester. (Miss Brown read an extract from the +<i>Tribune</i>, giving the facts in regard to her appointment as +delegate, by a society of long standing, in Rochester, and +extracts, also, of letters from persons prominent in the Brick +Chapel meeting, urging Mr. Greeley to persuade his party to +abandon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> the idea of a separate Convention, a part of such +writers pleading that it was an unnecessary movement, as the call +to the World's Temperance Convention was broad enough, and +intended to include all). This appointment was made without my +knowledge or consent, but with my hearty endorsement, when I knew +it was done. Let me state also, that a society organized and for +years in existence in South Butler, N. Y., also appointed +delegates to that Convention, and myself among the number. They +did so because, though they knew the call invited all the world +to be present, yet they thought it best to have their delegations +prepared with credentials, if being prepared would do any good.</p> + +<p>When we reached New York, we heard some persons saying that women +would be received as delegates, and others saying they would not. +We thought we ought to test that matter, and do it, too, as +delicately and quietly as possible. There were quite a number of +ladies appointed delegates to that meeting, but it was felt that +not many would be necessary to make the test of their sincerity.</p> + +<p>We met at the Woman's Bights Convention on the day of the opening +of the half world's Temperance Convention, and had all decided to +be content with our own Temperance Convention, which had passed +off so quietly and triumphantly. Wendell Phillips and I sat +reconsidering the whole matter. I referred him to the fact, which +had come to me more than once during the few last days, that the +officials of the Convention in session at Metropolitan Hall, and +others, had been saying that women would be received no doubt; +that the Brick Chapel meeting was merely an informal preliminary +meeting, and its decisions of no authority upon the Convention +proper; and that the women were unjust in saying, that their +brethren would not accept their co-operation before it had been +fairly tested. Then, said Phillips, "Go, by all means; if they +receive you, you have only to thank them for rebuking the action +of the Brick Chapel meeting. Then we will withdraw and come back +to our own meeting. If, on the other hand, they do not receive +you, we will quietly and without protest, withdraw, and, in that +case, not be gone half an hour." I turned and invited one lady, +now on this platform, as gentle and lady-like as woman can be, +Caroline M. Severance, of your own city, to go with me. She said: +"I am quite willing to go, both in compliance with your wish, and +from interest in the cause itself. But I am not a delegate, and I +have in this city venerated grandparents, whose feelings I +greatly regard, and would not willingly or unnecessarily wound; +so that I prefer to go in quietly, but take no active part in +what will seem to them an antagonistic position for woman, and +uncalled for on my part. In that way I am quite ready to go." And +so we went out from our own meeting, Mr. Phillips, Mrs. S., and +myself; none others went with us, nor knew we were going.</p> + +<p>After arriving at Metropolitan Hall, accompanied by these +friends, I did quietly what we had predetermined was the best to +do. The Secretary was sitting upon the platform. I handed him my +credentials from both societies. He said: "I can not now tell +whether you will be received or not. There is a resolution before +the house, stating, in substance, that they would receive all +delegates without distinction of color<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> or sex. If this +resolution is adopted, you can be received." I then left my +credentials in his hands, and went down from the platform. It was +rather trying, in the sight of all that audience, to go upon the +platform and come down again; and I shall not soon forget the +sensations with which I stepped off the platform. After a little +time they decided that the call admitted all delegates. I thought +this decision settled my admission, and I went again upon the +platform. In the meantime a permanent organization was effected. +I went there, for the purpose of thanking them for their course, +and merely to express my sympathy with the cause and their +present movement, and then intended to leave the Hall. I arose, +and inquired of the President, Neal Dow, if I was rightly a +member of the Convention. He said, "Yes, if you have credentials +from any abstinence societies." I told him I had, and then +attempted to thank him. There was no appeal from the President's +decision, but yet they would not receive my expression of thanks; +therefore I took my seat and waited for a better opportunity.</p> + +<p>And now let me read a paragraph again from this paper, the +temperance organ of your State. The writer is still Gen. Carey. +(The extract intimated that Miss Brown, supported and urged on by +several others, made an unwomanly entrance into the Convention, +and upon the platform itself, which was reserved for officers, +and as it would imply, already filled). There were only the two +other persons I mentioned who went with me to that Convention, +but they took their seats back among the audience, and did not +approach the platform. There were friends I found in that +audience to sustain me, but none others came with me for that +purpose. The platform was far from being full; it is a large +platform, and there might a hundred persons sit there, and not +incommode each other at all.</p> + +<p>(Here Miss Brown read another extract from the same article, in +which Gen. Carey implies, that concerted measures had been set on +foot at the Woman's Rights meeting at the Tabernacle, the evening +after Miss Brown's first attempt at a hearing before the +Temperance Convention, for coming in upon them again <i>en masse</i>, +and revengefully).</p> + +<p>Not a word was said that night upon the subject in the Convention +at the Tabernacle, except what was said by myself; and I said +what I did, because some one inquired whether I was hissed on +going upon the platform. As to that matter, when I went upon the +platform I was not hissed, at others times I did not know whether +they hissed me or others, and</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Where ignorance is bliss,'tis folly to be wise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I stated some of the facts to our own Convention, but I did not +refer to this resolution (the one which was to exclude all but +officers or invited guests from the platform), for I was not +entirely clear with regard to the nature of it, it was passed in +so much confusion. I did state this, that there had been a +discussion raised upon such a resolution, and that it was decided +that only officers and invited guests should sit upon the +platform; but that they had received me as a delegate, and had +thus revoked the action of the Brick Chapel meeting, and that on +the morrow Neal Dow might invite me to sit upon the platform. +That was the substance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> of my remarks, and not one word of +objection was taken, or reply made by our Convention.</p> + +<p>I read again from this paper. (An extract implying that among the +measures taken to browbeat the Convention into receiving Miss +Brown, was the forming of a society instantly, under the special +urgency of herself and friends, for this especial object, etc.) +That again is a statement without foundation. I intend to-night +to use no harsh words, and I shall say nothing with regard to +motives. You may draw your own conclusions in regard to all this. +I shall state dispassionately, the simple, literal facts as they +occurred, and they may speak for themselves.</p> + +<p>When Wendell Phillips went out of the Convention, he told persons +with whom he came in contact, that a delegate had been received +by the President, and that delegate had been insulted, and nobody +had risen to sustain her. He said to me, too, "I shall not go +to-morrow, but do you go. I can do nothing for you, because I am +not a delegate." There were a few earnest friends in New York, +however, who felt that the rights of a delegate were sacred. They +organized a society and appointed just three delegates to that +Temperance Convention. Those three persons were Wendell Phillips, +of Boston; Mr. Cleveland, one of the editors of the Tribune; and +Mr. Gibbon, son-in-law of the late venerated Isaac T. Hopper. The +last two were men from New York City. The question was already +decided that women might be received as delegates to that +Convention; therefore there was no need of appointing any one to +insist upon woman's right to appear, and no one was appointed for +that purpose.</p> + +<p>The next morning we went there with Mr. Phillips, who presented +his credentials. During the discussion, Mr. Phillips took part, +and persisted in holding the Convention to parliamentary rules. +He carried in his hand a book of rules, which is received +everywhere as authority, and when he saw that they were wrong, he +quoted the standard authority to them. After a while the +preliminary business was disposed of, and various resolutions +were brought forward. I arose, and the President said I had the +floor. I was invited upon the stand, and was therefore an +"invited guest" within their own rules; but when once there, I +was not allowed to speak, although the President said repeatedly +that the floor was mine. The opposition arose from a dozen or +more around the platform, who were incessantly raising "points of +order"—the extempore bantlings of great minds in great +emergencies. For the space of three hours I endeavored to be +heard, but they would not hear me (although as a delegate, and I +spoke simply as a delegate), I could have spoken but ten minutes +by a law of the house. Twice the President was sustained in his +decision by the house; but finally some one insisted that there +might be persons voting in the house who were not delegates, and +it was decided that the Hall should be cleared by the police, and +that those who were delegates might come in, one by one, and +resume their seats.</p> + +<p>There were printed lists of the delegates of the Convention, but +there were several new delegates whose names were not on the +lists. Wendell Phillips and his colleagues were among them. He +went to the President and said: "I rely upon you to be admitted +to the Hall, for we know that our names are not yet on the list." +The President assented. As the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> delegates returned, the names +upon the printed lists were called, and while the rest of us were +earnest to be admitted to the house, and while they were +examining our credentials and deciding whether or not we should +be received, Neal Dow had gone out of the Hall, and Gen. Carey +had taken the Chair! The action of a part of the delegates who +were in the house while the other part were shut out, was like to +nothing that ever had occurred in the annals of parliamentary +history. Those persons who came in afterward, asked what was the +business before the house, and on being informed, moved that it +be reconsidered. The President decided upon putting it to the +house, that they had not voted in the affirmative, and would not +reconsider. Gen. Samuel F. Carey is a man of firmness, and I +could not but admire the firmness with which he presided, +although I felt that his decisions were wrong. "Gentlemen," said +he, "there can be no order when you are raising so many points of +order; take your seats!" and they took their seats.</p> + +<p>Previous to the adjournment, a question was raised about Wendell +Phillips' credentials, and again next morning they raised it and +decided it against him, so that he felt all further effort vain, +and left the Hall. After this, there came up a multitude of +resolutions, which were passed so rapidly that no one could get +the opportunity of speaking to them. A resolution also written by +Gen. Carey, was presented by him, as follows:</p> + +<p>"<i>Resolved</i>, That the common usages have excluded women from the +public platform," etc.</p> + +<p>That resolution, amid great confusion, was declared as passed. Of +course, then soon after, I left the Hall. I ought to say, in +regard to Mr. Phillips' credentials, that they had been referred +to a committee, who decided that he had not properly been sent to +the Convention, for no reason in the world, but because the +society who sent him, had been organized only the night before; +while I know positively, and others knew, that there were +societies organized one week before, for the very purpose of +sending delegates to that Convention; which societies will never +be heard of again, I fear. But the Neal Dow Association, of New +York, exists yet. Their society shall not die; so good comes out +of evil often.</p> + +<p>A motion was also made by some one, as better justice to Mr. +Phillips, to refer the credentials of all the delegates of +Massachusetts to the Committee on Credentials, but for very +obvious and prudent reasons, it was not suffered to have a +moment's hearing or consideration. (Miss Brown here read a few +additional lines from the same article, asserting that she was +merely the tool of others, and thrust by them upon the platform; +and charging all the disorder and disturbance of that Convention +to herself and friends, etc.) I needed no thrusting upon the +platform. I was able to rise and speak without urging or +suggestion. And as to the disorder which prevailed throughout the +Convention, who made that disorder? I said not a word to cause +it, for they gave me no opportunity to say a word, and the other +delegates with me, sat quietly. No mention is made in this paper +that I had credentials. It is stated that throughout Ohio the +impression is that I had none; and it is generally believed that +I went there without proper credentials.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>One word more as to Mr. Carey. He says, "The negro question was +not discussed as Greeley & Co. wished it to be. O Greeley, how +art thou fallen!" These are Gen. Carey's words, not mine. Mr. +Greeley has risen greatly in my estimation, and not fallen. A +colored delegate<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> did take his credentials to the Convention, +but he was not received. I saw him myself, and asked him what +could be done about it. He folded up his hands and said it was +too late. And this was a "World's Temperance Convention!"</p> + +<p>And this paper says that the <i>New York Tribune</i>, which has +usually been an accredited sheet, has most shamefully +misrepresented the whole affair, and refers to what was said in +the <i>Tribune</i>, as to what the Convention had accomplished: "The +first day, crowding a woman from the platform; second day, +gagging her; and the third day voting she should stay gagged;" +and asserts that it is a misrepresentation.</p> + +<p>The evenings of that Convention were not devoted to this +discussion, and wore not noisy or fruitless. There were burning +words spoken for temperance during the evenings; but whether the +<i>Tribune's</i> report of the day-sessions be correct or not, you +yourselves can be the judges. I must say, however, the <i>Tribune</i> +did not misrepresent that affair in its regular report; and I +call upon Gen. Carey, in all kindness and courtesy; to point out +just what the misstatements are—and upon any one acquainted with +the facts, to show the false statement, if it can be shown.</p> + +<p>And now I leave the action of the Convention to say what were our +motives in going there. From what I have related of the +circumstances which conspired to induce us to go, and the manner +of our going, you can but see that no absurd desire for +notoriety, no coveting of such unenviable fame as we know must +await us, were the inducements. And as a simple fact, there was +nothing so very important in a feeble woman's going as a delegate +to that Convention; but the fact was made an unpleasant one in +the experience of that delegate, and was blown into notoriety by +the unmanly action of that Convention itself. But what were our +reasons for going to that Convention? Did we go there to forward +the cause of Temperance or to forward the cause of woman, or what +were our motives in going? Woman was pleading her own cause in +the Convention at the Tabernacle, and she had no need that any +should go there to forward her cause for her; and much as I love +temperance, and love those poor sisters who suffer because of +intemperance, it was not especially to plead their cause that I +went there. I went to assert a principle, a principle relevant to +the circumstances of the World's Convention to be sure, but one, +at the same time, which, acknowledged, must forward all good +causes, and, disregarded, must retard them. I went there, asking +no favor as a woman, asking no special recognition of the +woman-cause. I went there in behalf of the cause of humanity. I +went there, asking the indorsement of no ism, and as the exponent +of no measure, but as a simple item of the world in the name of +the world, claiming that all the sons and daughters of the race +should be received in that Convention, if they went there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> with +the proper credentials. I simply planted my feet upon the rights +of a delegate. I asked for nothing more, and dare take nothing +less. The principle which we were there to assert, was that which +is the soul of the Golden Rule, the soul of that which says, "All +things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye +even so unto them." I went there to see if they would be true to +their own call, and recognize delegates without distinction of +color, sex, creed, party, or condition; to see if they would +recognize each member of the human family, as belonging to the +human family; to see if they would grant the simple rights of a +delegate to all delegates.</p> + +<p>And do you ask, did this not retard the cause of Temperance? No; +it carried it forward, as it carries every good cause forward. It +awakened thought, and mankind need only to be aroused to thought, +to forever destroy all wrong customs, and among them the rum +traffic. They need only to think to the purpose, and when this +shall be done, all good causes are bound to go forward together. +Christianity is the heart and soul of them all, and those reforms +which seek to elevate mankind and better their condition, cling +around our Christianity, and are a part of it. They are like the +cluster of grapes, all clinging about the central stem.</p> + +<p>A wrong was done in that Convention to a delegate, and many +people saw and felt that wrong, and they began to inquire for the +cause of it; and so the causes of things were searched more +nearly than before, and this was a good which promoted +temperance. It is absurd to believe that any man or woman is any +less a temperance man or woman, or a "Maine law" man or woman +now, than before. If ever they loved that cause they love it now +as before.</p> + +<p>Water is the very symbol of democracy! a single jet of it in a +tube will balance the whole ocean. We went there, only to claim +in the name of Democracy and Christianity, that all be treated +alike and impartially. The human soul is a holy thing; it is the +temple of living joy or sorrow. It is freighted with vital +realities. It can outlengthen Heaven itself, and it should be +reverenced everywhere, and treated always as a holy thing. We +only went there in the name of the world, in the name of +humanity, to promote a good cause; and it is what I pledge myself +now anew to do, at all times and under all circumstances, when +the opportunity shall present itself to me. It was a good act, a +Christian duty, to go there under those circumstances.</p> + +<p>But let me now leave this matter, and say something which may +have a direct bearing upon the circumstances of our Convention, +and show why it is proper to bring up these facts here. Let us +suppose ourselves gathered in Metropolitan Hall. It is a large +hall, with two galleries around its sides. I could see men up +there in checked blouses, who looked as though they might disturb +a Convention, but they looked down upon the rowdyism of the +platform, a thing unprecedented before, with simple expressions +of wonder, while they were quiet. Well, here we are upon the +platform. The President is speaking.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">President</span>: "Miss Brown has the floor."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Delegate</span>: "Mr. President, I rise to a point of order."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">President</span>: "State your point of order."</p> + +<p>It is stated, but at the same time, in the general whirl and +confusion all around, another voice from the floor exclaims: "I +rise to a point of order!"</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">President</span>: "State it!"</p> + +<p>But while these things are going on, a voice arises, "She sha'n't +speak!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> another, "She sha'n't be heard!" another, "You raise a +point of order when he is done, and I will raise another." In the +confusion I hear something almost like swearing, but not +swearing, for most of those men are "holy men," who do not think +of swearing. The confusion continues. Most of this time I am +standing, but presently a chair is presented me, and now a new +class of comforters gathers around me, speaking smooth, consoling +words in my ear while upon the other side are angry disputants, +clinching their fists and growing red in the face. Are the former +good Samaritans, pouring into my wounded heart the oil and the +wine? Listen. "I know you are acting conscientiously; but now +that you have made your protest, do, for your own sake, withdraw +from this disgraceful scene."</p> + +<p>"I can not withdraw," I say; "it is not now the time to withdraw; +here is a principle at stake."</p> + +<p>"Well, in what way can you better the cause? Do you feel you are +doing any good?" Another voice chimes in with: "Do you love the +Temperance cause? Can you continue here and see all this +confusion prevailing around you? Why not withdraw, and then the +Convention will be quiet;" and all this in most mournful, +dolorous tones. I think if the man cries, I shall certainly cry +too.</p> + +<p>But then a new interval of quiet occurs, and so I rise to get the +floor. I fancy myself in a melting mood enough to beg them, with +prayers and tears, to be just and righteous; but no, "this kind +goeth not out by prayer and fasting," and so I stand up again. +Directly Rev. John Chambers points his finger at me, and calls +aloud: "Shame on the woman! Shame on the woman!" Then I feel cool +and calm enough again, and sit down until his anger has way. +Again the "friends" gather around me, and there come more appeals +to me, while the public ear is filled with "points of order"; and +the two fall together, in a somewhat odd, but very pointed +contrast, somewhere in the center of my brain. "Do you think," +says one, "that Christ would have done so?" spoken with a +somewhat negative emphasis. "I think He would," spoken with a +positive emphasis. "Do you love peace as well as Christ loved it, +and can you do thus?"</p> + +<p>What answer I made I know not, but there came rushing over my +soul the words of Christ: "I came not to send peace, but a +sword." It seems almost to be spoken with an audible voice, and +it sways the spirit more than all things else. I remember that +Christ's doctrine was, "first pure, then peaceable;" that He, +too, was persecuted. So are my doctrines good; they ask only for +the simple rights of a delegate, only that which must be +recognized as just, by the impartial Father of the human race, +and by His holy Son. Then come these mock pleading tones again +upon my ear, and instinctively I think of the Judas kiss, and I +arise, turning away from them all, and feeling a power which may, +perhaps, never come to me again. There were angry men confronting +me, and I caught the flashing of defiant eyes; but above me, and +within me, and all around me, there was a spirit stronger than +they all. At that moment not the combined powers of earth and +hell could have tempted me to do otherwise than to stand firm. +Moral and physical cowardice were subdued, thanks to that +Washington delegate for the sublime strength roused by his +question: "Would Christ have done so?"</p> + +<p>That stormy scene is passed; that memorable time when chivalrous +men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> forgot the deference, which according to their creed is due +to woman, and forgot it as they publicly said, because a woman +claimed a right upon the platform; and so they neither recognized +her equality of rights, nor her conceded courtesy as a lady. This +was neither just nor gallant, but to me it was vastly preferable +to those appeals made to me as a lady—appeals which never would +have been made to a man under the same circumstances; and which +only served to show me the estimation in which they held +womanhood. It reminded me of a remark which was made concerning +the Brick Chapel meeting: "If you had spoken words of flattery, +they would have done what you wanted."</p> + +<p>Let the past be the past. "Let the dead bury their dead," +contains truths we well may heed. Is God the impartial Father of +humanity? Is He no respecter of persons? Is it true that there is +known neither male nor female in Christ Jesus? In my heart of +hearts, I believe it is all true. I believe it is the foundation +of the Golden Rule. And now let me tell you in conclusion: if it +be true, this truth shall steal into your souls like the accents +of childhood; it shall come like a bright vision of hope to the +desponding; it shall flash upon the incredulous; it shall twine +like a chain of golden arguments about the reason of the skeptic.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wm. Lloyd Garrison</span>, having listened to the narration of the +action of the World's Convention in New York, said: I rise to +offer some resolutions by which the sense of this Convention may +be obtained. I happened to be an eyewitness of these proceedings, +and I bear witness to the accuracy of the account given us this +evening by Miss Brown. I have seen many tumultuous meetings in my +day, but I think on no occasion have I ever seen anything more +disgraceful to our common humanity, than when Miss Brown +attempted to speak upon the platform of the World's Temperance +Convention in aid of the glorious cause which had brought that +Convention together. It was an outbreak of passion, contempt, +indignation, and every vile emotion of the soul, throwing into +the shade almost everything coming from the vilest of the vile, +that I have ever witnessed on any occasion or under any +circumstances; venerable men, claiming to be holy men, the +ambassadors of Jesus Christ, losing all self-respect and +transforming themselves into the most unmannerly and violent +spirits, merely on account of the sex of the individual who +wished to address the assembly.</p> + +<p>Miss Brown was asked while standing on the platform, "Do you love +the temperance cause?" What could have been more insulting than +such a question as that at that moment? What but the temperance +cause had brought her to the Convention? Why had she been +delegated to take her seat in that body except on the ground that +she was a devoted friend of the temperance enterprise, and had an +interest in every movement pertaining to the total abstinence +cause? She had been delegated there by total abstinence societies +because of her fitness as a temperance woman to advocate the +temperance cause, so dear to the hearts of all those who love +perishing humanity. Was it the love of the temperance cause that +raised the outcry against her? or was it not simply contempt of +woman, and an unwillingness that she should stand up anywhere to +bear her testimony against popular wrongs and crimes, the curses +of the race?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Miss Brown</span>: Allow me to state one incident. A Doctor of Divinity +was present at the meeting. His son and daughter-in-law stated to +me the fact. "I said to my father, you had stormy times at the +Convention to-day." "Yes,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> said the father, "stormy times." Said +the son, "Why didn't you allow her to speak?" "Ah," said the +Doctor, "it was the principle of the thing!" But it so happened +that the son and daughter thought the principle a wrong one.</p> + +<p>Mr. Garrison: Yes, it was the principle that was at stake. It was +not simply the making of a speech at that Convention, by a woman. +By her speaking something more was implied, for if woman could +speak there and for that object, she might speak elsewhere for +another object, and she might, peradventure, as my friend does, +proceed to occupy a pulpit and settle over a congregation. In +fact, there is no knowing where the precedent would lead; +reminding me of the man who hesitated to leave off his profanity, +because having left that off he should have to leave off +drinking, and if he left off drinking he should have to leave off +his tobacco and other vile habits. He liked symmetry of +character, and so he was unwilling to take the first step toward +reform.</p> + +<p>The principle for which Miss Brown contended, was this: every +society has a right to determine who shall represent it in +convention. Invitation was given to the "whole world" to meet +there in convention, to promote the cause of Temperance. Our +friend needed no credentials under the call. It is true all +societies were invited to send delegates, but in addition to that +all the friends of Temperance throughout the world were expressly +and earnestly invited to be present, and under that last express +invitation she had a right to come in as an earnest friend of the +cause, and take her seat in the Convention. When a body like that +comes together, the principle is this, each delegate stands on +the same footing as every other delegate, and no one delegate nor +any number of delegates has a right to exclude any other delegate +who has been sent there by any like society. Our friend had +credentials from two societies, and thus was doubly armed; but +she was put down by a most disgraceful minority of the +Convention, who succeeded in carrying their point. In view of all +this, I would present for the action of this Convention the +following resolutions:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, a cordial invitation having been extended to all +temperance societies and all the friends of temperance throughout +the world, to meet personally or by delegates in a "World's +Temperance Convention" in the city of New York, Sept. 6th and +7th, 1853;</p> + +<p>And whereas, accepting this invitation in the spirit in which it +was apparently given, the "South Butler Temperance Association," +and the "Rochester Toronto Division of the Sons of Temperance," +duly empowered the Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, to act in that +Convention as their delegate, representative, and advocate.</p> + +<p>And whereas, on presenting herself at the time specified, her +credentials were received by the Committee on the roll of the +Convention, but on rising to address the assembly (though +declared by the President to be entitled to the floor, and +although his decision was repeatedly sustained by a majority of +the delegates) she was met with derisive outcries, insulting +jeers, and the most rowdyish manifestations, by a shameless +minority, led on by the Rev. John Chambers, of Philadelphia, and +encouraged by Gen. Carey, of Ohio, and other professed friends of +the temperance cause—so as to make it impossible for her to be +heard, and thus virtually excluding her from the Convention in an +ignominious manner, solely on account of her being a woman; +therefore,</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in the judgment of this Convention, the +treatment received by the Rev. Antoinette L. Brown in the +"World's Temperance Convention" (falsely so called) was in the +highest degree disgraceful to that body, insulting to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the +societies whose credentials she bore, worthy only of those who +are filled with strong drink, and a scandal to the temperance +movement.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the thanks of this Convention be given to Miss +Brown, for having accepted the credentials so honorably proffered +to her by the temperance societies aforesaid, and claiming a +right, not as a woman, but as a duly authorized delegate, an +eloquent and devoted advocate of the temperance enterprise, to a +seat and voice in the "World's Temperance Convention;" and for +the firm, dignified, and admirable manner in which she met the +storm of opprobrium and insult which so furiously assailed her on +her attempting to advocate the beneficent movement for the +promotion of which the Convention was expressly called together.</p> + +<p>Hon. <span class="smcap">Joshua R. Giddings</span>: Ladies and gentlemen, although I had +designed to take no active part in the proceedings, I can not +avoid rising, to second that resolution. When I learned of the +appointing of this Convention, it brought a thrill of joy to me. +I had read the transactions to which the lady has made such +feeling allusion. I had read and mourned over them, and I +rejoiced that an opportunity was to be given to the people of +Cleveland, and this Western Reserve, to tender their thanks to +this Convention, which had been appointed to meet upon the shores +of Lake Erie; and that they also might see what sort of a +greeting the friends of the rights of woman would receive here. +And I now rejoice at the hearty manner in which the Convention +has proceeded. I rejoice at the treatment the Convention has +received. Then I was about to say, the fogies of New York, if +they could see and know all that they might see here, would not +be like some spirits, whom Swedenborg says he saw in the other +world. He found spirits who had been departed several years, who +had not yet learned that they were dead. I think Rev. John +Chambers would now look down and begin to suspect that he had +departed.</p> + +<p>My friends, I know not how the remarks of Miss Brown fell upon +your ears. I can only say that they struck me with deep feelings +of mortification, that at this noontide of the nineteenth century +any human being, who can give her thoughts to an assembly in the +eloquent manner in which she has spoken to us, has been treated +as she was; and when this resolution of reproof by my friend from +Massachusetts was presented, I resolved to rise and second it, +and express myself willing that it be sent out in the report, +that I most heartily concur in the expressions contained in these +resolutions.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">William L. Garrison</span>: I wish to make one statement in regard to +General Carey, to show that he does not himself act on consistent +principles, in this matter. The last number of the <i>Pennsylvania +Freeman</i> contains an account of a temperance gathering held in +Kennett Square. That square is for that region the headquarters +of Abolitionists, Liberals, Come-outers, and so forth. In that +meeting women were appointed for Vice-Presidents and Secretaries +with men, and there was a complete mixture throughout the +committees without regard to sex; and who do you think were those +who spoke on that occasion recognizing that woman was equal with +man in that gathering? The first was G. W. Jackson, of Boston, +who made himself very conspicuous in the exclusion of women from +the "World's Convention"; second, Judge O'Neil, of South +Carolina, who spoke at New York, and who was also very active in +the efforts to exclude Miss Brown; last of all was General Carey, +of Ohio; and three days afterward they wended their way to New +York, and there conspired with others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> to prevent a delegate from +being admitted, on the ground of being a woman; showing that +while at old Kennett they were willing to conform, finding it +would be popular; in New York they joined in this brutal +proscription of a woman, only because she was a woman.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>: I know it is time to take the question upon these +resolutions, but I wish to say one word. When a world's +convention of any kind is called—when the Rev. Drs. Chambers, +Hewett, Marsh, and I don't know how many more, backed up by a +part of those who were in that convention, are ready to ignore +the existence of woman, it should show us something of the amount +of labor we have to do, to teach the world even to know that we +are a part of it; and when women tell us they don't want any more +rights, I want them to know that they are held to have no right +in any world's convention. I took up a book the other day, +written by the Rev. Mr. Davis, in which he sketches the events of +the last fifty years. He states that the Sandwich Islands at one +time had one missionary at such a station; Mr. Green—and his +wife! Then he went on to state another where there were nineteen, +and—their wives! Now these are straws on the surface, but they +indicate "which way the wind blows," and indicate, in some sense, +the estimation in which woman is held. I mention these facts so +that we may see something of the length of the way we must tread, +before we shall even be recognized.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The reader will see from these debates the amount of prejudice, +wickedness, and violence, woman was compelled to meet from all classes +of men, especially the clergy, in those early days, and on the other +hand the wisdom, courage, and mild self-assertion with which she +fought her battle and conquered. There is not a man living who took +part in that disgraceful row who would not gladly blot out that page +in his personal history. But the few noble men—lawyers, statesmen, +clergymen, philanthropists, poets, orators, philosophers—who have +remained steadfast and loyal to woman through all her struggles for +freedom—have been brave and generous enough to redeem their sex from +the utter contempt and distrust of all womankind.</p> + + +<h3>NATIONAL CONVENTION AT CINCINNATI, OHIO.</h3> + +<p>In 1855, October 17th and 18th, the people of Cincinnati, Ohio, were +summoned to the consideration of the question of Woman's Rights. A +brief report in the city journals, is all we can find of the +proceedings. From these we learn that the meetings were held in +Nixon's Hall, that some ladies wore bloomers, and some gentlemen +shawls, that the audiences were large and enthusiastic, that the +curiosity to see women who could make a speech was intense. Martha C. +Wright, of Auburn, a sister of Lucretia Mott, was chosen President. On +the platform sat Mrs. Mott, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Josephine S. +Griffing, Mary S. Anthony, of Rochester, N. Y.; Ernestine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> L. Rose, +Adeline Swift, Joseph Barker, an Englishman, an ex-member of +Parliament, Lucy Stone and her husband, Henry B. Blackwell, recently +married. Mrs. Stone did not take her husband's name, because she +believed a woman had a right to an individual existence, and an +individual name to designate that existence.</p> + +<p>After the election of officers,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> the President stated the object of +the Convention to be to secure equality with man in social, civil, and +political rights. It was only seven years, she said, since this +movement commenced, since our first Convention was called, in timidity +and doubt of our own strength, our own capacity, our own powers; now, +east, west, north, and even south, there were found advocates of +woman's rights. The newspapers which ridiculed and slandered us at +first, are beginning to give impartial accounts of our meetings. +Newspapers do not lead, but follow public opinion; and doing so, they +go through three stages in regard to reforms; they first ridicule +them, then report them without comment, and at last openly advocate +them. We seem to be still in the first stage on this question.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Cutler</span> said: "Let there be light, and there was light," "And +many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." +This light, this increase of knowledge, we are seeking. Men have +always applied the last text to themselves, and did not expect +woman to run to and fro and increase in knowledge. They objected +to her raising her voice on this platform in the pursuit or +diffusion of knowledge; but when she is employed upon the stage +to minister to everything that pollutes and degrades man, no +voice was raised against it. It was but a few years ago that a +French queen brought over with her to the British Isles, a male +mantua-maker. It was not supposed then that woman was capable of +fitting woman's clothes properly. She has since advanced to have +the charge of man's wardrobe; and it will be right when the time +comes, for man to take care of himself. Conservatism opposes this +now; but I love conservatism; it is guarding our institutions +until the new mother is prepared to take the charge.</p> + +<p>I desire that marriage shall not be simply a domestic union as in +early days, or a social one as it has now become, but a complete +and perfect union, conferring equal rights on both parties. I +desire light from the source of light. The question is frequently +asked, "What more do these women want?" A lady in Cincinnati told +me that she did not desire any change, for she thought we had now +entirely the best of it; while the men toiled in their shops and +offices, the women walked the streets splendidly dressed, or +lounged at home with nothing to do but spend the money their +husbands earned. I never understood the elevating effect of the +elective franchise until I went to England, where so few enjoy +it. I attended a political meeting during the canvass of Derby, +as a reporter for three or four political papers in the United +States. One of the candidates proposed to legislate for universal +suffrage; his opponent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> replied by showing the effect of it upon +France, which he declared was the only country in which it +existed. "You forget," exclaimed one, "America!" "America! never +name her! a land of three millions of slaves." The multitude +would not believe this; they shouted in derision, whenever the +speaker attempted to resume. America was their last hope. If that +country was given up to slavery, they could only despair. Party +leaders rose and tried to calm them as Christ calmed the sea, but +they could do nothing. "You are an American," said one near me; +"get up and defend your country!" What could I say? I spoke, +however, and pledged them that the stain of slavery should be +wiped out.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Wise</span>, of North Carolina, made a long and learned address, +treating principally of geology and women. He claimed for woman +more even than she for herself. He said: "Women are generally +more competent to vote than their husbands, and sisters better +fitted to be judges than their brothers, the mother more capable +of wisely exercising the elective franchise than her booby son."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said: The last speaker alluded to this movement as +being that of a few disappointed women. From the first years to +which my memory stretches, I have been a disappointed woman. +When, with my brothers, I reached forth after the sources of +knowledge, I was reproved with "It isn't fit for you; it doesn't +belong to women." Then there was but one college in the world +where women were admitted, and that was in Brazil. I would have +found my way there, but by the time I was prepared to go, one was +opened in the young State of Ohio—the first in the United States +where women and negroes could enjoy opportunities with white men. +I was disappointed when I came to seek a profession worthy an +immortal being—every employment was closed to me, except those +of the teacher, the seamstress, and the housekeeper. In +education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, +disappointment is the lot of woman. It shall be the business of +my life to deepen this disappointment in every woman's heart +until she bows down to it no longer. I wish that women, instead +of being walking show-cases, instead of begging of their fathers +and brothers the latest and gayest new bonnet, would ask of them +their rights.</p> + +<p>The question of Woman's Rights is a practical one. The notion has +prevailed that it was only an ephemeral idea; that it was but +women claiming the right to smoke cigars in the streets, and to +frequent bar-rooms. Others have supposed it a question of +comparative intellect; others still, of sphere. Too much has +already been said and written about woman's sphere. Trace all the +doctrines to their source and they will be found to have no basis +except in the usages and prejudices of the age. This is seen in +the fact that what is tolerated in woman in one country is not +tolerated in another. In this country women may hold +prayer-meetings, etc., but in Mohammedan countries it is written +upon their mosques, "Women and dogs, and other impure animals, +are not permitted to enter." Wendell Phillips says, "The best and +greatest thing one is capable of doing, that is his sphere." I +have confidence in the Father to believe that when He gives us +the capacity to do anything He does not make a blunder. Leave +women, then, to find their sphere. And do not tell us before we +are born even, that our province is to cook dinners, darn +stockings, and sew on buttons. We are told woman has all the +rights she wants; and even women, I am ashamed to say, tell us +so. They mistake the politeness of men for rights—seats while +men stand in this hall to-night, and their adulations; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> these +are mere courtesies. We want rights. The flour-merchant, the +house-builder, and the postman charge us no less on account of +our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money to pay all these, +then, indeed, we find the difference. Man, if he have energy, may +hew out for himself a path where no mortal has ever trod, held +back by nothing but what is in himself; the world is all before +him, where to choose; and we are glad for you, brothers, men, +that it is so. But the same society that drives forth the young +man, keeps woman at home—a dependent—working little cats on +worsted, and little dogs on punctured paper; but if she goes +heartily and bravely to give herself to some worthy purpose, she +is out of her sphere and she loses caste. Women working in +tailor-shops are paid one-third as much as men. Some one in +Philadelphia has stated that women make fine shirts for twelve +and a half cents apiece; that no woman can make more than nine a +week, and the sum thus earned, after deducting rent, fuel, etc., +leaves her just three and a half cents a day for bread. Is it a +wonder that women are driven to prostitution? Female teachers in +New York are paid fifty dollars a year, and for every such +situation there are five hundred applicants. I know not what you +believe of God, but I believe He gave yearnings and longings to +be filled, and that He did not mean all our time should be +devoted to feeding and clothing the body. The present condition +of woman causes a horrible perversion of the marriage relation. +It is asked of a lady, "Has she married well?" "Oh, yes, her +husband is rich." Woman must marry for a home, and you men are +the sufferers by this; for a woman who loathes you may marry you +because you have the means to get money which she can not have. +But when woman can enter the lists with you and make money for +herself, she will marry you only for deep and earnest affection.</p> + +<p>I am detaining you too long, many of you standing, that I ought +to apologize, but women have been wronged so long that I may +wrong you a little. (Applause). A woman undertook in Lowell to +sell shoes to ladies. Men laughed at her, but in six years she +has run them all out, and has a monopoly of the trade. Sarah +Tyndale, whose husband was an importer of china, and died +bankrupt, continued his business, paid off his debts, and has +made a fortune and built the largest china warehouse in the +world. (Mrs. Mott here corrected Lucy. Mrs. Tyndale has not the +largest china warehouse, but the largest assortment of china in +the world). Mrs. Tyndale, herself, drew the plan of her +warehouse, and it is the best plan ever drawn. A laborer to whom +the architect showed it, said: "Don't she know e'en as much as +some men?" I have seen a woman at manual labor turning out +chair-legs in a cabinet-shop, with a dress short enough not to +drag in the shavings. I wish other women would imitate her in +this. It made her hands harder and broader, it is true, but I +think a hand with a dollar and a quarter a day in it, better than +one with a crossed ninepence. The men in the shop didn't use +tobacco, nor swear—they can't do those things where there are +women, and we owe it to our brothers to go wherever they work to +keep them decent. The widening of woman's sphere is to improve +her lot. Let us do it, and if the world scoff, let it scoff—if +it sneer, let it sneer—but we will go on emulating the example +of the sisters Grimké and Abby Kelly. When they first lectured +against slavery they were not listened to as respectfully as you +listen to us. So the first female physician meets many +difficulties, but to the next the path will be made easy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>Lucretia Mott has been a preacher for years; her right to do so +is not questioned among Friends. But when Antoinette Brown felt +that she was commanded to preach, and to arrest the progress of +thousands that were on the road to hell; why, when she applied +for ordination they acted as though they had rather the whole +world should go to hell, than that Antoinette Brown should be +allowed to tell them how to keep out of it. She is now ordained +over a parish in the State of New York, but when she meets on the +Temperance platform the Rev. John Chambers, or your own Gen. +Carey (applause) they greet her with hisses. Theodore Parker +said: "The acorn that the school-boy carries in his pocket and +the squirrel stows in his cheek, has in it the possibility of an +oak, able to withstand, for ages, the cold winter and the driving +blast." I have seen the acorn men and women, but never the +perfect oak; all are but abortions. The young mother, when first +the new-born babe nestles in her bosom, and a heretofore unknown +love springs up in her heart, finds herself unprepared for this +new relation in life, and she sends forth the child scarred and +dwarfed by her own weakness and imbecility, as no stream can rise +higher than its fountain.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We find no report of the speeches of Frances D. Gage, Lydia Ann +Jenkins, Ernestine L. Rose, Euphemia Cochrane, of Michigan, nor J. +Mitchell, of Missouri, editor of the <i>St. Louis Intelligencer</i>, nor of +the presence of James Mott, whose services were always invaluable on +the committees for business and resolutions.</p> + +<p>In 1857, the Legislature of Ohio passed a bill enacting that no +married man shall dispose of any personal property without having +first obtained the consent of his wife; the wife being empowered in +case of the violation of such act, to commence a civil suit in her own +name for the recovery of said property; and also that any married +woman whose husband shall desert her or neglect to provide for his +family, shall be entitled to his wages and to those of her minor +children. These amendments were warmly recommended by Gov. Salmon P. +Chase in his annual message. The Select Committee<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> of the Senate on +the petition asking the right of suffrage for woman, reported in favor +of the proposed amendment, recommending the adoption of the following +resolution:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the Judiciary Committee be instructed to report +to the Senate a bill to submit to the qualified electors at the +next election for Senators and Representatives an amendment to +the Constitution, whereby the elective franchise shall be +extended to the citizens of Ohio without distinction of sex.</p></blockquote> + +<p>But the bill was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 44 to 44. The +petition had received 10,000 signatures. We give this able report in +full.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>The proceedings of these early Conventions might be read with pride +and satisfaction by the women of Ohio to-day, with all their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> superior +advantages of education. Frances D. Gage was a natural orator. Her wit +and pathos always delighted her audiences, and were highly appreciated +by those on the platform. Her off-hand speeches, ready for any +occasion, were exactly complemented by J. Elizabeth Jones, whose +carefully prepared essays on philosophy, law, and government, would do +honor to any statesman. Together they were a great power in Ohio. From +this time Conventions were held annually for several years, the +friends of woman suffrage being thoroughly organized; J. Elizabeth +Jones was made General Agent. In her report of May 16th, 1861, she +says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>And through the earnest efforts of Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. +Wilson, Mrs. Tilden, and many others, the Legislature was +petitioned from year to year for a redress of legal and political +wrongs. At a later period, the indefatigable exertions of Mrs. +Adeline T. Swift sustained the interest and the agitation in such +portions of the State as she could reach. As the fruit of her +labor, many thousands of names, pleading for equality, have been +presented to the General Assembly, which labor has been continued +to the present time.</p> + +<p>Our last effort, of which I am now more particularly to speak, +was commenced early in the season, by extensive correspondence to +enlist sympathy and aid in behalf of petitions. As soon as we +could get the public ear, several lecturing agents were secured, +and they did most efficient service, both with tongue and with +pen. One of these was Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols, of Kansas, formerly +of Vermont; and perhaps no person was ever better qualified than +she. Ever ready and ever faithful, in public and in private, and +ever capable, too, whether discussing the condition of woman with +the best informed members of the legal profession, or striving at +the fireside of some indolent and ignorant sister, over whose +best energies "death is creeping like an untimely frost," to +waken in her heart a desire for that which is truly noble and +good.</p> + +<p>Of another of our agents—Mrs. Cutler, of Illinois—equally as +much can be said of her qualifications and her efficiency. Having +been very widely acquainted with the sorrowful experiences of +women, both abroad and in our own country, which have been caused +by their inferior position, and by legal disabilities; and +lamenting, too, as only great and elevated natures can, the utter +wreck of true, noble womanhood in the higher circles of society, +a necessity is thus laid upon her to do all in her power to lift +both classes into a freer, better life.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Frances D. Gage, of Ohio, deeply interested herself in this +question in the beginning, and has never failed in faithful +testimony and timely word, to promote its success. Although not +identified with us as an agent, yet we had her active +co-operation during the campaign. Her editorial connection with +the press, and her lectures on the West India Islands, gave her +abundant opportunity, which she did not fail to embrace, of +circulating petitions and advocating the cause to which she has +so largely given her energies.</p> + +<p>Besides the General Agent, whose time was divided between +correspondence, lecturing, and the general details of the +movement, there were other and most efficient workers, especially +in canvassing for signatures. We are indebted to Mrs. Anne Ryder, +of Cincinnati, for much labor in this direction; and also to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +Mrs. Howard, of Columbus for similar service. Miss Olympia Brown, +a graduate of Antioch College, canvassed several towns most +successfully—adding thousands of names to the lists heretofore +obtained. Equally zealous were women, and men also, in various +sections of the State. By means of this hearty co-operation, both +branches of the Legislature were flooded with Woman's Rights +petitions during the first part of the session—a thousand and +even two thousand names were presented at a time.</p> + +<p>Our main object this year, as heretofore, has been to secure +personal property and parental rights, never ignoring, however, +the right to legislate for ourselves. We were fortunate in the +commencement in enlisting some of the leading influences of the +State in favor of the movement. Persons occupying the highest +social and political position, very fully endorsed our claims to +legal equality, and rendered valuable aid by public approval of +the same. We took measures at an early period to obtain the +assistance of the press; and by means of this auxiliary our work +has been more fully recognized, and more generally appreciated +than it could otherwise have been. Without exception, the leading +journals of the State have treated our cause with consideration, +and generously commended the efforts of its agents.</p> + +<p>So numerous were the petitions, and so largely did they represent +the best constituency of the State, that the committees in whose +hands they were placed, felt that by all just parliamentary +usage, they were entitled to a candid consideration. Accordingly +they invited several of us who had been prominent, to defend our +own cause in the Senate chamber, before their joint Committee and +such of the General Assembly and of the public, as might choose +to come and listen. From the reports of the numerous +letter-writers who were present, I will place one extract only +upon record.</p> + +<p>"The Senate chamber was filled to overflowing to hear Mrs. Jones, +Cutler, and Gage, and hundreds went away for want of a place to +stand. Columbus has seldom seen so refined and intelligent an +audience as that which gathered round those earnest women, who +had none of the charm of youth or beauty to challenge admiration, +but whose heads were already sprinkled with the frosts of life's +winter. Earnest, truthful, womanly, richly cultivated by the +experiences of practical life, those women, mothers, and two of +them grandmothers, pleaded for the right of woman to the fruit of +her own genius, labor, or skill, and for the mother her right to +be the joint guardian of her own offspring. I wish I could give +you even the faintest idea of the brilliancy of the scene, or the +splendor of the triumph achieved over the legions of prejudice, +the cohorts of injustice, and the old national guard of hoary +conservatism. If the triumph of a prima donna is something to +boast, what was the triumph of these toil-worn women, when not +only the members of the Committee, but Senators and Members of +the House, crowded around them with congratulations and +assurances that their able and earnest arguments had fully +prevailed, and the prayers of their petitioners must be granted."</p> + +<p>The address of the first speaker was a written argument on legal +rights. It was solicited by members of the General Assembly for +publication, and distributed over the State at their expense.</p> + +<p>The change in public sentiment, the marked favor with which our +cause began to be regarded in the judicial and legislative +departments, encouraged us to hope that if equal and exact +justice were not established, which we could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> hardly expect, we +should at least obtain legal equality in many particulars. The +Senate committee soon reported a bill, drafted by one of their +number—Judge Key—and fully endorsed by all the judges of the +Supreme Court, securing to the married woman the use of her real +estate, and the avails of her own separate labor, together with +such power to protect her property, and do business in her own +name, as men possess. The last provision was stricken out and the +bill thus amended passed both Houses, the Senate by a very large +majority.</p> + +<p>Although this secures to us property rights in a measure only, +yet it is a great gain. He, who in abject bondage has striven +with his fetters, rejoices to have the smallest amount of their +weight removed. We have, therefore, reason to be grateful not +only for the benefits we shall derive from this Act, but for the +evidence of a growing sense of justice on the part of those who +claim for themselves the exclusive right to legislate. Senator +Parish had already prepared a Bill for Guardianship, and to +change the Laws of Descent, that something more than a paltry +dower should be secured to the widow in the common estate; but +the press of business, and the sudden commencement of open +hostilities between the North and South, precluded all +possibility of further legislation in our behalf. While Judge Key +has deservedly received universal thanks from the women of Ohio, +for proposing and carrying through the Legislature the Property +Bill, they are no less indebted to the Hon. Mr. Parish for his +faithful defense of their cause, not only during the present +session, but in years past. If all the Honorable Senators and +Representatives who have given their influence in favor of it +were to be mentioned, and all the faithful men and earnest women +who have labored to promote it, the list would be long and +distinguished.</p> + +<p class="author">J. Elizabeth Jones.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Thus, in a measure, were the civil rights of the women of Ohio +secured. Some of those who were influential in winning this modicum of +justice have already passed away; some, enfeebled by age, are +incapable of active work; others are seeking in many latitudes that +rest so necessary in the declining years of life.</p> + +<p>The question naturally suggests itself, where are the young women of +Ohio, who will take up this noble cause and carry it to its final +triumph? They are reaping on all sides the benefits achieved for them +by others, and they in turn, by earnest efforts for the +enfranchisement of woman, should do what they can to broaden the lives +of the next generation.</p> + +<p>In Ohio, as elsewhere, the great conflict between the North and South +turned the thoughts of women from the consideration of their own +rights, to the life of the nation. Many of them spent their last days +and waning powers in the military hospitals and sanitariums, +ministering to sick and dying soldiers; others at a later period in +the service of the freedmen, guiding them in their labors, and +instructing them in their schools; all alike forgetting that justice +to woman was a more important step in national safety than freedom or +franchise to any race of men.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Years before the calling of this Convention, Mrs. +Frances D. Gage had roused much thought in Ohio by voice and pen. She +was a long time in correspondence with Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Jane +Knight, who was energetically working for reduced postage rates, even +before the days of Rowland Hill.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Said to have been written by J. Elizabeth Jones.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> My notoriety as an Abolitionist made it very difficult +for me to reach people at home, and, consequently, I had to work +through press and social circle; women dared not speak then. But the +seed was sown far and wide, now bearing fruit.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> James McCune Smith.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> J. D. Cattell and H. Canfield.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>REMINISCENCES BY CLARINA I. HOWARD NICHOLS.</h3> + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p><span class="smcap">Vermont</span>: Editor <i>Windham County Democrat</i>—Property Laws, 1847 +and 1849—Addressed the Legislature on school suffrage, 1852.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wisconsin</span>: Woman's State Temperance Society—Lydia F. Fowler in +company—Opposition of Clergy—"Woman's Rights" wouldn't +do—Advertised "Men's Rights."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kansas</span>: Free State Emigration, 1854—Gov. Robinson and Senator +Pomeroy—Woman's Rights speeches on Steamboat, and at +Lawrence—Constitutional Convention, 1859—State Woman Suffrage +Association—John O. Wattles, President—Aid from the Francis +Jackson Fund—Canvassing the State—School Suffrage gained.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Missouri</span>: Lecturing at St. Joseph, 1858, on Col. Scott's +invitation—Westport and the John Brown raid, 1859—St. Louis, +1854—Frances D. Gage, Rev. Wm. G. Eliot, and Rev. Mr. Weaver.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">In</span> gathering up these individual memories of the past, we feel there +will be an added interest in the fact that we shall thus have a +subjective, as well as an objective view of this grand movement for +woman's enfranchisement. To our older readers, who have known the +actors in these scenes, they will come like the far-off whispers of +by-gone friends; to younger ones who will never see the faces of the +noble band of women who took the initiative in this struggle, it will +be almost as pleasant as a personal introduction, to have them speak +for themselves; each in her own peculiar style recount the experiences +of those eventful years. As but few remain to tell the story, and each +life has made a channel of its own, there will be no danger of +wearying the reader with much repetition.</p> + +<p>To Clarina Howard Nichols the women of Kansas are indebted for many +civil rights they have as yet been too apathetic to exercise.</p> + +<p>Her personal presence in the Constitutional Convention of 1859, +secured for the women of that State liberal property rights, equal +guardianship of their children, and the right to vote on all school +questions. She is a large-hearted, brave, faithful woman, and her life +speaks for itself. Her experiences are indeed the history of all that +was done in the above-mentioned States.</p> + + +<h3>VERMONT.</h3> + +<p>I was born in Townshend, Windham County, Vermont, January 25, 1810.</p> + +<p>From 1843 to 1853 inclusive, I edited <i>The Windham County</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +<i>Democrat</i>, published by my husband, Geo. W. Nichols, at Brattleboro.</p> + +<p>Early in 1847, I addressed to the voters of the State a series of +editorials setting forth the injustice and miserable economy of the +property disabilities of married women. In October of the same year, +Hon. Larkin Mead, of Brattleboro, "moved," as he said, "by Mrs. +Nichols' presentation of the subject" in the <i>Democrat</i>, introduced in +the Vermont Senate a bill securing to the wife real and personal +property, with its use, and power to defend, convey, and devise as if +"sole." The bill as passed, secured to the wife real estate owned by +her at marriage, or acquired by gift, devise, or inheritance during +marriage, with the rents, issues, and profits, as against any debts of +the husband; but to make a sale or conveyance of either her realty or +its use valid, it must be the joint act of husband and wife. She might +by last will and testament dispose of her lands, tenements, +hereditaments, and any interest therein descendable to her heirs, as +if "sole." A subsequent Legislature added to the latter clause, +moneys, notes, bonds, and other assets, accruing from sale or use of +real estate. And this was the first breath of a legal civil existence +to Vermont wives.</p> + +<p>In 1849, Vermont enacted a Homestead law. In 1850, a bill empowering +the wife to insure, in her own interest, the life, or a term of the +life of her husband; the annual premium on such insurance not to +exceed $300; also an act giving to widows of childless husbands the +whole of an estate not exceeding $1,000 in value, and half of any +amount in excess of $1,000; and if he left no kin, the whole estate, +however large, became the property of the widow. Prior to this Act, +the widow of a childless husband had only half, however small the +estate, and if he left no kindred to claim it, the remaining half went +into the treasury of the State, whose gain was the town's loss, if, as +occasionally happened, the widow's half was not sufficient for her +support.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>In 1852, I drew up a petition signed by more than 200 of the most +substantial business men, including the staunchest conservatives, and +tax-paying widows of Brattleboro, asking the Legislature to make the +women of the State voters in district school meetings.</p> + +<p>Up to 1850 I had not taken position for suffrage, but instead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +disclaiming its advocacy as improper, I had, since 1849, shown the +absurdity of regarding suffrage as unwomanly. Having failed to secure +her legal rights by reason of her disfranchisement, a woman must look +to the ballot for self-protection. In this cautious way I proceeded, +aware that not a house would be opened to me, did I demand the +suffrage before convicting men of legal robbery, through woman's +inability to defend herself.</p> + +<p>The petition was referred to the Educational Committee of the House, +whose chairman, editor of the <i>Rutland Herald</i>, was a bitter opponent, +and I felt that he would, in his report, lampoon "Woman's Rights" and +their most prominent advocates, thus sending his poison into all the +towns ignorant of our objects, and strengthening the already repellant +prejudices of the leading women at the capital. I wrote to Judge +Thompson, editor of the <i>Green Mountain Freeman</i> (a recent accession +to the press of the State and friendly to our cause), what I feared, +and asked him to plead before the Committee and interest influential +members to protect woman's cause against abuse before the House. He +counseled with leading members of the three political parties—Whig, +Free-Soil, and Democrat—including the Speaker of the House, and they +advised, as the best course, that "Mrs. Nichols come to Montpelier, +and they would invite her, by a handsome vote, to speak to her +petition before the House." "When," added Judge T., "you can use your +privilege to present the whole subject of Woman's Rights. Come, and I +will stick by you like a brother." I went. The resolution of +invitation was adopted with a single dissenting vote, and that from +the Chairman of the Educational Committee, who unwittingly made the +vote unanimous by the unfortunate exclamation, "If the lady wants to +make herself ridiculous, let her come and make herself as ridiculous +as possible and as soon as possible, but I don't believe in this +scramble for the breeches!"</p> + +<p>In concluding my plea before the House (in which I had cited the +statutes and decisions of courts, showing that the husband owned even +the wife's clothing), I thanked the House for its resolution, and +referred to the concluding remark of the Chairman of the Educational +Committee, and said that though I "had earned the dress I wore, my +husband owned it—not of his own will, but by a law adopted by +bachelors and other women's husbands," and added: "I will not appeal +to the gallantry of this House, but to its manliness, if such a taunt +does not come with an ill grace from gentlemen who have legislated our +skirts into their possession? And will it not be quite time enough for +them to taunt us with being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> after their wardrobes, when they shall +have restored to us the legal right to our own?"</p> + +<p>With a bow I turned from the Speaker's stand, when the profound hush +of as fine an audience as earnest woman ever addressed, was broken by +the muffled thunder of stamping feet, and the low, deep hum of pent-up +feeling loosed suddenly from restraint. A crowd of ladies from the +galleries, who had come only at the urgent personal appeal of Judge +Thompson, who had spent the day calling from house to house, and who a +few months before had utterly failed to persuade them to attend a +course of physiological lectures from Mrs. Mariana Johnson, on account +of her having once presided over a Woman's Rights Convention, these +women met me at the foot of the Speaker's desk, exclaiming with +earnest expressions of sympathy: "We did not know before what Woman's +Rights were, Mrs. Nichols, but we are for Woman's Rights."</p> + +<p>Said Mrs. Thompson to me upon our return to her home: "I broke out in +a cold perspiration when your voice failed and you leaned your head on +your hand."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> "I thought you were going to fail," continued Mrs. +Thompson. "Yes," said the Judge, "I was very doubtful how it would +come out when I saw how sensitive Mrs. Nichols was. But," (turning to +me), "you have had a complete triumph! That final expression of your +audience was perfect. <i>Mr. Herald</i> with his outside recruits did not +come forward with the suit of male attire at the close, as he had +advertised he would, (I did not tell Mrs. N. this, my dear," said the +Judge.) "He'll catch it now, in the House and out." And he did "catch +it."</p> + +<p>The effort brought me no reproach, no ridicule from any quarter, but +instead, cordial recognition and delicate sympathy from unexpected +quarters, and even from those who had heard but the report of persons +present. The editorial criticism of the Chairman of the Educational +Committee, paid me the high compliment of saying, that "in spite of +her efforts Mrs. Nichols could not unsex herself; even her voice was +full of womanly pathos." The report of the Committee was adverse to my +petition, but not disrespectful. Though the petition failed, the +favorable impression created was regarded as a great triumph for +woman's rights.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>From the time I spoke at the Worcester Convention, 1850, until I left +for Kansas, October, 1854, I responded to frequent calls from town and +neighborhood committees and lyceums—in the county and adjoining +territory of New Hampshire and Massachusetts as well as Vermont, to +lecture or join in debate with men and women, the women voting me +their time, on the subject of woman's legal and political equality. In +these neighborhood lyceums, ministers and deacons and their wives and +daughters took part. Generally wives were appointed in opposition to +their husbands, and from their rich and varied experience did +excellent execution. In order to secure opposition, I used to let the +negative open and close, other wise the debate was sure to be tame or +no debate at all. In all my experience it was the same; the +"affirmative" had the merit and the argument.</p> + +<p>The clergy often spoke—always when present—and in the negative, if +it was their first hearing; and without a single exception they faced +the audience at the close with a cordial endorsement of the cause. +Said one such: "I told you, ladies and gentlemen, that I had given +little attention to the subject, and you see that I told the truth. +Mrs. Nichols has made out her case, and let her and the women laboring +like her, persevere, and woman will gain her rights." "Let your wife +go all she can," said one of these converts to Mr. Nichols, "she is +breaking down prejudices and making friends for your paper. Your +political opponents have represented her as a masculine brawler for +rights, and those who have never met her know no better. I went to +hear her, full of misgivings that it might be so."</p> + +<p>In the winter of 1852 I went as often as twice a week—late <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> and +returned early <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>—from six to twenty miles. I was sent for where +there was no railroad. I often heard of "ready-made pants," and once +of a "rail," but the greater the opposition, the greater the victory.</p> + +<p>On a clear, cold morning of January, 1852, I found myself some six +miles from home at a station on the Vermont side of the Massachusetts +State line, on my way to Templeton, Mass., whither I had been invited +by a Lyceum Committee to lecture upon the subject of "Woman's Rights." +I had scarcely settled myself in the rear of the saloon for a restful, +careless two hours' ride, when two men entered the car. In the younger +man I recognized the sheriff of our county. Having given a searching +glance around the ear, the older man, with a significant nod to his +companion, laid his hand upon the saloon door an instant, and every +person in the car had risen to his feet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> electrified by the wail of a +"Rachel mourning for her children." "O, father! she's <i>my</i> child! +<i>she's my child!</i>" I reached the door, which was guarded by the +sheriff, in a condition of mental exaltation (or concentration), which +to this day reflects itself at the recollection of that agonizing cry +of the beautiful young mother, set upon by the myrmidons of the law +whose base inhumanity shames the brute! "Who is it?" "What is it?" +"What does it all mean?" were the anxious queries put up on all sides. +I answered: "It means, my friends, that a woman has no legal right to +her own babies; that the law-makers of this <i>Christian country</i> (!) +have given the custody of the babies to the father, drunken or sober, +and he may send the sheriff—as in this case—to arrest and rob her of +her little ones! You have heard sneers at 'Woman's Rights.' This is +one of the rights—a mother's right to the care and custody of her +helpless little ones!"</p> + +<p>From that excited crowd—all young men and grown boys, I being the +only woman among them—rose thick and fast—"<i>They've no business with +the woman's babies!</i>" "<i>Pitch 'em overboard!</i>" "<i>I'll help.</i>" "<i>Good +for you; so'll I!</i>" "All aboard." (The conductor had come upon the +scene). "<i>All aboard.</i>" "Wait a minute till he gets the other child," +cries the old man, rushing out of the saloon with a little +three-year-old girl in his arms, while the sheriff rushed in. Standing +behind the old man, I beckoned to the conductor, who knew me, to "<i>go +on</i>," and in five minutes we were across the Massachusetts line, and I +was in the saloon. With his hand on her child, the sheriff was urging +the mother to let go her hold. "Hold on to your baby," I cried, "he +has no right to take it from you, and is liable to fine and +imprisonment for attempting it. Tell me, Mr. C——, are you helping +the other party as a favor, or in your official capacity? In the +latter case you might have taken her child in Vermont, but we are in +Massachusetts now, quite out of your sheriff's beat." "The grandfather +made legal custodian by the father, was he? That would do in Vermont, +sir, but under the recent decision of a Massachusetts Court, given in +a case like this, <i>only the father</i> can take the child from its +mother, and in attempting it you have made yourselves liable to fine +and imprisonment." Thus the "sheriffalty" was extinguished, and mother +and child took their seat beside me in the car.</p> + +<p>Meantime the conductor had made the old gentleman understand that they +could get off at the next station, where they might take the "up +train," and get back to their "team" on the Vermont side of the +"line." As they could get no carriage at the bare little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> station, and +with the encumbrance of the child, could not foot it six miles in the +cold and snow, they must wait some three or four hours for the train, +which suggested the possibility of a rescue. I could not stop over a +train, but I could take the baby along with me, if some one could be +found—The conductor calls. The car stops. As the child robbers step +out (the little girl, clutched in the old grandfather's arms) 'mid the +frantic cries of the mother and the execrations of the passengers, two +middle-aged gentlemen of fine matter-of-fact presence, entered. I at +once met their questioning faces with a hurried statement of facts, +and the need of some intelligent, humane gentleman to aid the young +mother in the recovery of her little girl. Having spoken together +aside, the younger man introduced "Dr. B——, who lives in the next +town, where papers can be made out, and a sheriff be sent back to +bring the men and child; the lady can go with the doctor, and the baby +with Mrs. Nichols. I would stop, but I must be in my seat in the +Legislature." "I have no money, only my ticket to take me to my +friends," exclaimed the anxious mother. "I will take care of that," +said the good doctor; "you won't need any." "They will have to pay," I +whispered....</p> + +<p>I gave my lecture at Templeton to a fine audience; accepted an +invitation to return and give a second on the same subject, and having +left the dear little toddler happy and amply protected, at noon next +day found myself back at Orange, where I had left the mother. Here the +conductor, who by previous arrangement, left a note from me telling +her where to go for her baby, reported that the party had been brought +to Orange for trial, spent the night in care of the sheriff, and were +released on giving up the little girl and paying a handsome sum of the +needful to the mother. He had scarcely ended his report when the pair +entered the car, like myself, homeward bound. The old gentleman, +care-worn and anxious, probably thinking of his team left standing at +the Vermont station, looked straight ahead, but the kind-hearted +sheriff caught my eye and smiled. In my happiness I could not do +otherwise than give smile for smile.</p> + +<p>Arrived at home, I found the affair, reported by the conductor of the +evening train, had created quite an excitement, sympathy being +decidedly with the mother. I was credited with being privy to the +escapade and the pursuit, and as having gone purposely to the rescue. +Had this been true, I could not have managed it better, for a good +Providence went with me. I received several memorial "hanks" of yarn, +with messages from the donors that "they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> would keep me in +knitting-work while preaching woman's rights on the railroad"—a +reference to my practice of knitting on the cars, and the report that +I gave a lecture on the occasion to my audience there.</p> + +<p>And thus was the seed of woman's educational, industrial, and +political rights sown in Vermont, through infinite labor, but in the +faith and perseverance which bring their courage to all workers for +the right.</p> + + +<h3>WISCONSIN.</h3> + +<p>In September and October, 1853, I traveled 900 miles in Wisconsin, as +agent of the Woman's State Temperance Society, speaking in forty-three +towns to audiences estimated at 30,000 in the aggregate, people coming +in their own conveyances from five to twenty miles. I went to +Wisconsin under an engagement to labor as agent of the State +Temperance League, an organization composed of both sexes and +officered by leading temperance men—at the earnest and repeated +solicitations of its delegates whom I met at the "Whole World's +Temperance Convention," held in New York City in September, and who +were commissioned by the League to employ speakers to canvass the +State; the object being to procure the enactment of a "Maine Law" by +the next Legislature. These delegates had counseled, among others, +with Horace Greeley, who advised my employment, curiosity to hear a +woman promising to call out larger audiences and more votes for +temperance candidates in the pending election.</p> + +<p>I, at first, declined to make the engagement, on the ground that I +could not be spared from my newspaper duties; but to escape further +importunity, finally consented to "ask my husband at home," and report +at New York, where one of the gentlemen would await my answer, and +myself, if I decided to accept their proposition. My husband's +cheerful, "Go, wife, you will be doing just the work you love, and +enjoying a journey which you have not means otherwise to undertake," +and a notice from Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler, that she would join us in the +trip with a view to arranging for physiological lectures at eligible +points in the State, decided me to go. Mrs. F.'s company was not only +a social acquisition, but a happy insurance against pot-house witlings +on the alert to impale upon the world's dread laugh, any woman who, to +accomplish some public good, should venture for a space to cut loose +from the marital "buttons" and go out into the world alone!</p> + +<p>In making the engagement, I had taken it for granted, that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> right +and propriety of woman's public advocacy of temperance was a settled +question in the field to which I was invited. But arrived at +Milwaukee, I found that the popular prejudice against women as public +speakers, and especially the advocacy of Woman's Rights, with which I +had for years been identified, had been stirred to its most disgusting +depths by a reverend gentleman who had preceded us, and who had for +years been a salaried "agent at large," of the New York State +Temperance Society. A highly respectable minority of the Executive +Committee of the League endorsed the action of their delegation, but +were overruled by a numerical majority, and I found myself in the +position of agent "at large," while the reverend traducer secured his +engagement in my place.</p> + +<p>This turn of affairs, embarrassing at first, proved in the end +providential—a timely clearance for a more congenial craft—since the +women of the State had organized a Woman's State Temperance Society, +and advertised a Convention to meet the following week at Delavan, the +populous shire town of Walworth County, fifty miles distant in the +interior. Thither the friendly Leaguers proposed to take us. Meantime +it was arranged that Mrs. F. and I should address the citizens of +Milwaukee. A capacious church was engaged for Sabbath evening, from +which hundreds went away unable to get in. But neither clergyman nor +layman could be found willing to commit himself by opening the +services; and with "head uncovered," in a church in which it was "a +shame for a woman to speak," I rested my burden with the dear Father, +as only burdens are rested with Him, in conscious unity of purpose.</p> + +<p>Mrs. F. addressed the audience on the physiological effects of +alcoholic drinks. I followed, quoting from the prophecy of King +Lemuel, that "his mother taught him," Proverbs xxxi., verses 4, 5, 8, +9, "Open thy mouth for the dumb; in the cause of all such as are +appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously and plead +the cause of the poor and needy." The spirit moved audience and +speaker. We forgot ourselves; forgot everything but "the poor and +needy," the drunkard's wife and children "appointed to destruction" +through license laws and alienated civil rights.</p> + +<p>At Delavan we met a body of earnest men and women, indignant at the +action of the Executive Committee of the League, to which many of them +had contributed funds for the campaign, and ready to assume the +responsibility of my engagement, and the expenses of Mrs. F., who in +following out her original plan, generously consented to precede my +lectures with a brief physiological dissertation apropos to the object +of the canvass. The burden of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> speaking, as planned, rested with +me, provided my hitherto untested physical ability proved equal, as it +did, to the daily effort.</p> + +<p>In counsel with Mrs. R. Ostrander, President of the Society, and her +sister officials, women of character and intelligence, I could +explain, as I could not have done to any body of equally worthy men, +that in justice to ourselves, to them, and to the cause we had at +heart, we must make the canvass in a spirit and in conditions above +reproach. "I can not come down from my work," said Miss Lyon, founder +of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, when importuned to rebut some +baseless scandal. To fight our way would be to mar the spirit and +effect of our work. We must place the opposition at a disadvantage +from the first; then we could afford to ignore it altogether and rise +to a level with the humane issues of the campaign. It was accordingly +arranged that the friends should make appointments and secure us +suitable escort to neighboring towns; and to distant and less +accessible points a gentleman was engaged to take us in a private +carriage,—his wife, a woman of rare talent and fine culture, to +accompany us. A programme which was advertised in the local papers and +happily carried out.</p> + +<p>From Delavan we returned to Milwaukee to perfect our arrangements. +From thence our next move was to Waukesha, the shire town of Waukesha +County, twenty miles by rail, to a Temperance meeting advertised for +"speaking and the transaction of business." The meeting was held in +the Congregational church, the pastor acting as chairman. The real +business of the meeting was soon disposed of, and then was enacted the +most amusing farce it was ever my lot to witness. The chairman and his +deacon led off in a long-drawn debate on sundry matters of no +importance, and of less interest to the audience, members of which +attempted in vain, by motions and votes, to cut it short. When it had +become sufficiently apparent that the gentlemen were "talking against +time" to prevent speaking, there were calls for speakers. The chairman +replied that it was a "business meeting, but Rev. Mr. ——, from +Illinois, would lecture in the evening." Several gentlemen rose to +protest. One said he "had walked seven miles that his wife and +daughters might ride, to hear the ladies speak." Another had "ridden +horseback twelve miles to hear them." A storm was impending; the +chairman was prepared; he declared the meeting adjourned and with his +deacon left the house.</p> + +<p>There was a hurried consultation in the ante-room, which resulted in +an urgent request for "Mrs. Nichols to remain and speak in the +evening." The speaker noticed for the evening, joined heartily in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> the +request; "half an hour was all the time he wanted." But when the +evening came, he insisted that I should speak first, and when I should +have given way for him, assured me that he "had made arrangements to +speak the next evening," and joined in the "go on, go on!" of the +audience. So it was decided that I should remain over the Sabbath, and +Mrs. F. return with the friends to Milwaukee.</p> + +<p>Meantime it had transpired that in the audience were several +Vermonters from a settlement of fourteen families from the vicinity of +my home; among them a lady from my native town; we had been girls +together. "We know all about Mrs. N.," said one. "We take the +<i>Tribune</i>, and friends at home send us her paper." So the good Father +had sent vouchers for His agent at large. But this was not all. I had +a pleasant reserve for the evening. I had recognized in the deacon, a +friend from whom I had parted twenty-one years before in Western New +York. In the generous confidence of youthful enthusiasm we had +enlisted in the cold-water army; together pledged ourselves to fight +the liquor interest to the death. And here my old friend, whose début +on the Temperance platform I had aided and cheered, had talked a full +hour to prevent me from being heard! Was I indignant? Was I grieved? +Nay! It was not a personal matter. Time's graver had made us strange +to each other. His name and voice had revealed him to me; but the name +I bore was not that by which he had known me. Besides, I remembered +that twenty-one years before, I could not have been persuaded to hear +a woman speak on any public occasion, and I had nothing to +forgive,—my friend had only stood still where I had left him. Such, +suppressing his name, was the story I told my audience on that +evening. And with his puzzled and kindly face intently regarding me, I +assured my hearers that I had not a doubt of his whole-souled and +manly support in my present work. Nor was I disappointed.</p> + +<p>Next morning, (Sabbath) I listened to a scholarly sermon on infidel +issues and innovations from the chairman of the "business meeting" of +the previous afternoon, he having stayed away from my lecture to +prepare it. In the evening, after the temperance lecture of my +Illinois friend, I improved the opportunity of a call from the +audience, the Rev. Chairman being present, to meet certain points of +the sermon, personal to myself and the advocates of rights for women, +closing with a brief confession of my faith in Christ's rule of love +and duty as impressing every human being into the service of a common +humanity—the right to serve being commensurate with the obligation, +as of God and not of man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<p>One week later, another business meeting was held in the same house, +and in its published proceedings was a resolution introduced by the +Rev. Chairman, endorsing Mrs. Nichols, and inviting her "to be present +and speak" at a County Convention appointed for a subsequent day. Not +long after he sent me, through a brother clergyman, an apology that +would have disarmed resentment, had I felt any, toward a man who, +having opposed me without discourtesy and retracted by a published +resolution, was yet not satisfied without tendering a private apology.</p> + +<p>I had achieved a grateful success; license to "plead the cause of the +poor and needy," where, <i>how</i> to do so, without offending old-time +ideas of woman's sphere, had seemed to the women under whose direction +I had taken the field, the real question at issue. In consideration of +existing prejudices, they had suggested the prudence of silence on the +subject of Woman's Rights. And here, on the very threshold of the +campaign, I had been compelled to vindicate my right to speak for +woman; as a woman, to speak for her from any stand-point of life to +which nature, custom, or law had assigned her. I had no choice, no +hope of success, but in presenting her case as it stood before God and +my own soul. To neither could I turn traitor, and do the work, or +satisfy the aspirations of a true and loving woman.</p> + +<p>For more than a quarter of a century earnest men had spoken, and +failed to secure justice to the poor and needy, "appointed to +destruction" by the liquor traffic. They had failed because they had +denied woman's right to help them, and taken from her the means to +help herself. In speaking for woman, I must be heard from a domestic +level of legal pauperism disenchanted of all political prestige. In +appealing to the powers that be, I must appeal from sovereigns drunk +to sovereigns sober,—with eight chances in ten that the decision +would be controlled by sovereigns drunk.</p> + +<p>To impress the paramount claim of women to a no-license law, without +laying bare the legal and political disabilities that make them "the +greatest sufferers," the helpless victims of the liquor traffic, was +impossible. It would have been stupidly unwise to withhold what with a +majority of voters is the weightier consideration, that in alienating +from women their earnings, governments impose upon community taxes for +the support of the paupered children of drunken fathers, whose mothers +would joyfully support and train them for usefulness; and who, as a +rule, have done so when by the death or divorce of the husband they +have regained the control of their earnings and the custody of their +children. Thus proving, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> man, by his disabling laws, has made +woman helpless and dependent, and not God, who has endowed her with +capabilities equal to the responsibilities He has imposed.</p> + +<p>Worse than unwise would it have been to allow an unjust prejudice +against Woman's Rights, to turn the edge of my appeals for a law in +the interest of temperance, when by showing the connection, as of +cause and effect, between men's rights and women's wrongs, between +women's <i>no</i>-rights and their helplessness and dependence, I could +disarm that prejudice and win an intelligent support for both +temperance and equal rights. On such a showing I based my appeals to +the noble men and women of Wisconsin. I assured my audiences, that I +had not come to talk to them of "Woman's Rights," that indeed I did +not find that women had any rights in the matter, but to "suffer and +be still; to die and give no sign." But I had come to them to speak of +<i>man's rights</i> and <i>woman's needs</i>.</p> + +<p>From the Lake Shore cities, from the inland villages, the shire towns, +and the mining communities of the Mississippi, whose churches, +court-houses, and halls, with two or three exceptions, could not hold +the audiences, much less seat them; the responses were hearty, and +when outspoken, curiously alike in language as well as sentiment on +the subject of rights. "I like Mrs. Nichols' idea of talking man's +rights; the result will be woman's rights," said a gentleman rising in +his place in the audience at the close of one of my lectures. On +another occasion, "Let Mrs. Nichols go on talking men's rights and +we'll have women's rights." "Mrs. Nichols has made me ashamed of +myself—ashamed of my sex! I didn't know we had been so mean to the +women," was the outspoken conclusion of a man who had lived honored +and respected, his threescore years and ten. This reaction from the +curiosity and doubt which everywhere met us in the expressive faces of +the people, often reminded me of an incident in my Vermont labors for +a Maine law.</p> + +<p>In accepting an invitation to address an audience of ladies in the +aristocratic old town of C——, in an adjoining county, I had +suggested, that as it was votes we needed, I would prefer to address +an audience of both sexes. Arrived at C——, I found that the ladies +of the committee, having acted upon my suggestion, were intensely +anxious as to the result. "An audience," they said, "could not be +collected to listen to woman's rights; the people were sensitive even +to the innovation of a mixed audience for a woman, and they felt that +I ought to be informed of the facts." And I felt in every nerve, that +they were suffering from fear lest I should fail to vindicate the +womanliness of our joint venture. But the people came, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> church, +full; intelligent, expectant, and curious to hear a woman. The +resident clergyman, of my own faith, declined to be present and open +with prayer. A resident Universalist clergyman present, declined to +pray. A young Methodist licentiate in the audience, not feeling at +liberty to decline, tried. His ideas stumbled; his words hitched, and +when he prayed: "Bless thy serv—a'hem—thy handmaid, and a'hem—and +let all things be done decently and in order;" we in the committee pew +felt as relieved as did the young Timothy when he had achieved his +amen!</p> + +<p>Utterly unnerved by the anxious faces of my committee, I turned to my +audience with only the inspiration of homes devastated and families +paupered, to sustain me in a desperate exhibit of the need and the +"determination of women, impelled by the mother-love that shrinks +neither from fire or flood, to rescue their loved ones from the fires +and floods of the liquor traffic, though to do so they must make their +way through every platform and pulpit in the land!" "Thank God!" +exclaimed the licentiate on my right. "Amen!" emphasized the chairman +oh my left. My committee were radiant. My audience had accepted +woman's rights in her wrongs; and I —— only woman's recording angel +can tell the sensations of a disfranchised woman when her "declaration +of intentions" is endorsed by an Anti-Woman's Rights audience with +fervent thanks to God!</p> + +<p>Latter-day laborers can have little idea of the trials of the early +worker, driven by the stress of right and duty against popular +prejudices, to which her own training and early habits of thought have +made her painfully sensitive. St. Paul, our patron saint, I think had +just come through such a trial of his nerves when he wrote: "The +spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." The memory of the beautiful +scenery, the charming Indian summer skies, the restful companionship +of our family party in the daily drive, and the generous hospitality +of the people of Wisconsin, is one of the pleasantest of a life, as +full of sweet memories as of trials, amid and through which they have +clung to me with a saving grace.</p> + +<p>The Temperance majority in the ensuing election, so far as influenced +by canvassing agents, was due to the combined efforts of all who +labored for it, and of these it was my good fortune to meet a younger +brother of William H. and O. C. Burleigh, who from his man's +stand-point of precedents and statistics did excellent service.</p> + +<p>The law enacted by the Legislature securing to the wives of drunkards +their earnings and the custody and earnings of their minor children, I +think I may claim as a result of appeals from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> home stand-point of +woman's sphere. As a financial measure diverting the supplies and +lessening the profits of the liquor traffic, this law is a civil +service reform of no mean promise for the abatement of pauper and +criminal taxes. In a plea of counsel for defendant in a case of +wife-beating to which I once listened, said the gentlemanly attorney: +"If Patrick will let the bottle alone"—"Please, your honor," broke in +the weeping wife, "if you will stop Misthur Kelly from filling it."</p> + + +<h3>KANSAS.</h3> + +<p>In October, 1854, with my two eldest sons, I joined a company of two +hundred and twenty-five men, women, and children, emigrants from the +East to Kansas. In our passage up the Missouri River I gave two +lectures by invitation of a committee of emigrants and Captain Choteau +and brother, owners of the boat. A pious M.D. was terribly shocked at +the prospect, and hurried his young wife to bed, but returned to the +cabin himself in good time to hear. As the position was quite central, +and I wished to be heard distinctly by the crowd which occupied all +the standing room around the cabin, I took my stand opposite the +Doctor's berth. Next morning, poor man! his wife was an outspoken +advocate of woman's rights. The next evening she punched his ribs +vigorously, at every point made for suffrage, which was the subject of +my second lecture.</p> + +<p>The 1st of November, 1854—a day never to be forgotten—heaven and +earth clasped hands in silent benedictions on that band of immigrants, +some on foot, some on horseback, women and children, seventy-five in +number, with the company's baggage, in ox-carts and wagons drawn by +the fat, the broken-down, and the indifferent "hacks" of wondering, +scowling Missouri, scattered all along the prairie road from Kansas +City to Lawrence, the Mecca of their pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>In advance of all these, at 11 o'clock <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, Mrs. H—— and myself +were sitting in front of the Lawrence office of the New England +Emigrant Aid Company, in the covered wagon of Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, who +had brought us from Kansas City, and entered the office to announce +the arrival of our company; when a hilarious explosion of several +voices assured us that good lungs as well as brave hearts were within. +Directly Col. P. and Dr. (Governor) Robinson came out. "Did you hear +the cheering?" asked the Doctor. "I did, and was thinking when you +came out, what a popular man the Colonel must be to call forth such a +greeting!" "But the cheers were for Mrs. Nichols," was the reply; and +the Doctor proceeded to tell us that, "the boys" had been hotly +discussing women's rights, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> one of their advocates who had heard +her lecture, expressed a wish that his opponents could hear Antoinette +Brown on the subject; a second wished they could hear Susan B. +Anthony; and a third wished they could hear Mrs. Nichols. On the heels +of these wishes, the announcement of Colonel Pomeroy, that "Mrs. +Nichols was at the door," was the signal for triumphant cheering. "The +boys" wanted a lecture in the evening. The Doctor said: "No; Mrs. +Nichols is tired. To-morrow the thatching of the church will be +completed, and she can dedicate the building."</p> + +<p>Thus truths sown broadcast among the stereotyped beliefs and +prejudices of the old and populous communities of the East, had +wrought a genial welcome for myself and the advocacy of woman's cause +on the disputed soil of Kansas. But, alas! for the "stony ground." One +of "the boys" didn't stay to the "dedication." He had "come to Kansas +to get away from the women," and left at once for Leavenworth. I +wonder if the Judge—he is that now, and a benedict—remembers? I +still regret that lost opportunity for making his acquaintance.</p> + +<p>At Lawrence, the objective point of all the Free State immigration, +where I spent six weeks in assisting my sons to make a home for the +winter, I mingled freely with the incoming population, and gave +several lectures to audiences of from two to three hundred, the entire +population coming together at the ringing of the city dinnerbell. I +returned to Vermont early in January, 1855, and in April following, +with two hundred and fifty emigrants (my husband and younger son +accompanying me), rejoined my other sons in the vicinity of Baldwin +City, where we took claims and commenced homes. I presented the whole +subject of Woman's Rights on the boats in going and returning, as at +first, by invitation. In the summer of 1855, delegates were elected to +a Constitutional Convention, which later convened at Topeka. Governor +Robinson, who with six other delegates voted for the exclusion of the +word "male" from qualification for elector, sent me an invitation to +attend its sessions, speak before it for woman's equality, and they +would vote me a secretary's or clerk's position in the Convention. My +husband's fatal illness prevented me from going.</p> + +<p>In January, 1856, I returned from Kansas to Vermont, widowed and +broken in health, to attend to matters connected with my husband's +estate. Prevented by the ruffian blockade of the Missouri from +returning as intended, I spent some time in the summer and all of the +autumn of 1856 and January, 1857, lecturing upon Kansas, the character +and significance of its political involvements, its promise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> and +importance as a free or slave State, and its claims to an efficient +support in the interest of freedom. In September, being appealed to by +the "Kansas National Aid Committee," at the instance of Horace +Greeley, I engaged for two months in a canvass of Western New York, +lecturing and procuring the appointment of committees of women to +collect supplies for the suffering people of Kansas; my two oldest +sons, C. H. and A. O. Carpenter being among its armed defenders, the +latter having been wounded in the fight between the invaders under +Captain Pate and the forces under John Brown and Captain S. Shores, at +Black Jack.</p> + +<p>Between May, 1856, and February, 1857 (not counting my engagement with +the Aid Committee), I gave some fifty Kansas lectures in the States of +Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and +New York, followed occasionally by one or two lectures on the legal +and political disabilities of women; receiving more invitations on +both subjects than I could possibly fill.</p> + +<p>My experiences in these semi-political labors were often racy, never +unsatisfactory. In a public conveyance one day, an honest old +Pennsylvania farmer asked if I was "the lady who made an appointment +to speak in his place on Kansas, and did not come?" I replied that I +had filled all the appointments made for me with my knowledge; that I +made a point of keeping my promises. "I believe you, ma'am," said he. +"I suspicioned then it was jest a republican trick. You see, ma'am, +our folks all are dimocrats and wouldn't turn out to hear the +republican speakers; so they appointed a meeting for <i>you</i> and +everybody turned out, for we'd hearn of your lectures. But instid of +you, General D—— and Lawyer C—— came, and we were mad enough. I was +madder, 'cause I'd opened my house, seein' as it was the largest and +most convenient in the neighborhood."</p> + +<p>Occasionally I stumbled on a loose segment of woman's sphere, even +among the friends of "free Kansas." In a populous Vermont village, at +a meeting called for the purpose, a committee was appointed to invite +me to speak, composed of the two clergymen of the village and Judge +S——. Reverend W—— excused himself from the service on the ground +of "conscientious scruples as to the propriety of women speaking in +public." Judge S——, a man who for a quarter of a century had, by a +racy combination of wit and logic, maintained his ground against the +foes of temperance and freedom, with inimitable gravity thanked the +audience for the honor conferred on him; adding, "I have no +conscientious scruples about getting desirable information wherever I +can find it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>In Sinclairville, Chautauque County, New York, where I arrived late, +in consequence of a railroad accident, I found a crowded church. A +gentleman introduced to me as "Mr. Bull" was sitting at a table in the +extreme front corner of the spacious platform, recording the names and +advance payments of a class in music, which, as I had been told +outside, was being organized by a gentleman who had arrived with the +news of my probable detention.</p> + +<p>During the next half hour gentlemen rose at three several times and +requested Mr. B—— to "postpone the class business till the close of +the lecture: that people had come from a distance to hear the lecture, +and were anxious to return home, the night being dark and rainy." "I +will be through soon. I like to finish a thing when I begin." +"There'll be time enough," were the several replies, given in a tone +and with an emphasis that suggested to my mind a doubt of the +speaker's sympathy with my subject. When the clock pointed to eight, I +quietly took my seat in the desk and was smoothing my page of notes +when there fell on my astonished ear—"I was about to introduce the +lady speaker, but she has suddenly disappeared." Stepping forward, I +said, "Excuse me, sir; as the hour is very late I took my place to be +in readiness when you should be through with your class." "Madam, you +will speak on this platform." "I noticed, sir, that I could not see my +audience from the platform, also that the desk was lighted for me." +"Madam, you can't speak in that pulpit!" "This is very strange. Will +you give me your reasons?" "It's none of your business!" "Indeed, sir, +I do not understand it. Will you give me your authority?" "It's my +pulpit, and if you speak in this house to-night you speak from this +platform!" "Excuse me, sir; I mistook you for the music-teacher, who, +as I was told, was organizing a class in music." And stepping quickly +to the platform to restore the equanimity of the house, I remarked, as +indicating my position, that my self-respect admonished me to be the +lady always, no matter how ungentlemanly the treatment I might +receive; that the cause of humanity, the cause of suffering Kansas was +above all personal considerations, and proceeded with my lecture.</p> + +<p>At the close, Mr. B—— arose and said: "I owe this audience an +apology for my ungentlemanly language to Mrs. Nichols. I am aware that +I shall get into the public prints, and I wish to set myself right." A +gentleman in the audience rose and moved, "that we excuse the Rev. R. +B—— for his ungentlemanly language to Mrs. Nichols to-night, on the +score of his ignorance." The motion was seconded with emphasis by a +man of venerable presence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> "Friends," I appealed, "this is a personal +matter; it gives me no concern. It will affect neither me nor my work. +Please name suitable women for the committee of relief which I am here +to ask." Business being concluded, I turned to Mr. B——, who was shut +in with me by a press of sympathizing friends, and expressed my +regret, that he should have said anything to place him under the +necessity of apologizing, adding, "but I hope in future you will +remember the words of Solomon: 'Greater is he that controlleth his own +spirit, than he that taketh a city.' Good-night, sir." I learned that +a few months before he had prevented his people from inviting +Antoinette Brown to speak to them on Temperance, by declaring that "he +would never set his foot in a pulpit that had been occupied by a +woman." When three weeks later I heard of his dismissal from his +charge in S——, I could appreciate the remark of his brother +clergyman in a neighboring town, to whom I related the incident, that +"Brother B—— is rather given to hooking with those horns of his, but +he's in hot water now."</p> + +<p>In the winter and spring of 1856, I had, by invitation of its editor, +written a series of articles on the subject of woman's legal +disabilities, preparatory to a plea for political equality, for the +columns of the Kansas <i>Herald of Freedom</i>, the last number of which +went down with the "<i>form</i>" and press of the office to the bottom of +the Kansas river, when the Border ruffians sacked Lawrence in 1856.</p> + +<p>In March, 1857, I again returned to Kansas, and with my daughter and +youngest son, made a permanent home in Wyandotte County.</p> + +<p>The Constitution was adopted in November, 1859, by popular vote. In +January, 1860, Kansas having been admitted to the Union, the first +State Legislature met at Topeka, the capital of the new State. I +attended its sessions, as I had those of the Convention, and addressed +both in behalf of justice for the women of the State, as delegate of +the Kansas Woman's Rights Association. This Association was formed in +the spring of 1859 with special reference to the Convention which had +already been called to meet in the July following, in the city of +Wyandotte.</p> + +<p>The Association—if I recollect aright—numbered some twenty-five +earnest men and women of the John Brown type, living in Moneka, Linn +County; John O. Wattles, President; Susan Wattles, Secretary. Wendell +Phillips, treasurer of the Francis Jackson Woman's Rights Fund, +guaranteed payment of expenses, and the Association sent me, with +limited hopes and unstinted blessings, to canvass the principal +settlements in the Territory, obtain names to petitions and represent +them—if allowed by courtesy of the Convention—in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> behalf of equal +civil and political rights for the women of the State to be organized. +I was appealed to as the only woman in the Territory who had +experience and could take the field, which was I believe true.</p> + +<p>We had no material for Conventions, and the population was so sparse, +distances so great, and means of conveyance and communication so slow +and uncertain, that I felt sure an attempt at Conventions would be +disastrous, only betraying the weakness of our reserves, for I must +have done most, if not all the speaking.</p> + +<p>It was the policy of the Republicans to "keep shady," as a party. John +Wattles came to Wyandotte before I addressed the Convention, counseled +with members, and reported to me that "I didn't need him, that it was +better that no man appear in it."</p> + +<p>After spending some four weeks in the field, I went to the Convention, +and with a very dear friend, Mrs. Lucy B. Armstrong, of Wyandotte, was +given a permanent seat beside the chaplain, Rev. Mr. Davis, Presiding +Elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the District, which I +occupied till the adjournment of the Convention, laboring to develop +an active and corresponding interest in outsiders as well as members, +until my petitions had been acted upon and the provisions finally +passed; purposely late in the session.</p> + +<p>Having at the commencement, only two known friends of our cause among +the delegates to rely upon for its advocacy, against the compact +opposition of the sixteen Democratic members, and the bitter +prejudices of several of the strongest Republicans, including the +first Chief Justice of the new State and its present unreconstructed +Senator Ingalls, an early report upon our petitions would have been +utter defeat. Persistent "button-holing" of the delegates, any +"unwomanly obtrusiveness" of manners, a vague apprehension of which, +at that period of our movement, was associated in the minds of even +good men and women, with the advocacy of the cause, was the +"big-'fraid" followed by more than one "little 'fraid," that made my +course one of anxiety, less only than my faith in the ultimate +adoption of the provisions named.</p> + +<p>Of political suffrage I had, as I confidentially told my friends of +the Association, no hope, and for the very reason given me later by +members of the Convention who consented to school suffrage; viz: "even +if endorsed by popular vote, such a provision would probably defeat +admission to the Union." None the less, however, was the necessity for +disarming the prejudices and impressing upon delegates and citizens +the justice of the demand for political enfranchisement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fortunately, the hospitable tea-table of Mrs. Armstrong, with whom I +was domiciled for the session, offered abundant womanly opportunity +for conference and discussion with delegates; and in the homes of +leading citizens I met a hearty sympathy which I can never forget.</p> + +<p>During a recess of the Convention, a friendly member introduced me to +Governor Medary, as "the lady who, by vote of the Convention, will +speak here this evening in behalf of equal Constitutional rights for +the women of Kansas." "But, Mrs. Nichols, you would not have women go +down into the muddy pool of politics?" asked the Governor. "Even so, +Governor, I admit that you know best how muddy that pool is, but you +remember the Bethesda of old; how the angel had to go in and trouble +the waters before the sick could be healed. So I would have the angels +trouble this muddy pool that it may be well with the people; for you +know, Governor Medary, that this people is very sick. But here is a +petition to which I am adding names as I find opportunity; will you +place your name on the roll of honor?" "Not now, Madam, not now. I +will <i>sign the bill</i>." And the Governor, quite unconscious of his +mistake, with a smile and a bow, hurried away amid the good-natured +raillery of the little circle that had gathered around us. But it was +Governor Robinson, the life-long friend of woman and a free humanity, +that had the pleasure of "signing the bills."</p> + +<p>In compliance with the earnest request of delegates, supported by the +action of the Association, I labored from the adjournment of the +Convention till the vote on the adoption of the Constitution, to +"remove the prejudices"—as the delegates expressed it—"of their +constituents, against the Woman's Rights provisions" of that document. +The death of Mr. Wattles on the eve of the campaign sent me alone into +the lecture field. For with the exception of Hon. Charles Robinson, +our first State Governor, and always an outspoken friend of our cause, +the politicians in the field either ignored or ridiculed the idea of +women being entitled under the school provision to vote.</p> + +<p>At Bloomington, when I had presented its merits in contrast with +existing legal provisions, a venerable man in the audience rose and +remarked that the Hon. James H. Lane, in addressing them a few days +before, denied that the provision regarding Common Schools meant +anything more than equal educational privileges, and that the Courts +would so decide. That it would never do to allow women to vote, for +only vile women would go to the polls. And now, added the old +gentleman, "I would like to hear what Mrs. Nichols<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> has to say on this +point?" Taking counsel only of my indignation, I replied: "Mrs. +Nichols has to say, that vile men who seek out vile women elsewhere, +may better meet them at the polls under the eyes of good men and good +women:" and dropped into my seat 'mid a perfect storm of applause, in +which women joined as heartily as men.</p> + +<p>Policy restrained the few Republican members who had voted against the +provisions<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> from open opposition, and the more that everywhere +Democrats, whom I appealed to as "friends in political disguise," +treated me with marked courtesy; often contributing to my expenses. +One such remarked, "There, Mrs. Nichols, is a Democratic half-dollar; +I like your Woman's Rights."</p> + +<p>At Troy, Don. Co., sitting behind the closed shutters of an open +window, I heard outside a debate between Republicans and Democrats. +One of the latter, an ex-Secretary of the Territory, at one time +acting Governor, and a member of the Constitutional Convention, who +had dwelt much on the superior prerogatives of the Anglo-Saxon race, +was saying, "You go for political equality with the negro; we +Democrats won't stand that, it would demoralize the white man." On my +way to lecture in the evening, a friend forewarned me that the +ex-Secretary, with two or three of his political stripe, had engaged a +shrewd Democratic lawyer, by getting him half drunk, to reply to me. +So when in my concluding appeal I turned as usual to the Democrats, I +narrated the above incident and bowed smilingly to the ex-Secretary, +with whom I was acquainted, and said, "Gentlemen who turn up their +'Anglo-Saxon' noses at the idea of 'political equality with the +negro,' as demoralizing to the white man, forget that in all these +years the white woman has been 'on a political equality with the +negro'; they forget, that in keeping their own mothers, wives and +daughters in the negro pew, to save them from demoralization by +political equality with the white man, they are paying themselves a +sorry compliment." The drunken lawyer was quietly hustled out by his +friends, the Democrats themselves joining the audience in expressions +of respect at the close of my lecture. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> these from hundreds of +telling incidents must suffice to initiate you in the spirit of that +ever memorable campaign.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 347px;"> +<a name="v1_1193" id="v1_1193"> +<img src="images/v1_1193.png" width="347" height="500" +alt="Clarina Howard Nichols (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>In 1854, when I was about leaving Vermont for Kansas, an earnest +friend of our cause protested that I was "going to bury myself in +Kansas, just as I had won an influence and awakened a public sentiment +that assured the success of our demand for equal rights." I replied +that it was a thousand times more difficult to procure the repeal of +unjust laws in an old State, than the adoption of just laws in the +organization of a new State. That I could accomplish more for woman, +even the women of the old States, and with less effort, in the new +State of Kansas, than I could in conservative old Vermont, whose +prejudices were so much stronger than its convictions, that justice to +women must stand a criminal trial in every Court of the State to win, +and then pay the costs.</p> + +<p>My husband went to Kansas for a milder climate; my sons to make homes +under conditions better suited than the old States to their tastes and +means. I went to work for a Government of "equality, liberty, +fraternity," in the State to be.</p> + +<p>I had learned from my experience with the legal fraternity, that as a +profession they were dead-weights on our demands, and the reason why. +When pressed to logical conclusions, which they were always quick to +see, and in fair proportion to admit, were in our favor, they almost +invariably retreated under the plea that the reforms we asked "being +fundamental, would destroy the harmony of the statutes!" And I had +come to the conclusion that it would cost more time and effort to +disrupt the woman's "disabilities" attachment from the legal and +political harmonicons of the old States, than it would to secure +vantage ground for legal and political equality in the new. I believed +then and believe now that Woman Suffrage would have received a +majority vote in Kansas if it could have been submitted unembarrassed +by the possibility of its being made a pretext for keeping Kansas out +of the Union. And but for Judge Kingman, I believe it would have +received the vote of a majority in convention. He played upon the old +harmonicon, "organic law," and "the harmony of the statutes."</p> + +<p>My pleas before the Constitutional Convention and the people, were for +equal legal and political rights for women. In detail I asked:</p> + +<p>1st. Equal educational rights and privileges in all the schools and +institutions of learning fostered or controlled by the State.</p> + +<p>2d. An equal right in all matters pertaining to the organization and +conduct of the Common Schools.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>3d. Recognition of the mother's equal right with the father to the +control and custody of their mutual offspring.</p> + +<p>4th. Protection in person, property, and earnings for married women +and widows the same as for men.</p> + +<p>The first three were fully granted. In the final reading. Kingman +changed the wording of the fourth, so as to leave the Legislature a +chance to preserve the infamous common law right to personal services. +There were too many old lawyers in the Convention. The Democracy had +four or five who pulled with Kingman, or he with them against us. Not +a Democrat put his name to the Constitution when adopted.</p> + +<p>The debate published in the Wyandotte <i>Gazette</i> of July 13, 1859, on +granting Mrs. Nichols a hearing in the Constitutional Convention, and +the Committee's report on the Woman's Petition, furnishes a page of +history of which some of the actors, at least, will have no reason to +read with special pride.</p> + +<h3>REPORT OF JUDICIARY FRANCHISE COMMITTEE ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE PETITIONS.</h3> + +<blockquote><p>The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom in connection with the +Committee on Franchise was referred the petition of sundry +citizens of Kansas, "protesting against any constitutional +distinctions based on difference of sex," have had the same under +consideration, and beg leave to make the following report:</p> + +<p>Your Committee concede the point in the petition upon which the +right is claimed, that "the women of the State have individually +an evident common interest with its men in the protection of +life, liberty, property, and intellectual culture, and are not +disposed to deny, that sex involves greater and more complex +responsibilities, but the Committee are compelled to dissent from +conclusion of petition; they think the rights of women are safe +in present hands. The proof that they are so is found in the +growing disposition on the part of different Legislatures to +extend and protect their rights of property, and in the +enlightened and progressive spirit of the age which acts gently, +but efficiently upon the legislation of the day. Such rights as +are natural are now enjoyed as fully by women as men. Such rights +and duties as are merely political they should be relieved from, +that they may have more time to attend to those greater and more +complicated responsibilities which petitioners claim, and which +your Committee admit devolves upon woman.</p> + +<p>All of which is respectfully submitted.</p> + +<p class="author"> +Sam. A. Kingman, Geo. H. Lillie, P. S. Parks, John P. Slough,<br /> +Sam. A. Stinson, John F. Burns, J. D. Greer, G. Blunt, Ben. Wrigley.</p> + +</blockquote> + + +<h3>MISSOURI.</h3> + +<p>In the spring of 1858, having arranged my home affairs, I set about +the prosecution of a plan for widening the area of woman's work and +influence on the Missouri border. Separated only by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> steam-plowed +river from my Kansas home, Missouri towns and hamlets lay invitingly +before me. For more than three years I had held my opportunity in +reserve. The time to improve it seemed to have come.</p> + +<p>When our company landed at Kansas City, October, 1854, members of a +Missouri delegation opposed to the Free State emigration to that +Territory met us. More than half the company that preceded ours had +been turned back by their representations without a look at the +territory. As our boat touched the landing, Col. Scott, of St. Joseph, +stepped on board, and commenced questioning Hon. E. M. Thurston, of +Maine, who, as Committee of Arrangements for the transfer of the +company's baggage, excused himself, and turning to me, added: "Here, +sir, is a lady who can give you the information you desire—Mrs. +Nichols, editor of the <i>Windham County Democrat</i>." In accepting the +introduction, I caught the surprised and quizzical survey of a pair of +keen, black eyes, culminating in an unmistakable expression of +humorous anticipation; and, certain that my interviewer was +intelligent and a gentleman, I resolved to follow his lead in kind. +"Madam," he inquired, "can you tell me where all these people are +from, and where they are going?" They are from the New England States, +and are going to Kansas. "And what are they going to do in Kansas?" +Make homes and surround themselves with the institutions, social and +political, to which they are accustomed. "But, madam, they can't make +homes on the Kansas prairies with free labor; it is impossible!"</p> + +<p>Why, sir, our ancestors felled the primitive forests and cleared the +ground to grow their bread, but Kansas prairies are ready for the +plow; their rank grasses invite the flocks and herds. Do you know what +a country we come from? did you never hear how in New Hampshire and +Vermont the sheeps' noses have to be sharpened, so that they can pluck +the spires of grass from between the rocks?</p> + +<p>With a humorous, give-it-up sort of laugh, he remarked, abruptly: "You +are an editor; do you ever lecture?" Sometimes I do. "On what +subjects?" Education, Temperance, Woman's Rights—"Oh, woman's rights! +Will you go to St. Joseph and lecture on woman's rights? Our people +are all anxious to hear on that subject." Why, sir, I am an +Abolitionist, and they would tar and feather me! "You don't say +anything about slavery in your woman's rights' lectures, do you?" No, +sir; I never mix things.</p> + +<p>After a sharp, but good natured tilt on the slavery question, the +Colonel returned to the lecture, about which he was so evidently in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +earnest—guaranteeing "a fine audience, courteous treatment, and ample +compensation"; that I gave a promise to visit St. Joseph on my return +if there should be time before the closing of navigation, a promise I +was prevented from fulfilling. And now after three years, in which the +emigrants had made homes and secured them against the aggressions of +the slave power, I wrote him that if the people of St. Joseph still +wished to hear, and it pleased him to renew his guarantees of aid and +protection, I was at leisure to lecture on woman's rights. His reply +was prompt; his assurances hearty. I had "only to name the time," and +I would find everything in readiness. That the truce-like courtesy of +the compact between us may be appreciated, I copy a postscript +appended to his letter and a postscript in reply added to my note of +appointment; with the explanation, that in our Kansas City interview, +the Colonel had declared the negro incapable of education, and that +emancipation would result in amalgamation.</p> + +<p>Postscript No. 1.—Have you tried your experiment of education on any +little nigger yet? J. S.</p> + +<p>Postscript No. 2.—No, I have not tried my educational experiment, for +the reason that the horrid amalgamationists preceded us, and so +bleached the "niggers" that I have not been able to find a pure-blood +specimen. C. I. H. N.</p> + +<p>The subject of slavery was not again mentioned between us. And when we +shook hands in the cabin of the steamer at parting, he remarked, with +a manly frankness in grateful contrast with the covert contempt felt, +rather than expressed, in his previous courtesies, that he thought it +proper I should know, that my audiences, composed of the most +intelligent and respectable people of St. Joseph, were pleased with my +lectures. One of its most eminent citizens had said to him, that he +"had not thought of the subject in the light presented, but he really +could see no objection to women voting."</p> + +<p>Only one lecture had been proposed. By a vote of my audience I gave a +second, and had reason to feel that I had effectually broken ground in +Missouri; that I had not only won a respectful consideration for +woman's cause and its advocacy, but improved my opportunity to +vindicate New England training, in face of Southern prejudices. One +little episode, as rich in its significance, as in the inspiration it +communicated, will serve to round out my St. Joseph experience.</p> + +<p>In introducing me to my audience, the Colonel—remembering, perhaps, +that I did not "mix things," or feeling that he might trust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> my +consciousness of being cornered on the slavery question—remarked in a +vein of courteously concealed irony: "It looks very strange to us for +a lady to speak in public, but we must remember that in the section of +country from which this lady comes, the necessity of self-support +bears equally upon women, and crowds them out of domestic life into +vocations more congenial to the sterner sex. Happily our domestic +institutions, by relieving women of the necessity to labor, protect +them in the sacred privacy of home."</p> + +<p>In his ignorance of the subject, my friend had unwittingly resined the +bow. In bringing his "domestic institution" to the front, he had so +"mixed things," that in my showing of the legal disabilities of women, +of the <i>no</i>-right of the white wife and mother to herself, her +children, and her earnings, my audience could not fail to appreciate +the anomalous character of a "protection" so pathetically suggestive +of the legal level of the slave woman, to which man, in his greed of +wealth and power, had "crowded" both.</p> + +<p>Some months later, at the breakfast-table of a Missouri River steamer, +a gentleman of St. Joseph recognized me, and reported my lectures to +ex-Governor Rollins, who was also on board, and asked an introduction. +After a long and pleasant discussion with the Governor, who entered at +once upon the subject, in its legal, political, and educational +aspects, it was agreed that I should lecture at my earliest +convenience in several of the principal towns of the State, the +capital included; the Governor himself proposing to communicate with +influential citizens to make the necessary arrangements.</p> + +<p>An early compliance with my promise was prevented by the Kansas +movement for a constitutional convention; my connection with which +left me no leisure till late in the autumn, when I commenced my +proposed lecture course in Missouri by an appointment at Westport, by +arrangement of a gentleman of that place, whose acquaintance I had +made in my Kansas campaign. Arrived at the Westport hotel, where my +entertainment had been bespoken, I was taken by the landlady to her +own cosy sitting-room, and made pleasantly at home. Later in the day I +became aware of considerable excitement in the bar-room and street of +the town. The landlord held several hurried consultations with his +wife in the ante-room. My dinner was served in the private room, it +"being more pleasant," my hostess said, "than eating at the public +table with a lot of strange men." An hour after time, the gentleman +who was to call for myself and the landlady, announced an assembly of +a "dozen rude boys," and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> in consequence of the news of John +Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry (of which I had not before heard), the +excitement was such that he could not persuade the ladies to come out. +With some hesitation he added, that it "had even been suggested that I +might be an emissary or accomplice, in what was suspected to be a +general and preconcerted abolition movement." This explained the +questionings of my hostess, and the provision against any possible +rudeness which I might have received from the "strange men" at the +public table. Thus ended my projected campaign in Missouri. For every +city and hamlet in the State was so haunted by the marching spirit of +the Kansas hero, that to have suggested a lecture on any subject from +a known Abolitionist, would have ruined the political prospects of +even an ex-Governor.</p> + +<p>Three years later, assisted by a former resident of Kansas, I lectured +to a very small, but respectful audience in Kansas City; and in the +spring of 1867 was invited by a committee of ladies to lecture at a +Fair of the Congregational Society of that city, with accompanying +assurances from the pastor and his wife, of their confidence in the +salutary influence of such a lecture, on a community which had been +recently treated to an unfriendly presentation of the woman's rights +movement and its advocates. I was too ill at the time to leave home, +but the difference between my anxious efforts three years before to be +heard, and this more than cordial assurance of a waiting audience, was +a happy tonic. It was from persons who knew me only through my +advocacy of woman's equality, and evidenced the progress of our cause.</p> + +<p>In December, 1854, on my return from Kansas to Vermont, I spent +several days in St. Louis, in the pleasant family of my friend, Mrs. +Frances D. Gage, who, very much to my regret, was away in Illinois. +The Judge having recently removed to the city, the family were +comparatively strangers; Abolitionists in a pro-slavery community. +Mrs. Gage, I think, had broken ground for temperance, but they could +tell me of no friends to woman's rights. Rev. Mr. Elliot was not then +one of us, as I learned through a son of Mrs. Gage, who called on him +in my behalf for the use of his lecture-room. I felt instinctively +that, unfettered by home and business interests, I was less +constrained than my friend, and resolved, if possible, to win a +hearing for woman. Having secured a hall, I called at the business +office of a gentleman of wealth and high social position—a +slave-holder and opposed to free Kansas, with whom I had formed a +speaking acquaintance in Brattleboro'—and procured from him a voucher +for my respectability. Armed with this I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> called on the editors of the +<i>Republican</i> (pro-slavery), and secured a paid notice of my lecture. +The editor of the <i>Democrat</i>, who had an interest in free Kansas, and +was glad of news items from its immigrants, received me cordially, and +gave the "lady lecturer" a handsome "personal," though he had no more +interest in my subject than either of the other gentlemen, and gave me +little encouragement of an audience. Nevertheless, when the evening +came, I met an audience intelligent and respectful, and larger than I +had ventured to expect, but not numerous enough to warrant the venture +of a second lecture in the expensive hall, which from the refusal of +church lecture-rooms, I had been obliged to occupy. But here, as often +before and after, a good Providence interposed. Rev. Mr. Weaver, +Universalist, claimed recognition as "a reader in his boyhood of Mrs. +Nichols' paper"—his father was a patron of the <i>Windham County +Democrat</i>—and tendered the use of his church for further lectures. I +had found a friend of the cause. The result was a full house, and +hearty appeals for "more."</p> + +<p>As isolated, historical facts, how very trivial all these +"reminiscences" appear! How egotistical the pen that presumes upon +anything like a popular interest in their perusal! But to the social +and political reformer, as to the Kanes and Livingstons, trifles teach +the relations of things, and indicate the methods and courses of +action that result in world-wide good or evil. Seeds carried by the +winds and waves plant forests and beautify the waste places of the +earth. Truths that flowed from the silent nib of my pen in Vermont, +had been garnered in a boy's sympathies to yield me a man's welcome +and aid in St. Louis. How clear the lesson, that for seed-sowing, all +seasons belong to God's truth!</p> + +<p>The autumn and winter of 1860-61 I spent in Wisconsin and Ohio; in +Wisconsin, visiting friends and lecturing. In Ohio, Mrs. Frances D. +Gage, Mrs. Hannah Tracy Cutler, and myself were employed under +direction of Mrs. Elizabeth Jones, of Salem, to canvass the State, +lecturing and procuring names to petitions to the Legislature for +equal legal and political rights for the women of the State. The time +chosen for this work was inopportune for immediate success—the +opening scenes of the rebellion alike absorbing the attention of the +people and their Legislature. Women in goodly numbers came out to +hear, but men of all classes waited in the streets, or congregated in +public places to hear the news and discuss the political situation.</p> + +<p>From December, 1863, to March, 1866, I was in Washington, D. C., +writing in the Military or Revenue Departments, or occupying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> the +position of Matron in the Home for Colored Orphans, which had been +opened in the second year of the rebellion, by the help of the +Government and the untiring energy of a few noble women intent on +saving the helpless waifs of slavery cast by thousands upon the bare +sands of military freedom.</p> + +<p>In the autumn of 1867, the Legislature of Kansas having submitted to +the voters of the State a woman suffrage amendment to its +Constitution, I gave some four weeks to the canvass, which was engaged +in by some of the ablest friends of the cause from other States, among +them Lucy Stone, Rev. Olympia Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan +B. Anthony. In our own State, among others, Governor Robinson, John +Ritchie, and S. N. Wood of the old Free State Guard, rallied to the +work. With the canvass of Atchison and Jefferson Counties, and a few +lectures in Douglass, Shawnee, and Osage Counties, I retired from a +field overlaid with happy reminders of past trials merged in present +blessings. The work was in competent hands, but the time was +ill-chosen on account of the political complications with negro +suffrage, and failure was the result.</p> + +<p>Since December, 1871, my home has been in California, where family +cares and the infirmities of age limit my efforts for a freer and a +nobler humanity to the pen. Trusting that love of God and man will +ever point it with truth and justice, I close this <i>exposé</i> of my +public life.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Mrs. Nichols had written up a case occurring among the +subscribers to the <i>Democrat</i>, in which $500, the whole estate, was +divided, the half of that amount being all the law allowed for the +support of a woman, then in the decline of life, and sent fifty marked +copies of the paper to members of the Legislature elect. One of them +introduced the bill, which passed the first day of the session.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> The violent throbbing of Mrs. Nichols' heart, caused by +her unusual position and her intense anxiety that her plea might be +successful, had stopped her speaking at the close of a brief preface +to her plea. She, however, soon rallied, though her voice was +tremulous throughout, from the conviction that only an eminently +successful presentation of her subject, could spike the enemy's +batteries and win a verdict of "just and womanly." Mrs. Nichols hoped +no further than that. She did not expect conservative Vermont to yield +at once for what she asked, as she stood alone with her paper among +the press; and there was no other advocate in the State to take the +field.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The head and front of the opposition was Judge Kingman, +Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to which, with the Committee on +Elections, my petition was referred. He wrote the Report against +granting our demand, and of those who signed it all but (Gen.) Blunt +and himself were Democrats. The report was adopted by a solid vote of +the Democrats (16), and enough Republicans to make a majority. +Thirty-six Republicans and 16 Democrats comprised the whole +delegation. If my memory is not at fault, 27 Republicans voted in +caucus for the provisions which were ultimately carried in our behalf, +which was a majority of the whole Convention. In caucus a majority +were in favor of political rights; but only a minority, from +conviction that Woman Suffrage would prevent admission to the Union, +would vote it in Convention.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>MASSACHUSETTS.</h3> + + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Women in the Revolution—Anti-Tea Leagues—Phillis +Wheatley—Mistress Anne Hutchinson—Heroines in the Slavery +Conflict—Women Voting under the Colonial Charter—Mary Upton +Ferrin Petitions the Legislature in 1848—Woman's Rights +Conventions in 1850, '51—Letter of Harriet Martineau from +England—Letter of Jeannie Deroine from a Prison Cell in +Paris—Editorial from <i>The Christian Inquirer</i>—<i>The Una</i>, edited +by Paulina Wright Davis—Constitutional Convention in +1853—Before the Legislature in 1857—Harriet K. Hunt's Protest +against Taxation—Lucy Stone's Protest against the Marriage +Laws—Boston Conventions—Theodore Parker on Woman's Position.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">During</span> the Revolutionary period, the country was largely indebted to +the women of Massachusetts. Their patriotism was not only shown in the +political plans of Mercy Otis Warren,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> and the sagacious counsels +of Abigail Smith Adams, but by the action of many other women whose +names history has not preserved. It was a woman who sent Paul Revere +on his famous ride from Boston to Concord, on the night of April 18, +1775, to warn the inhabitants of the expected invasion of the British +on the morrow. The church bells pealing far and near on the midnight +air, roused tired sleepers hurriedly to arm themselves against the +invaders of their homes.</p> + +<p>During the war two women of Concord dressed in men's clothing, +captured a spy bearing papers which proved of the utmost importance to +the patriot forces.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>During these early days, the women of various Colonies—Virginia, New +York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts—formed Anti-Tea Leagues. In +Providence, R. I., young ladies took the initiative; twenty-nine +daughters of prominent families, meeting under the shade of the +sycamore trees at Roger Williams' spring, there resolving to drink no +more tea until the duty upon it was repealed. The name of one of these +young ladies, Miss Coddington, has been preserved, to whose house they +all adjourned to partake of a frugal repast; hyperion<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> taking the +place of the hated bohea. In Newport, at a gathering of ladies, where +both hyperion and bohea were offered, every lady present refused the +hated bohea, emblem of political slavery. In Boston, early in 1769, +the matrons of three hundred families bound themselves to use no more +tea until the tax upon it was taken off. The young ladies also entered +into a similar covenant, declaring they took this step, not from +personal motives, but from a sense of patriotism and a regard for +posterity.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Liberty, as alone making life of value, looked as sweet +to them as to their fathers. The Women's Anti-Tea Leagues of Boston +were formed nearly five years previous to the historic "Boston Tea +Party," when men disguised as Indians, threw the East India Company's +tea overboard, and six years before the declaration of war.</p> + +<p>American historians ignoring woman after man's usual custom, have +neglected to mention the fact that every paper in Boston was suspended +during its invasion by the British, except the chief rebel newspapers +of New England, <i>The Massachusetts Gazette</i> and <i>North Boston +News-Letter</i>, owned and edited by a woman, Margaret Draper.</p> + +<p>They make small note of Women's Anti-Tea Leagues, and the many +instances of their heroism during the Revolutionary period, equaling, +as they did, any deeds of self-sacrifice and bravery that man himself +can boast.</p> + +<p>The men of Boston, in 1773, could with little loss to themselves, +throw overboard a cargo of foreign tea, well knowing that for the last +five years this drink had not been allowed in their houses by the +women of their own families. Their reputation for patriotism was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> thus +cheaply earned in destroying what did not belong to them and what was +of no use to them. Their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters drank +raspberry, sage, and birch, lest by the use of foreign tea they should +help rivet the chains of oppression upon their country. Why should not +the American Revolution have been successful, when women so nobly +sustained republican principles, taking the initiative in +self-sacrifice and pointing the path to man by patriotic example.</p> + +<p>In Massachusetts, as in other States, were also formed associations +known as "Daughters of Liberty."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> These organizations did much to +fan the nascent flames of freedom.</p> + +<p>The first naval battle of the Revolution was fought at Machias, Maine, +then a part of Massachusetts. An insult having been offered its +inhabitants, by a vessel in the harbor, the men of the surrounding +country joined with them to avenge this indignity to their "Liberty +Tree," arming themselves, from scarcity of powder, with scythes, +pitchforks, and other implements of peace. At a settlement some twenty +miles distant, a quantity of powder was discovered, after the men had +left for Machias. What was to be done, was the immediate question. +Every able-bodied man had already left, only small boys and men too +aged or too infirm for battle having remained at home. Upon that +powder reaching them the defeat of the British, might depend. In this +emergency the heroism of woman was shown. Two young girls, Hannah and +Rebecca Weston, volunteered their services. It was no holiday +excursion for them, but a trip filled with unseen dangers. The way led +through a trackless forest, the route merely indicated by blazed +trees. Bears, wolves, and wild-cats were numerous. The distance was +impossible to be traversed in a single day; these young girls must +spend the night in that dreary wilderness. Worse than danger from wild +animals, was that to be apprehended from Indians, who might kill them, +or capture and bear them away to some distant tribe. But undauntedly +they set out on their perilous journey, carrying twenty pounds of +powder. They reached Machias in safety, before the attack on the +British ship, finding their powder a most welcome and effective aid in +the victory which soon crowned the arms of the Colonists. The heroism +of these young girls was far greater than if they had fought in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +ranks, surrounded by companions,'mid the accompaniments of beating +drums, waving flags, and all the paraphernalia of war.</p> + +<p>In the war of 1812 two young girls of Scituate, Rebecca and Abigail W. +Bates, by their wit and sagacity, prevented the landing of the enemy +at this point.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> Congress, during its session of 1880, nearly +seventy years afterward, granted them pensions, just as from extreme +age they were about to drop into the grave.</p> + +<p>Though it is not considered important to celebrate the virtues of the +Pilgrim Mothers in gala days, grand dinners, toasts, and speeches, yet +a little retrospection would enable us to exhume from the past, many +of their achievements worth recording. More facts than we have space +to reproduce, testify to the heroism, religious zeal, and literary +industry of the women who helped to build up the early civilization of +New England. Their writings, for some presumed on authorship, are +quaint and cumbrous; but in those days, when few men published books, +it required marked courage for women to appear in print at all. They +imitated the style popular among men, and received much attention for +their literary ability. Charles T. Congdon, as the result of his +explorations through old book-stores, has brought to light some of +these early writers.</p> + +<p>In 1630, Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, known as quite a pretentious writer, +came to Boston with her husband, Simon Bradstreet, Governor of +Massachusetts. Her first work was entitled "The Tenth Muse lately +sprung up in America." The first edition was published in London in +1650, and the first Boston edition was published in 1678. If Mrs. +Bradstreet loved praise, she was fortunate in her time and position. +It would have been in bad taste, as it would have been bad policy, not +to eulogize the poems of the Governor's wife. She was frequently +complimented in verse as bad as her own. Her next great epic was +entitled "A Complete Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, +Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons of the Year, together with an +exact epitome of the Four Monarchies, viz: the Assyrian, Persian, +Grecian, and Roman." "Glad as we were," says the owner, "to obtain +this book at a considerable price,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> we are still gladder of the +privilege of closing it." Although this lady had eight children, about +whom she wrote some amusing rhymes, she found time in the wilds of +America to perpetuate also these ponderous-titled poems.</p> + +<p>Phillis Wheatly, a colored girl, also wrote poetry in Colonial Boston, +years before our Declaration of Independence startled the world. She +was brought from Africa, and sold in the slave market of Boston, when +only six years old. Mr. Sparks, the biographer of Washington, thinks +"that the poems contained in her published volume, exhibit the most +favorable evidence on record, of the capacity of the African intellect +for improvement." When the Rev. George Whitefield died, at +Newburyport, Mass., in 1770, the same writer from whom we quote these +facts, says: "It was quite natural, his demise being much talked of in +religious families, that our sable Phillis should burst into monody. +That expression of grief I have before me. Of the most rhetorical +preacher of his age, it is not inspiring to read:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He prayed that grace in every heart might dwell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He louged to see America excel."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Phillis married badly, and died at the age of thirty-one, in 1784, +utterly impoverished, leaving three little children. Her own copy of +her poems is in the library of Harvard College. When she died it was +sold for her husband's debts.</p> + +<p>In a letter thanking her for an acrostic on himself, General +Washington said: "If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near +headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so gifted by the muses, +and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her +dispensations."</p> + +<p>Was there ever any story, which had such a hold upon the readers of a +generation, as "Charlotte Temple"? It is said 25,000 copies were sold +soon after publication—an enormous sale for that day. Mrs. Rowson, +who wrote the book, was a daughter of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy; +she was an actress in Philadelphia, and afterward kept a school in +Boston for young ladies, where she died, in 1824. Her seminary was +highly recommended.</p> + +<p>Women in the last age naturally drifted into the didactic. They should +have the credit of trying always to be useful. They go through so many +pages, seeking to give the little people some notion of botany, of +natural history, of other branches of human intelligence. There is no +book cleverer in its way than Miss Hannah Adams' "History of New +England," of which the second edition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> was published in Boston in +1807. The object of this lady was, as she tells us in the preface, "to +impress the minds of young persons with veneration for those eminent +men to whom their posterity are so highly indebted." All the tradition +is that Miss Adams was a wonderfully learned lady. She is best known +by her "History of the Jews." She wrote pretty good English, of which +this may be considered a specimen: "Exalted from a feeble state to +opulence and independence, the Federal Americans are now recognized as +a nation throughout the globe." To a sentence so admirably formed, +possibly there is nothing to add.</p> + + +<h3>MISTRESS ANNE HUTCHINSON.</h3> + +<p>Mistress Anne Hutchinson, founder of the Antinomian party of New +England, was a woman who exerted great influence upon the religious +and political free thought of those colonies. She was the daughter of +an English clergyman, and with her husband, followed Pastor Cotton, to +whom she was much attached, to this country in 1634, and was admitted +a member of the Boston church, becoming a resident of Massachusetts +one hundred and forty years before the Revolutionary war. She was of +commanding intellect, and exerted a powerful influence upon the infant +colony.</p> + +<p>It was a long established custom for the brethren of the Boston church +to hold, through the week, frequent public meetings for religious +exercises. Women were prohibited from taking part in these meetings, +which chafed the free spirit of Mistress Hutchinson, and soon she +called meetings of the sisters, where she repeated the sermons of the +Lord's day, making comments upon them. Her illustrations of Scripture +were so new and striking that the meetings were rendered more +interesting to the women than any they had attended. At first the +clergy approved, but as the men attracted by the fame of her +discourses, crowded into her meetings, they began to perceive danger +to their authority; the church was passing out of their control. Her +doctrines, too, were alarming. She taught the indwelling of the Holy +Spirit in each believer, its inward revelations, and that the +conscious judgment of the mind should be the paramount authority. She +was the first woman in America to demand the right of individual +judgment upon religious questions. Her influence was very great, yet +she was not destined to escape the charge of heresy.</p> + +<p>The first Synod in America was called upon her account. It convened +August 30, 1637, sat three weeks, and proclaimed eighty-two errors +extant; among them the tenets taught by Mistress<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> Hutchinson. She was +called before the church and ordered to retract upon twenty-nine +points. The infant colony was shaken by this discussion, which took on +a political aspect.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Mistress Hutchinson remained steadfast, and +was sustained by many important people, among whom was the young +Governor Vane.</p> + +<p>Church and State became united in their opposition to Mistress Anne +Hutchinson. The fact that she presumed to teach men, was prominently +brought up, and in November, 1637, she was arbitrarily tried before +the Massachusetts General Court upon a joint charge of sedition and +heresy. She was examined for two days by the Governor and prominent +members of the clergy. The Boston Church, which knew her worth, +sustained her, with the exception of five members, one of them the +associate pastor, Wilson. But the country churches and clergy were +against her, and she was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment and +banishment.</p> + +<p>As the winter was very severe, she was allowed to remain in Roxbury +until spring, when she joined Roger Williams in Rhode Island, where +she helped form a body-politic, democratic in principle, in which no +one was "accounted delinquent for doctrine." Mistress Hutchinson thus +helped to dissever Church and State, and to found religious freedom in +the United States.</p> + +<p>After her residence in Rhode Island, four men were sent to reclaim +her, but she would not return. Upon the death of her husband she +moved, for greater security, to "The Dutch Colony," and died somewhere +in the State of New York.</p> + +<p>Thus, through the protracted struggle of the American Colonies for +religious and political freedom, woman bravely shared the dangers and +persecutions of those eventful years. As spy in the enemy's camp; +messenger on the battle-field; soldier in disguise; defender of +herself and children in the solitude of those primeval forests; +imprisoned for heresy; burned, hung, drowned as a witch: what +suffering and anxiety has she not endured! what lofty heroism has she +not exemplified!</p> + +<p>And when the crusade against slavery in our republic was inaugurated +in 1830, another Spartan band of women stood ready for the battle, and +the storm of that fierce conflict, surpassing in courage, moral +heroism, and conscientious devotion to great principles, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> that +woman in any age had done or dared. With reverent lips we mention the +names of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lydia Maria Child, Maria Weston +Chapman, Mary S. Parker, Abby Kelly, whose burning words of rebuke +aroused a sleeping nation to a new-born love of liberty. To their +brave deeds, pure lives, and glowing eloquence, we pay our tributes of +esteem and admiration.</p> + +<p>To such as these let South Carolina and Massachusetts build future +monuments, not in Quincy granite, or Parian marble, but in more +enduring blessing to the people; inviolable homesteads for the +laborer; free schools and colleges for boys and girls, both black and +white; justice and mercy in the alms-house, jail, prison, and the +marts of trade, thus securing equal rights to all.</p> + + +<h3>WOMAN'S EARLY POLITICAL RIGHTS.</h3> + +<p>In Massachusetts, women voted at an early day. First, under the Old +Province Charter, from 1691 to 1780, for all elective officers; +second, they voted under the Constitution for all elective officers +except the Governor, Council, and Legislature, from 1780 to 1785. The +Bill of Rights, adopted with the Constitution of 1780, declared that +all men were born free and equal. Upon this, some slaves demanded +their freedom, and their masters yielded.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Restrictions upon the +right of suffrage were very great in this State; church membership +alone excluded for thirty years three-fourths of the male inhabitants +from the ballot-box.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>That women exercised the right of suffrage amid so many restrictions, +is very significant of the belief in her right to the ballot, by those +early Fathers.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + + +<h3>THE FIRST STEP IN MASSACHUSETTS.</h3> + +<p>Woman's rights petitions were circulated in Massachusetts as early as +1848. Mary Upton Ferrin, of Salem, in the spring of that year, +consulting Samuel Merritt, known as "the honest lawyer of Salem," in +regard to the property rights of married women, and the divorce laws, +learned that the whole of the wife's personal property belonged to the +husband, as also the improvements upon her real estate; and that she +could only retain her silver and other small valuables by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> secreting +them, or proving them to have been loaned to her. To such deception +did the laws of Massachusetts, like those of most States, based on the +Old Common Law idea of the wife's subjection to the husband, compel +the married woman in case she desired to retain any portion of her own +property.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ferrin reported the substance of the above conversation to Mrs. +Phebe King,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> of Danvers, who at once became deeply interested, +saying, "If such are the laws by which women are governed, every woman +in the State should sign a petition to have them altered."</p> + +<p>"Will you sign one if drawn up?" queried Mrs. Ferrin.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Mrs. King, "and I should think every woman would sign +such a petition."</p> + +<p>As the proper form of petitions was something with which women were +then quite unfamiliar, the aid of several gentlemen was asked, among +them Hon. D. P. King and Judge John Heartley, but all refused.</p> + +<p>Miss Betsy King then suggested that Judge Pitkin<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> possessed +sufficient influence to have the laws amended without the trouble of +petitioning the Legislature. Strong in their faith that the enactment +of just laws was the business of legislative bodies, these ladies +believed they but had to bring injustice to the notice of a law-maker +in order to have it done away. Therefore, full of courage and hope, +Judge Pitkin was respectfully approached. But, to their infinite +astonishment, he replied:</p> + +<p>"The law is very well as it is regarding the property of married +women. Women are not capable of taking care of their own property; +they never ought to have control of it. There is already a law by +which a woman can have her property secured to her."</p> + +<p>"But not one woman in fifty knows of the existence of such a law," was +the reply.</p> + +<p>"They ought to know it; it is no fault of the law if they don't. I do +not think the Legislature will alter the law regarding divorce. If +they do, they will make it more stringent than it now is."</p> + +<p>Repulsed, but not disheartened, Mrs. Ferrin herself drew up several +petitions, circulated them, obtaining many hundred signatures of old +and young; though finding the young more ready to ask for change than +those inured to ill-usage and injustice. Many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> persons laughed at her; +but knowing it to be a righteous work, and deeming laughter healthful +to those indulging in it, Mrs. Ferrin continued to circulate her +petitions.</p> + +<p>They were presented to the Legislature by Rev. John M. Usher, a +Universalist minister of Lynn, and member of the lower House. Although +too late in the session for action, these petitions form the +initiative step for Woman Suffrage in Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>Early the next fall, similar petitions were circulated. It was +determined to attack the Legislature in such good season, that +lateness of time would not again be brought up as an excuse for +non-attention to the prayers of women. Mrs. King's interest continued +unabated, and through her advice, Mrs. Ferrin prepared an address to +accompany the petitions. Hon. Charles W. Upham, minister of the First +Unitarian church of Salem, afterward Representative in Congress, was +State Senator that year. From him they received much encouragement. "I +concur with you in every sentiment," said he, "but please re-write +your address, making two of it; one in the form of a memorial to the +Legislature, and the other, an address to the Judiciary Committee, to +whom your petitions will be referred." These two documents will be +found to suggest most of the important demands, afterward made in +every State, for a change of laws relating to woman. The fallacy of +"sacredness" for these restrictive laws was shown; the rights of +humanity as superior to any outside authority, asserted; and justice +made the basis of the proposed reformation. The right of woman to +trial by a jury of her peers was claimed, followed by the suggestion +that woman is capable of making the laws by which she is governed. The +memorial excited much attention, and was printed by order of the +Legislature, though the possibility of a woman having written it was +denied.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>But in 1850, as in 1849, no action was taken, the petitioners having +"leave to withdraw." Petitions of a similar character were again +circulated throughout Salem and Danvers, in 1850, '51, '52, '53, +making six successive years, in each of which the petitioners had +"leave to withdraw," as the only reply to their prayers for relief. +The Hon. Mr. Upham, however, remained woman's steadfast friend through +all this period, and Mrs. Phebe Upton King was as constantly found +among the petitioners.</p> + +<p>In 1852 the petitions were signed only by ladies over sixty years of +age, women of large experience and matured judgment, whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> prayers +should have received at least respectful consideration from the +legislators of the State. We give the appeal accompanying their +petition:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>:—Your petitioners, who are tax-payers and originators +of these petitions, are upwards of three-score years; ten of them +are past three-score years and ten; three of them three-score and +twenty. If length of days, a knowledge of the world and the +rights of man and woman entitle them to a respectful hearing, +few, if any, have prior or more potent claims, for reason has +taught them what individual rights are, experience, what woman +and her children suffer for the want of just protection in those, +and humanity impels them once more to appear before you, it may +be for the last time. Let not their gray hairs go down in sorrow +to the grave for the want of this justice in your power to +extend, as have several of their number whose names are no longer +to be found with theirs, whose voices can plead never more in +behalf of your own children and those of your constituents.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In 1853 a petition<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> bearing only Mrs. King's name was presented. In +1854 the political organization called the "Know Nothings" came into +power, and although no petition was presented, a bill securing the +control of their own property to all women married subsequent to the +passage of the law, was passed. The power to make a will without the +husband's consent, was also secured to wives, though not permitted to +thus will more than one-half of their personal property. This law also +gave to married women having no children, whose husbands should die +without a will, five thousand dollars, and one-half of the remainder +of the husband's property. The following year the Divorce Law<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> was +amended, and shortly thereafter two old ladies, nearly seventy years +of age, having no future marriage in view, but solely influenced by a +desire to secure their own property to their own children, which +without such divorce they would be unable to do, although one of their +husbands had not provided for his wife in twenty years, nor the other +in thirty years, availed themselves of its new privileges.</p> + +<p>The first change in the tyrannous laws of Massachusetts was really due +to the work of this one woman, Mary Upton Ferrin, who for six years, +after her own quaint method, poured the hot shot of her earnest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +conviction of woman's wrongs into the Legislature. In circulating +petitions, she traveled six hundred miles, two-thirds of this distance +on foot. Much money was expended besides her time and travel, and her +name should be remembered as that of one of the brave pioneers in this +work.</p> + +<p>Although two thousand petitions were sent into the Constitutional +Convention of 1853, from other friends of woman's enfranchisement in +the State, Mrs. Ferrin totally unacquainted with that step, herself +petitioned this body for an amendment to the Constitution securing +justice to women, referring to the large number of petitions sent to +the Legislature during the last few years for this object. Working as +she did, almost unaided and alone, Mrs. Ferrin is an exemplification +of the dissatisfaction of women at this period with unjust laws.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">MRS. FERRIN'S ADDRESS TO THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE OF THE +MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE IN 1850.</p> + +<p>Long have our liberties and our lives been lauded to the skies, +to our amusement and edification, and until our sex has been as +much regaled as has the Southern slave, with "liberty and law." +But, says one, "Women are free." So likewise are slaves free to +submit to the laws and to their masters. "A married woman is as +much the property of her husband, likewise her goods and +chattels, as is his horse," says an eminent judge, and he might +have added, many of them are treated much worse. No more apt +illustration could have been given. Though man can not beat his +wife like his horse, he can kill her by abuse—the most +pernicious of slow poisons; and, alas, too often does he do it. +It is for such unfortunate ones that protection is needed. +Existing laws neither do nor can protect them, nor can society, +on account of the laws. If they were men, society would protect +and defend them. Long, silently, and patiently have they waited +until forbearance ceases to be a virtue.</p> + +<p>Should a woman make her will without her husband's consent in +writing, it is of no use. It is as just and proper that a woman +should dispose of her own property to her own satisfaction as +that a man should dispose of his. In many cases she is as +competent, and sadly to be pitied if not in many cases more so. +And even with her husband's consent she can not bequeath to him +her real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> estate. She can sell it with his consent, but the deeds +must pass and be recorded, and then, if the husband pleases, he +can take the money and buy the property back again. Does justice +require that a man and his wife should use so much deception, and +be at so much unnecessary expense and trouble, to settle their +own private affairs to their own satisfaction—affairs which do +not in the least affect any other individual? Reason, humanity, +and common sense answer—No!</p> + +<p>"All men are created free and equal," and all women are born +subject to laws which they have neither the power to make or to +repeal, but which they are taxed, directly or indirectly, to +support, and many of which are a disgrace to humanity and ought +to be forthwith abolished. A woman is compelled by circumstances +to work for less than half an ordinary man can earn, and yet she +is as essential to the existence, happiness, and refinement of +society as is man.</p> + +<p>We are told "a great deal has already been done for woman;" in +return we would tender our grateful acknowledgments, with the +assurance that when ours is the right, we will reciprocate the +favor. Much that has been done, does not in the least affect +those who are already married; and not one in ten of those who +are not married, will ever be apprised of the existence of the +laws by which they might be benefited. Few, if any, would marry a +man so incompetent as in their opinion to render it necessary to +avail themselves of such laws; neither would any spirited man +knowingly marry a woman who considered him so incompetent; hence, +instead of being a blessing, much labor and expense accrue to +those who desire to avail themselves of their benefit; and such a +step often induces the most bitter contention.</p> + +<p>We are told "the Bible does not provide for divorce except for +one offence." Neither does the Bible prohibit divorce for any +other justifiable cause. Inasmuch as men take the liberty to +legislate upon other subjects of which the Bible does, and does +not, take particular notice, so likewise are they equally at +liberty to legislate and improve upon this, when the state of +society demands it.... A woman who has a good husband glides +easily along under his protection, while those who have bad +husbands, of which, alas! there are too many, are not aware of +the depths of their degradation until they suddenly and +unexpectedly find themselves, through the influence of the law, +totally destitute, condemned to hopeless poverty and servitude, +with an ungrateful tyrant for a master. No respectable man with a +decent woman for a wife, will ever demean himself so much as to +insult or abuse his wife. Wherever such a state of things exists, +it is a disgrace to the age and to society, by whomsoever +practiced, encouraged, or protected, whether public or +private—whether social, political, or religious.</p> + +<p>A very estimable and influential lady, whose property was valued +at over $150,000, married a man, in whom she had unbounded, but +misplaced confidence, as is too often the case; consequently the +most of her property was squandered through intemperance and +dissipation, before she was aware of the least wrong-doing. So +deeply was she shocked by the character of her husband, that she +soon found a premature grave, leaving several small children to +be reared and educated upon the remnant of her scattered wealth.</p> + +<p>Nearly twelve years since, a woman of a neighboring town, whose +husband had forsaken her, hired a man to carry her furniture in a +wagon to her native<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> place, with her family, which consisted of +her husband's mother, herself, and six children, the eldest of +which was but twelve years old. On her arrival there, she had +only food enough for one meal, and nine-pence left. During the +summer, in consequence of hardships and deprivations, she was +taken violently sick, being deprived of her reason for several +weeks. Her husband had not, as yet, appeared to offer her the +least assistance, although apprised of her situation. But, being +an uncommonly mean man, he had sold her furniture, piece by +piece, and reduced her to penury, so that nothing but the aid of +her friends and her own exertions, saved her and her family from +the alms-house.</p> + +<p>Says the law to this heroic woman, "What, though your property is +squandered, your health and spirits broken, and you have six +small children, besides yourself and your husband's mother to +support! After five years of incessant toil in humility and +degradation, why should not your lord and master intrude his +loathsome person, like a blood-sucker upon your vitals, never +offering you any assistance; and should your precarious life be +protracted to that extent of time, for twenty dollars you can buy +a divorce from bed and board, and have your property secured to +you. Such, Madam, is your high privilege. Complain then not to +us, lest instead of alleviating your sufferings, we strengthen +the cords that already bind you."</p> + +<p>The moral courage of the "Hero of the Battle-field" would shrink +in horror from scenes like these; but such is the fate of woman, +to whom God grant no future "hell."</p> + +<p>In case a man receives a trifle from a departed friend or any +other source, the wife's signature is not required. Recently a +poor man left his daughter twenty dollars, of which her husband +allowed her ten, retaining the remainder for acknowledging its +receipt. It was probably the only ten dollars the woman ever +received, except for her own exertions, which were constantly +required to supply the necessities of her family, her husband +being very intemperate and abusive, often pulling her by the ears +so as to cause the blood to flow freely.</p> + +<p>No bodily pain, however intense, can compare with the mental +suffering which we witness and experience, and which would long +since have filled our Insane Asylums to overflowing, were it not +for the unceasing drudgery to which we are subjected, in order to +save ourselves and families from starvation.</p> + +<p>Often does the drunkard bestow upon his wife from one to a dozen +children to rear and support until old enough to render her a +little assistance, when they are compelled to seek service in +order to clothe themselves decently, and often are their +earnings, with those of their mother, appropriated to pay for +rum, tobacco, gambling, and other vices. "Say not that we +exaggerate these evils; neither tongue nor pen can do it!" says +the unfortunate wife of a man whose moral character, so far as +she knew, was unimpeachable, but who proved to be an insufferable +tyrant, depriving her of the necessaries of life, and often +ordering her out of the house which her friends provided for them +to live in, using the most abusive epithets which ingenuity, or +the want of it, could suggest. Intemperance degraded the +character of the man with whom she lived as long as apprehensions +for the safety of her life would warrant; from the fact that her +health was rapidly failing under the severity and deprivation to +which she was subjected, and the repeated threats of violence to +her own life and that of her friends. "But one step farther and +you drive us to desperation! Sooner would I pour out my heart's +blood, drop by drop, than suffer again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> what I have hitherto +experienced, or that my female friends should suffer as I have +done, and I know that many of them do. Yet, neither sacrifice, +sympathy, argument, or influence can avail us anything under +existing circumstances."</p> + +<p>Such an appeal from helpless, down-trodden humanity, though it +were made to a council of the most benighted North American +savages, would not pass unheeded. Shall it be made in vain to +you?</p> + +<p>To many of us death would be a luxury compared to what we suffer +in consequence of the abusive treatment we receive from +unprincipled men, which existing laws sanction and encourage by +their indiscriminate severity, and with which we are told "it +would be difficult to meddle on account of their sacredness and +sublimity." The idea is sufficiently ludicrous to excite the +risibility of the most grave. Though the sublime and the +ridiculous may be too nearly allied for females to distinguish +the difference, unjust inequality is to them far more +contemptible than sacred, having thus far been ungraciously +subjected to it. Well may we be called "the weaker sex" if the +error in judgment is ours, although we have intellect and energy +enough not to respect the circumstances under which we are +placed, nor the powers which would designedly inflict such +injustice upon us.</p> + +<p>Debased indeed would a man consider himself to employ a woman to +plead his cause, with a woman for judge and twelve women for +jurors. How much less degraded are women when exposed to a +similar assembly of men, who have for them neither interest, +sympathy, nor respect, subjected as they are to insolent +questions and the uncharitable remarks of an indifferent +multitude.</p> + +<p>It is urged that women are ignorant of the laws. They are +sufficiently enlightened to comprehend the meaning of justice—a +far more important thing—which admits of neither improvement nor +modification, but is applicable to every emergency. With the +perceptibility that some can boast, it would require but a short +time for them to enact laws sufficient to govern themselves, +which is all that the most aspiring can covet; convinced as they +are that, as in families, so likewise in government, the mild, +indulgent parent who would consult the greatest good of the +greatest number, is rewarded with agreeable and honorable +children; while the one who is unjust, partial, and severe, is +proportionably recompensed for his indiscretion.</p> + +<p>In regard to unjust imprisonment we are told, "It is of too rare +occurrence to require legal enactments." How many a devoted wife, +mother, and child can tell a far different story. Who of us or +our children is secure from false accusation and imprisonment, +or, perhaps, an ignominious death upon the gallows, to screen +some miserable villain from justice? Witnesses, lawyers, judges, +jurors, and executioners are paid for depriving innocent persons +of their time, liberty, health, and reputation, which, to many, +is dearer than life, while the guilty one escapes, and society, +when too late, laments the sad catastrophe. The life-blood of +many a victim demands not only justice for the guilty, but +protection for the innocent.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER,<br /> +<span class="smcap">October</span> 23d and 24th, 1850.</h3> + +<p>The Conventions in New York and Ohio, though not extensively +advertised, nor planned with much deliberation, for in both cases<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +they were hastily decided upon, yet their novelty attracted much +attention, and drew large audiences. Those who had long seen and felt +woman's wrongs, were now for the first time inspired with the hope +that something might be done for their redress by organized action. +When Massachusetts decided to call a convention, the initiative steps +were well considered, as there were many men and women in that State +trained in the anti-slavery school, skilled in managing conventions, +who were also interested in woman's enfranchisement. But to the energy +and earnestness of Paulina Wright Davis, more than to any other one +person, we may justly accord the success of the first Conventions in +Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>In describing the preliminary arrangements in a report read in the +second decade meeting in New York in 1870, she says:</p> + +<p>"In May, 1850, a few women in Boston attending an Anti-Slavery +meeting, proposed that all who felt interested in a plan for a +National Woman's Rights Convention, should consult in the ante-room. +Of the nine who went out into that dark, dingy room, a committee of +seven were chosen to do the work. Worcester was the place selected, +and the 23d and 24th of October the appointed time. However, the work +soon devolved upon one person.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> Illness hindered one, duty to a +brother another, duty to the slave a third, professional engagements a +fourth, the fear of bringing the gray hairs of a father to the grave +prevented another from serving; but the pledge was made, and could not +be withdrawn.</p> + +<p>"The call was prepared, an argument in itself, and sent forth with +earnest private letters in all directions. It covered the entire +question, as it now stands before the public. Though moderate in tone, +carefully guarding the idea of the absolute unity of interests and of +the destiny of the two sexes which nature has established, it still +gave the alarm to conservatism.</p> + +<p>"Letters, curt, reproachful, and sometimes almost insulting, came with +absolute refusals to have the names of the writers used, or added to +the swelling list already in hand. There was astonishment at the +temerity of the writer in presenting such a request.</p> + +<p>"Some few there were, so cheering and so excellent, that it is but +justice to give extracts from them:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +"'I doubt whether a more important movement has ever been +launched, touching the destiny of the race, than this in +regard to the equality of the sexes. You are at liberty to +use my name.</p> +<p class="author"> +William Lloyd Garrison.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + +<p> +"'You do me but justice in supposing me deeply interested in the +question of woman's elevation.</p> +<p class="author">Catherine M. Sedgwick.'</p> + +<p> +"'The new movement has my fullest sympathy, and my name is at +its service.</p> +<p class="author">"'William Henry Channing.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"None came with such perfect and entire fullness as the one from which +I quote the closing paragraph:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +"'Yes, with all my heart I give my name to your noble call.</p> +<p class="author">"'Elizabeth Cady Stanton.'</p> + +<p> +"'You are at liberty to append my own and my wife's name to your +admirable call,</p> +<p class="author">"'Ann Green Phillips,<br /> +"'Wendell Phillips.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Rev. Samuel J. May's letter, full of the warmest sympathy, well +deserves to be quoted entire, but space forbids; suffice it that we +have always known just where to find him.</p> + +<blockquote><p> +"'Your business is to launch new ideas—not one of them will ever +be wrecked or lost. Under the dominion of these ideas, right +practice must gradually take the place of wrong, and the first we +shall know we shall find the social swallowing up the political, +and the whole governing its parts.</p> +<p class="center">"'With genuine respect, your co-worker,</p> +<p class="ltr-right close sc">Elizur Wright.'</p> +<p class="ltr-left0 sc close">"'Mrs. Paulina W. Davis.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Letters from Gerrit Smith, Joshua R. Giddings, John G. Whittier, +Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, Caroline Kirkland, Ann Estelle +Lewis, Jane G. Swisshelm, William Elder, Rev. Thomas Brainard, and +many others, expressive of deep interest, are before us.</p> + +<p>"The Convention came together in the bright October days, a solemn, +earnest crowd of noble men and women.</p> + +<p>"One great disappointment fell upon us. Margaret Fuller, toward whom +many eyes were turned as the future leader in this movement, was not +with us. The 'hungry, ravening sea,' had swallowed her up, and we were +left to mourn her guiding hand—her royal presence. To her, I, at +least, had hoped to confide the leadership of this movement. It can +never be known if she would have accepted it; the desire had been +expressed to her by letter; but be that as it may, she was, and still +is, a leader of thought; a position far more desirable than a leader +of numbers.</p> + +<p>"The Convention was called to order by Mrs. Sarah H. Earl,<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> of +Worcester, and a permanent list of officers presented in due order, +and the whole business of the Convention was conducted in a +parliamentary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> manner. Mrs. Earl, to whose memory we pay tribute +to-day as one gone before, not lost, was one of the loveliest +embodiments of womanhood I have ever known. She possessed a rare +combination of strength, gentleness, and earnestness, with a childlike +freedom and cheerfulness. I miss to-day her clear voice, her graceful +self-poise, her calm dignity.</p> + +<p>"From our midst another is missing: Mrs. Sarah Tyndale, of +Philadelphia—one of the first to sign the call. Indeed, the idea of +such a convention had often been discussed in her home, more than two +years before, a home where every progressive thought found a cordial +welcome. To this noble woman, who gave herself to this work with +genuine earnestness, it is fitting that we pay a tribute of +affectionate respect. She was, perhaps, more widely known than any +other woman of her time for her practical talents; having conducted +one of the largest business houses in her native city for nearly a +quarter of a century. Genial and largely hospitable, there was for her +great social sacrifice in taking up a cause so unpopular; but she had +no shrinking from duty, however trying it might be. Strong and grand +as she was, in her womanly nature, she had nevertheless the largest +and tenderest sympathies for the weak and erring. She was prescient, +philosophical, just, and generous. The mother of a large family, who +gathered around to honor and bless her, she had still room in her +heart for the woes of the world, and the latter years of her life were +given to earnest, philanthropic work. We miss to-day her sympathy, her +wise counsel, her great, organizing power.</p> + +<p>"Many others there are, whose names well deserve to be graven in gold, +and it is cause of thanksgiving to God that they are still present +with us, their lives speaking better than words. Some are in the Far +West, doing brave service there; others are across the water; others +are withheld by cares and duties from being present; but we would fain +hope none are absent from choice.</p> + +<p>"Profound feeling pervaded the entire audience, and the talent +displayed in the discussions, the eloquence of women who had never +before spoken in public, surprised even those who expected most. Mrs. +C. I. H. Nichols, of Vermont, made a profound impression. There was a +touching, tender pathos in her stories which went home to the heart; +and many eyes, all unused to tears, were moistened as she described +the agony of the mother robbed of her child by the law.</p> + +<p>"Abby H. Price, large-hearted and large-brained, gentle and strong, +presented an address on the social question not easily forgotten, and +seldom to the present time bettered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Lucy Stone, a natural orator, with a silvery voice, a heart warm and +glowing with youthful enthusiasm; Antoinette L. Brown, a young +minister, met firmly the Scriptural arguments; and Dr. Harriot K. +Hunt, earnest for the medical education of woman, gave variety to the +discussions of the Convention.</p> + +<p>"In this first national meeting the following resolution was passed, +which it may be proper here to reiterate, thus showing that our +present demand has always been one and the same:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'<i>Resolved</i>, That women are clearly entitled to the right of +suffrage, and to be considered eligible to office; the omission +to demand which, on her part, is a palpable recreancy to duty, +and a denial of which is a gross usurpation on the part of man, +no longer to be endured; and that every party which claims to +represent the humanity, civilization, and progress of the age, is +bound to inscribe on its banners, "Equality before the Law, +without distinction of Sex or Color."'</p></blockquote> + +<p>"From North to South the press found these reformers wonderfully +ridiculous people. The 'hen convention' was served up in every variety +of style, till refined women dreaded to look into a newspaper. +Hitherto man had assumed to be the conscience of woman, now she +indicated the will to think for herself; hence all this odium. But, +however the word was preached, whether for wrath or conscience sake, +we rejoiced and thanked God.</p> + +<p>"In July, following this Convention, an able and elaborate notice +appeared in the <i>Westminster Review</i>. This notice, candid in tone and +spirit, as it was thorough and able in discussion, successfully +vindicated every position we assumed, reaffirmed and established the +highest ground taken in principle or policy by our movement. The +wide-spread circulation and high authority of this paper told upon the +public mind, both in Europe and this country. It was at the time +supposed to be by Mr. John Stuart Mill. Later we learned that it was +from the pen of his noble wife, to whom be all honor for thus coming +to the aid of a struggling cause. I can pay no tribute to her memory +so beautiful as the following extract from a letter recently received +from her husband:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'It gives me the greatest pleasure to know that the service +rendered by my dear wife to the cause which was nearer her heart +than any other, by her essay in the <i>Westminster Review</i>, has had +so much effect and is so justly appreciated in the United States. +Were it possible in a memoir to have the formation and growth of +a mind like hers portrayed, to do so would be as valuable a +benefit to mankind as was ever conferred by a biography. But such +a psychological history is seldom possible, and in her case the +materials for it do not exist. All that could be furnished is her +birth-place, parentage, and a few dates, and it seems to me that +her memory is more honored by the absence of any attempt at a +biographical notice than by the presence of a most meagre one. +What she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> was, I have attempted, though most inadequately, to +delineate in the remarks prefaced to her essay, as reprinted with +my "Dissertations and Discussions."'</p> + +<p>"'I am very glad to hear of the step in advance made by the Rhode +Island Legislature in constituting a Board of Women for some +important administrative purposes. Your intended proposal, that +women be impaneled on every jury where women are to be tried, +seems to me very good, and calculated to place the injustice to +which women are at present subjected, by the entire legal system, +in a very striking light.</p> + +<p class="center">"'I am, dear madam, yours sincerely,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc close">J. S. Mill.'</p> +<p class="ltr-left0 sc close">"'Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Immediately after the reports were published, they were sent to +various persons in Europe, and before the second Convention was held, +letters of cheer were received from Harriet Martineau, Marion Reid, +and others.</p> + +<p>"Thus encouraged, we felt new zeal to go on with a work which had +challenged the understanding and constrained the hearts of the best +and soundest thinkers in the nation; had given an impulse to the women +of England and of Sweden—for Frederika Bremer had quoted from our +writings and reported our proceedings; our words had been like an +angel's visit to the prisoners of State in France and to the wronged +and outraged at home!</p> + +<p>"Many letters were received from literary women in this country as +well as abroad. If not always ready to be identified with the work, +they were appreciative of its good effects, and, like Nicodemus, they +came by night to inquire 'how these things could be.' Self-interest +showed them the advantages accruing from the recognition of +equality—self-ism held them silent before the world till the reproach +should be worn away; but we credit them with a sense of justice and +right, which prompts them now to action. The rear guard is as +essential in the army as the advance; each should select the place +best adapted to their own powers."</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Davis has fallen asleep since writing the above, we have +thought best to give what seemed to her the salient points of that +period in her own words.</p> + +<p>October 23, 1850, a large audience assembled in Brinley Hall, +Worcester, Mass. The Convention was called to order by Sarah H. Earle, +of Worcester. Nine States were represented. There were Garrison, +Phillips, Burleigh, Foster, Pillsbury, leaders in the anti-slavery +struggle; Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth representing the +enslaved African race. The Channings, Sargents, Parsons, Shaws, from +the liberal pulpit and the aristocracy of Boston. From Ohio came +Mariana and Oliver Johnson, who had edited the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> <i>Anti-Slavery Bugle</i>, +that sent forth many a blast against the black laws of that State, and +many a stirring call for the woman's conventions. From Ohio, too, came +Ellen and Marion Blackwell, sisters of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. +Pennsylvania sent its Lucretia Mott, its Darlingtons, Plumlys, +Hastings, Millers, Hicks, who had all taken part in the exciting +divisions among the "Friends," as a sect. On motion of Mariana +Johnson, a temporary chairman was chosen, and a nominating committee +appointed, which reported the following list of officers adopted by +the Convention:</p> + +<p><i>President</i>—<span class="smcap">Paulina Wright Davis</span>, R. I.</p> + +<p><i>Vice-Presidents</i>—<span class="smcap">William Henry Channing</span>, Mass.; <span class="smcap">Sarah Tyndale</span>, Pa.</p> + +<p><i>Secretaries</i>—<span class="smcap">Hannah M. Darlington</span>, Pa.; <span class="smcap">Joseph C. Hathaway</span>, N. Y.</p> + +<p>The Call of the Convention was read. It contains so good a digest of +the demands then made, in language so calm and choice, in thought so +clear and philosophical, that we give it entire, that the women of the +future may see how well their mothers understood their rights, and +with what modesty and moderation they pressed their wrongs on the +consideration of their rulers.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THE CALL.</p> + +<p>A Convention will be held at Worcester, Mass., on the 23d and +24th of October next, to consider the question of Woman's Rights, +Duties, and Relations. The men and women who feel sufficient +interest in the subject to give an earnest thought and effective +effort to its rightful adjustment, are invited to meet each other +in free conference at the time and place appointed.</p> + +<p>The upward tending spirit of the age, busy in an hundred forms of +effort for the world's redemption from the sins and sufferings +which oppress it, has brought this one, which yields to none in +importance and urgency, into distinguished prominence. One-half +the race are its immediate objects, and the other half are as +deeply involved, by that absolute unity of interest and destiny +which Nature has established between them. The neighbor is near +enough to involve every human being in a general equality of +rights and community of interests; but men and women in their +reciprocities of love and duty, are one flesh and one blood; +mother, sister, wife, and daughter come so near the heart and +mind of every man, that they must be either his blessing or his +bane. Where there is such mutuality of interests, such an +interlinking of life, there can be no real antagonism of position +and action. The sexes should not, for any reason or by any +chance, take hostile attitudes toward each other, either in the +apprehension or amendment of the wrongs which exist in their +necessary relations; but they should harmonize in opinion and +co-operate in effort, for the reason that they must unite in the +ultimate achievement of the desired reformation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<p>Of the many points now under discussion, and demanding a just +settlement; the general question of woman's rights and relations +comprehends these: Her education—literary, scientific, and +artistic; her avocations—industrial, commercial, and +professional; her interests—pecuniary, civil, and political; in +a word, her rights as an individual, and her functions as a +citizen.</p> + +<p>No one will pretend that all these interests, embracing as they +do all that is not merely animal in a human life, are rightly +understood, or justly provided for in the existing social order. +Nor is it any more true that the constitutional differences of +the sexes which should determine, define, and limit the resulting +differences of office and duty, are adequately comprehended and +practically observed.</p> + +<p>Woman has been condemned for her greater delicacy of physical +organization, to inferiority of intellectual and moral culture, +and to the forfeiture of great social, civil, and religious +privileges. In the relation of marriage she has been ideally +annihilated and actually enslaved in all that concerns her +personal and pecuniary rights, and even in widowed and single +life, she is oppressed with such limitation and degradation of +labor and avocation, as clearly and cruelly mark the condition of +a disabled caste. But by the inspiration of the Almighty, the +beneficent spirit of reform is roused to the redress of these +wrongs.</p> + +<p>The tyranny which degrades and crushes wives and mothers sits no +longer lightly on the world's conscience; the heart's +home-worship feels the stain of stooping at a dishonored altar. +Manhood begins to feel the shame of muddying the springs from +which it draws its highest life, and womanhood is everywhere +awakening to assert its divinely chartered rights and to fulfill +its noblest duties. It is the spirit of reviving truth and +righteousness which has moved upon the great deep of the public +heart and aroused its redressing justice, and through it the +Providence of God is vindicating the order and appointments of +His creation.</p> + +<p>The signs are encouraging; the time is opportune. Come, then, to +this Convention. It is your duty, if you are worthy of your age +and country. Give the help of your best thought to separate the +light from the darkness. Wisely give the protection of your name +and the benefit of your efforts to the great work of settling the +principles, devising the methods, and achieving the success of +this high and holy movement.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This call was signed by eighty-nine leading men and women of six +States.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p>On taking the chair, Mrs. Davis said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The reformation we propose in its utmost scope is radical and +universal. It is not the mere perfecting of a reform already in +motion, a detail of some established plan, but it is an epochal +movement—the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the +world, and a conforming reorganization of all social, political, +and industrial interests and institutions. Moreover, it is a +movement without example among the enterprises of associated +reformations, for it has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> no purpose of arming the oppressed +against the oppressor, or of separating the parties, or of +setting up independence, or of severing the relations of either.</p> + +<p>Its intended changes are to be wrought in the intimate texture of +all societary organizations, without violence or any form of +antagonism. It seeks to replace the worn-out with the living and +the beautiful, so as to reconstruct without overturning, and to +regenerate without destroying.</p> + +<p>Our claim must rest on its justice, and conquer by its power of +truth. We take the ground that whatever has been achieved for the +race belongs to it, and must not be usurped by any class or +caste. The rights and liberties of one human being can not be +made the property of another, though they were redeemed for him +or her by the life of that other; for rights can not be forfeited +by way of salvage, and they are, in their nature, unpurchasable +and inalienable. We claim for woman a full and generous +investiture of all the blessings which the other sex has solely, +or by her aid, achieved for itself. We appeal from man's +injustice and selfishness to his principles and affections.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was cheering to find in the very beginning many distinguished men +ready to help us to the law, gospel, social ethics, and philosophy +involved in our question. A letter from Gerrit Smith to William Lloyd +Garrison says:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Peterboro</span>, N. Y., <i>Oct. 16, 1850</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>:—I this evening received from my friend H. H. Van +Amringe, of Wisconsin, the accompanying argument on woman's +rights. It is written by himself. He is, as you are aware, a +highly intellectual man. He wishes me to present this argument to +the Woman's Convention which is to be held in Worcester. Permit +me to do so through yourself.</p> + +<p>My excessive business engagements compel me to refuse all +invitations to attend public meetings not in my own county. May +Heaven's richest blessings rest on the Convention.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right">Gerrit Smith.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Very respectfully and fraternally yours,</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Van Amringe's paper on "Woman's Rights in Church and State" was +read and discussed, and a large portion of it printed in the regular +report of the proceedings.</p> + +<p>The papers read by the women, in style and argument, were in no way +inferior to those of the men present.</p> + +<p>Letters were read from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rev. Samuel J. May, L. +A. Hine, Elizur Wright, O. S. Eowler, Esther Ann Lukens, Margaret +Chappel Smith, Nancy M. Baird, Jane Cowen, Sophia L. Little, Elizabeth +Wilson, Maria L. Varney, and Milfred A. Spaford.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>Mrs. Abby H. Price, of Hopedale, made an address on the injustice of +excluding girls from the colleges, the trades and the professions, and +the importance of training them to some profitable labor, and thus to +protect their virtue, dignity, and self-respect by securing their +pecuniary independence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>She thought the speediest solution of the vexed problem of +prostitution was profitable work for the rising generation of +girls. The best legislation on the social vice was in removing +the legal disabilities that cripple all their powers. Woman, in +order to be equally independent with man, must have a fair and +equal chance. He is in nowise restricted from doing, in every +department of human exertion, all he is able to do. If he is bold +and ambitious, and desires fame, every avenue is open to him. He +may blend science and art, producing a competence for his +support, until he chains them to the car of his genius, and, with +Fulton and Morse, wins a crown of imperishable gratitude. If he +desires to tread the path of knowledge up to its glorious +temple-summit, he can, as he pleases, take either of the learned +professions as instruments of pecuniary independence, while he +plumes his wings for a higher and higher ascent. Not so with +woman. Her rights are not recognized as equal; her sphere is +circumscribed—not by her ability, but by her sex. If, perchance, +her taste leads her to excellence, in the way they give her leave +to tread, she is worshiped as almost divine; but if she reaches +for laurels they have in view, the wings of her genius are +clipped because she is a woman.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, of Boston, the first woman who practiced medicine +in this country, spoke on the medical education of women.</p> + +<p>Sarah Tyndale, a successful merchant in Philadelphia, on the business +capacity of woman.</p> + +<p>Antoinette L. Brown, a graduate of Oberlin College, and a student in +Theology, made a logical argument on woman's position in the Bible, +claiming her complete equality with man, the simultaneous creation of +the sexes, and their moral responsibilities as individual and +imperative.</p> + +<p>The debates on the resolutions were spicy, pointed, and logical, and +were deeply interesting, continuing with crowded audiences through two +entire days. In these debates Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Wendell +Phillips, William Henry Channing, Ernestine L. Rose, Frederick +Douglass, Martha Mowry, Abby Kelly and Stephen Foster, Elizabeth B. +Chase, James N. Buffam, Sojourner Truth, Eliab Capron, and Joseph C. +Hathaway, took part. As there was no phonographic reporter present, +most of the best speaking, that was extemporaneous, can not be handed +down to history.</p> + +<p>Among the letters to the Convention, there was one quite novel and +interesting from Helene Marie Weber,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> a lady of high literary +character, who had published numerous tracts on the Rights of Woman. +She contended that the physical development of woman was impossible in +her present costume, and that her consequent enfeebled condition made +her incapable of entering many of the most profitable employments in +the world of work. Miss Weber exemplified<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> her teachings by her +practice. She usually wore a dress coat and pantaloons of black cloth; +on full-dress occasions, a dark blue dress coat, with plain flat gilt +buttons, and drab-colored pantaloons. Her waistcoat was of buff +cassimere, richly trimmed with plain, flat-surfaced, gold buttons, +exquisitely polished; this was an elegant costume, and one she wore to +great advantage. Her clothes were all perfect in their fit, and of +Paris make; and her figure was singularly well adapted to male attire. +No gentleman in Paris made a finer appearance.</p> + +<p>One of the grand results of this Convention was the thought roused in +England. A good report of the proceedings in the New <i>York Tribune</i>, +for Europe, of October 29, 1850, was read by the future Mrs. John +Stuart Mill, then Mrs. Taylor, and at once called out from her pen an +able essay in the <i>Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review</i>, entitled +"Enfranchisement of Woman." This attracted the attention of many +liberal thinkers, and foremost of these, one of England's greatest +philosophers and scholars, the Hon. John Stuart Mill, who became soon +after the champion of woman's cause in the British Parliament. The +essayist in speaking of this Convention says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Most of our readers will probably learn, from these pages, for +the first time, that there has risen in the United States, and in +the most Civilized and enlightened portion of them, an organized +agitation, on a new question, new not to thinkers, nor to any one +by whom the principles of free and popular government are felt, +as well as acknowledged; but new, and even unheard of, as a +subject for public meetings, and practical political action. This +question is the enfranchisement of women, their admission in law, +and in fact, to equality in all rights, political, civil, social, +with the male citizens of the community.</p> + +<p>It will add to the surprise with which many will receive this +intelligence, that the agitation which has commenced is not a +pleading by male writers and orators <i>for</i> women, those who are +professedly to be benefited remaining either indifferent, or +ostensibly hostile; it is a political movement, practical in its +objects, carried on in a form which denotes an intention to +persevere. And it is a movement not merely <i>for</i> women, but <i>by</i> +them....</p> + +<p>A succession of public meetings was held, under the name of a +"Woman's Rights Convention," of which the President was a woman, +and nearly all the chief speakers women; numerously reinforced, +however, by men, among whom were some of the most distinguished +leaders in the kindred cause of negro emancipation....</p> + +<p>According to the report in the <i>New York Tribune</i>, above a +thousand persons were present, throughout, and "if a larger place +could have been had, many thousands more would have attended."</p> + +<p>In regard to the quality of the speaking, the proceedings bear an +advantageous comparison with those of any popular movement with +which we are acquainted, either in this country or in America. +Very rarely in the oratory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> of public meetings is the part of +verbiage and declamation so small, and that of calm good sense +and reason so considerable.</p> + +<p>The result of the convention was in every respect encouraging to +those by whom it was summoned; and it is probably destined to +inaugurate one of the most important of the movements toward +political and social reform, which are the best characteristic of +the present age. That the promoters of this new agitation take +their stand on principles, and do not fear to declare these in +their widest extent, without time-serving or compromise, will be +seen from the resolutions adopted by the Convention<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>After giving an able argument in favor of all the demands made in the +Convention with a fair criticism of some of the weak things uttered +there, she concludes by saying:</p> + +<blockquote><p>There are indications that the example of America will be +followed on this side of the Atlantic; and the first step has +been taken in that part of England where every serious movement +in the direction of political progress has its commencement—the +manufacturing districts of the north. On the 13th of February, +1851, a petition of women, agreed to by a public meeting at +Sheffield, and claiming the elective franchise, was presented to +the House of Lords by the Earl of Carlisle.</p></blockquote> + +<p>William Henry Channing, from the Business Committee, suggested a plan +for organization and the principles that should govern the movement. +In accordance with his views a National Central Committee was +appointed, in which every State was represented<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a>. Paulina Wright +Davis, Chairman; Sarah H. Earle, Secretary; Wendell Phillips, +Treasurer.</p> + +<p>This Convention was a very creditable one in every point of view. The +order and perfection of the arrangements, the character of the papers +presented, and the sustained enthusiasm, reflect honor on the men and +women who conducted the proceedings. The large number of letters +addressed to Mrs. Davis show how extensive had been her +correspondence, both in the old world and the new. Her wealth, +culture, and position gave her much social influence; her beauty, +grace, and gentle manners drew around her a large circle of admiring +friends. These, with her tall fine figure, her classic head and +features, and exquisite taste in dress; her organizing talent and +knowledge of the question under consideration, altogether made her so +desirable a presiding officer, that she was often chosen for that +position.</p> + + +<h3>THE SECOND NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER.</h3> + +<p>In accordance with a call from the Central Committee, the friends of +Woman Suffrage assembled again in Brinley Hall, Oct. 15th<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> and 16th, +1851. At an early hour the house was filled, and was called to order +by Paulina Wright Davis, who was again chosen permanent President. +This Convention was conducted mainly by the same persons who had so +successfully managed the proceedings of the previous year. Mrs. Davis, +on taking the chair, gave a brief <i>resumé</i> of the steps of progress +during the year, and at the close of her remarks, letters were read +from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Mann, Angelina +Grimke Weld, Frances D. Gage, Estelle Anna Lewis, Marion Blackwell, +Oliver Johnson, and Eliza Barney, all giving a hearty welcome to the +new idea. Mrs. Emma R. Coe, of the Business Committee, called upon +Wendell Phillips to read the resolutions<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> prepared for the +consideration of the Convention.</p> + +<p>On rising Mr. <span class="smcap">Phillips</span> said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>In drawing up some of these resolutions, I have used very freely +the language of a thoughtful and profound article in the +<i>Westminster Review</i>. It is a review of the proceedings of our +Convention, held one year ago, and states with singular clearness +and force the leading arguments for our reform, and the grounds +of our claim in behalf of woman. I rejoice to see so large an +audience gathered to consider this momentous subject, the most +magnificent reform that has yet been launched upon the world. It +is the first organized protest against the injustice which has +brooded over the character and the destiny of one-half of the +human race. Nowhere else, under any circumstances, has a demand +ever yet been made for the liberties of one whole half of our +race. It is fitting that we should pause and consider so +remarkable and significant a circumstance; that we should discuss +the questions involved with the seriousness and deliberation +suitable to such an enterprise.</p> + +<p>It strikes, indeed, a great and vital blow at the whole social +fabric of every nation; but this, to my mind, is no argument +against it.... Government commenced in usurpation and oppression; +liberty and civilization at present are nothing else than the +fragments of rights which the scaffold and the stake have wrung +from the strong hands of the usurpers. Every step of progress the +world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, from stake to +stake.... Government began in tyranny and force; began in the +feudalism of the soldier and the bigotry of the priest; and the +ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way like a +thunderstorm against the organized selfishness of human nature.</p> + +<p>And this is the last great protest against the wrong of ages. It +is no argument, to my mind, therefore, that the old social fabric +of the past is against us. Neither do I feel called upon to show +what woman's proper sphere is. In every great reform the majority +have always said to the claimant, no matter what he claimed, "You +are not fit for such a privilege." Luther asked of the Pope +liberty for the masses to read the Bible. The reply was that it +would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> be safe to trust the masses with the word of God. "Let +them try," said the great reformer, and the history of three +centuries of development and purity proclaims the result.</p> + +<p>The lower classes in France claimed their civil rights; the right +to vote, and to a direct representation in government, but the +rich and lettered classes cried out, "You can not be made fit." +The answer was, "Let us try." That France is not as Spain, +utterly crushed beneath the weight of a thousand years of +misgovernment, is the answer to those who doubt the ultimate +success of the experiment.</p> + +<p>Woman stands now at the same door. She says: "You tell me I have +no intellect. Give me a chance." "You tell me I shall only +embarrass politics; let me try." The only reply is the same stale +argument that said to the Jews of Europe: You are fit only to +make money; you are not fit for the ranks of the army, or the +halls of Parliament.</p> + +<p>How cogent the eloquent appeal of Macaulay: "What right have we +to take this question for granted? Throw open the doors of this +House of Commons; throw open the ranks of the imperial army, +before you deny eloquence to the countrymen of Isaiah, or valor +to the descendants of the Maccabees."</p> + +<p>It is the same now with us. Throw open the doors of Congress; +throw open those court-houses; throw wide open the doors of your +colleges, and give to the sisters of the De Staëls and the +Martineaus the same opportunity for culture that men have, and +let the results prove what their capacity and intellect really +are. When woman has enjoyed for as many centuries as we have the +aid of books, the discipline of life, and the stimulus of fame, +it will be time to begin the discussion of these questions: "What +is the intellect of woman?" "Is it equal to that of man?" Till +then, all such discussion is mere beating of the air. While it is +doubtless true, that great minds make a way for themselves, spite +of all obstacles, yet who knows how many Miltons have died, "mute +and inglorious"? However splendid the natural endowments, the +discipline of life, after all, completes the miracle. The ability +of Napoleon—what was it? It grew out of the hope to be Cæsar, or +Marlborough; out of Austerlitz and Jena—out of his +battle-fields, his throne, and all the great scenes of that +eventful life.</p> + +<p>Open to woman the same scenes, immerse her in the same great +interests and pursuits, and if twenty centuries shall not produce +a woman Charlemagne, or a Napoleon, fair reason will then allow +us to conclude that there is some distinctive peculiarity in the +intellects of the sexes.</p> + +<p>Centuries alone can lay a fair basis for the argument. I believe +on this point there is a shrinking consciousness of not being +ready for the battle, on the part of some of the stronger sex, as +they call themselves; a tacit confession of risk to this imagined +superiority, if they consent to meet their sisters in the lecture +halls, or the laboratory of science.</p> + +<p>My proof of it is this, that the mightiest intellects of the +race, from Plato down to the present time, some of the rarest +minds of Germany, France, and England, have successively yielded +their assent to the fact, that woman is not, perhaps, +identically, but equally endowed with man in all intellectual +capabilities. It is generally the second-rate men who doubt; +doubt because, perhaps, they fear a fair field.</p> + +<p>Suppose that woman is essentially inferior to man, she still has +rights. Grant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> that Mrs. Norton<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> never could be Byron; that +Elizabeth Barrett never could have written Paradise Lost; that +Mrs. Somerville never could be La Place, nor Sirani have painted +the Transfiguration. What then? Does that prove they should be +deprived of all civil rights?</p> + +<p>John Smith will never be, never can be, Daniel Webster. Shall he +therefore be put under guardianship, and forbidden to vote? +Suppose woman, though equal, does differ essentially in her +intellect from man, is that any ground for disfranchising her? +Shall the Fultons say to the Raphaels, because you can not make +steam engines, therefore you shall not vote? Shall the Napoleons +or the Washingtons say to the Wordsworths or the Herschels, +because you can not lead armies, and govern States, therefore you +shall have no civil rights?</p></blockquote> + +<p>The following interesting letter from Harriet Martineau was then read, +which we give in full, that the reader may see how clearly defined was +her position at that early day:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Cromer, England</span>, <i>Aug. 3, 1851</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Paulina Wright Davis</span>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:—I beg to thank you heartily for your kindness in +sending me the Report of the Proceedings of your Woman's Rights +Convention. I had gathered what I could from the newspapers +concerning it, but I was gratified at being able to read, in a +collected form, addresses so full of earnestness and sound truth, +as I found most of the speeches to be. I hope you are aware of +the interest excited in this country by that Convention, the +strongest, proof of which is the appearance of an article on the +subject in <i>The Westminster Review</i> (for July), as thorough-going +as any of your own addresses, and from the pen (at least as it is +understood here) of one of our very first men, Mr. John S. Mill. +I am not without hope that this article will materially +strengthen your hands, and I am sure it can not but cheer your +hearts.</p> + +<p>Ever since I became capable of thinking for myself, I have +clearly seen, and I have said it till my listeners and readers +are probably tired of hearing it, that there can be but one true +method in the treatment of each human being, of either sex, of +any color, and under any outward circumstances, to ascertain what +are the powers of that being, to cultivate them to the utmost, +and <i>then</i> to see what action they will find for themselves. This +has probably never been done for men, unless in some rare +individual cases. It has certainly never been done for women, +and, till it is done, all debating about what woman's intellect +is, all speculation, or laying down the law, as to what is +woman's sphere, is a mere beating of the air. <i>A priori</i> +conceptions have long been worthless in physical science, and +nothing was really effected till the experimental method was +clearly made out and strictly applied in practice, and the same +principle holds most certainly through the whole range of moral +science.</p> + +<p>Whether we regard the physical fact of what women are able to do, +or the moral fact of what women ought to do, it is equally +necessary to abstain from making any decision prior to +experiment. We see plainly enough the waste of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> time and thought +among the men who once talked of Nature abhorring a vacuum, or +disputed at great length as to whether angels could go from end +to end without passing through the middle; and the day will come +when it will appear to be no less absurd to have argued, as men +and women are arguing now, about what woman ought to do, before +it was ascertained what woman can do.</p> + +<p>Let us once see a hundred women educated up to the highest point +that education at present reaches; let them be supplied with such +knowledge as their faculties are found to crave, and let them be +free to use, apply, and increase their knowledge as their +faculties shall instigate, and it will presently appear what is +the sphere of each of the hundred.</p> + +<p>One may be discovering comets, like Miss Herschell; one may be +laying open the mathematical structure of the universe, like Mrs. +Somerville; another may be analyzing the chemical relations of +Nature in the laboratory; another may be penetrating the +mysteries of physiology; others may be applying science in the +healing of diseases; others maybe investigating the laws of +social relations, learning the great natural laws under which +society, like everything else, proceeds; others, again, may be +actively carrying out the social arrangements which have been +formed under these laws; and others may be chiefly occupied in +family business, in the duties of the wife and mother, and the +ruler of the household.</p> + +<p>If, among the hundred women, a great diversity of powers should +appear (which I have no doubt would be the case), there will +always be plenty of scope and material for the greatest amount +and variety of power that can be brought out. If not—if it +should appear that women fall below men in all but the domestic +functions—then it will be well that the experiment has been +tried; and the trial better go on forever, that woman's sphere +may forever determine itself to the satisfaction of everybody. It +is clear that education, to be what I demand on behalf of women, +must be intended to issue in active life.</p> + +<p>A man's medical education would be worth little, if it was not a +preparation for practice. The astronomer and the chemist would +put little force into their studies, if it was certain that they +must leave off in four or five years, and do nothing for the rest +of their lives; and no man could possibly feel much interest in +political and social morals, if he knew that he must, all his +life long, pay taxes, but neither speak nor move about public +affairs.</p> + +<p>Women, like men, must be educated with a view to action, or their +studies can not be called education, and no judgment can be +formed of the scope of their faculties. The pursuit must be +life's business, or it will be mere pastime or irksome task. This +was always my point of difference with one who carefully +cherished a reverence for woman, the late Dr. Channing.</p> + +<p>How much we spoke and wrote of the old controversy, Influence vs. +Office. He would have had any woman study anything that her +faculties led her to, whether physical science or law, government +and political economy; but he would have her stop at the study. +From the moment she entered the hospital as physician and not +nurse; from the moment she took her place in a court of justice, +in the jury box, and not the witness box; from the moment she +brought her mind and her voice into the legislature, instead of +discussing the principles of laws at home; from the moment she +announced and administered justice instead of looking at it from +afar, as a thing with which she had no concern, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> would, he +feared, lose her influence as an observing intelligence, standing +by in a state of purity "unspotted from the world."</p> + +<p>My conviction always was, that an intelligence never carried out +into action could not be worth much; and that, if all the action +of human life was of a character so tainted as to be unfit for +women, it could be no better for men, and we ought all to sit +down together, to let barbarism overtake us once more.</p> + +<p>My own conviction is, that the natural action of the whole human +being occasions not only the most strength, but the highest +elevation; not only the warmest sympathy, but the deepest purity. +The highest and purest beings among women seem now to be those +who, far from being idle, find among their restricted +opportunities some means of strenuous action; and I can not doubt +that, if an active social career were open to all women, with due +means of preparation for it, those who are high and holy now, +would be high and holy then, and would be joined by an +innumerable company of just spirits from among those whose +energies are now pining and fretting in enforced idleness, or +unworthy frivolity, or brought down into pursuits and aims which +are anything but pure and peaceable.</p> + +<p>In regard to the old controversy—Influence vs. Office—it +appears to me that if Influence is good and Office bad for human +morals and character, Man's present position is one of such +hardship, as it is almost profane to contemplate; and if, on the +contrary, Office is good and a life of Influence is bad, Woman +has an instant right to claim that her position be amended.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Harriet Martineau.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours faithfully,</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">From her letter, we find, that Miss Martineau shared the common +opinion in England that the article in the <i>Westminster Review</i> on the +"Enfranchisement of Woman" was written by John Stuart Mill. It was +certainly very complimentary to Mrs. Taylor, the real author of that +paper, who afterward married Mr. Mill, that it should have been +supposed to emanate from the pen of that distinguished philosopher. An +amusing incident is related of Mr. Mill, for the truth of which we can +not vouch, but report says, that after reading this article, he +hastened to read it again to Mrs. Taylor, and passing on it the +highest praises, to his great surprise she confessed herself the +author.</p> + +<p>At this Convention Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith made her first +appearance on our platform. She was well known in the literary circles +of New York as a writer of merit in journals and periodicals. She +defended the Convention and its leaders through the columns of the +<i>New York Tribune</i>, and afterward published a series of articles +entitled "Woman and her Needs." She early made her way into the +lyceums and some pulpits never before open to woman. Her "Bertha and +Lily," a woman's rights novel, and her other writings were influential +in moulding popular thought.</p> + +<p>Angelina Grimke, familiar with plantation life, spoke eloquently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> on +the parallel between the slave code and the laws for married women.</p> + +<p>Mehitable Haskell, of Gloucester, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Perhaps, my friends, I ought to apologize for standing here. +Perhaps I attach too much importance to my own age. This meeting, +as I understand it, was called to discuss Woman's Rights. Well, I +do not pretend to know exactly what woman's rights are; but I do +know that I have groaned for forty years, yea, for fifty years, +under a sense of woman's wrongs. I know that even when a girl, I +groaned under the idea that I could not receive as much +instruction as my brothers could. I wanted to be what I felt I +was capable of becoming, but opportunity was denied me. I rejoice +in the progress that has been made. I rejoice that so many women +are here; it denotes that they are waking up to some sense of +their situation. One of my sisters observed that she had received +great kindness as a wife, mother, sister, and daughter. I, too, +have brethren in various directions, both those that are natural, +and those that are spiritual brethren, as I understand the +matter; and I rejoice to say I have found, I say it to the honor +of my brothers, I have found more men than women, who were +impressed with the wrongs under which our sex labor, and felt the +need of reformation. I rejoice in this fact.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Rebecca B. Spring followed with some pertinent remarks. Mrs. Emma E. +Coe reviewed in a strain of pungent irony the State Laws in relation +to woman. In discussing the resolutions, Charles List, Esq., of +Boston, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I lately saw a book wherein the author in a very eloquent, but +highly wrought sentence, speaks of woman as "the connecting link +between man and heaven." I think this asks too much, and I deny +the right of woman to assume such a prerogative; all I claim is +that woman should be raised by noble aspiration to the loftiest +moral elevation, and thus be fitted to train men up to become +worthy companions for the pure, high-minded beings which all +women should strive to be. A great duty rests on woman, and it +becomes you not to lose a moment in securing for yourselves every +right and privilege, whereby you maybe elevated and so prepared +to exert the influence which man so much needs. Women fall far +short now of exerting the moral influence intrusted to them as +mothers and wives, consequently men are imperfectly developed in +their higher nature.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nichols rejoined: Woman has been waiting for centuries +expecting man to go before and lift her up, but he has failed to +meet our expectations, and now comes the call that she should +first grasp heaven and pull man up after her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Coe said: The signs are truly propitious, when man begins to +complain of his wrongs—women not fit to be wives and mothers!</p> + +<p>Who placed them in their present position? Who keeps, them there? +Let woman demand the highest education in our land, and what +college, with the exception of Oberlin, will receive her? I have +myself lately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> made such a demand and been refused simply on the +ground of sex. Yet what is there in the highest range of +intellectual pursuits, to which woman may not rightfully aspire? +What is there, for instance, in theology, which she should not +strive to learn? Give me only that in religion which woman may +and should become acquainted with, and the rest may go like chaff +before the wind.</p> + +<p>Lucy Stone said: I think it is not without reason that men +complain of the wives and mothers of to-day. Let us look the fact +soberly and fairly in the face, and admit that there <i>is</i> +occasion to complain of wives and mothers. But while I say this, +let me also say that when you can show one woman who is what she +ought to be as a wife and a mother, you can show not more than +one man who is what he should be as a husband and father. The +blame is on both sides. When we add to what woman ought to be for +her own sake, this other fact, that woman, by reason of her +maternity, must exert a most potent influence over the +generations yet to be, there is no language that can speak the +magnitude or importance of the subject that has called us +together. He is guilty of giving the world a dwarfed humanity, +who would seek to hinder this movement for the elevation of +woman; for she is as yet a starved and dependent outcast before +the law. In government she is outlawed, having neither voice nor +part in it. In the household she is either a ceaseless drudge, or +a blank. In the department of education, in industry, let woman's +sphere be bounded only by her capacity. We desire there should no +walls be thrown about it. Let man read his own soul, and turn +over the pages of his own Book of Life, and learn that in the +human mind there is always capacity for development, and then let +him trust woman to that power of growth, no matter who says nay. +Laying her hand on the helm, let woman steer straight onward to +the fulfillment of her own destiny. Let her ever remember, that +in following out the high behests of her own soul will be found +her exceeding great reward.</p></blockquote> + +<p>William Henry Channing then gave the report from the committee on the +social relations. Those present speak of it as a very able paper on +that complex question, but as it was not published with the +proceedings, all that can be found is the following meagre abstract +from <i>The Worcester Spy</i>:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Woman has a natural right to the development of all her +faculties, and to all the advantages that insure this result. She +has the right not only to civil and legal justice, which lie on +the outskirts of social life, but to social justice, which +affects the central position of society.</p> + +<p>Woman should be as free to marry, or remain single, and as +honorable in either relation, as man. There should be no stigma +attached to the single woman, impelling her to avoid the +possibility of such a position, by crushing her self-respect and +individual ambition. A true Christian marriage is a sacred union +of soul and sense, and the issues flowing from it are eternal. +All obstacles in the way of severing uncongenial marriages should +be removed, because such unions are unnatural, and must be evil +in their results. Divorce in such cases should be honorable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +without subjecting the parties to the shame of exposure in the +courts, or in the columns of the daily papers.</p> + +<p>Much could be accomplished for the elevation of woman by +organizations clustering round a social principle, like those +already clustered round a religious principle, such as "Sisters +of Mercy," "Sisters of Charity," etc. There should be social +orders called "Sisters of Honor," having for their object the +interests of unfortunate women. From these would spring up +convents, where those who have escaped from false marriages and +illegal social relations would find refuge. These organizations +might send out missionaries to gather the despised Magdalens into +safe retreats, and raise them to the level of true womanhood.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Channing spoke at length on the civil and political position of +woman, eloquently advocating the rightfulness and expediency of +woman's co-sovereignty with man, and closed by reading a very eloquent +letter from Jeanne Deroine and Pauline Roland, two remarkable French +women, then in the prison of St. Lagare, in Paris, for their liberal +opinions.</p> + +<p>Just as the agitation for woman's rights began in this country, +Pauline Roland began in France a vigorous demand for her rights as a +citizen. The 27th of February, 1848, she presented herself before the +electoral reunion to claim the right of nominating the mayor of the +city where she lived. Having been refused, she claimed in April of the +same year the right to take part in the elections for the Constituent +Assembly, and was again refused. On April 12, 1849, Jeanne Deroine +claimed for woman the right of eligibility by presenting herself as a +candidate for the Legislative Assembly, and she sustained this right +before the preparatory electoral reunions of Paris. On the 3d of +October Jeanne Deroine and Pauline Roland, delegates from the +fraternal associations, were elected members of the Central Committee +of the Associative Unions. This Central Committee was for the +fraternal associations what the Constituent Assembly was for the +French Republic in 1848.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>To the Convention of the Women of America</i>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sisters</span>:—Your courageous declaration of Woman's Rights has +resounded even to our prison, and has filled our souls with +inexpressible joy.</p> + +<p>In France the reaction has suppressed the cry of liberty of the +women of the future. Deprived, like their brothers, of the +Democracy, of the right to civil and political equality, and the +fiscal laws which trammel the liberty of the press, hinder the +propagation of those eternal truths which must regenerate +humanity.</p> + +<p>They wish the women of France to found a hospitable tribunal, +which shall receive the cry of the oppressed and suffering, and +vindicate in the name of humanity, solidarity, the social right +for both sexes equally; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> where woman, the mother of humanity, +may claim in the name of her children, mutilated by tyranny, her +right to true liberty, to the complete development and free +exercise of all her faculties, and reveal that half of truth +which is in her, and without which no social work can be +complete.</p> + +<p>The darkness of reaction has obscured the sun of 1848, which +seemed to rise so radiantly. Why? Because the revolutionary +tempest, in overturning at the same time the throne and the +scaffold, in breaking the chain of the black slave, forgot to +break the chain of the most oppressed of all of the pariahs of +humanity.</p> + +<p>"There shall be no more slaves," said our brethren. "We proclaim +universal suffrage. All shall have the right to elect the agents +who shall carry out the Constitution which should be based on the +principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Let each one +come and deposit his vote; the barrier of privilege is +overturned; before the electoral urn there are no more oppressed, +no more masters and slaves."</p> + +<p>Woman, in listening to this appeal, rises and approaches the +liberating urn to exercise her right of suffrage as a member of +society. But the barrier of privilege rises also before her. "You +must wait," they say. But by this claim alone woman affirms the +right, not yet recognized, of the half of humanity—the right of +woman to liberty, equality, and fraternity. She obliges man to +verify the fatal attack which he makes on the integrity of his +principles.</p> + +<p>Soon, in fact during the wonderful days of June, 1848, liberty +glides from her pedestal in the flood of the victims of the +reaction; based on the "right of the strongest," she falls, +overturned in the name of "the right of the strongest."</p> + +<p>The Assembly kept silence in regard to the right of one-half of +humanity, for which only one of its members raised his voice, but +in vain. No mention was made of the right of woman in a +Constitution framed in the name of Liberty, Equality, and +Fraternity.</p> + +<p>It is in the name of these principles that woman comes to claim +her right to take part in the Legislative Assembly, and to help +to form the laws which must govern society, of which she is a +member.</p> + +<p>She comes to demand of the electors the consecration of the +principle of equality by the election of a woman, and by this act +she obliges man to prove that the fundamental law which he has +formed in the sole name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, is +still based upon privilege, and soon privilege triumphs over this +phantom of universal suffrage, which, being but half of itself, +sinks on the 31st of May, 1850.</p> + +<p>But while those selected by the half of the people—by men +alone—evoke force to stifle liberty, and forge restrictive laws +to establish order by compression, woman, guided by fraternity, +foreseeing incessant struggles, and in the hope of putting an end +to them, makes an appeal to the laborer to found liberty and +equality on fraternal solidarity. The participation of woman gave +to this work of enfranchisement an eminently pacific character, +and the laborer recognizes the right of woman, his companion in +labor.</p> + +<p>The delegates of a hundred and four associations, united, without +distinction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> of sex, elected two women, with several of their +brethren, to participate equally with them in the administration +of the interests of labor, and in the organization of the work of +solidarity.</p> + +<p>Fraternal associations were formed with the object of +enfranchising the laborer from the yoke of spoilage and +patronage, but, isolated in the midst of the Old World, their +efforts could only produce a feeble amelioration for themselves.</p> + +<p>The union of associations based on fraternal solidarity had for +its end the organization of labor; that is to say, an equal +division of labor, of instruments, and of the products of labor.</p> + +<p>The means were, the union of labor, and of credit among the +workers of all professions, in order to acquire the instruments +of labor and the necessary materials, and to form a mutual +guarantee for the education of their children, and to provide for +the needs of the old, the sick, and the infirm.</p> + +<p>In this organization all the workers, without distinction of sex +or profession, having an equal right to election, and being +eligible for all functions, and all having equally the initiative +and the sovereign decision in the acts of common interests, they +laid the foundation of a new society based on liberty, equality, +and fraternity.</p> + +<p>It is in the name of law framed by man only—by those elected by +privilege—that the Old World, wishing to stifle in the germ the +holy work of pacific enfranchisement, has shut up within the +walls of a prison those who had founded it—those elected by the +laborers.</p> + +<p>But the impulse has been given, a grand act has been +accomplished. The right of woman has been recognized by the +laborers, and they have consecrated that right by the election of +those who had claimed it in vain for both sexes, before the +electoral urn and before the electoral committees. They have +received the true civil baptism, were elected by the laborers to +accomplish the mission of enfranchisement, and after having +shared their rights and their duties, they share to-day their +captivity.</p> + +<p>It is from the depths of their prison that they address to you +the relation of these facts, which contain in themselves high +instruction. It is by labor, it is by entering resolutely into +the ranks of the working people, that women will conquer the +civil and political equality on which depends the happiness of +the world. As to moral equality, has she not conquered it by the +power of sentiment? It is, therefore, by the sentiment of the +love of humanity that the mother of humanity will find power to +accomplish her high mission. It is when she shall have well +comprehended the holy law of solidarity—which is not an obscure +and mysterious dogma, but a living providential fact—that the +kingdom of God promised by Jesus, and which is no other than the +kingdom of equality and justice, shall be realized on earth.</p> + +<p>Sisters of America! your socialist sisters of France are united +with you in the vindication of the right of woman to civil and +political equality. We have, moreover, the profound conviction +that only by the power of association based on solidarity—by the +union of the working-classes of both sexes to organize labor—can +be acquired, completely and pacifically, the civil and political +equality of woman, and the social right for all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is in this confidence that, from the depths of the jail which +still imprisons our bodies without reaching our hearts, we cry to +you, Faith, Love, Hope, and send to you our sisterly salutations,</p> + +<p class="ltr-from"> +Jeanne Deroine,<br /> +Pauline Roland.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Paris, Prison of St. Lagare</span>, <i>June 15, 1851</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Ernestine L. Rose, having known something of European despotism, +followed Mr. Channing in a speech of great pathos and power. She said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>After having heard the letter read from our poor incarcerated +sisters of France, well might we exclaim, Alas, poor France! +where is thy glory? Where the glory of the Revolution of 1848, in +which shone forth the pure and magnanimous spirit of an oppressed +nation struggling for Freedom? Where the fruits of that victory +that gave to the world the motto, "Liberty, Equality, and +Fraternity"? A motto destined to hurl the tyranny of kings and +priests into the dust, and give freedom to the enslaved millions +of the earth. Where, I again ask, is the result of those noble +achievements, when woman, ay, one-half of the nation, is deprived +of her rights? Has woman then been idle during the contest +between "right and might"? Has she been wanting in ardor and +enthusiasm? Has she not mingled her blood with that of her +husband, son, and sire? Or has she been recreant in hailing the +motto of liberty floating on your banners as an omen of justice, +peace, and freedom to man, that at the first step she takes +practically to claim the recognition of her rights, she is +rewarded with the doom of a martyr?</p> + +<p>But right has not yet asserted her prerogative, for might rules +the day; and as every good cause must have its martyrs, why +should woman not be a martyr for her cause? But need we wonder +that France, governed as she is by Russian and Austrian +despotism, does not recognize the rights of humanity in the +recognition of the rights of woman, when even here, in this +far-famed land of freedom, under a Republic that has inscribed on +its banner the great truth that "all men are created free and +equal, and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and +the pursuit of happiness"—a declaration borne, like the vision +of hope, on wings of light to the remotest parts of the earth, an +omen of freedom to the oppressed and down-trodden children of +man—when, even here, in the very face of this eternal truth, +woman, the mockingly so-called "better half" of man, has yet to +plead for her rights, nay, for her life. For what is life without +liberty, and what is liberty without equality of rights? And as +for the pursuit of happiness, she is not allowed to choose any +line of action that might promote it; she has only thankfully to +accept what man in his magnanimity decides as best for her to do, +and this is what he does not choose to do himself.</p> + +<p>Is she then not included in that declaration? Answer, ye wise men +of the nation, and answer truly; add not hypocrisy to oppression! +Say that she is not created free and equal, and therefore (for +the sequence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> follows on the premise) that she is not entitled to +life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But with all the +audacity arising from an assumed superiority, you dare not so +libel and insult humanity as to say, that she is not included in +that declaration; and if she is, then what right has man, except +that of might, to deprive woman of the rights and privileges he +claims for himself? And why, in the name of reason and justice, +why should she not have the same rights? Because she is woman? +Humanity recognizes no sex; virtue recognizes no sex; mind +recognizes no sex; life and death, pleasure and pain, happiness +and misery, recognize no sex. Like man, woman comes involuntarily +into existence; like him, she possesses physical and mental and +moral powers, on the proper cultivation of which depends her +happiness; like him she is subject to all the vicissitudes of +life; like him she has to pay the penalty for disobeying nature's +laws, and far greater penalties has she to suffer from ignorance +of her more complicated nature; like him she enjoys or suffers +with her country. Yet she is not recognized as his equal!</p> + +<p>In the laws of the land she has no rights; in government she has +no voice. And in spite of another principle, recognized in this +Republic, namely, that "taxation without representation is +tyranny," she is taxed without being represented. Her property +may be consumed by taxes to defray the expenses of that unholy, +unrighteous custom called war, yet she has no power to give her +vote against it. From the cradle to the grave she is subject to +the power and control of man. Father, guardian, or husband, one +conveys her like some piece of merchandise over to the other.</p> + +<p>At marriage she loses her entire identity, and her being is said +to have become merged in her husband. Has nature thus merged it? +Has she ceased to exist and feel pleasure and pain? When she +violates the laws of her being, does her husband pay the penalty? +When she breaks the moral laws, does he suffer the punishment? +When he supplies his wants, is it enough to satisfy her nature? +And when at his nightly orgies, in the grog-shop and the +oyster-cellar, or at the gaming-table, he squanders the means she +helped, by her co-operation and economy, to accumulate, and she +awakens to penury and destitution, will it supply the wants of +her children to tell them that, owing to the superiority of man +she had no redress by law, and that as her being was merged in +his, so also ought theirs to be? What an inconsistency, that from +the moment she enters that compact, in which she assumes the high +responsibility of wife and mother, she ceases legally to exist, +and becomes a purely submissive being. Blind submission in woman +is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself +wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue, alike in woman as in +man.</p> + +<p>But it will be said that the husband provides for the wife, or in +other words, he feeds, clothes, and shelters her! I wish I had +the power to make every one before me fully realize the +degradation contained in that idea. Yes! he <i>keeps</i> her, and so +he does a favorite horse; by law they are both considered his +property. Both may, when the cruelty of the owner compels them +to, run away, be brought back by the strong arm of the law, and +according to a still extant law of England, both may be led<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> by +the halter to the market-place, and sold. This is humiliating +indeed, but nevertheless true; and the sooner these things are +known and understood, the better for humanity. It is no fancy +sketch. I know that some endeavor to throw the mantle of romance +over the subject, and treat woman like some ideal existence, not +liable to the ills of life. Let those deal in fancy, that have +nothing better to deal in; we have to do with sober, sad +realities, with stubborn facts.</p> + +<p>Again, I shall be told that the law presumes the husband to be +kind, affectionate, and ready to provide for and protect his +wife. But what right, I ask, has the law to presume at all on the +subject? What right has the law to intrust the interest and +happiness of one being into the hands of another? And if the +merging of the interest of one being into the other is a +necessary consequence on marriage, why should woman always remain +on the losing side? Turn the tables. Let the identity and +interest of the husband be merged in the wife. Think you she +would act less generously toward him, than he toward her? Think +you she is not capable of as much justice, disinterested +devotion, and abiding affection, as he is? Oh, how grossly you +misunderstand and wrong her nature! But we desire no such undue +power over man; it would be as wrong in her to exercise it as it +now is in him. All we claim is an equal legal and social +position. We have nothing to do with individual man, be he good +or bad, but with the laws that oppress woman. We know that bad +and unjust laws must in the nature of things make man so too. If +he is kind, affectionate, and consistent, it is because the +kindlier feelings, instilled by a mother, kept warm by a sister, +and cherished by a wife, will not allow him to carry out these +barbarous laws against woman.</p> + +<p>But the estimation she is generally held in, is as degrading as +it is foolish. Man forgets that woman can not be degraded without +its reacting on himself. The impress of her mind is stamped on +him by nature, and the early education of the mother, which no +after-training can entirely efface; and therefore, the estimation +she is held in falls back with double force upon him. Yet, from +the force of prejudice against her, he knows it not. Not long +ago, I saw an account of two offenders, brought before a Justice +of New York. One was charged with stealing a pair of boots, for +which offense he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment; the +other crime was assault and battery upon his wife: he was let off +with a reprimand from the judge! With my principles, I am +entirely opposed to punishment, and hold, that to reform the +erring and remove the causes of evil is much more efficient, as +well as just, than to punish. But the judge showed us the +comparative value which he set on these two kinds of <i>property</i>. +But then you must remember that the boots were taken by a +stranger, while the wife was insulted by her legal owner! Here it +will be said, that such degrading cases are but few. For the sake +of humanity, I hope they are. But as long as woman shall be +oppressed by unequal laws, so long will she be degraded by man.</p> + +<p>We have hardly an adequate idea how all-powerful law is in +forming public opinion, in giving tone and character to the mass +of society. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> illustrate my point, look at that infamous, +detestable law, which was written in human blood, and signed and +sealed with life and liberty, that eternal stain on the statute +book of this country, the Fugitive Slave Law. Think you that +before its passage, you could have found any in the free +States—except a few politicians in the market—base enough to +desire such a law? No! no! Even those who took no interest in the +slave question, would have shrunk from so barbarous a thing. But +no sooner was it passed, than the ignorant mass, the rabble of +the self-styled Union Safety Committee, found out that we were a +law-loving, law-abiding people! Such is the magic power of Law. +Hence the necessity to guard against bad ones. Hence also the +reason why we call on the nation to remove the legal shackles +from woman, and it will have a beneficial effect on that still +greater tyrant she has to contend with, Public Opinion.</p> + +<p>Carry out the republican principle of universal suffrage, or +strike it from your banners and substitute "Freedom and Power to +one half of society, and Submission and Slavery to the other." +Give woman the elective franchise. Let married women have the +same right to property that their husbands have; for whatever the +difference in their respective occupations, the duties of the +wife are as indispensable and far more arduous than the +husband's. Why then should the wife, at the death of her husband, +not be his heir to the same extent that he is heir to her? In +this inequality there is involved another wrong. When the wife +dies, the husband is left in the undisturbed possession of all +there is, and the children are left with him; no change is made, +no stranger intrudes on his home and his affliction. But when the +husband dies, the widow, at best receives but a mere pittance, +while strangers assume authority denied to the wife. The +sanctuary of affliction must be desecrated by executors; +everything must be ransacked and assessed, lest she should steal +something out of her own house: and to cap the climax, the +children must be placed under guardians. When the husband dies +poor, to be sure, no guardian is required, and the children are +left for the mother to care and toil for, as best she may. But +when anything is left for their maintenance, then it must be +placed in the hands of strangers for safe keeping! The +bringing-up and safety of the children are left with the mother, +and safe they are in her hands. But a few hundred or thousand +dollars can not be intrusted with her!</p> + +<p>But, say they, "in case of a second marriage, the children must +be protected in their property." Does that reason not hold as +good in the case of the husband as in that of the wife? Oh, no! +When <i>he</i> marries again, he still retains his identity and power +to act; but <i>she</i> becomes merged once more into a mere nonentity; +and therefore the first husband must rob her to prevent the +second from doing so! Make the laws regulating property between +husband and wife, equal for both, and all these difficulties +would be removed.</p> + +<p>According to a late act, the wife has a right to the property she +brings at marriage, or receives in any way after marriage. Here +is some provision for the favored few; but for the laboring many, +there is none. The mass of the people commence life with no other +capital than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> union of heads, hearts, and hands. To the +benefit of this best of capital, the wife has no right. If they +are unsuccessful in married life, who suffers more the bitter +consequences of poverty than the wife? But if successful, she can +not call a dollar her own. The husband may will away every dollar +of the personal property, and leave her destitute and penniless, +and she has no redress by law. And even where real estate is left +she receives but a life-interest in a third part of it, and at +her death, she can not leave it to any one belonging to her: it +falls back even to the remotest of his relatives. This is law, +but where is the justice of it? Well might we say that laws were +made to prevent, not to promote, the ends of justice.</p> + +<p>In case of separation, why should the children be taken from the +protecting care of the mother? Who has a better right to them +than she? How much do fathers generally do toward bringing them +up? When he comes home from business, and the child is in good +humor and handsome trim, he takes the little darling on his knee +and plays with it. But when the wife, with the care of the whole +household on her shoulders, with little or no help, is not able +to put them in the best order, how much does he do for them? Oh, +no! Fathers like to have children good natured, well-behaved, and +comfortable, but how to put them in that desirable condition is +out of their philosophy. Children always depend more on the +tender, watchful care of the mother, than of the father. Whether +from nature, habit, or both, the mother is much more capable of +administering to their health and comfort than the father, and +therefore she has the best right to them. And where there is +property, it ought to be divided equally between them, with an +additional provision from the father toward the maintenance and +education of the children.</p> + +<p>Much is said about the burdens and responsibilities of married +men. Responsibilities indeed there are, if they but felt them; +but as to burdens, what are they? The sole province of man seems +to be centered in that one thing, attending to some business. I +grant that owing to the present unjust and unequal reward for +labor, many have to work too hard for a subsistence; but whatever +his vocation, he has to attend as much to it before as after +marriage. Look at your bachelors, and see if they do not strive +as much for wealth, and attend as steadily to business, as +married men. No! the husband has little or no increase of burden, +and every increase of comfort after marriage; while most of the +burdens, cares, pains, and penalties of married life fall on the +wife. How unjust and cruel, then, to have all the laws in his +favor! If any difference should be made by law between husband +and wife, reason, justice, and humanity, if their voices were +heard, would dictate that it should be in her favor.</p> + +<p>No! there is no reason against woman's elevation, but there are +deep-rooted, hoary-headed prejudices. The main cause of them is, +a pernicious falsehood propagated against her being, namely, that +she is inferior by her nature. Inferior in what? What has man +ever done, that woman, under the same advantages, could not do? +In morals, bad as she is, she is generally considered his +superior. In the intellectual sphere, give her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> a fair chance +before you pronounce a verdict against her. Cultivate the frontal +portion of her brain as much as that of man is cultivated, and +she will stand his equal at least. Even now, where her mind has +been called out at all, her intellect is as bright, as capacious, +and as powerful as his. Will you tell us, that women have no +Newtons, Shakespeares, and Byrons? Greater natural powers than +even those possessed may have been destroyed in woman for want of +proper culture, a just appreciation, reward for merit as an +incentive to exertion, and freedom of action, without which, mind +becomes cramped and stifled, for it can not expand under bolts +and bars; and yet, amid all blighting, crushing +circumstances—confined within the narrowest possible limits, +trampled upon by prejudice and injustice, from her education and +position forced to occupy herself almost exclusively with the +most trivial affairs—in spite of all these difficulties, her +intellect is as good as his. The few bright meteors in man's +intellectual horizon could well be matched by woman, were she +allowed to occupy the same elevated position. There is no need of +naming the De Staëls, the Rolands, the Somervilles, the +Wollstonecrofts, the Sigourneys, the Wrights, the Martineaus, the +Hemanses, the Fullers, Jagellos, and many more of modern as well +as ancient times, to prove her mental powers, her patriotism, her +self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of humanity, and the +eloquence that gushes from her pen, or from her tongue. These +things are too well known to require repetition. And do you ask +for fortitude, energy, and perseverance? Then look at woman under +suffering, reverse of fortune, and affliction, when the strength +and power of man have sunk to the lowest ebb, when his mind is +overwhelmed by the dark waters of despair. She, like the tender +ivy plant bent yet unbroken by the storms of life, not only +upholds her own hopeful courage, but clings around the +tempest-fallen oak, to speak hope to his faltering spirit, and +shelter him from the returning blast of the storm.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In looking over the speeches of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Abby Kelly +Foster, Clarina Howard Nichols, Antoinette Brown, and Lucy Stone, and +the well-digested reports by Paulina Wright Davis on Education, Abby +Price on Industry, and William Henry Channing on the Social Relations, +comprising the whole range of woman's rights and duties, we feel that +the report of one of these meetings settles the question of woman's +capacity to reason. At every session of this two days' Convention +Brinley Hall was so crowded at an early hour that hundreds were unable +to gain admittance. Accordingly, the last evening it was proposed to +adjourn to the City Hall; and even that spacious auditorium was +crowded long before the hour for assembling. It may be said with +truth, that in the whole history of the woman suffrage movement there +never was at one time more able and eloquent men and women on our +platform, and represented by letter there, than in these Worcester +Conventions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> which called out numerous complimentary comments and +editorial notices, notably the following:</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">[<i>From the New York Christian Inquirer</i>, Rev. Henry Bellows, +D.D., editor.]</p> + +<p class="heading">THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION AT WORCESTER.</p> + +<p>We have read the report of the proceedings of this Convention +with lively interest and general satisfaction. We confess +ourselves to be much surprised at the prevailing good sense, +propriety, and moral elevation of the meeting. No candid reader +can deny the existence of singular ability, honest and pure aims, +eloquent and forcible advocacy, and a startling power in the +reports and speeches of this Convention. For good, or for evil, +it seems to us to be the most important meeting since that held +in the cabin of the <i>Mayflower</i>. That meeting recognized the +social and political equality of one-half the human race; this +asserts the social and political equality of the other half, and +of the whole. Imagine the difference which it would have made in +our Declaration of Independence, to have inserted "and women" in +the first clause of the self-evident truths it asserts: "that all +men <i>and women</i> are created equal." This Convention declares this +to be the true interpretation of the Declaration, and at any +rate, designs to amend the popular reading of the instrument to +this effect. Nor is it a theoretical change which is aimed at. No +more practical or tremendous revolution was ever sought in +society, than that which this Woman's Rights Convention +inaugurates. To emancipate half the human race from its present +position of dependence on the other half; to abolish every +distinction between the sexes that can be abolished, or which is +maintained by statute or conventional usage; to throw open all +the employments of society with equal freedom to men and women; +to allow no difference whatsoever, in the eye of the law, in +their duties or their rights, this, we submit, is a reform, +surpassing, in pregnancy of purpose and potential results, any +other now upon the platform, if it do not outweigh Magna Charta +and our Declaration themselves.</p> + +<p>We very well recollect the scorn with which the annual procession +of the first Abolitionists was greeted in Boston, some thirty +years ago. The children had no conception of the "Bobolition +Society," but as of a set of persons making themselves ridiculous +for the amusement of the public; but that "Bobolition Society" +has shaken the Union to its center, and filled the world with +sympathy and concern. The Woman's Rights Convention is in like +manner a thing for honest scorn to point its finger at; but a few +years may prove that we pointed the finger, not at an illuminated +balloon, but at the rising sun.</p> + +<p>We have no hesitation in acknowledging ourselves to be among +those who have regarded this movement with decided distrust and +distaste. If we have been more free than others to express this +disgust, we have perhaps rendered some service, by representing a +common sentiment with which this reform has to contend. We would +be among the first to acknowledge that our objections have not +grown out of any deliberate consideration of the principles +involved in the question. They have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> been founded on instinctive +aversion, on an habitual respect for public sentiment, on an +irresistible feeling of the ludicrousness of the proposed reform +in its details. Certainly social instinct has its proper place in +the judgments we pass on the manners of both sexes. What is +offensive to good taste—meaning by good taste, the taste of the +most educated and refined people—has the burden of proof resting +upon it when it claims respect and attention. But we should be +the last to assert that questions of right and rights have no +appeal from the bar of conventional taste to that of reason.</p> + +<p>And however it may have been at the outset, we think the Woman's +Rights question has now made good its title to be heard in the +superior court. The principles involved in this great question we +can not now discuss; but we have a few thoughts upon the attitude +of the reformer toward society, which we would respectfully +commend to attention. If the female sex is injured in its present +position, it is an injury growing out of universal mistake; an +honest error, in which the sexes have conspired, without +intentional injustice on one side, or feeling of wrong on the +other. Indeed, we could not admit that there had been thus far +any wrong or mistake at all, except in details. Mankind have +hitherto found the natural functions of the two sexes marking out +different spheres for them. Thus far, as we think, the +circumstances of the world have compelled a marked division of +labor, and a marked difference of culture and political position +between the sexes.</p> + +<p>The facts of superior bodily strength on the masculine side, and +of maternity on the feminine side, small as they are now made to +appear, are very great and decisive facts in themselves, and have +necessarily governed the organization of society. It is between +the sexes, as between the races, the strongest rules; and it has +hitherto been supposed to be of service to the common interest of +society, that this rule should be legalized and embodied in the +social customs of every community. As a fact, woman, by her +bodily weakness and her maternal office, was from the first, a +comparatively private and domestic creature; her education, from +circumstances, was totally different, her interests were +different, the sources of her happiness different from man's, and +as a fact, all these things, though with important modifications, +have continued to be so to this day. The fact has seemed to the +world a final one. It has been thought that in her present +position, she was in her best position relative to man, which her +nature or organization admitted of. That she is man's inferior in +respect to all offices and duties requiring great bodily powers, +or great moral courage, or great intellectual effort, has been +almost universally supposed,—honestly thought too, and without +the least disposition to deny her equality, on this account, in +the scale of humanity.</p> + +<p>For in respect to moral sensibility, affections, manners, tastes, +and the passive virtues, woman has long been honestly felt to be +the superior of man. The political disfranchisement of women, and +their seclusion from publicity, have grown out of sincere +convictions that their nature and happiness demanded from man an +exemption from the cares, and a protection from the perils of the +out-of-door world. Mankind, in both its parts, may have been +utterly mistaken in this judgment; but it has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> been nearly +universal, and thoroughly sincere,—based thus far, we think, +upon staring facts and compulsory circumstances.</p> + +<p>In starting a radical reform upon this subject, it is expedient +that it should be put, not on the basis of old grievances, but +upon the ground of new light, of recent and fresh experiences, of +change of circumstances. It may be that the relative position of +the sexes is so changed by an advancing civilization, that the +time has come for questioning the conclusion of the world +respecting woman's sphere. All surprise at opposition to this +notion, all sense of injury, all complaint of past injustice, +ought to cease. Woman's part has been the part which her actual +state made necessary. If another and a better future is opening, +let us see it and rejoice in it as a new gift of Providence.</p> + +<p>And we are not without suspicion that the time for some great +change has arrived. At any rate, we confess our surprise at the +weight of the reasoning brought forward by the recent Convention, +and shall endeavor henceforth to keep our masculine mind,—full, +doubtless, of conventional prejudices,—open to the light which +is shed upon the theme.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, we must beg the women who are pressing this reform, to +consider that the conservatism of instinct and taste, though not +infallible, in respectable and worth attention. The opposition +they will receive is founded on prejudices that are not selfish, +but merely masculine. It springs from no desire to keep women +down, but from a desire to keep them up; from a feeling, mistaken +it may be, that their strength, and their dignity, and their +happiness, lie in their seclusion from the rivalries, strifes, +and public duties of life. The strength and depth of the respect +and love for woman, as woman, which characterize this age, can +not be overstated. But woman insists upon being respected, as a +kindred intellect, a free competitor, and a political equal. And +we have suspicions that she may surprise the conservative world +by making her pretensions good. Only meanwhile let her respect +the affectionate and sincere prejudices, if they be prejudices, +which adhere to the other view, a view made honorable, if not +proved true, by the experiences of all the ages of the past. We +hope to give the whole subject more attention in future. Indeed +it will force attention. It may be the solution of many social +problems, long waiting an answer, is delayed by the neglect to +take woman's case into fuller consideration. The success of the +present reform would give an entirely new problem to political +and social philosophers! At present we endeavor to hold ourselves +in a candid suspense.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Judging Dr. Bellows by the above editorial, he had made some progress +in one year. A former article from his pen called out the following +criticism from Mrs. Rose:</p> + +<blockquote><p>After last year's Woman's Convention, I saw an article in the +<i>Christian Inquirer</i>, a Unitarian paper, edited by the Rev. Mr. +Bellows, of New York, where, in reply to a correspondent on the +subject of Woman's Rights, in which he strenuously opposed her +taking part in anything in public, he said: "Place woman +unbonneted and unshawled before the public gaze and what becomes +of her modesty and her virtue?" In his benighted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> mind, the +modesty and virtue of woman is of so fragile a nature, that when +it is in contact with the atmosphere, it evaporates like +chloroform. But I refrain to comment on such a sentiment. It +carries with it its own deep condemnation. When I read the +article, I earnestly wished I had the ladies of the writer's +congregation before me, to see whether they could realize the +estimation their pastor held them in. Yet I hardly know which +sentiment was strongest in me, contempt for such foolish +opinions, or pity for a man that has so degrading an opinion of +woman—of the being that gave him life, that sustained his +helpless infancy with her ever-watchful care, and laid the very +foundation for the little mind he may possess—of the being he +took to his bosom as the partner of his joys and sorrows—the one +whom, when he strove to win her affection, he courted, as all +such men court woman, like some divinity. Such a man deserves our +pity; for I can not realize that a man purposely and willfully +degrades his mother, sister, wife, and daughter. No! my better +nature, my best knowledge and conviction forbid me to believe it.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE UNA.</h3> + +<p>In February, 1853, Paulina Wright Davis started a woman's paper called +<i>The Una</i>, published in Providence, Rhode Island, with the following +prospectus:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Usage makes it necessary to present our readers with a prospectus +setting forth our aims and objects. Our plan is to publish a +paper monthly, devoted to the interests of woman. Our purpose is +to speak clear, earnest words of truth and soberness in a spirit +of kindness. To discuss the rights, duties, sphere, and destiny +of woman fully and fearlessly. So far as our voice shall be +heard, it will be ever on the side of freedom. We shall not +confine ourselves to any locality, sex, sect, class, or caste, +for we hold to the solidarity of the race, and believe if one +member suffers, all suffer, and the highest made to atone for the +lowest. Our mystical name, <i>The Una</i>, signifying <i>Truth</i>, will be +to us a constant suggestion of fidelity to all.</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>The Una</i> could boast for its correspondents some of the ablest men +and women in the nation; such as William H. Channing, Elizabeth +Peabody, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Rev. A. D. Mayo, Dr. William +Elder, Ednah D. Cheney, Caroline H. Dall, Fanny Fern, Elizabeth Oakes +Smith, Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Abby H. Price, Marion +Finch, of Liverpool, Hon. John Neal, of Portland, Lucy Stone, and +Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</p> + +<p>For some time Mrs. Dall assisted in the editorial department. <i>The +Una</i> was the first pronounced Woman Suffrage paper; it lived three +years. Glancing over the bound volumes, one may glean much valuable +information of what was said and done during that period. We learn +that Lady Grace Vandeleur, in person, canvassed the election of +Kilrush, Ireland, and from her ladyship's open carriage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> addressed a +large assemblage of electors on behalf of her husband, the +Conservative candidate. She was enthusiastically greeted by the +populace.</p> + +<p>The <i>Maine Age</i> announces the election of a Miss Rose to the office of +Register of Deeds, and remarks: "Before the morning of the twentieth +century dawns, women will not simply fill your offices of Register of +Deeds, but they will occupy seats in your Legislative Halls, on your +judicial benches, and in the executive chair of State and Nation. We +deprecate it, yet we perceive its inevitability, and await the shock +with firmness and composure."</p> + +<p>This same year, <i>The Una</i> narrates the following amusing incident that +occurred in the town of P——, New Hampshire: It is customary in the +country towns for those who choose to do so, to pay their proportion +of the highway tax, in actual labor on the roads, at the rate of eight +cents an hour, instead of paying money. Two able-bodied and +strong-hearted women in P——, who found it very inconvenient to pay +the ready cash required of them, determined to avail themselves of +this custom. They accordingly presented themselves to the surveyor of +the highway with hoes in their hands, and demanded to be set to work. +The good surveyor was sorely puzzled; such a thing as women working +out their taxes, had never been heard of, and yet the law made no +provision against it. He consulted his lawyer, who advised him that he +had no power to refuse. Accordingly the two brave women worked, and +worked well, in spreading sand and gravel, saved their pennies, and no +doubt felt all the better for their labor.</p> + +<p>In the April Number, 1853, we find the following appeal to the +citizens of Massachusetts, on the equal political rights of woman:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Fellow-Citizens</span>:—In May next a Convention will assemble to +revise the Constitution of the Commonwealth.</p> + +<p>At such a time it is the right and duty of every one to point out +whatever he deems erroneous and imperfect in that instrument, and +press its amendment on public attention.</p> + +<p>We deem the extension to woman of all civil rights, a measure of +vital importance to the welfare and progress of the State. On +every principle of natural justice, as well as by the nature of +our institutions, she is as fully entitled as man to vote, and to +be eligible to office. In governments based on force, it might be +pretended with some plausibility, that woman being supposed +physically weaker than man, should be excluded from the State. +But ours is a government professedly resting on the consent of +the governed. Woman is surely as competent to give that consent +as man. Our Revolution claimed that taxation and representation +should be co-extensive. While the property and labor of women are +subject to taxation, she is entitled to a voice in fixing the +amount<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> of taxes, and the use of them when collected, and is +entitled to a voice in the laws that regulate punishments. It +would be a disgrace to our schools and civil institutions, for +any one to argue that a Massachusetts woman who has enjoyed the +full advantage of all their culture, is not as competent to form +an opinion on civil matters, as the illiterate foreigner landed +but a few years before upon our shores—unable to read or +write—by no means free from early prejudices, and little +acquainted with our institutions. Yet such men are allowed to +vote.</p> + +<p>Woman as wife, mother, daughter, and owner of property, has +important rights to be protected. The whole history of +legislation so unequal between the sexes, shows that she can not +safely trust these to the other sex. Neither have her rights as +mother, wife, daughter, laborer, ever received full legislative +protection. Besides, our institutions are not based on the idea +of one class receiving protection from another; but on the +well-recognized rule that each class, or sex, is entitled to such +civil rights, as will enable it to protect itself. The exercise +of civil rights is one of the best means of education. Interest +in great questions, and the discussion of them under momentous +responsibility, call forth all the faculties and nerve them to +their fullest strength. The grant of these rights on the part of +society, would quickly lead to the enjoyment by woman, of a share +in the higher grades of professional employment. Indeed, without +these, mere book study is often but a waste of time. The learning +for which no use is found or anticipated, is too frequently +forgotten, almost as soon as acquired. The influence of such a +share, on the moral condition of society, is still more +important. Crowded now into few employments, women starve each +other by close competition; and too often vice borrows +overwhelming power of temptation from poverty. Open to women a +great variety of employments, and her wages in each will rise; +the energy and enterprise of the more highly endowed, will find +full scope in honest effort, and the frightful vice of our cities +will be stopped at its fountain-head. We hint very briefly at +these matters. A circular like this will not allow room for more. +Some may think it too soon to expect any action from the +Convention. Many facts lead us to think that public opinion is +more advanced on this question than is generally supposed. +Beside, there can be no time so proper to call public attention +to a radical change in our civil polity as now, when the whole +framework of our government is to be subjected to examination and +discussion. It is never too early to begin the discussion of any +desired change. To urge our claim on the Convention, is to bring +our question before the proper tribunal, and secure at the same +time the immediate attention of the general public. +Massachusetts, though she has led the way in most other reforms, +has in this fallen behind her rivals, consenting to learn, as to +the protection of the property of married women, of many younger +States. Let us redeem for her the old pre-eminence, and urge her +to set a noble example in this the most important of all civil +reforms. To this we ask you to join with us<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> in the +accompanying petition to the Constitutional Convention.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>In favor of this Appeal Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, +and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, were heard.</p> + +<p>We find in <i>The Una</i> the following report of Mr. Higginson's speech +before the Committee of the Constitutional Convention on the +qualification of voters, June 3, 1853, the question being on the +petition of Abby May Alcott, and other women of Massachusetts, that +they be permitted to vote on the amendments that may be made to the +Constitution.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">MR. HIGGINSON'S SPEECH.</p> + +<p>I need hardly suggest to the Committee the disadvantage under +which I appear before them, in coming to glean after three of the +most eloquent voices in this community, or any other [Lucy Stone, +Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker]; in doing this, moreover, +without having heard all their arguments, and in a fragment of +time at the end of a two hours' sitting. I have also the minor +disadvantage of gleaning after myself, having just ventured to +submit a more elaborate essay on this subject, in a different +form, to the notice of the Convention.</p> + +<p>I shall therefore abstain from all debate upon the general +question, and confine myself to the specific point now before +this Committee. I shall waive all inquiry as to the right of +women to equality in education, in occupations, or in the +ordinary use of the elective franchise. The question before this +Committee is not whether women shall become legal voters—but +whether they shall have power to say, once for all, whether they +wish to become legal voters. Whether, in one word, they desire to +accept this Constitution which the Convention is framing.</p> + +<p>It is well that the question should come up in this form, since +the one efficient argument against the right of women to vote, in +ordinary cases, is the plea that they do not wish to do it. +"Their whole nature revolts at it." Very well; these petitioners +simply desire an opportunity for Massachusetts women to say +whether their nature does revolt at it or no.</p> + +<p>The whole object of this Convention, as I heard stated by one of +its firmest advocates, is simply this: to "make the Constitution +of Massachusetts consistent with its own first principles." This +is all these petitioners demand. Give them the premises which are +conceded in our existing Bill of Rights, or even its Preamble, +and they ask no more. I shall draw my few weapons from this +source. I know that this document is not binding upon your +Convention; nothing is binding upon you but eternal and absolute +justice, and my predecessor has taken care of the claims of that. +But the Bill of Rights is still the organic law of this State, +and I can quote no better authority for those principles which +lie at the foundation of all that we call republicanism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>I. My first citation will be from the Preamble, and will +establish as Massachusetts doctrine the principle of the +Declaration of Independence, that all government owes its just +powers to the consent of the governed.</p> + +<p>"The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of +government, is to secure the existence of the body politic.... +The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of +individuals; it is a social compact, by which the whole people +covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole +people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common +good.... It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a +constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of +making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation and a +faithful execution of them," etc., etc.</p> + +<p>Now, women are "individuals"; women are a part of "the people"; +women are "citizens," for the Constitution elsewhere +distinguishes male citizens. This clause, then, concedes +precisely that which your petitioners claim. Observe how explicit +it is. The people are not merely to have good laws, well +administered; but they must have an equitable mode of making +those laws. The reason of this is, that good laws are no +permanent security, unless enacted by equitable methods. Your +laws may be the best ever devised; yet still they are only given +as a temporary favor, not held as a right, unless the whole +people are concerned in their enactment. It is the old claim of +despots—that their laws are good. When they told Alexander of +Russia that his personal character was as good as a constitution +for his people, "then," said he, "I am but a lucky accident." +Your constitution may be never so benignant to woman, but that is +only a lucky accident, unless you concede the claim of these +women to have a share in creating it. Nothing else "is an +equitable mode of making laws." But it is too late to choose +female delegates to your Convention, and the only thing you can +do is to allow women to vote on the acceptance of its results. +The claim of these petitioners may be unexpected, but is +logically irresistible. If you do not wish it to be renewed, you +must remember either to alter or abrogate your Bill of Rights; +for the petition is based on that.</p> + +<p>The last speaker called this movement a novelty. Not entirely so. +The novelty is partly the other way. In Europe, women have direct +political power; witness Victoria. It is a false democracy which +has taken it away. In my more detailed argument, I have cited +many instances of these foreign privileges. In monarchical +countries the dividing lines are not of sex, but of rank. A +plebeian woman has no political power—nor has her husband. Rank +gives it to man, and, also, in a degree, to woman. But among us +the only rank is of sex. Politically speaking, in Massachusetts +all men are patrician, all women plebeian. All men are equal, in +having direct political power; and all women are equal, in having +none. And women lose by democracy precisely that which men gain. +Therefore I say this disfranchisement of woman, as woman, is a +novelty. It is a now aristocracy; for, as De Tocqueville says, +wherever one class has peculiar powers, as such, there is +aristocracy and oligarchy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>We see the result of this in our general mode of speaking of +woman. We forget to speak of her as an individual being, only as +a thing. A political writer coolly says, that in Massachusetts, +"except criminals and paupers, there is no class of persons who +do not exercise the elective franchise." Women are not even a +"class of persons." And yet, most readers would not notice this +extraordinary omission. I talked the other day with a young +radical preacher about his new religious organization. "Who votes +under it?" said I. "Oh," (he said, triumphantly,) "we go for +progress and liberty; anybody and everybody votes." "What!" said +I, "women?" "No," said he, rather startled; "I did not think of +them when I spoke." Thus quietly do we all talk of "anybody and +everybody," and omit half the human race. Indeed, I read in the +newspaper, this morning, of some great festivity, that "all the +world and his wife" would be there! Women are not a part of the +world, but only its "wife." They are not even "the rest of +mankind"; they are womankind! All these things show the results +of that inconsistency with the first principles of our +Constitution of which the friends of this Convention justly +complain.</p> + +<p>II. So much for the general statement of the Massachusetts Bill +of Rights in its Preamble. But one clause is even more explicit. +In Section 9, I find the following:</p> + +<p>"All the inhabitants of this Commonwealth, having such +qualifications as they shall establish by their form of +government, have an equal right to elect officers," etc.</p> + +<p>As "they" shall establish. Who are <i>they</i>? Manifestly, the +inhabitants as a whole. No part can have power, except by the +consent of the whole, so far as that consent is practicable. +Accordingly, you submit your Constitution for ratification—to +whom? Not to the inhabitants of the State, not even to a majority +of the native adult inhabitants; for it is estimated that at any +given moment—in view of the great number of men emigrating to +the West, to California, or absent on long voyages—the majority +of the population of Massachusetts is female. You disfranchise +the majority, then; the greater part of "the inhabitants" have no +share in establishing the form of government, or assigning the +qualifications of voters. What worse can you say of any +oligarchy? True, your aristocracy is a large one—almost a +majority, you may say. But so, in several European nations, is +nobility almost in a majority, and you almost hire a nobleman to +black your shoes; they are as cheap as generals and colonels in +New England. But the principle is the same, whether the +privileged minority consists of one or one million.</p> + +<p>It is said that a tacit consent has been hitherto given by the +absence of open protest? The same argument maybe used concerning +the black majority in South Carolina. Besides, your new +Constitution is not yet made, and there has been no opportunity +to assent to it. It will not be identical with the old one; but, +even if it were, you propose to ask a renewed consent from men, +and why not from women? Is it because a lady's "Yes" is always so +fixed a certainty, that it never can be transformed to a "No," at +a later period?</p> + +<p>But I am compelled, by the fixed period of adjournment (10 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>), +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> cut short my argument, as I have been already compelled to +condense it. I pray your consideration for the points I have +urged. Believe me, it is easier to ridicule the petition of these +women than to answer the arguments which sustain it. And, as the +great republic of ancient times did not blush to claim that laws +and governments were first introduced by Ceres, a woman, so I +trust that the representatives of this noblest of modern +commonwealths may not be ashamed to receive legislative +suggestions from even female petitioners.</p></blockquote> + +<p>On Tuesday, August 12, 1853, in Committee of the Whole, the report +that "it is inexpedient to act on the petition" of several parties +that women may vote, was taken up.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Green</span>, of Brookfield, opposed the report, contending that +women being capable of giving or withholding their assent to the +acts of government, should upon every principle of justice and +equality, be permitted to participate in its administration. He +denied that men were of right the guardians or trustees of women, +since they had not been appointed, but had usurped that position. +Women had inherent natural rights as a portion of the people, and +they should be permitted to vote in order to protect those +inherent rights.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Keyes</span>, of Abington, paid a warm tribute to the virtues and +abilities of the fairer sex, and was willing to concede that they +were to some extent oppressed and denied their rights; but he did +not believe the granting of the privileges these petitioners +claimed would tend to elevate or ameliorate their condition. +Woman exerted great power by the exercise of her feminine graces +and virtues, which she would lose the moment she should step +beyond her proper sphere and mingle in the affairs of State!</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Whitney</span>, of Boylston, believed that the same reasoning that +would deny the divine right of kings to govern men without their +consent, would also deny a similar right of men over women. The +Committee had given the best of reasons for granting the prayer +of the petitioners, and then reported that they have leave to +withdraw. He expatiated on the grievances to which women are +subjected, and concluded by moving as an amendment to the report, +that the prayer of the petitioners ought to be granted.</p> + +<p>The Committee then rose, and had leave to sit again. Wednesday +the first business of importance was the taking up in Committee +of the report "leave to withdraw," relative to giving certain +privileges to women. Question on the amendment of Mr. Whitney to +amend the conclusion of the report, by inserting "that the prayer +of the petitioners be granted." Debate ensued on the subject +between Messrs. Marvin, of Winchendon; Kingman, of West +Bridgewater; when the question was taken, and Mr. Whitney's +amendment rejected. Mr. Marvin then moved to substitute +"inexpedient to act" for "leave to withdraw"; which was adopted. +The Committee then rose, and recommended the adoption of the +report as amended, by a vote of 108 to 44.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + +<p>The prejudices of the 108 outweighed all the able arguments made by +those who represented the petitioners, and all the great principles of +justice on which a true republic is based.</p> + +<p>We find the following comments on the character and duties of the +gentlemen who composed the Convention, from the pen of Mr. Higginson, +in <i>The Una</i> of June, 1853:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>To the members of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention:</i></p> + +<p>The publication in our newspapers of the list of members of your +honorable body, has won the just tribute of men of all parties to +the happy result of the selection. Never, it is thought, has +Massachusetts witnessed a political assembly of more eminent or +accomplished men. And yet there are those to whom the daring +thought has occurred, that to convoke such ability and learning, +only to decide whether our Legislature shall be hereafter elected +by towns or districts, is somewhat like the course of Columbus in +assembling the dignitaries of his nation to decide whether an egg +could be best poised upon the larger or the smaller end. A +question which was necessarily settled, after all, by a +compromise, as this will be.</p> + +<p>But at that moment, there lay within the brain of the young +Genoese a dream, which although denounced by prelates and derided +by statesmen was yet destined to add another half to the visible +earth; so there is brooding in the soul of this generation, a +vision of the greatest of all political discoveries, which, when +accepted, will double the intellectual resources of society, and +give a new world, not to Castile and Leon only, but to +Massachusetts and the human race.</p> + +<p>And lastly, as we owe the labor and the laurels of Columbus only +to the liberal statesmanship of a woman, it is surely a noble +hope, that the future Isabellas of this Nation may point the way +for their oppressed sisters of Europe to a suffrage truly +universal, and a political freedom bounded neither by station nor +by sex.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Elizabeth Oakes Smith, writing in <i>The Una</i>, says of this historical +occasion:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The Massachusetts Convention did not deign to notice the prayer +of these two thousand women who claimed the privilege of being +heard by men who assert that we are represented through them. +They decided that "it is inexpedient to act upon said petition." +This is no cause for discouragement to those who have the subject +at heart. Two thousand signers are quite as many, if not more, +than we supposed would be procured. The believers in the rights +of woman to entire equality with man in every department +involving the question of human justice are entirely in the +minority. The majority believe that their wives and mothers are +household chattels; believe that they were expressly created for +no other purposes than those of maternity in their highest +aspect; in their next for purposes of passion, with the long +retinue of unhallowed sensualities, debasements, and pollutions +which follow in the train of evil indulgence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> With others, women +are sewers on of buttons; darners of stockings; makers of +puddings; appendages to wash days, bakings, and brewings; echoes +and adjectives to men for ever and ever. They are compounds of +tears, hysterics, frettings, scoldings, complainings; made up of +craftiness and imbecilities, to be wheedled, and coaxed, and +coerced like unmanageable children. <i>The idea of a true, noble +womanhood is yet to be created.</i> It does not live in the public +mind. Now, in answer to the petition of these two thousand women, +the Committee reply that all just governments exist by the +consent of the governed. An old truism. We reply, women have +given no such consent, and therefore are not bound to allegiance. +But our sapient Legislators say, since there are two hundred +thousand women in Massachusetts twenty-one years of age, and only +two thousand who sign this petition, therefore it is fair to +suppose that the larger part of the women of the State have +consented to the present form of government. Now, this is +assuredly a willful and unworthy perversion of the truth. These +women are simply ignorant, simply supine. They have neither +affirmed nor denied. They have not thought at all upon the +subject. But there are two thousand women in Massachusetts who +think and act, to say nothing of the thousands of intelligent men +there who believe in the same doctrine. Now here is a little army +in one State alone, and that a conservative one, while through +the Middle and Western States are thousands thinking in the same +direction. Here is the leaven that must leaven the whole lump. +Here is the wise minority which will hereafter become the +overwhelming majority of the country. The Committee remark on the +fact that while 50,000 women have petitioned for a law to repress +the sale of intoxicating liquor, only two thousand petition for +the right to vote! While the multitude could readily trace the +downfall of father, husband, brother, and son, to the dram-shop, +only the thinking few could see the power beyond the law and the +lawmaker that protects the traffic, the right to the ballot, with +which to strike the most effective blow in the right place.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>NEW ENGLAND WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, Friday, <i>June 2, 1854</i>.</p> + +<p>This Convention assembled the day on which poor Anthony Burns was +consigned to hopeless bondage;<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> and though many friends of the +woman movement remained in the streets to see his surrender, still at +an early hour the hall was literally crowded with earnest men and +women, whom a deep interest in the cause had drawn together. Sarah H. +Earle, of Worcester, was chosen President; Lucy Stone, Chairman of the +Business Committee, reported the resolutions, among which we find the +following:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the Common Law, which governs the marriage +relation, and blots out the legal existence of a wife, denies her +right to the product<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> of her own industry, denies her equal +property rights, even denies her right to her children, and the +custody of her own person, is grossly unjust to woman, +dishonorable to man, and destructive to the harmony of life's +holiest relation.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the laws which destroy the legal individuality +of woman after her marriage are equally pernicious to man as to +woman, and may give to him in marriage a slave, or a tyrant, but +never a wife.</p></blockquote> + +<p>William Lloyd Garrison, Emma E. Coe, Josephine S. Griffing, Wendell +Phillips, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Rev. S. S. Griswold, Sarah Pellet, Abby +Kelly Foster, Mrs. Morton, and Lucy Stone took part in the debates. +Letters were received from Thomas W. Higginson, Rev. A. D. Mayo, +Paulina Wright Davis, Mrs. Nichols, and Sarah Crosby. Francis +Jackson,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> of Boston, made a contribution of $50. Committees were +appointed from each of the New England States to circulate petitions +for securing a change in the laws regulating the property of married +women, and limiting the right of suffrage to men. All the sessions +drew crowded audiences, and the enthusiasm was sustained to the end. +The sympathy for Burns intensified the feelings of those present +against all forms of oppression. Those who had witnessed the military +parade through the streets of Boston to drive the slave—a minister of +the Baptist denomination in his southern home—from the land of the +Pilgrims where he had sought refuge, were roused to plead with new +earnestness and power for equal rights to all without distinction of +sex or color.</p> + + +<h3>WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION IN BOSTON.</h3> + +<p class="ltr-date"><i>Sept. 19 and 20, 1855.</i></p> + +<p>This Convention was fully attended through six sessions, and gave +great satisfaction to all engaged in it. After its close, its officers +received such expressions of interest from persons not previously +enlisted in the cause, as to convince them that a lasting impression +was made. The attendance was the best that Boston could furnish in +intelligence and respectability, and to a greater degree than usual +clerical. Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis was again chosen President. +Business Committee—Dr. William F. Channing, Caroline H. Dall, Wendell +Phillips, and Caroline M. Severance. Among the Vice-Presidents we find +the names of Harriot K. Hunt and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Caroline +H. Dall, Ellen M. Tarr, and Paulina Wright Davis presented carefully +prepared digests of the laws of several of the New England States. +Mrs. Davis said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>In 1844 a bill was introduced into the Legislature of this State +(Rhode Island) by Hon. Wilkins Updike, securing to married women +their property "under certain regulations." The step was a +progressive one, and hailed at that time as a bright omen for the +future. Other States have followed the example, and the right of +woman to some control of her property has been recognized. In +1847 Vermont passed similar enactments; in 1848-'49, Connecticut, +New York, and Texas; in 1850-'52, Alabama and Maine; in 1853, New +Hampshire, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa followed. But the +provisions "under certain regulations" left married women almost +as helpless as before.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Davis</span> further says: If in 1855, from the practical workings +of these statutes, we find ourselves compelled to pronounce them +despotic in spirit, degrading and tyrannical in effect, we do not +the less give honor to the man who was so far in advance of his +age as to conceive the idea of raising woman a little in the +scale of being.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We have always claimed the honor for New York as being first in this +matter, because the Property Bill was presented there in 1836, and +when finally passed in 1848, was far more liberal than in any other +State; and step by step her legislation was broadened, until 1860 the +revolution was complete, securing to married women their own +inheritance absolutely, to use, will, and dispose of as they see fit; +to do business in their name, make contracts, sue, and be sued.</p> + +<p>The speakers on the first day of this Convention were Wendell +Phillips, Thomas W. Higginson, and Lucy Stone; on the second morning, +Caroline H. Dall, Antoinette L. Brown, and Susan B. Anthony. The +evening closed with a lecture from Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a poem by +Elizabeth Oakes Smith. No report of the debates was preserved.</p> + +<p>In a letter to her family Susan B. Anthony, under date of Sept. 27th, +says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I went into Boston on Tuesday, with Lucy Stone, to attend the +Convention. We stopped at Francis Jackson's, where we found +Antoinette Brown and Ellen Blackwell. A pleasant company in that +most hospitable home. The Convention passed off pleasantly, but +with none of the enthusiasm we have in our New York meetings. As +this was my first visit to Boston, Mr. Jackson took Antoinette +and myself round to see the lions; to the House of Correction, +the House of Reformation, the Merchant's Exchange, the +Custom-House, State House, and Faneuil Hall, and then dined with +his daughter, Eliza J. Eddy, in South Boston, returning in the +afternoon. Lucy and Antoinette left, one for New York and the +other for Brookfield. In the evening, Ellen Blackwell and I +attended a reception at Mr. Garrison's, where we met several of +the <i>literati</i>, and were most heartily welcomed by Mrs. Garrison, +a noble, self-sacrificing woman, the loving and the loved, +surrounded with healthy, happy children in that model home. Mr. +Garrison was omnipresent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> now talking and introducing guests, now +soothing some child to sleep, and now, with his charming wife, +looking after the refreshments. There we met Mrs. Dall, Elizabeth +Peabody, Mrs. McCready, the Shakespearian reader, Mrs. Severance, +Dr. Hunt, Charles F. Hovey, Francis Jackson, Wendell Phillips, +Sarah Pugh, of Philadelphia, and others. Having worshiped these +distinguished people afar off, it was a great satisfaction to see +so many face to face.</p> + +<p>On Saturday morning, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Garrison and +Sarah Pugh, I visited Mount Auburn. What a magnificent +resting-place this is! We could not find Margaret Fuller's +monument, which I regretted. I spent Sunday with Charles Lenox +Remond; we drove to Lynn with matchless steeds to hear Theodore +Parker preach. What a sermon! our souls were filled. We discussed +its excellence at James Buffum's, where, with other friends, we +dined. Visited the steamer <i>Africa</i> next day, in which Ellen +Blackwell was soon to sail for Liverpool.</p> + +<p>Monday Mr. Garrison escorted me to Charlestown; we stood on the +very spot where Warren fell, and mounted the interminable +staircase to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, where we had an +extensive view of the harbor and surrounding country. Then we +called on Theodore Parker; found him up three flights of stairs +in his library, covering that whole floor of his house; the room +is lined all round with books to the very top—16,000 +volumes—and there, at a large table in the center of the +apartment, sat the great man himself. It really seemed audacious +in me to be ushered into such a presence, and on such a +commonplace errand, to ask him to come to Rochester to speak in a +course of lectures I am planning. But he received me with such +kindness and simplicity, that the awe I felt on entering was soon +dissipated. I then called on Wendell Phillips, in his sanctum, +for the same purpose. I have invited Ralph Waldo Emerson by +letter, and all three have promised to come. In the evening, with +Mr. Jackson's son James, the most diffident and sensitive man I +ever saw, Miss B—— and I went to the theater to see Dussendoff, +the great tragedian, play Hamlet. The theater is new, the scenery +beautiful, and, in spite of my Quaker training, I find I enjoy +all these worldly amusements intensely.</p> + +<p>Returning to Worcester, I attended the Anti-Slavery Bazaar. I +suppose there were many beautiful things exhibited, but I was so +absorbed in the conversation of Mr. Higginson, Samuel May, Jr., +Sarah Earle, Cousin Dr. Seth Rogers, Stephen and Abby Foster, +that I really forgot to take a survey of the tables. The next day +Charles F. Hovey drove me out to the home of the Fosters, where +we had a pleasant call.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Francis Jackson and Charles F. Hovey, though neither speakers nor +writers, yet they furnished the "sinews of war." None contributed more +generously than they to all the reforms of their times. They were the +first men to make a bequest to our movement. To them we are indebted +for the money that enabled us to carry on the agitation for years. +Beside giving liberally from time to time, Francis Jackson left $5,000 +in the hands of Wendell Phillips, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> he managed and invested so +wisely, that the fund was nearly doubled. Charles F. Hovey left +$50,000 to be used in anti-slavery, woman suffrage, and free religion. +With the exception of $1,000 from Lydia Maria Child, we have yet to +hear of a woman of wealth who has left anything for the +enfranchisement of her sex. Almost every daily paper heralds the fact +of some large bequest to colleges, churches, and charities by rich +women, but it is proverbial that they never remember the Woman +Suffrage movement that underlies in importance all others.</p> + + +<h3>HEARING BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE,<br /> +MARCH, 1857.</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Boston Traveller</i> says: The Representatives Hall yesterday +afternoon was completely filled, galleries and all, to hear the +arguments before the Judiciary Committee, to whom was referred +the petition of Lucy Stone and others for equal rights for +"females" in the administration of government, for the right of +suffrage, etc.</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">James Freeman Clarke</span> was the first speaker. He said: +Gentlemen, the question before you is, Shall the women of +Massachusetts have equal rights with the men? The fundamental +principles of the Constitution set forth equal rights to all. A +large portion of the property of Massachusetts is owned by women, +probably one-third of the whole amount, and yet they are not +represented, though compelled to pay taxes. It has been said they +are represented by their husbands. So it was said that the +American colonies were represented in the British Parliament, but +the colonies were not contented with such representation; neither +are women contented to be represented by men. As long as we put +woman's name on the tax-list we should put it in the ballot-box.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span> said: Self-government was the foundation of our +institutions. July 4, 1776, sent the message round the world that +every man can take care of himself better than any one else can +do it for him. If you tax me, consult me. If you hang me, first +try me by a jury of my own peers. What I ask for myself, I ask +for woman. In the banks, a woman, as a stockholder, is allowed to +vote. In the Bank of England, in the East India Company, in State +Street, her power is felt, her voice controls millions.</p> + +<p>Three hundred years ago it was said woman had no right to profess +any religion, as it would make discord in the family if she +differed from her husband. The same conservatism warns us of the +danger of allowing her any political opinions.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said: The argument that the wife, having the right of +suffrage, would cause discord in the family, is entirely +incorrect. When men wish to procure the vote of a neighbor, do +they not approach them with the utmost suavity, and would not the +husband who wished to influence the wife's vote be far more +gracious than usual? She instanced the heroic conduct of Mrs. +Patton, who navigated her husband's ship into the harbor of San +Francisco, as an argument in favor of woman's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> power of command +and of government. The captain and mate lying ill with a fever, +she had the absolute control of both vessel and crew. Mrs. +Stone's speech was comprehensive and pointed, and called forth +frequent applause.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, a woman of wealth and position, protested every +year against being compelled to pay taxes while not recognized in the +government.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">DR. HUNT'S PROTEST OF 1852.</p> + +<p><i>To Frederick W. Tracy, Treasurer, and the Assessors, and other +Authorities of the city of Boston, and the Citizens generally: </i></p> + +<p>Harriot K. Hunt, physician, a native and permanent resident of +the city of Boston, and for many years a taxpayer therein, in +making payment of her city taxes for the coming year, begs leave +to protest against the injustice and inequality of levying taxes +upon women, and at the same time refusing them any voice or vote +in the imposition and expenditure of the same. The only classes +of male persons required to pay taxes, and not at the same time +allowed the privilege of voting, are aliens and minors. The +objection in the case of aliens is their supposed want of +interest in our institutions and knowledge of them. The objection +in the case of minors, is the want of sufficient understanding. +These objections can not apply to women, natives of the city, all +of whose property interests are here, and who have accumulated, +by their own sagacity and industry, the very property on which +they are taxed. But this is not all; the alien, by going through +the forms of naturalization, the minor on coming of age, obtain +the right of voting; and so long as they continue to pay a mere +poll-tax of a dollar and a half, they may continue to exercise +it, though so ignorant as not to be able to sign their names, or +read the very votes they put into the ballot-boxes. Even +drunkards, felons, idiots, and lunatics, if men, may still enjoy +that right of voting to which no woman, however large the amount +of taxes she pays, however respectable her character, or useful +her life, can ever attain. Wherein, your remonstrant would +inquire, is the justice, equality, or wisdom of this?</p> + +<p>That the rights and interests of the female part of the community +are sometimes forgotten or disregarded in consequence of their +deprivation of political rights, is strikingly evinced, as +appears to your remonstrant, in the organization and +administration of the city public schools. Though there are open +in this State and neighborhood, a great multitude of colleges and +professional schools for the education of boys and young men, yet +the city has very properly provided two High-Schools of its own, +one Latin, the other English, in which the "male graduates" of +the Grammar Schools may pursue their education still farther at +the public expense. And why is not a like provision made for the +girls? Why is their education stopped short, just as they have +attained the age best fitted for progress, and the preliminary +knowledge necessary to facilitate it, thus giving the advantage +of superior culture to sex, not to mind?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<p>The fact that our colleges and professional schools are closed +against females, of which your remonstrant has had personal and +painful experience; having been in the year 1847, after twelve +years of medical practice in Boston, refused permission to attend +the lectures of Harvard Medical College. That fact would seem to +furnish an additional reason why the city should provide, at its +own expense, those means of superior education which, by +supplying our girls with occupation and objects of interest, +would not only save them from lives of frivolity and emptiness, +but which might open the way to many useful and lucrative +pursuits, and so raise them above that degrading dependence, so +fruitful a source of female misery.</p> + +<p>Reserving a more full exposition of the subject to future +occasions, your remonstrant, in paying her tax for the current +year, begs leave to protest against the injustice and +inequalities above pointed out.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right1"><span class="sc">Harriot K. Hunt</span>,<br /> +32 Green Street, Boston, Mass.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0">This is respectfully submitted,</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">Harriot K. Hunt commenced the practice of medicine at the age of +thirty, in 1835; twelve years after, was refused admission to Harvard +Medical Lectures. She often said that as her love element had all +centered in her profession, she intended to celebrate her silver +wedding, which she did, in the summer of 1860. Her house was crowded +with a large circle of loving friends, who decorated it with flowers +and many bridal offerings, thus expressing their esteem and affection +for the first woman physician, who had done so much to relieve the +sufferings of women and children. The degree of M.D. was conferred on +her by "The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania," in 1853. Her +biographer says she honored the title more than the title could her.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">MARRIAGE OF LUCY STONE UNDER PROTEST.</p> + +<p>It was my privilege to celebrate May day by officiating at a +wedding in a farm-house among the hills of West Brookfield. The +bridegroom was a man of tried worth, a leader in the Western +Anti-Slavery Movement; and the bride was one whose fair name is +known throughout the nation; one whose rare intellectual +qualities are excelled by the private beauty of her heart and +life.</p> + +<p>I never perform the marriage ceremony without a renewed sense of +the iniquity of our present system of laws in respect to +marriage; a system by which "man and wife are one, and that one +is the husband." It was with my hearty concurrence, therefore, +that the following protest was read and signed, as a part of the +nuptial ceremony; and I send it to you, that others may be +induced to do likewise.</p> + +<p class="author">Rev. Thomas Wentworth Higginson.</p> + +<p class="heading">PROTEST.</p> + +<p>While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the +relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and +a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on +our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary +obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to +recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they +confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, +investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would +exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest especially +against the laws which give to the husband:</p> + +<p>1. The custody of the wife's person.</p> + +<p>2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.</p> + +<p>3. The sole ownership of her personal, and use of her real +estate, unless previously settled upon her, or placed in the +hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, lunatics, and +idiots.</p> + +<p>4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.</p> + +<p>5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and +more permanent an interest in the property of his deceased wife, +than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.</p> + +<p>6. Finally, against the whole system by which "the legal +existence of the wife is suspended during marriage," so that in +most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her +residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own +name, nor inherit property.</p> + +<p>We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can +never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an +equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law; that +until it is so recognized, married partners should provide +against the radical injustice of present laws, by every means in +their power.</p> + +<p>We believe that where domestic difficulties arise, no appeal +should be made to legal tribunals under existing laws, but that +all difficulties should be submitted to the equitable adjustment +of arbitrators mutually chosen.</p> + +<p>Thus reverencing law, we enter our protest against rules and +customs which are unworthy of the name, since they violate +justice, the essence of law.</p> + +<p class="author">(Signed), Henry. B. Blackwell,<br /> +Lucy Stone.</p> +<p class="ltr-to"><i>Worcester Spy</i>, 1855.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>To the above <i>The Liberator</i> appended the following:</p> + +<blockquote><p>We are very sorry (as will be a host of others) to lose Lucy +Stone, and certainly no less glad to gain Lucy Blackwell. Our +most fervent benediction upon the heads of the parties thus +united.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This was a timely protest against the whole idea of the old Blackstone +code, which made woman a nonentity in marriage. Lucy Stone took an +equally brave step in refusing to take her husband's name, respecting +her own individuality and the name that represented it. These protests +have called down on Mrs. Stone much ridicule and persecution, but she +has firmly maintained her position, although at great inconvenience in +the execution of legal documents, and suffering the injustice of +having her vote refused as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> Lucy Stone, soon after the bill passed in +Massachusetts giving all women the right to vote on the school +question.</p> + +<p>In 1858, Caroline H. Dall, of Boston, gave a series of literary +lectures in different parts of the country, on "Woman's Claims to +Education," beginning in her native city. Her subjects were:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Nov. 1st.</i>—The ideal standard of education, depressed by public +opinion, but developed by the spirit of the age; Egypt and +Algiers.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 8th.</i>—Public opinion, as it is influenced by the study of +the Classics and History, by general literature, newspapers, and +customs.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 15th.</i>—Public opinion as modified by individual lives: +Mary Wollstonecroft, Anna Jamieson, Charlotte Bronté, and +Margaret Fuller.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In June 11th, of this year, Mrs. Dall writes to the <i>Liberator</i> of her +efforts to circulate the following petition:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in General Court assembled:</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The women of Massachusetts are disfranchised by its +State Constitution solely on account of sex.</p> + +<p>We do respectfully demand the right of suffrage, which involves +all other rights of citizenship, and one that can not justly be +withheld, as the following admitted principles of government +show:</p> + +<p>1st. "All men are born free and equal."</p> + +<p>2d. "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the +governed."</p> + +<p>3d. "Taxation and representation are inseparable." We, the +undersigned, therefore petition your Honorable Body to take the +necessary steps to revise the Constitution so that all citizens +may enjoy equal political rights.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>NEW ENGLAND CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p>May 27th, 1859, an enthusiastic Convention was held in Mercantile +Hall. Long before the hour announced the aisles, ante-rooms,, and +lobbies were crowded. At three o'clock Mrs. Caroline H. Dall called +the meeting to order. Mrs. Caroline M. Severance was chosen President. +On taking the chair, she said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>This movement enrolls itself among the efforts of the age, and +the anniversaries of the week as the most radical, and yet in the +best sense the most conservative of them all. It bears the same +relation, to all the charities of the day, which strive nobly to +serve woman, that the Anti-Slavery movement bears to all +superficial palliations of slavery. Like that, it goes beneath +effects, and seeks to remove causes. After showing in a very +lucid manner the difference in the family institution, when the +mother is ignorant and enslaved, and when an educated, +harmoniously developed equal, she closed by saying: It will be +seen then, that instead of confounding the philosophy of the new +movement with theories that claim unlimited indulgence for +appetite or passion, the world should recognize<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> in this the only +radical cure.... No statement could better define this movement +than Tennyson's beautiful stanzas:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The woman's cause is man's; they sink or rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How shall man grow?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The woman is not undeveloped man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But diverse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet in the long years, <i>liker</i> must they grow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The man be more of woman, she of man:<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>He</i> gain in sweetness and in moral height—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>She</i> mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Self-reverent each, and reverencing each;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distinct in individualities,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But like each other, as are those who love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then comes the statelier Eden back to man;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then springs the crowning race of humankind.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And we who are privileged with the poet to foresee this better +Eden; we who have</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Future grand and great,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The safe appeal of Truth to Time,—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>adopting the victorious cry of the Crusaders, "God wills it!" may +listen to hear above the present din and discord, the stern +mandate of His laws, bidding the world "Onward! onward!" and +catch the rhythmical reply of all its movements, "We advance."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Severance then read an appropriate poem from the pen of Mrs. +Sarah Nowell, in which she eulogizes Florence Nightingale, Rosa +Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer, and asserts the equality of man and woman in +the creation.</p> + +<p>Dr. Harriot K. Hunt made some pointed remarks on the education of +woman.</p> + +<p>The Rev. James Freeman Clarke was then introduced. He said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I understand the cause advocated on this platform to be an +unpopular one. It is a feeble cause, a misunderstood cause, a +misrepresented cause. Hence, it seems to me, if any one is asked +to say anything in behalf of it, and if he really believes it is +a good cause, he should speak; and so I have come.</p> + +<p>Certainly any interest which concerns one-half the human race is +an important one. Every man, no matter how stern, hard, and +unrelenting he may have become in the bitter strife and struggle +of the world, every man was once a little infant, cradled on a +mother's knee, and taking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> his life from the sweet fountains of +her love. He was a little child, watched by her tender, careful +eye, and so secured from ill. He was a little, inquiring boy, +with a boundless appetite for information, which only his mother +could give. At her knee he found his primary school: it is where +we have all found it. He had his sisters—the companions of his +childhood; he had the little girls, who were to him the ideals of +some wonderful goodness and excellence, some strange grace and +beauty, though he could not tell what it was. With these +antecedents no man on the face of the round world can refuse to +hear woman, when she comes earnestly, but quietly saying, "We are +not where we ought to be;" "We do not have what we ought to +have." I think their demands are reasonable, all of them. What +are they? Occupation, education, and the highest sphere of work +of which they are capable. These I understand to be the three +demands.</p> + +<p>1st. Occupation. When your child steals on a busy hour and asks +for "something to do," you feel ashamed that you have nothing for +him—that you can not give him the natural occupation which shall +develop all the faculties of mind and body. Is it not a +reasonable request which women make, when they ask for something +to do? They want to be useful in the world. They ask permission +to support themselves and those who are dear to them. What can +they do now? They can go into factories, a few of them; a few +more can be servants in your homes; they can cook your dinner if +they have been taught how. If they are women of genius, they can +take the pen and write; but how few are there in this world, +either men or women of genius. If they have extraordinary +business talent, they can keep a boarding-house. If they have +some education they can keep school. After this, there is the +point of the needle upon which they may be precipitated—and +nothing else.</p> + +<p>We see the gloom that must fall on them, on their children, and +on all they love, when the male protector is taken away. This +demand for more varied occupation is not a new one. Many years +ago, one of the wisest and truest men of this country, a +philanthropist and reformer—Matthew Carey, of +Philadelphia—labored to impress upon the people the fact, that +what was wanted for the elevation of woman was to open to her new +avenues of business. A very sad book was written a few months +ago, "Dr. Sanger's work on Prostitution." It is a very dreadful +book; not calculated, I think, to excite any prurient feeling in +any one. In that book he says:</p> + +<p>First, that the majority of the prostitutes of this country are +mere children, between the ages of fifteen and twenty. That the +lives of these poor, wretched, degraded creatures, last on an +average about four years. Now, when we hear of slaves used up in +six years on a sugar plantation, we think it horrible; but here +are these poor girls killed in a more dreadful way, in a shorter +time. And he adds that the principal cause of their prostitution +is that they have no occupation by which they can support +themselves. Without support, without resources, they struggle for +a while and then are thrown under the feet of the trampling city. +Give them occupation and they will take care of themselves: they +will rise out of the mire of pollution, out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> this filth; for +it is not in the nature of woman to remain there. Give them at +least a chance; open wide every door; and whenever they are able +to get a living by their head or their hands in an honest way, +let them do it. This is the first claim; and it seems to me that +no one can reasonably object to it.</p> + +<p>2d. Education. You say that public schools are open to girls as +well as boys. I know that, but what is it that educates? The +school has but little to do with it. When the boy goes there you +say, "Go there, work with a will, and fit yourself for an +occupation whereby you may earn your bread." But you say to the +girls, "Go to school, get your education, and then come home, sit +still, and do nothing." We must give them every chance to fit +themselves for new spheres of duty. If a woman wants to study +medicine, let her study it; if she wants to study divinity, let +her study it; if she wants to study anything, let her have the +opportunity. If she finds faculties within her, let them have a +chance to expand. That is the second demand—the whole of it.</p> + +<p>And the third claim is for a Sphere of Influence. "That is not +it," do you say? "You want to take woman <i>out</i> of her sphere." +Not at all, we wish to give her a sphere, not to take her from +any place she likes to fill; to give her a chance to exercise +those wonderful, those divine faculties that God has wrapped in +the feminine mind, in the woman's heart.</p> + +<p>As regards voting, why should not women go to the polls? You +think it a very strange desire, I know; but we have thought many +things stranger which seem quite natural now. One need not live +long to find strange things grow common. Why not vote, then? Is +it because they have not as much power to understand what is true +and right as man? If you go to the polls, and see the style of +men who meet there voting, can you come away, and tell us that +the women you meet are not as able to decide what is right as +those men? "Ah, it will brush off every feminine grace, if woman +goes to the polls." Why? "Because she must meet rude men there." +Very well, so she must meet them in the street, and they do not +hurt her; nor will I believe that there is not sufficient +inventive power in the Yankee intellect to overcome this +difficulty. I can conceive of a broader and more generous +activity in politics. I can see her drawing out all the harshness +and bitterness when she goes to the polls. These three points are +all I intended to touch; and I will give way to those who are to +follow.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Caroline H. Dall</span> was then introduced. She said: I have +observed that all public orators labor under some embarrassment +when they rise to speak. Not to be behind the dignity of my +position, I labor under a <i>double</i> embarrassment.</p> + +<p>The first is the "embarras des richesses." There are so many +topics to touch, so many facts to relate, that it is impossible +to cover them in one half hour, and the second—perhaps you will +think that an embarrassment of riches also; for it is an +embarrassment of Clarke and Phillips. The orator needs no common +courage who follows the one and precedes the other. It is my duty +to speak of the progress of the cause; it is impossible to keep +pace with it. You may work day and night, but this thought of God +outstrips you, working hourly through the life of man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> Yet we +must often feel discouraged. Our war is not without; our work +follows us into the heart of the family. We must sustain +ourselves in that dear circle against our nearest friends; +against the all-pervading law, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no +farther."</p> + +<p>What have we gained since 1855? Many things, so important, that +they can not be worthily treated here. I have often mentioned in +my lectures, that in his first report to the French Government, +Neckar gave the credit of his retrenchments to his thrifty, +order-loving wife. Until this year, that acknowledgment stood +alone in history. But now John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher +and political economist of England, dedicates his "Essay on +Liberty" to the memory of his beloved wife, who has been the +<i>inspiration of all, and the author of much</i> that was best in his +writings for many years past. Still farther, in a pamphlet on +"English Political Reform," treating of the extension of the +suffrage, he has gone so far as to recommend that all +householders, without distinction of sex, be adopted into the +constituency, upon proving to the registrar's officer that they +have a certain income—say fifty pounds—and "that they can read, +write, and calculate."</p> + +<p>A great step was taken also in the establishment of the +Institution for the Advancement of Social Science. The sexes are +equal before it. It has five departments. 1. Jurisprudence, or +Law Reform; 2. Education; 3. Punishment and Reformation; 4. +Public Health; 5. Social Economy.</p> + +<p>The first meeting at Liverpool considered the woman's question; +and, while it was debated, Mary Carpenter sat upon the platform, +or lifted her voice side by side with Brougham, Lord John +Russell, and Stanley. At the second meeting (last October), Lord +John Russell was in the chair. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland +presided over Law Reform; the Right Hon. W. F. Cooper, over the +department of Education; the Earl of Carlyle—personally known to +many on this platform—over that which concerns the Reformation +of Criminals; the Earl of Shaftesbury over Public Health; and +Conolly and Charles Kingsley and Tom Taylor and Rawlinson bore +witness side by side with Florence Nightingale. Sir James Stephen +presided over Social Economy. Isa Craig, the Burns poetess, is +one of its Secretaries.</p> + +<p>Ten communications were read at this session by women; among +them, Florence Nightingale, Mary Carpenter, Isa Craig, Louisa +Twining, and Mrs. Fison. Four were on Popular Education, two upon +Punishment and Reformation, three on the Public Health in the +Army and elsewhere, one upon Social Economy. Still another proof +of progress may be seen in the examination of Florence +Nightingale by the Sanitary Commission.</p> + +<p>[In the establishment of <i>The Englishwoman's Journal</i> with an +honorable corps of writers, in the passage of the new Divorce +Bill, of the Married Woman's Property Bill in Canada, the cause +had gained much; on each of which Mrs. Dall spoke at some length, +especially this Property Bill, which some foolish member had +shorn of its most precious clause—that which secured her +earnings to the working-woman, lest, by tempting her to labor, it +should create a divided interest in the family].</p> + +<p>Do you ask me why I have dwelt on this Institution for Social +Science, cataloguing the noble names that do it honor? To +strengthen the timorous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> hearts at the West End; to suggest to +them that a coronet of God's own giving may possibly rest as +secure as one of gold and jewels in the United Kingdom. I wish to +draw your attention to the social distinction of the men upon +that platform. No real nobleness will be imperiled by impartial +listening to our plea. Would you rest secure in our respect, +first feel secure in your own. If ten Beacon Street ladies would +go to work, and take pay for their labor, it would do more good +than all the speeches that were ever made, all the conventions +that were ever held. I honor women who act. That is the reason +that I greet so gladly girls like Harriet Hosmer, Louisa Lander, +and Margurèite Foley. Whatever they do, or do not do, for Art, +they do a great deal for the cause of Labor. I do not believe any +one in this room has any idea of the avenues that are open to +women already. Let me read you some of the results of the last +census of the United Kingdom. Talk of women not being able to +work! Women have been doing hard work ever since the world began. +You will see by this that they are doing as much as men now. +[Applause].</p> + +<p>In 1841, there were engaged in agriculture, 66,329 women. In +1851, 128,418; nearly double the number. Of these, there are +64,000 dairy-women; women who lift enormous tubs, turn heavy +cheeses, slap butter by the hundred weight. Then come +market-gardeners, bee-mistresses, florists, flax producers and +beaters, haymakers, reapers, and hop-pickers.</p> + +<p>In natural connection with the soil, we find seven thousand women +in the mining interest; not harnessed on all-fours to creep +through the shafts, but dressers of ore, and washers and +strainers of clay for the potteries. Next largest to the +agricultural is one not to be exactly calculated—the fishing +interest. The Pilchard fishery employs some thousands of women. +The Jersey oyster fishery alone employs one thousand. Then follow +the herring, cod, whale, and lobster fisheries.</p> + +<p>Apart from the Christie Johnstones—the aristocrats of the +trade—the sea nurtures an heroic class like Grace Darling, who +stand aghast when society rewards a deed of humanity, and cry out +in expostulation, "Why, every girl on the coast would have done +as I did!" Then follow the kelp-burners, netters, and bathers. +The netters make the fisherman's nets; the bathers manage the +machines at the watering-places.</p> + +<p>And, before quitting this subject, I should like to allude to the +French fishwomen; partly as a matter of curiosity, partly to +prove that women know how to labor. In the reign of Henry IV., +there existed in Paris a privileged monopoly called the United +Corporation of Fishmongers and Herringers. In the reign of Louis +XIV. this corporation had managed so badly as to become +insolvent. The women who had hawked and vended fish took up the +business, and managed so well as to become very soon a political +power. They became rich, and their children married into good +families. You will remember the atrocities generally ascribed to +them in the first revolution. It is now known that these were +committed by ruffians disguised in their dress.</p> + +<p>To return: there are in the United Kingdom 200,000 female +servants. Separate from these, brewers, custom-house searchers, +matrons of jails, lighthouse-keepers, pew-openers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>I have no time to question; but should not a Christian community +offer womanly ministrations to its imprisoned women? Oh, that +some brave heart, in a strong body, might go on our behalf to the +city jail and Charlestown! Pew-opening has never been a trade in +America; but, as there are signs that it may become so in this +democratic community, I would advise our women to keep an eye to +that. [Laughter].</p> + +<p>There are in the United Kingdom 500,000 business women, beer-shop +keepers, butcher-wives, milk-women, hack-owners, and shoemakers.</p> + +<p>As one item of this list, consider 26,000 butcher-wives—women +who do not merely preside over a business, but buy stock, put +down meat, drive a cart even if needed—butchers to all intents +and purposes. There are 29,000 shop-keepers, but only 1,742 +shop-women.</p> + +<p>Telegraph reporters are increasing rapidly. Their speed and +accuracy are much praised. From the Bright Festival, at +Manchester, a young woman reported, at the rate of twenty-nine +words a minute, six whole columns, with hardly a mistake, though +the whole matter was political, such as she was supposed not to +understand!</p> + +<p>Phonographic reporters also. A year ago there were but three +female phonographers in America; and two of these did not get +their bread by the work. Now hundreds are qualifying themselves, +all over the land; and two young girls, not out of their teens, +are at this moment reporting my words. [Cheers].</p> + +<p>I hope the phonographers will take that clapping to themselves. I +wish you would make it heartier. [Repeated cheers]. Now let us +turn to the American census. I must touch it lightly. Of factory +operatives, I will only say, that, in 1845, there were 55,828 men +and 75,710 women engaged in textile manufactures. You will be +surprised at the preponderance of women: it seems to be as great +in other countries. Then follow makers of gloves, makers of glue, +workers in gold and silver leaf, hair-weavers, hat and cap +makers, hose-weavers, workers in India rubber, lamp-makers, +laundresses, leechers, milliners, morocco-workers, nurses, +paper-hangers, physicians, picklers and preservers, saddlers and +harness-makers, shoemakers, soda-room keepers, snuff and +cigar-makers, stock and suspender-makers, truss-makers, typers +and stereotypers, umbrella-makers, upholsterers, card-makers.</p> + +<p>Cards were invented in 1361. In less than seventy years the +German manufacture was in the hands of women—Elizabeth and +Margaret, at Nuremberg. Then grinders of watch crystals, 7,000 +women in all.</p> + +<p>My own observation adds to this list phonographers, house and +sign painters, fruit-hawkers, button-makers, tobacco-packers, +paper-box makers, embroiderers, and fur-sewers.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I should say haymakers and reapers; since, for three or +four years, bands of girls have been so employed in Ohio, at +sixty-two and a half cents a day.</p> + +<p>In New Haven, seven women work with seventy men in a clock +factory, at half wages. If the proprietor answered honestly, when +asked why he employed them, he would say, "To save money;" but he +does answer, "To help our cause."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<p>In Waltham, a watch factory has been established, whose +statistics I shall use elsewhere.</p> + +<p>In Winchester, Va., a father has lately taken a daughter into +partnership; and the firm is "J. Wysong and Daughter." +[Applause]. Is it not a shame it should happen first in a slave +State?</p> + +<p>Then come registers of deeds and postmistresses. We all know that +the rural post-office is chiefly in the hands of irresponsible +women. Petty politicians obtain the office, take the money, and +leave wives and sisters to do the work.</p> + +<p>[Here Mrs. Dall read an interesting letter from a female +machinist in Delaware; but, as it will be published in another +connection, it is here withheld].</p> + +<p>Is it easy for women to break the way into new avenues? You know +it is not.</p> + +<p>[Here Mrs. Dall referred to the opposition shown to the +employment of women in watch-making, by Mr. Bennett, in London; +to the school at Marlborough House; to the employment of women in +printing-offices—substantiating her statements by dates and +names].</p> + +<p>When I first heard that women were employed in Staffordshire to +paint pottery and china—which they do with far more taste than +men—I heard, also, that the jealousy of the men refused to allow +them the customary hand-rest, and so kept down their wages. I +refused to believe anything so contemptible. [Applause]. Now the +Edinburgh Review confirms the story. Thank God! that could never +happen in this country. With us, Labor can not dictate to +Capital.</p> + +<p>But the great evils which lie at the foundation of depressed +wages are:</p> + +<p>1st. That want of respect for labor which prevents ladies from +engaging in it.</p> + +<p>2d. That want of respect for women which prevents men from +valuing properly the work they do.</p> + +<p>Women themselves must change these facts.</p> + +<p>[Mrs. Dall here read some letters to show that wages were at a +starving-point in the cities of America as well as in Europe].</p> + +<p>I am tired of the folly of the political economist, constantly +crying that wages can never rise till the laborers are fewer. You +have heard of the old law in hydraulics, that water will always +rise to the level of its source; but, if by a forcing-pump, you +raise it a thousand feet above, or by some huge syphon drop it a +thousand feet below, does that law hold? Very well, the +artificial restrictions of society are such a forcing-pump—are +such a syphon. Make woman equal before the law with man, and +wages will adjust themselves.</p> + +<p>But what is the present remedy? A very easy one—for employers to +adopt the cash system, and be content with rational profits. In +my correspondence during the past year, master-tailors tell me +that they pay from eight cents to fifty cents a day for the +making of pantaloons, including the heaviest doeskins. Do you +suppose they would dare to tell me how they charge that work on +their slowly-paying customer's bills? Not they. The eight cents +swells to thirty, the fifty to a dollar or a dollar twenty-five. +Put an end to this, and master-tailors would no longer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> vault +into Beacon Street over prostrate women's souls; but neither +would women be driven to the streets for bread.</p> + +<p>If I had time, I would show you, women, how much depends upon +yourselves. As it is, we may say with the heroine of "Adam Bede," +which you have doubtless all been reading:</p> + +<p>"I'm not for denying that the women are foolish. God Almighty +made 'em to match the men!" [Laughter].</p> + +<p>Do you laugh? It is but a step from the ridiculous to the +sublime; and Goethe, who knew women well, was of the same mind +when he wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Wilt thou dare to blame the woman for her seeming sudden changes—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swaying east and swaying westward, as the breezes shake the tree?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fool! thy selfish thought misguides thee. Find the man that never ranges.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woman wavers but to seek him. Is not, then, the fault in thee?"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Dall was followed by the Rev. <span class="smcap">John T. Sargent</span>, who said:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Madam President and Friends</span>:—I appreciate the honor of an +invitation to this platform, but my words must be few; first, +because the call comes to me within a few hours, and amid the +cares and responsibilities of the chair on another platform, and +I had no time for preconcerted forms of address; second, because +the general principles of this organization, and the subject +matters for discussion, are so well sifted and disposed of by +previous speakers, that nothing new remains for me to say; and, +third, because we are all waiting for the words of one [Wendell +Phillips] whose sympathies are never wanting in any cause of +truth and justice, whose versatile eloquence never hesitates on +any platform where he waves aloft "the sword of the spirit" in +behalf of human rights. [Applause].</p> + +<p>I may truly say, that this is my maiden speech in behalf of +maidens and others [laughter]; and, if it amount to nothing else, +I may say, as did my friend Clarke, I feel bound, at least, to +take my stand, and show my sympathy for the noble cause. I come +here under the pressure of an obligation to testify in behalf of +an interest truly Christian, and one of the greatest that can +engage the reason or the conscience of a community. I would that +you had upon this platform and every other, more women speakers +for the upholding and consummation of every righteous cause! And +so far am I from being frightened to death or embarrassed, as our +friend Mrs. Dall has intimated any one might be, at the prospect +of either following James Freeman Clarke or preceding Wendell +Phillips, I am much more concerned by the contrast of my speech +with such speakers as your President, or Dr. Hunt, or Mrs. Dall +herself.</p> + +<p>There is one feature of the general question of "Woman's Rights" +on which I would say a single word; and it may constitute the +specialty of my address, so far as it has any. I mean the bearing +of social inequalities particularly upon the poor—the poor of a +city—the poor women of a city.</p> + +<p>It may not be unknown to most of you, that for nearly two years +past, in connection with the so-called "Boston Provident +Association," I have been engaged in an agency wherein the +peculiar trials of this class have been revealed to me as never +before.</p> + +<p>Hundreds of poor, desolate, forsaken women, especially in the +winter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> months, have come to that office with the same pitiable +tale of poverty, desertion, and tyranny on the part of their +worthless and drunken husbands, who had gone off to California, +Kansas, or the West, taking away from their wives and children +every possible means of support, and leaving them the pauper +dependents on a public charity. Now, if this be not the denial of +Woman's Rights, I know not what is. Had we time, I might fill the +hour with a journal of statistics in painful illustration of +these facts. Now, I say, that a system of society which can +tolerate such a state of things, and, by sufferance even, allow +such men to wrench away the plain rights of their wives and +families, needs reforming.</p> + +<p>But let us look a little higher in the social scale, to the +rights and claims of a class of women not so dependent—a class +who, by their education and culture, are competent to fill, or +who may be filling, the position of clerks, secretaries, or +assistant agents. How inadequate and insufficient, as a general +thing, is the compensation they receive!</p> + +<p>There was associated with me in the agency and office to which I +have referred, as office-clerk and coadjutor, among others, an +intelligent and very worthy young woman, whose term of service +there has been coeval and coincident with the Association itself, +even through the whole seven years or more; and there she still +survives, through all the vicissitudes of the General Agency by +death or otherwise, with a fidelity of service worthy of more +liberal compensation; for she receives, even now, for an amount +of service equal to that of any other in the office, only about +one-third the salary paid to a male occupant of the same sphere!</p> + +<p>Look next at the professional sphere of women, properly so +called; and who shall deny her right and claim to that position? +A young brother clergyman came to my office one day, wanting his +pulpit supplied; and, in the course of conversation, asked very +earnestly, "How would it do to invite a woman-preacher into my +pulpit?" "Do!" said I (giving him the names of Mrs. Dall, Dr. +Hunt, etc., as the most accessible) "of course it'll do." And all +I have to say is, if I ever resume again the charge of a pulpit +myself, and either of those preachers want an exchange, I shall +be honored in the privilege of so exchanging.</p> + +<p>Well, my young friend, the brother clergyman referred to, whom I +am glad to see in this audience, went and did according to my +suggestion; and, by the professional service of Mrs. Dall in his +pulpit, more than once, I think, ministered no little edification +to his people. And, in this connection, let me say: If the +argument against woman's preaching be, "Oh! it looks so awkward +and singular to see a woman with a gown on in the pulpit" (for +that's the whole gist of it), why, then, the same logic might as +well disrobe the male priesthood of their silken paraphernalia, +cassock and bands.</p> + +<p>But there are other and better words in waiting, and I yield the +floor.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Charles G. Ames</span> expressed his gratitude at being permitted to +occupy this platform, and identify himself with the cause of +those noblest of living women who had dared the world's +scorn—had dared to stand alone on the ground of their moral +convictions. He thought Rev. Mr. Clarke had spoken but half the +truth in saying, "Half the human race are concerned in the +Woman's Rights movement."</p> + +<p>If the Mohammedan doctrine (that woman has no soul) be true, +then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> the opponents of this cause are justifiable. But concede +that she has a rational soul, and you concede the equality of her +rights. Concede that she is capable of being a Christian, and you +concede that she has a right to help do the Christian's work; and +the Christian's work includes all forms of noble activity, as +well as the duty of self-development.</p> + +<p>But some people are afraid of agitation. You remember the story +of the rustic, who fainted away in the car when taking his first +railroad ride, and gasped out, on coming to himself, "Has the +thing lit?" He belonged, probably, to that large class of people +who go into hysterics every time the world begins to move, and +who are never relieved from their terror till quiet is restored.</p> + +<p>Great alarm prevails lest this agitation should breed a fatal +quarrel between man and woman; as though there could be a want of +harmony, a collision of rights, between the sexes. Sad visions +are conjured up before us of family feuds, mutual hair-pullings, +and a general wreck of all domestic bliss. Certainly, there are +difficulties about settling some domestic questions. Marriage is +a partnership between two; no third person to give the casting +vote. Then they must "take turns"; the wife yielding to the +husband in those cases where he is best qualified to judge, and +the husband yielding to the wife in those matters which most +concern her, or concerning which she can best judge. Yet man is +the senior partner of the firm: his name comes first. Few women +would be pleased to see the firm styled in print as "Mrs. +So-and-So and Husband."</p> + +<p>Woman wants more self-reliance. Has she not always been taught +that it is very proper to faint at the sight of toads and spiders +and fresh blood, and whenever a gentleman pops the question? Has +she not always been taught that man was the strong, towering oak, +and she the graceful, clinging vine, sure to collapse like an +empty bag whenever his mighty support was withdrawn? Until all +this folly is unlearned, how can she be self-dependent and truly +womanly?</p> + +<p>Women are afraid to claim their rights; and not timidity only, +but laziness—the love of ease—keeps them back from the great +duty of self-assertion. True, it is a good deal like work to +summon up the soul to such a conflict with an opposing and +corrupt public opinion. But woman must do that work for herself, +or it will never be done.</p> + +<p>Woman's <i>rights</i> we talk of. There is a grandeur about these +great questions of right, which makes them the glory of our age; +and it is the shame of our age, that right and rights in every +form get so generally sneered at. What use have I for my +conscience, what remains of my noble manhood, if, when half the +human race complain that I am doing them a wrong, I only reply +with a scoff? A man without a conscience to make him quick and +sensitive to right and duty, is neither fit for heaven nor for +hell. He is an outsider, a monster!</p> + +<p>Conservatism says, "Let the world be as it is"; but Christianity +says, "Make it what it should be." No man need call himself a +Christian, who admits that a wrong exists, and yet wishes it to +continue, or is indifferent to its removal. Let us</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Strike for that which ought to be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And God will bless the blows."<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></div></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 371px;"> +<a name="v1_1273" id="v1_1273"> +<img src="images/v1_1273.png" width="371" height="500" +alt="Paulina Wright Davis (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>The speaker spoke of the abuse and injustice done to the Bible by +those who make it the shelter and apologist for all the wrong, +vileness, and sneaking meanness that the world bears up; and +closed with a testimony against the cowardice of those +time-serving ministers who allow their manhood to be suffocated +by a white cravat, and who never publicly take sides with what +they see to be a good cause, until "popular noises" indicate that +the time has come for speaking out their opinions.</p> + +<p>The President then introduced to the audience <span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span>, +Esq., of Boston:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Madam President</span>:—I am exceedingly happy to see that this +question calls together so large an audience; and perhaps that +circumstance will make me take exception to some representations +of the previous speakers as to the unpopularity of this movement. +The gentleman who occupied this place before me thought that +perhaps he might count the numbers of those that occupied this +platform as the real advocates of that question. Oh, no! The +number of those who sympathize with us must not be counted so. +Our idea penetrates the whole life of the people. The shifting +hues of public opinion show like the colors on a dove's neck; you +can not tell where one ends, or the other begins. [Cheers]. +Everybody that holds to raising human beings above the popular +ideas, and not caring for artificial distinctions, is on our +side; I think I can show my friend that. Whenever a new reform is +started, men seem to think that the world is going to take at +once a great stride. The world never takes strides. The moral +world is exactly like the natural. The sun comes up minute by +minute, ray by ray, till the twilight deepens into dawn, and dawn +spreads into noon. So it is with this question. Those who look at +our little island of time do not see it; but, a hundred years +later, everybody will recognize it.</p> + +<p>No one need be at all afraid; there is no disruption, no breaking +away from old anchorage—not at all. In the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries, there were two movements—first, the +peasants in the town were striving to fortify each man his own +house—to set up the towns against the kings; then, in the +colleges, the great philosophers were striving each to fortify +his own soul to make a revolution against Rome. The peasants +branded the collegians as "infidels," and the collegians showed +the peasants to be "traitors." Cordially they hated each other; +blindly they went down to their graves, thinking they had been +fighting each other; but, under the providence of God, they were +entwined in the same movement. Now, if I could throw you back +to-day into the civilization of Greece and Rome, I could show you +the fact that our question is two thousand years old. [Cheers.] +In the truest sense, it did not begin in 1848, as my friend Dr. +Hunt stated; it began centuries ago. Did you ever hear of the old +man who went to the doctor, and asked him to teach him to speak +prose? "Why, my dear fellow," was the reply, "you have been +speaking prose all your life." But he did not know it. So with +some people in regard to the movement for Woman's Rights.</p> + +<p>Many think the steps taken since 1850 are shaking this land with +a new infidelity. Now, this infidelity is a good deal older than +the New Testament. When man began his pilgrimage from the cradle +of Asia, woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> was not allowed to speak before a court of +justice. To kill a woman was just as great a sin as to kill a +cow, and no greater. To sell an unlicensed herb in the city of +Calcutta, was exactly the same crime as to kill a woman. She did +not belong to the human race. Come down thousands of years, and +the civilization of Greece said, "Woman has not got enough of +truth in her to be trusted in the court of justice;" and, if her +husband wants to give her to a brother or friend, he can take her +to their door, and say, "Here, I give you this." And so it +continues till you reach the feudal ages; when woman, though she +might be queen or duchess, was often not competent to testify in +a court of justice. She had not soul enough, men believed, to +know a truth from a lie. That is the code of the feudal system. +But all at once the world has waked up, and thinks a man is not a +man because he has a pound of muscle, or because he has a +stalwart arm; but because he has thoughts, ideas, purposes: he +can commit crime, and he is capable of virtue.</p> + +<p>No man is born in a day. A baby is always six months old before +he is twenty-one. Our fathers, who first reasoned that God made +all men equal, said: "You sha'n't hang a man until you have asked +him if he consents to the law." Some meddlesome fanatic, engaged +in setting up type, conceived the idea, that he need not pay his +tax till he was represented before the law: then why should woman +do so? Now, I ask, what possible reason is there that woman, as a +mother, as a wife, as a laborer, as a capitalist, as an artist, +as a citizen, should be subjected to any laws except such as +govern man? What moral reason is there for this, under the +American idea? Does not the same interest, the same strong tie, +bind the mother to her children, that bind the father? Has she +not the same capacity to teach them that the father has? and +often more? Now, the law says: "If the father be living, the +mother is nothing; but, if the father be dead, the mother is +everything." Did she inherit from her husband his great +intellect? If she did not, what is the common sense of such a +statute? The mother has the same rights, in regard to her +children, that the father has: there should be no distinction.</p> + +<p>Yours is not a new reform. The gentleman who occupied the +platform a few moments ago gave the common representation of this +cause: "If a husband doesn't do about right, his wife will pull +his hair; and, if you let her have her way, she may vote the +Democratic ticket, and he the Republican; and <i>vice versa</i>." +Well, now, my dear friend, suppose it were just so; it is too +late to complain. That point has long been settled; if you will +read history a little, you will see it was settled against you. +In the time of Luther, it was a question: "Can a woman choose her +own creed?" The feudal ages said: "No; she believes as her +husband believes, of course." But the reformers said: "She ought +to think for herself; her husband is not her God." "But," it was +objected, "should there be difference of opinion between man and +wife, the husband believing one creed and the wife another, there +would be continual discord." But the reply was: "God settled +that; God has settled it that every responsible conscience should +have a right to his own creed." And Christendom said: "Amen." The +reformers of Europe, to this day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> have allowed freedom of +opinion; and who says that the experience of three centuries has +found the husband and wife grappling each other's throats on +religious differences? It would be Papal and absurd to deny woman +her religious rights. Then why should she not be allowed to +choose her party?</p> + +<p>We claim the precedents in this matter. It was arranged and +agreed upon, in the reform of Europe, that women should have the +right to choose their religious creeds. I say, therefore, this is +not a new cause; it is an old one. It is as old as the American +idea. We are individuals by virtue of our brains, not by virtue +of our muscles. "Why do you women meddle in politics?" asked +Napoleon of De Staël. "Sire, so long as you will hang us, we must +ask the reason," was the answer. The whole political philosophy +of the subject is in that. The instant you say, "Woman is not +competent to go to the ballot-box," I reply: "She is not +competent to go to the gallows or the State prison. If she is +competent to go to the State prison, then she is competent to go +to the ballot-box, and tell how thieves should be punished." +[Applause].</p> + +<p>Man is a man because he thinks. Woman has already begun to think. +She has touched literature with the wand of her enchantment, and +it rises to her level, until woman becomes an author as well as +reader. And what is the result? We do not have to expurgate the +literature of the nineteenth century before placing it in the +hands of youth. Those who write for the lower level sink down to +dwell with their kind.</p> + +<p>Mr. Sargent and Mr. Clarke expatiated on the wholesome influence +of the side-by-side progress of the sexes. There are no women +more deserving of your honest approbation than those who dare to +work singly for the elevation of their sex....</p> + +<p>Woman's Rights and Negro Rights! What rights have either women or +negroes that we have any reason to respect? The world says: +"None!"</p> + +<p>There has lately been a petition carried into the British +Parliament, asking—for what? It asks that the laws of marriage +and divorce shall be brought into conformity with the creed and +civilization of Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth +century. The state of British law, on the bill of divorce, was a +disgrace to the British statute-book. Whose was the intellect and +whose the heart to point out, and who had the courage to look in +the face of British wealth and conservatism, and claim that the +law of divorce was a disgrace to modern civilization? It was the +women of Great Britain that first said her statute-book disgraced +her. Who could say, that if those women had been voters, they +might not have reformed it?</p> + +<p>Douglas Jerrold said: "Woman knows she is omnipotent"; and so she +is. She may be ignorant, she may not have a dollar, she may have +no right given her to testify in the court of justice; she may be +a slave, chained by a dozen statutes; but, when her husband loves +her, she is his queen and mistress, in spite of them all; and the +world knows it. All history bears testimony to this omnipotent +influence. What we are here for is to clear up the choked +channel; make hidden power confess itself, and feel its +responsibility, feel how much rests upon it, and therefore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> gird +itself to its duty. We are to say to the women: "Yours is +one-half of the human race. Come to the ballot-box, and feel, +when you cast a vote in regard to some great moral question, the +dread post you fill, and fit yourself for it." Woman at home +controls her son, guides her husband—in reality, makes him +vote—but acknowledges no responsibility, and receives no +education for such a throne. By her caprices in private life, she +often ruins the manhood of her husband, and checks the +enthusiastic purposes of her son.</p> + +<p>Many a young girl, in her married life, loses her husband, and +thus is left a widow with two or three children. Now, who is to +educate them and control them? We see, if left to her own +resources, the intellect which she possesses, and which has +remained in a comparatively dormant state, displayed in its full +power. What a depth of heart lay hidden in that woman! She takes +her husband's business—guides it as though it were a trifle; she +takes her sons, and leads them; sets her daughters an example; +like a master-leader, she governs the whole household. That is +woman's influence. What made that woman? Responsibility. Call her +out from weakness, lay upon her soul the burden of her children's +education, and she is no longer a girl, but a woman!</p> + +<p>Horace Greeley once said to Margaret Fuller: "If you should ask a +woman to carry a ship round Cape Horn, how would she go to work +to do it? Let her do this, and I will give up the question." In +the fall of 1856, a Boston girl, only twenty years of age, +accompanied her husband to California. A brain-fever laid him +low. In the presence of mutiny and delirium, she took his vacant +post, preserved order, and carried her cargo safe to its destined +port. Looking in the face of Mr. Greeley, Miss Fuller said: "Lo! +my dear Horace, it is done; now say, what shall woman: do next?" +[Cheers].</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Caroline H. Dall</span> then dismissed the assembly.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p></blockquote> + +<p>In <i>The Liberator</i> of July 6, 1860, we find a brief mention of what +was called Mrs. Dall's "Drawing-room" Convention, in which it was +proposed to present the artistic and æsthetic view of the question. +The meeting was held June 1st, in the Melodeon. Mrs. Caroline M. +Severance presided. Mrs. Dall, Rev. Samuel J. May, R. J. Hinton, Moses +(Harriet Tubman), James Freeman Clarke, Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, +Elizabeth M. Powell, and Wendell Phillips took part in the +discussions.</p> + +<p>We close our chapter on Massachusetts, with a few extracts from a +sermon by Theodore Parker, to show his position on the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> momentous +question of his day and generation. In March, 1853, he gave two +discourses in Music Hall, Boston, one on the domestic, and one on the +public function of woman, in which he fully expressed himself on every +phase of the question.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THEODORE PARKER—THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN.</p> + +<p>If woman is a human being, first, she has the Nature of a human +being; next, she has the Right of a human being; third, she has +the Duty of a human being. The Nature is the capacity to possess, +to use, to develop, and to enjoy every human faculty; the Right +is the right to enjoy, develop, and use every human faculty; and +the Duty is to make use of the Right, and make her human nature, +human history. She is here to develop her human nature, enjoy her +human rights, perform her human duty. Womankind is to do this for +herself, as much as mankind for himself. A woman has the same +human nature that a man has; the same human rights, to life, +liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the same human duties; and +they are as inalienable in a woman as in a man.</p> + +<p>Each man has the natural right to the normal development of his +nature, so far as it is general-human, neither man nor woman, but +human. Each woman has the natural right to the normal development +of her nature, so far as it is general-human, neither woman nor +man. But each man has also a natural and inalienable right to the +normal development of his peculiar nature as man, where he +differs from woman. Each woman has just the same natural and +inalienable right to the normal development of her peculiar +nature as woman, and not man. All that is undeniable.</p> + +<p>Now see what follows. Woman has the same individual right to +determine her aim in life, and to follow it; has the same +individual rights of body and of spirit—of mind and conscience, +and heart and soul; the same physical rights, the same +intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious rights, that man +has. That is true of womankind as a whole; it is true of Jane, +Ellen, and Sally, and each special woman that can be named.</p> + +<p>Every person, man or woman, is an integer, an individual, a whole +person; and also a portion of the race, and so a fraction of +humankind. Well, the Rights of individualism are not to be +possessed, developed, used, and enjoyed, by a life in solitude, +but by joint action. Accordingly, to complete and perfect the +individual man or woman, and give each an opportunity to possess, +use, develop, and enjoy these rights, there must be concerted and +joint action; else individuality is only a possibility, not a +reality. So the individual rights of woman carry with them the +same domestic, social, ecclesiastical, and political rights, as +those of man.</p> + +<p>The Family, Community, Church and State, are four modes of action +which have grown out of human nature in its historical +development; they are all necessary for the development of +mankind; machines which the human race has devised, in order to +possess, use, develop, and enjoy their rights as human beings, +their rights also as men.</p> + +<p>These are just as necessary for the development of woman as of +man; and, as she has the same nature, right, and duty, as man, it +follows that she has the same right to use, shape, and control +these four institutions, for her general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> human purpose and for +her special feminine purpose, that man has to control them for +his general human purpose and his special masculine purpose. All +that is as undeniable as anything in metaphysics or mathematics.</p> + +<p>If woman had been consulted, it seems to me theology would have +been in a vastly better state than it is now. I do not think that +any woman would ever have preached the damnation of babies +new-born; and "hell, paved with the skulls of infants not a span +long," would be a region yet to be discovered in theology. A +celibate monk—with God's curse writ on his face, which knew no +child, no wife, no sister, and blushed that he had a +mother—might well dream of such a thing. He had been through the +preliminary studies. Consider the ghastly attributes which are +commonly put upon God in the popular theology; the idea of +infinite wrath, of infinite damnation, and total depravity, and +all that. Why, you could not get a woman, that had intellect +enough to open her mouth, to preach these things anywhere. Women +think they think that they believe them; but they do not. +Celibate priests, who never knew marriage, or what paternity was, +who thought woman was a "pollution"—they invented these ghastly +doctrines; and when I have heard the Athanasian Creed and the +Dies Iræ chanted by monks, with the necks of bulls and the lips +of donkeys—why, I have understood where the doctrine came from, +and have felt the appropriateness of their braying out the +damnation hymns; woman could not do it. We shut her out of the +choir, out of the priest's house, out of the pulpit; and then the +priest, with unnatural vows, came in, and taught these "doctrines +of devils." Could you find a woman who would read to a +congregation, as words of truth, Jonathan Edwards' sermon on a +Future State—"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," "The +Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners," "Wrath upon the +Wicked to the Uttermost," "The Future Punishment of the Wicked," +and other things of that sort? Nay, can you find a worthy woman, +of any considerable culture, who will read the fourteenth chapter +of Numbers, and declare that a true picture of the God she +worships? Only a she-dragon could do it in our day.</p> + +<p>The popular theology leaves us nothing feminine in the character +of God. How could it be otherwise, when so much of the popular +theology is the work of men who thought woman was a "pollution," +and barred her out of all the high places of the church? If women +had had their place in ecclesiastical teaching, I doubt that the +"Athanasian Creed" would ever have been thought a "symbol" of +Christianity. The pictures and hymns which describe the last +judgment are a protest against the exclusion of woman from +teaching in the church. "I suffer not a woman to teach, but to be +in silence," said a writer in the New Testament. The sentence has +brought manifold evil in its train. So much for the employments +of women.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>By nature, woman has the same political rights that man has—to +vote, to hold office, to make and administer laws. These she has +as a matter of right. The strong hand and the great head of man +keep her down; nothing more. In America, in Christendom, woman +has no political rights, is not a citizen in full; she has no +voice in making or administering the laws, none in electing the +rulers or administrators thereof. She can hold no office—can not +be committee of a primary school, overseer of the poor, or +guardian to a public lamp-post. But any man, with conscience +enough to keep out of jail, mind enough to escape<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> the +poor-house, and body enough to drop his ballot into the box, he +is a voter. He may have no character—even no money; that is no +matter—he is male. The noblest woman has no voice in the State. +Men make laws, disposing of her property, her person, her +children; still she must bear it, "with a patient shrug."</p> + +<p>Looking at it as a matter of pure right and pure science, I know +no reason why woman should not be a voter, or hold office, or +make and administer laws. I do not see how I can shut myself into +political privileges and shut woman out, and do both in the name +of inalienable right. Certainly, every woman has a natural right +to have her property represented in the general representation of +property, and her person represented in the general +representation of persons.</p> + +<p>Looking at it as a matter of expediency, see some facts. Suppose +woman had a share in the municipal regulation of Boston, and +there were as many alderwomen as aldermen, as many common council +women as common council men, do you believe that, in defiance of +the law of Massachusetts, the city government, last spring, would +have licensed every two hundred and forty-fourth person of the +population of the city to sell intoxicating drink? would have +made every thirty-fifth voter a rum-seller? I do not.</p> + +<p>Do you believe the women of Boston would spend ten thousand +dollars in one year in a city frolic, or spend two or three +thousand every year, on the Fourth of July, for sky-rockets and +firecrackers; would spend four or five thousand dollars to get +their Canadian guests drunk in Boston harbor, and then pretend +that Boston had not money enough to establish a high-school for +girls, to teach the daughters of mechanics and grocers to read +French and Latin, and to understand the higher things which rich +men's sons are driven to at college? I do not.</p> + +<p>Do you believe that the women of Boston, in 1851, would have +spent three or four thousand dollars to kidnap a poor man, and +have taken all the chains which belonged to the city and put them +round the court-house, and have drilled three hundred men, armed +with bludgeons and cutlasses, to steal a man and carry him back +to slavery? I do not. Do you think, if the women had had the +control, "fifteen hundred men of property and standing" would +have volunteered to take a poor man, kidnapped in Boston, and +conduct him out of the State, with fire and sword? I believe no +such thing.</p> + +<p>Do you think the women of Boston would take the poorest and most +unfortunate children in the town, put them all together into one +school, making that the most miserable in the city, where they +had not and could not have half the advantages of the other +children in different schools, and all that because the +unfortunates were dark-colored? Do you think the women of Boston +would shut a bright boy out of the High-School or Latin-School, +because he was black in the face?</p> + +<p>Women are said to be cowardly. When Thomas Sims, out of his +dungeon, sent to the churches his petition for their prayers, had +women been "the Christian clergy," do you believe they would not +have dared to pray?</p> + +<p>If women had a voice in the affairs of Massachusetts, do you +think they would ever have made laws so that a lazy husband could +devour all the substance of his active wife—spite of her wish; +so that a drunken husband could command her bodily presence in +his loathly house; and when an infamous man was divorced from his +wife, that he could keep all the children? I confess I do not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p> + +<p>If the affairs of the nation had been under woman's joint +control, I doubt that we should have butchered the Indians with +such exterminating savagery, that, in fifty years, we should have +spent seven hundred millions of dollars for war, and now, in time +of peace, send twenty annual millions more to the same waste. I +doubt that we should have spread slavery into nine new States, +and made it national. I think the Fugitive Slave bill would never +have been an act. Woman has some respect for the natural law of +God.</p> + +<p>I know men say woman can not manage the great affairs of a +nation. Very well. Government is political economy—national +housekeeping. Does any respectable woman keep house so badly as +the United States? with so much bribery, so much corruption, so +much quarrelling in the domestic councils?</p> + +<p>But government is also political morality, it is national ethics. +Is there any worthy woman who rules her household as wickedly as +the nations are ruled? who hires bullies to fight for her? Is +there any woman who treats one-sixth part of her household as if +they were cattle and not creatures of God, as if they were things +and not persons? I know of none such. In government as +housekeeping, or government as morality, I think man makes a very +poor appearance, when he says woman could not do as well as he +has done and is doing.</p> + +<p>I doubt that women will ever, as a general thing, take the same +interest as men in political affairs, or find therein an abiding +satisfaction. But that is for women themselves to determine, not +for men.</p> + +<p>In order to attain the end—the development of man in body and +spirit—human institutions must represent all parts of human +nature, both the masculine and the feminine element. For the +well-being of the human race, we need the joint action of man and +woman, in the family, the community, the Church, and the State. A +family without the presence of woman—with no mother, no wife, no +sister, no womankind—is a sad thing. I think a community without +woman's equal social action, a church without her equal +ecclesiastical action, and a State without her equal political +action, is almost as bad—is very much what a house would be +without a mother, wife, sister, or friend.</p> + +<p>You see what prevails in the Christian civilization of the +nineteenth century; it is Force—force of body, force of brain. +There is little justice, little philanthropy, little piety. +Selfishness preponderates everywhere in Christendom—individual, +domestic, social, ecclesiastical, national selfishness. It is +preached as gospel and enacted as law. It is thought good +political economy for a strong people to devour the weak nations; +for "Christian" England and America to plunder the "heathen" and +annex their land; for a strong class to oppress and ruin the +feeble class; for the capitalists of England to pauperize the +poor white laborer; for the capitalists of America to enslave the +poorer black laborer; for a strong man to oppress the weak men; +for the sharper to buy labor too cheap, and sell its product too +dear, and so grow rich by making many poor. Hence, nation is +arrayed against nation, class against class, man against man. +Nay, it is commonly taught that mankind is arrayed against God, +and God against man; that the world is a universal discord: that +there is no solidarity of man with man, of man with God. I fear +we shall never get far beyond this theory and this practice, +until woman has her natural rights as the equal of man, and takes +her natural place in regulating the affairs of the family, the +community, the Church, and the State. It seems to me God has +treasured up a reserved power in the nature of woman to correct +many of those evils which are Christendom's disgrace to-day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>Circumstances help or hinder our development, and are one of the +two forces which determine the actual character of a nation or of +mankind, at any special period. Hitherto, amongst men, +circumstances have favored the development of only intellectual +power, in all its forms—chiefly in its lower forms. At present, +mankind, as a whole, has the superiority over womankind, as a +whole, in all that pertains to intellect, the higher and the +lower. Man has knowledge, has ideas, has administrative skill; +enacts the rules of conduct for the individual, the family, the +community, the Church, the State, and the world. He applies these +rules of conduct to life, and so controls the great affairs of +the human race. You see what a world he has made of it. There is +male vigor in this civilization, miscalled "Christian"; and in +its leading nations there are industry and enterprise, which +never fail. There is science, literature, legislation, +agriculture, manufactures, mining, commerce, such as the world +never saw. With the vigor of war, the Anglo-Saxon now works the +works of peace. England abounds in wealth—richest of lands; but +look at her poor, her vast army of paupers, two million strong, +the Irish whom she drives with the hand of famine across the sea. +Martin Luther was right when he said: "The richer the nation, the +poorer the poor." Look at the cities of England and America. What +riches, what refinement, what culture of man and woman too! Ay; +but what poverty, what ignorance, what beastliness of man and +woman too! The Christian civilization of the nineteenth century +is well summed up in London and New York—the two foci of the +Anglo-Saxon tribe, which control the shape of the world's +commercial ellipse. Look at the riches and the misery; at the +"religious enterprise" and the heathen darkness; at the virtue, +the decorum, and the beauty of woman well-born and well bred; and +at the wild sea of prostitution, which swells and breaks and +dashes against the bulwarks of society—every ripple was a woman +once!</p> + +<p>Oh, brother-men, who make these things, is this a pleasant sight? +Does your literature complain of it—of the waste of human life, +the slaughter of human souls, the butchery of woman? British +literature begins to wail, in "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Jane Eyre" +and "Mary Barton" and "Alton Locke," in many a "Song of the +Shirt"; but the respectable literature of America is deaf as a +cent to the outcry of humanity expiring in agonies. It is busy +with California, or the Presidency, or extolling iniquity in high +places, or flattering the vulgar vanity which buys its dross for +gold. It can not even imitate the philanthropy of English +letters; it is "up" for California and a market. Does not the +Church speak?—the English Church, with its millions of money; +the American, with its millions of men—both wont to bay the moon +of foreign heathenism? The Church is a dumb dog, that can not +bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. It is a church +without woman, believing in a male and jealous God, and rejoicing +in a boundless, endless hell!</p> + +<p>Hitherto, with woman, circumstances have hindered the development +of intellectual power, in all its forms. She has not knowledge, +has not ideas or practical skill to equal the force of man. But +circumstances have favored the development of pure and lofty +emotion in advance of man. She has moral feeling, affectional +feeling, religious feeling, far in advance of man; her moral, +affectional, and religious intuitions are deeper and more +trustworthy than his. Here she is eminent, as he is in knowledge, +in ideas, in administrative skill.</p> + +<p>I think man will always lead in affairs of intellect—of reason, +imagination<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> understanding—he has the bigger brain; but that +woman will always lead in affairs of emotion—moral, affectional, +religious—she has the better heart, the truer intuition of the +right, the lovely, the holy. The literature of women in this +century is juster, more philanthropic, more religious, than that +of men. Do you not hear the cry which, in New England, a woman is +raising in the world's ears against the foul wrong which America +is working in the world? Do you not hear the echo of that woman's +voice come over the Atlantic—returned from European shores in +many a tongue—French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Russian, +Dutch? How a woman touches the world's heart! because she speaks +justice, speaks piety, speaks love. What voice is strongest, +raised in continental Europe, pleading for the oppressed and +down-trodden? That also is a woman's voice!</p> + +<p>Well, we want the excellence of man and woman both united; +intellectual power, knowledge, great ideas—in literature, +philosophy, theology, ethics—and practical skill; but we want +something better—the moral, affectional, religious intuition, to +put justice into ethics, love into theology, piety into science +and letters. Everywhere in the family, the community, the Church, +and the State, we want the masculine and feminine element +co-operating and conjoined. Woman is to correct man's taste, mend +his morals, excite his affections, inspire his religious +faculties. Man is to quicken her intellect, to help her will, +translate her sentiments to ideas, and enact them into righteous +laws. Man's moral action, at best, is only a sort of general +human providence, aiming at the welfare of a part, and satisfied +with achieving the "greatest good of the greatest number." +Woman's moral action is more like a special human providence, +acting without general rules, but caring for each particular +case. We need both of these, the general and the special, to make +a total human providence.</p> + +<p>If man and woman are counted equivalent—equal in rights, though +with diverse powers,—shall we not mend the literature of the +world, its theology, its science, its laws, and its actions too? +I can not believe that wealth and want are to stand ever side by +side as desperate foes; that culture must ride only on the back +of ignorance; and feminine virtue be guarded by the degradation +of whole classes of ill-starred men, as in the East, or the +degradation of whole classes of ill-starred women, as in the +West; but while we neglect the means of help God puts in our +power, why, the present must be like the past—"property" must be +theft, "law" the strength of selfish will, and +"Christianity"—what we see it is, the apology for every powerful +wrong.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>To every woman let me say—Respect your nature as a human being, +your nature as a woman; then respect your rights, then remember +your duty to possess, to use, to develop, and to enjoy every +faculty which God has given you, each in its normal way.</p> + +<p>And to men let me say—Respect, with the profoundest reverence, +respect the mother that bore you, the sisters who bless you, the +woman that you love, the woman that you marry. As you seek to +possess your own manly rights, seek also, by that great arm, by +that powerful brain, seek to vindicate her rights as woman, as +your own as man. Then we may see better things in the Church, +better things in the State, in the Community, in the Home. Then +the green shall show what buds it hid, the buds shall blossom, +the flowers bear fruit, and the blessing of God be on us all.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>REMINISCENCES OF PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS.<br /> +<small>BY E. C. S.</small></h3> + +<p>Hearing that my friend had returned from Europe too ill to leave her +room, I hastened to her charming home in the suburbs of Providence, +Rhode Island. There in her pleasant chamber, bright with the sunshine +of a clear December day,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> surrounded with her books and pictures of +her own painting, looking out on an extensive lawn, grand old trees, +and the busy city in the distance, we passed three happy days together +reviewing our own lives, the progress of the reforms we advocated, and +in speculations of the unknown world. In my brief sketch of the +"Woman's Rights Movement" and its leaders for the "Eminent Women of +the Age," I made no mention of Mrs. Davis, being ignorant of the main +facts of her life. I waited for her return from Florida, until it was +too late, as the work was hurried to press. Hence I was glad of this +opportunity to dot down fresh from her own lips some of the incidents +and personal experiences of her life.</p> + +<p>Paulina Kellogg was born in Bloomfield, New York, the very day, Capt. +Hall delivered up the fort at Detroit. Her father, Capt. Kellogg, +being a volunteer in the army at that time, would often jocosely refer +to those two great events on the 7th of August, 1813. Her grandfather +Saxton was a colonel in the Revolution, and on Lafayette's staff. Both +her father and mother possessed great personal beauty, and were +devotedly attached to each other, and were alike conservative in their +opinions and associations. When Paulina was four years old her +grandfather bought a large tract of land at Cambria, near Niagara +Falls, where all his children settled. That trip was the first memory +of her childhood. A cavalcade of six army wagons, men, women, +children, horses, cattle, dogs, hens, pushed their weary way eleven +days through wild woods, cutting their own roads, and fording creeks +and rivers. Crossing the Genesee in a scow, one immense cow walked off +into the water, others followed and swam ashore. The little girl +thinking that everything was going overboard, trembled like an aspen +leaf until she felt herself safe on land. The picnics under the trees, +the beds in the wagons drawn up in a circle to keep the cattle in, the +friendly meetings with the Indians, all charmed her childish fancies. +The summer the first bridge was built to Goat Island, her uncle caught +her in his arms, ran across the beams, and set her down, saying: +"There, you are probably the first white child that ever set foot on +Goat Island."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>When seven years old she was adopted by an aunt, and moved to Le Roy, +New York, where she was educated. Her aunt was a strict orthodox +Presbyterian, a stern, strong Puritan. Her life in her new home was +sad and solitary, and one of constant restraint. In the natural +reaction of the human mind, with such early experiences, we can +readily account for Paulina's love of freedom, and courage in +attacking the wrongs of society. In referring to these early years, +she said: "I was not a happy child, nor a happy woman, until in mature +life, I outgrew my early religious faith, and felt free to think and +act from my own convictions." Having joined the church in extreme +youth, and being morbidly conscientious, she suffered constant torment +about her own sins, and those of her neighbors. She was a religious +enthusiast, and in time of revivals was one of the bright and shining +lights in exhortation and prayer.</p> + +<p>She was roused to thought on woman's position by a discussion in the +church as to whether women should be permitted to speak and pray in +promiscuous assemblies. Some of the deacons protested against a +practice, in ordinary times, that might be tolerated during seasons of +revival. But those who had discovered their gifts in times of +excitement were not so easily remanded to silence; and thus the Church +was distracted then as now with the troublesome question of woman's +rights. Sometimes a liberal pastor would accord a latitude denied by +the elders and deacons, and sometimes one church would be more liberal +than others in the same neighborhood, or synod; hence individuals and +congregations were continually persecuted and arraigned for violation +of church discipline and God's law, according to man's narrow +interpretation. "Thus," she says, "my mind was confused and uncertain +with conflicting emotions and opinions in regard to all human +relations. And it was many years before I understood the philosophy of +life, before I learned that happiness did not depend on outward +conditions, but on the harmony within, on the tastes, sentiments, +affections, and ambitions of the individual soul."</p> + +<p>On leaving school, Paulina had made up her mind to be a missionary to +the Sandwich Islands, as that was the Mecca in those days to which all +pious young women desired to go. But after five months of ardent +courtship, Mr. Francis Wright, a young merchant of wealth and position +in Utica, New York, persuaded her that there were heathen enough in +Utica to call out all the religious zeal she possessed, to say nothing +of himself as the chief of sinners, hence in special need of her +ministrations.</p> + +<p>So they began life together, worshiped in Bethel church, and devoted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +themselves to the various reforms that in turn attracted their +attention. They took an active part in the arrangements for the first +Anti-Slavery Convention, held in Utica, Oct. 21, 1835, a day on which +anti-slavery meetings were mobbed and violently dispersed in different +parts of the country. It was at this meeting that Gerrit Smith gave in +his adhesion to the anti-slavery movement and abandoned the idea of +the colonization of slaves to Liberia. As the mob would not permit a +meeting to be held in Utica, Mr. Smith invited them to Peterboro, +where they adjourned. It was a fearful day for Abolitionists +throughout that city, as the mob of roughs was backed by its leading +men. Mr. Wright's house was surrounded, piazzas and fences torn down +and piled up with wood and hay against it, with the evident intention +of burning it down. But several ladies who had come to attend the +Convention were staying there, and, as was their custom, they had +family prayers that night. The leaders of the mob peeping through the +windows, saw a number of women on their knees, and the sight seemed to +soften their wrath and change their purpose, for they quietly withdrew +their forces, leaving the women in undisturbed possession of the +house. The attitude of the Church at this time being strongly +pro-slavery, Mr. and Mrs. Wright withdrew, as most Abolitionists did, +from all church organizations, and henceforth their religious zeal was +concentrated on the anti-slavery, temperance, and woman's rights +reforms. Thus passed twelve years of happiness in mutual improvement +and co-operation in every good work. Having no children, they devoted +themselves unreservedly to one another. But Mr. Wright, being a man of +great executive ability, was continually overworking, taxing his +powers of mind and body to the uttermost, until his delicate +organization gave way and his life prematurely ended.</p> + +<p>Having occupied her leisure hours in the study of anatomy and +physiology, Mrs. Wright gave a course of lectures to women. As early +as 1844 she began this public work. She imported from Paris the first +<i>femme modele</i> that was ever brought to this country. She tells many +amusing anecdotes of the effect of unveiling this manikin in the +presence of a class of ladies. Some trembled with fear, the delicacy +of others was shocked, but their weaknesses were overcome as their +scientific curiosity was awakened. Many of Mrs. Wright's pupils were +among the first to enter the colleges, hospitals, and +dissecting-rooms, and to become successful practitioners of the +healing art.</p> + +<p>While lecturing in Baltimore, a "Friend," by the name of Anna<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +Needles, attended the course. Another "Friend," seeing her frequently +pass, hailed her on one occasion, and said, "Anna, where does thee go +every day?" "I go to hear Mrs. Wright lecture." "What, Anna, does thee +go to hear that Fanny Wright?" "Oh, no! Paulina Wright!" "Ah! I warn +thee, do not go near her, she is of the same species." Many women, now +supporting themselves in ease, gratefully acknowledge her influence in +directing their lives to some active pursuits.</p> + +<p>Thus passed the four years of her widowed life, lecturing to women +through most of the Eastern and Western States.</p> + +<p>In 1849, she was married to the Hon. Thomas Davis, a solid, noble man +of wealth and position, who has since been a member of the Rhode +Island Legislature seven years, and served one term in Congress. As he +is very modest and retiring in his nature, I will not enumerate his +good qualities of head and heart, lest he should be pained at seeing +himself in print; and perhaps "the highest praise for a true <i>man</i> is +never to be spoken of at all." With several successive summers in +Newport and winters in Providence, Mrs. Davis gave more time to +fashionable society than she ever had at any period of her life.</p> + +<p>When her husband was elected to Congress, in 1853, she accompanied him +to Washington and made many valuable acquaintances. As she had already +called the first National Woman Suffrage Convention, and started <i>The +Una</i>, the first distinctively woman's rights journal ever published, +and was supposed to be a fair representative of the odious, +strong-minded "Bloomer," the ladies at their hotel, after some +consultation, decided to ignore her, as far as possible. But a lady of +her fine appearance, attractive manners, and general intelligence, +whose society was sought by the most cultivated gentlemen in the +house, could not be very long ostracised by the ladies.</p> + +<p>What a writer in the British Quarterly for January, says of Mrs. John +Stuart Mill, applies with equal force to Mrs. Davis. "She seems to +have been saved from the coarseness and strenuous tone of the typical +strong-minded woman, although probably some of her opinions might +shock staid people who are innocent alike of philosophy and the +doctrines of the new era." Though in fact this typical strong-minded +woman of whom we hear so much in England and America, is after all a +"myth"; for the very best specimens of womanhood in both countries are +those who thoroughly respect themselves, and maintain their political, +civil, and social rights. For nearly three years Mrs. Davis continued +<i>The Una</i>, publishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> it entirely at her own expense. It took the +broadest ground claimed to-day: individual freedom in the State, the +Church, and the home; woman's equality and suffrage a natural right. +In 1859, she visited Europe for the first time, and spent a year +traveling in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, giving her leisure +hours to picture galleries and the study of art. She made many +valuable friends on this trip, regained her health, and returned home +to work with renewed zeal for the enfranchisement of woman.</p> + +<p>Having decided to celebrate the second decade of the National Woman +Suffrage movement, in New York, Mrs. Davis took charge of all the +preliminary arrangements, including the foreign correspondence. She +gave a good report at the opening session of the Convention, of what +had been accomplished in the twenty years, and published the +proceedings in pamphlet form, at her own expense. One of Mrs. Davis' +favorite ideas was a Woman's Congress in Washington, to meet every +year, to consider the national questions demanding popular action; +especially to present them in their moral and humanitarian bearings +and relations, while our representatives discussed them, as men +usually do, from the material, financial, and statistical points of +view. In this way only, said she, "can the complete idea on any +question ever be realized. All legislation must necessarily be +fragmentary, so long as one-half the race give no thought whatever on +the subject."</p> + +<p>In 1871, Mrs. Davis, with her niece and adopted daughter, again +visited Europe, and pursued her studies of art, spending much time in +Julian's life studio, the only one open to women. She took lessons of +Carl Marko in Florence. When in Paris she spent hours every day +copying in the Louvre and Luxembourg. The walls of her home were +decorated with many fine copies, and a few of her own creations. Her +enthusiasm for both art and reform may seem to some a singular +combination; but with her view of life, it was a natural one. +Believing, as she did, in the realization of the ultimate equality of +the human family, and the possibility of the race sometime attaining +comparative perfection, when all would be well-fed, clothed, +sheltered, and educated; humanity in its poverty, ignorance, and +deformity, were to her but the first rude sketch on the canvas, to be +perfected by the skillful hand of the Great Artist. Hence she labored +with faith and enthusiasm to realize her ideal alike in both cases.</p> + +<p>In Naples she made the acquaintance of Mary Somerville, then in her +ninetieth year. She found her quite conversant with American affairs, +and she expressed great pleasure in reading Mrs. Davis'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> history of +the suffrage movement in this country. There too she met Mrs. +Merrycoyf, a bright, accomplished woman, a sister of Josephine Butler, +and like her, engaged in English reforms. She had many discussions +with Mrs. Proby, the wife of the English Consul, who thought Mrs. +Davis was wasting her efforts for the elevation of woman, as she +considered it a hopeless case to make women rational and self-reliant. +However, before they parted, Mrs. Davis inspired her with some faith +in her own sex. I read a very interesting letter from Mrs. Proby +acknowledging the benefit derived from her acquaintance with Mrs. +Davis, in giving her new hope for woman. At Rome she received the +blessing of the Pope, and met Père Hyacinthe and his charming wife, +and attended one of his lectures, but the crowd was so great she could +not get in, so she went the Sunday after to hear the prayers for the +Pope and the Church against the influence of the dangerous Père. She +says: "It was a most impressive occasion, the immense crowd, the grand +music swelling through the arches of that vast cathedral, the +responses of the ten thousand voices, rolling like the great tidal +waves of the mighty ocean, were altogether sublime beyond +description." At Paris she met Mrs. Crawford, wife of the +corresponding editor of <i>The London Times</i>, a woman of fine +conversational powers, and a brilliant writer, now the Paris +correspondent of <i>The New York Tribune</i>. She found her a woman of very +liberal opinions. At one of her breakfasts she met Martin, the +historian, and several members of the Assembly. She also visited the +Countess Delacoste, who sympathized deeply with the republican +movement, and had concealed Clusaret three months in her house. There +she met several distinguished Russians and Frenchmen. In London she +attended one of Mrs. Peter Taylor's receptions, where she met Mrs. +Margaret Lucas, sister of John Bright, and other notables. She visited +Josephine Butler at her home in Liverpool. Friends sent her tickets of +admission to the lady's gallery, in the House of Commons, where she +heard Jacob Bright make his opening speech on the woman's disability +bill, and Fawcett, the blind member, also on the same bill. And with +all these distinguished people, in different countries, speaking +different languages, she found the same interest in the progressive +ideas that had gladdened and intensified her own life.</p> + +<p>On the 29th of May she sailed for America, and reached her home in +safety, but the disease that had been threatening her for years +(rheumatic gout) began to develop itself, until in the autumn she was +confined to her room, and unable at times even to walk. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> thus I +found her in a large arm-chair quietly making all her preparations for +the sunny land, resigned to stay or to go, to accept the inevitable, +whatever that might be.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> As she was an enthusiastic spiritualist, +the coming journey was not to her an unknown realm, but an inviting +home where the friends of her earlier days were waiting with glad +hearts to give her tin heavenly welcome.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Mercy Otis, born at Barnstable, Mass., September 35, +1728, married James Warren, about 1754. Reference has been made to her +correspondence with the eminent men of the Revolution. Aside from her +patriotism, Mrs. Warren was a woman of high literary ability. She +wrote several dramatic and satirical works in 1773, against the +royalists, which, with two tragedies, were included in a volume of +Dramatic and Miscellaneous Poems, published in 1790. She also wrote "A +History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American +Revolution, interspersed with Biographical, Political, and Moral +Observations," in three volumes, published in Boston, 1805. Mrs. +Warren lived quite into the present century, dying October 19, 1814. +</p><p> +Mrs. Ellet, "Queens of Society," says: "In point of influence, Mercy +Warren was the most remarkable woman who lived in the days of the +American Revolution." +</p><p> +Rochefoucauld, "Tour in the United States," says: "Seldom has a woman +in any age acquired such ascendency by the mere force of a powerful +intellect, and her influence continued through her life." +</p><p> +Generals Lee and Gates were among her correspondents; Knox wrote: "I +should be happy to receive your counsels from time to time." Mrs. +Washington was frequently entertained by Mrs. Warren, at one time when +the former was in Massachusetts with the General, Mrs. Warren going +with her chariot to headquarters at Cambridge for her.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Dried leaves of the raspberry.—<span class="smcap">Lossing</span>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Lossing, "Field-Book of the Revolution," says: "On +February 9, 1769, the Mistresses of three hundred families met and +formed a league, and upon the second day the young ladies assembled in +great numbers, signing the following covenant: 'We, the daughters of +those patriots who have, and do now, appear for public interest, and +in proper regard for their posterity as such, do, with pleasure, +engage with them in denying ourselves the drink of foreign tea, in +hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to deprive a whole country of +all that is valuable in life."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Lossing's "Field-Book of the Revolution" states that on +the 12th of June, 1769, the "Daughters of Liberty," met at the house +of pastor Moorehead, in such numbers that in one afternoon they spun +two hundred and ninety skeins of fine yarn, which they presented to +him. After supper they were joined by many "Sons of Liberty," who +united with the "Daughters" in patriotic songs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> These girls, then only about twelve and fourteen years +of age, saw the enemy making preparations to land at an isolated +point. No men were near to defend the place, or to whom warning could +be given. A bright thought struck one of the girls. Accustomed to play +the drum, she well knew how to beat the call to arms, and no sooner +had this thought entered her mind, than she began a tattoo, calling +her sister to take the fife as an accompaniment. Together they marched +toward the shore, careful to keep hidden by the rocks, among whose +intricacies they wound back and forth, the sound of their instruments +falling upon the enemy's ears, now far, now near, as though a force of +many hundred men was marching down upon them, and thoroughly +frightened, they beat a retreat to their boats.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> "This dispute infused its spirit into everything. It +interfered with the levy of troops for the Pequot war; it influenced +the respect shown to the magistrates, the distribution of town lots, +the assessment of rates, and at last the continued existence of the +two parties was considered inconsistent with the public +peace."—Bancroft, "History of the United States."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, June, 1871.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> In three New England colonies church membership was +required for the franchise.—Frothingham, "Rise of the Republic."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Dr. John Weis, of New York, now an aged gentleman, well +remembers his grandmother saying, that at an early day women were +allowed to vote in all the New England colonies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Mother of the late Daniel P. King, at that time a member +of the Massachusetts Legislature, and since then a Representative in +Congress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Benj. C. Pitkin, of Salem, at that time State Senator.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Hon. Mr. Upham saying: "A great many of the members told +me they didn't believe a woman wrote it."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> This petition was put in the hands of a gentleman to +secure his mother's name (who had signed numbers of petitions before), +and those of certain other ladies, but unfaithful to this trust, he +forwarded the petition with but its single name, which, Mrs. Ferrin +remarks, was powerful in itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> James W. North, a lawyer, of Augusta, Maine, to his +honor be it said, assisted Mrs. Ferrin, by perfecting the divorce +petition, in circulation during her six years of petition work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> A lady commenting upon unjust legislation, said: "When +the laws were made regarding women and children, the most impotent men +were employed to make them; decent men had other business to do." +</p><p> +From time to time, Mrs. Ferrin sent in memorials and addresses with +the petitions she yearly forwarded. One of these, in reply to the +oft-made boast of man's unsolicited amelioration of woman's condition, +carried the following retort: "The Powers tell us much has been done +to ameliorate the condition of woman without any effort on woman's +part. It would add a huge feather to their caps should they give us +the history of the cause of the need of such reformation. It can not +be because woman placed herself in so degrading a position. So, the +merit of the up-lifting hardly reaches the demerit of the +down-treading."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Mrs. Davis herself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Wife of John Milton Earl, editor of the <i>Worcester +Spy</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> See Appendix</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> See Appendix</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Mrs. Caroline Norton, a distinguished English author, +who separated from her husband because of cruel treatment. He robbed +nor of all the profits of her books, and of her children, and when she +appealed to the Courts, English law sustained the husband in all his +violations of natural justice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Abby May Alcott, Abby Kelly Foster, Lucy Stone, Thomas +W. Higginson, Ann Green Phillips, Wendell Phillips, Anna Q. T. +Parsons, Theodore Parker, William J. Bowditch, Samuel E. Sewall, Ellis +Gray Loring, Charles K. Whipple, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Harriot K. Hunt, +Thomas T. Stone, John W. Browne, Francis Jackson, Josiah F. Flagg, +Mary Flagg, Elizabeth Smith, Eliza Barney, Abby H. Price, William C. +Nell, Samuel May, Jr., Robert F. Wallcott, Robert Morris, A. Bronson +Alcott.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Anthony Burns, the slave, was a Baptist minister In his +Southern home, and had sought freedom in Boston, but was pursued and +recaptured.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> A gentleman of wealth, who gave most liberally to all +reforms, and in his will bequeathed $5,000 to the cause of woman +suffrage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> The Publishing Committee do not willingly print the +above report of one of the ablest and most eloquent speeches ever +delivered in Boston. Mr. Phillips never writes his speeches. He is now +too far distant to be consulted. Two very young girl reporters—after +a week's hard practice, and three hours' excessive heat—wrote these +heads down, without the most distant idea of publication. All the +Committee can do is to rejoice that the accident did not happen to a +young speaker, but to one whose reputation is established, and whose +immortality is certain. C. H. D.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> In the year 1875.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.</h3> + + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Indiana Missionary Station—Gen. Arthur St. Clair—Indian +surprises—The terrible war whoop—One hundred women join the +army, and are killed fighting bravely—Prairie +schooners—Manufactures in the hands of women—Admitted to the +Union in 1816—Robert Dale Owen—Woman Suffrage +Conventions—Wisconsin—C. L. Sholes' report.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">The</span> earliest settlement of Indiana was a missionary one, in 1777, +though it was not admitted as a Territory until 1800, then including +the present States of Michigan and Illinois. A number of Indian wars +took place in this part of the country during the twenty-five years +between 1780 and 1805. What was known as the Northwest Territory was +organized in 1789, and General Arthur St. Clair appointed Governor, an +office he held until 1802. In 1790 a war of unusually formidable +character broke out among the Indian tribes of the Northwest, and in +1791, St. Clair was created General-in-Chief of the forces against +them. Many of the settlers of this portion of the country joined his +army, among whom were one hundred women, who accompanied their +husbands in preference to being left at home subject to the surprises +and tortures of the savages with whom the country was at war. In +giving command of these forces to St. Clair, Washington warned him +against unexpected assaults from the enemy; but this general who was +of foreign birth, a Scotchman, was no match for the cunning of his +wily foe, who suddenly fell upon him, November 4th, near the Miami +villages (present site of Terra Haute), making great havoc among his +forces.</p> + +<p>When, the terrible war-whoop was heard, the heroism of these hundred +women rose equal to the emergency. They did not cling helplessly to +their husbands—the women of those early days were made of sterner +stuff—but with pale, set faces, they joined in the defense, and the +records say, were most of them killed fighting bravely. They died a +soldier's death upon the field of battle in defense of home and +country. They died that the prairies of the West and the wilderness of +the North should at a later period become the peaceful homes of untold +millions of men and women. They were the true pioneers of the +Northwest, the advance-guard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> of civilization, giving their lives in +battle against a terrible enemy, in order that safety should dwell at +the hearth-stones of those who should settle this garden of the +continent at a future period. History is very silent upon their +record; not a name has been preserved; but we do know that they lived, +and how they died, and it is but fitting that a record of woman's work +for freedom should embalm their memory in its pages. Many other women +defended homes and children against the savage foe, but their deeds of +heroism have been forgotten.</p> + +<p>There is scarcely a portion of the world so far from civilization as +Indiana was at that day. No railroads spanned the continent, making +neighbors of people a thousand miles apart; no steamboat sailed upon +the Western lakes, nor indeed upon the broad Atlantic; telegraphy, +with its annihilation of space, was a marvel as yet unborn; even the +Lucifer match, which should kindle fire in the twinkling of an eye, +lay buried in the dark future. Little was known of these settlements; +the Genesee Valley of New York was considered the <i>far West</i>, to which +people traveled (the Erie Canal was not then in existence) in strong, +spring less wagons, over which large hoops, covered with white cloth, +were securely fastened, thus sheltering the inmates from sun and +storm. These wagons, afterward known as "Prairie Schooners," were for +weeks and months the traveling homes of many a family of early +settlers.</p> + +<p>But even in 1816 Indiana could boast her domestic manufactures, for +within the State at this time were "two thousand five hundred and +twelve looms and two thousand seven hundred spinning-wheels, most of +them in private cabins, whose mistresses, by their slow agencies, +converted the wool which their own hands had often sheared, and the +flax which their own fingers had pulled, into cloth for the family +wardrobe."<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> + +<p>Thus in 1816 the manufactures of Indiana were chiefly in the hands of +its women. It is upon the industries of the country that a nation +thrives. Its manufactures build up its commerce and make its wealth. +From this source the Government derives the revenue which is the +life-blood circulating in its veins. Its strength and its perpetuity +alike depend upon its industries, and when we look upon the work of +women through all the years of the Republic, and remember their +patriotic self-devotion and self-sacrifice at every important crisis, +we are no less amazed at the ingratitude of the country for their +services in war than at its non-recognition of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> existence as +wealth-producers, the elements which build up and sustain every +civilized people.</p> + +<p>Viewing its early record, we are not surprised that Indiana claims to +have organized the first State Woman's Rights Society, though we are +somewhat astonished to know that at the time of the first Convention +held in Indianapolis, a husband of position locked his wife within the +house in order to prevent her presence thereat, although doubtless, as +men have often done before and since, he deemed it not out of the way +that he himself should be a listener at a meeting he considered it +contrary to family discipline that his wife should attend.</p> + +<p>December 11, 1816, Indiana was admitted into the Union. William Henry +Harrison, who had been Governor of the Territory, and +Brigadier-General in the army, with the command of the Northwest +Territory, was afterward President of the United States. He +encountered the Indians led by Tecumseh at Tippecanoe, on the Wabash, +and after a terrible battle they fled. This was the origin of the +song, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," that was sung with immense effect by +the Whigs all over the country in the presidential campaign of 1840, +when Harrison and Tyler were the candidates; and when women, for the +first time, attended political meetings.</p> + +<p>Indiana, though one of the younger States, by her liberal and rational +legislation on the questions of marriage and divorce, has always been +the land of freedom for fugitives from the bondage and suffering of +ill-assorted unions. Many an unhappy wife has found a safe asylum on +the soil of that State. Her liberality on this question was no doubt +partly due to the influence of Robert Owen, who early settled at New +Harmony, and made the experiment of communal life; and later, to his +son, the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, who was in the Legislature several +years, and in the Constitutional Convention of 1850. The following +letter from Mr. Owen gives a few facts worth perusing:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Lake George</span>, N. Y., <i>Sept. 20, 1876</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Miss Anthony</span>:—I know you will think the reply I am about to +make to your favor of September 18th unsatisfactory, but it is +the best I can do.</p> + +<p>1. As regards Frances Wright: All the particulars regarding her +and her noble but unsuccessful experiment at Nashoba, near +Memphis, which I thought it important to make public, are +contained in an article of mine entitled "An Earnest Sowing of +Wild Oats," in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> for July, 1874.</p> + +<p>2. As to Ernestine L. Rose, I think it probable that you know +more of her than I do. I remember that she was the daughter of a +Polish rabbi;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> the wife of William Rose, a silversmith; and that +she came with her husband to this country at an early day. She +was a great admirer and follower of my father, Robert Owen, and +was a skeptic as to any future beyond the grave; greatly opposed +to Spiritualism.</p> + +<p>3. As to my action in the Indiana Legislature: I was a member of +that body during the sessions of 1836-'7, and '8, and in 1851, +but I have not the materials here that would enable me to give +particulars. In a general way I had the State law so altered that +a married woman owned and had the right to manage her own +property, both real and personal; and I had the law of descents +so changed that a widow, instead of dower, which is a mere +tenancy or life interest, now has, in all cases, an absolute fee +in one-third of her husband's estate; if only one child, then a +half; and if no children, I think two-thirds. I also had an +additional clause added to the divorce law, making two years' +habitual drunkenness imperative cause for divorce.</p> + +<p>I took no action in regard to suffrage while in the Legislature. +In those days it would have been utterly unavailing.</p> + +<p>All this is very meagre, which I the more regret, sympathizing as +I do with the object you have in view.</p> + +<p>Give my kindest regards to my old friend, Mrs. Stanton, and +believe me,</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Faithfully your friend,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc close">Robert Dale Owen.</p> +<p class="ltr-to"><span class="smcap">Miss Anthony</span>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">Before 1828, Frances Wright had visited Mr. Owen's colony, and +assisted him in the editorial department of the <i>New Harmony Gazette</i>, +changed afterward to the <i>Free Enquirer</i>, published in New York. Such +a circle of remarkably intelligent and liberal-minded people, all +effective speakers and able writers, was not without influence in +moulding the sentiment of that young community. As a glimpse into the +domestic life of this remarkable family may be interesting to the +reader, we give a pleasing sketch from the pen of Mr. Owen's daughter. +No monument of the whitest parian marble could shed such honor on the +memory of a venerated father and mother as this tribute from an +affectionate, appreciative child:</p> + + +<h3>ROBERT DALE OWEN AND MARY ROBINSON.<br /> +<span class="allsc">BY ROSAMOND DALE OWEN.</span></h3> + +<p>Some fifty years ago a large audience was gathered in one of the +public halls of New York listening to a lecture. In the sea of faces +upturned to him, the speaker read a cold response, the opinions he was +expounding being exceedingly unpopular, and rarely expressed in those +days. The theme was the equality of the sexes, the right of woman to +control person and property in the marriage relation, the right to +breathe, to think, to act as an untrammeled citizen, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> co-equal of +man. His eyes searched tier after tier, seeking in vain for that +magnetism of sympathy which is as wine to a man who stands before his +people pleading with them that he may save them from their errors.</p> + +<p>Suddenly his wandering gaze was arrested by a face, a child's face, +with short, clustering curls, but a strong soul steadied the deep +eyes, and on the rounded cheek paled and glowed the earnestness of a +woman's searching thought. His words grew clear and strong as he +looked into the upturned eyes, as he answered the listening face. The +speaker was Robert Dale Owen; the hearer, Mary Robinson.</p> + +<p>That night when she reached her own room, Mary Robinson flung off +bonnet and shawl with a swift gesture, and, slipping into her +accustomed seat, gazed at the steady-glowing background of coals, with +the blue flames licking in and out like the evil tongues of +fire-scourged elves. A strong excitement held her in thrall; she did +not seem to see her elder sister's wondering looks; she did not seem +to hear the great clocks, far and near, chiming out eleven, and then +twelve, with that deep resonance which sounds in the silence of the +night like a solemn requiem over lost hours. Presently she became +aware that her sister was kneeling beside her, with anxious +questioning look; she seemed, this elder sister, in her long, white +night-dress, with pale, straight hair pushed back from the +clear-tinted, oval face, like a youthful Madonna, and Mary drawing the +gentle face close to her own with sudden impulse, said: "I have seen +the man I shall marry, I have seen him to-night; he is the homeliest +man I have ever known, but if I am married at all, he is to be my +husband."</p> + +<p>A few months later this prophecy was verified. On the 12th day of +April, 1832, Robert Dale Owen and Mary Robinson were joined in those +sacred bonds, which, in every true marriage, can be broken only by the +shadow hand of Death. The ceremony was simple and unique; it consisted +in signing a document written by the bridegroom himself, with a +Justice of the Peace and the immediate family as witnesses. The +following extracts will show the character of the compact:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, Tuesday, <i>April 12, 1832</i>.</p> + +<p>This afternoon I enter into a matrimonial engagement with Mary +Jane Robinson, a young person whose opinions on all important +subjects, whose mode of thinking and feeling, coincide more +intimately with my own than do those of any other individual with +whom I am acquainted.... We have selected the simplest ceremony +which the laws of this State recognize.... This ceremony involves +not the necessity of making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> promises regarding that over which +we have no control, the state of human affections in the distant +future, nor of repeating forms which we deem offensive, inasmuch +as they outrage the principles of human liberty and equality, by +conferring rights and imposing duties unequally on the sexes. The +ceremony consists of a simply written contract in which we agree +to take each other as husband and wife according to the laws of +the State of New York, our signatures being attested by those +friends who are present.</p> + +<p>Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an +iniquitous law tacitly gives me over the person and property of +another, I can not legally, but I can morally divest myself. And +I hereby distinctly and emphatically declare that I consider +myself, and earnestly desire to be considered by others, as +utterly divested, now and during the rest of my life, of any such +rights, the barbarous relics of a feudal, despotic system, soon +destined, in the onward course of improvement, to be wholly swept +away; and the existence of which is a tacit insult to the good +sense and good feeling of this comparatively civilized age.<br /></p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Robert Dale Owen</p> +<p class="ltr-left0">I concur in this sentiment,<br /> + <span class="smcap">Mary Jane Robinson</span>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>After a wedding tour in Europe, the young couple returning to America, +settled in New Harmony, Indiana, a small Western village, where their +father, Robert Owen, had been making experiments in Community life.</p> + +<p>It was a strange, new world into which these two young creatures were +entering. The husband had passed his youth in a well-ordered, wealthy +English household; the wife had passed the greater part of her +girlhood in Virginia, among slaves. They were now thrown upon the +crudities of Western life, and encountered those daily wearing trials +which strain the marriage tie to the utmost, even though it be based +upon principles of justice. But there was a reserve of energy and +endurance in this delicately reared pair; they felt themselves to be +pioneers in every sense of the word, and the animus which sustains +many a struggling soul seeking to turn a principle into a living +reality, sustained these two.</p> + +<p>We of a later civilization can scarcely realize the strain upon women +in those earlier days. The housekeepers of New Harmony were obliged to +buy their groceries in bulk, and have them shipped by slow stages from +Cincinnati; meat was bought from the surrounding farmers, a quarter of +a beef at a time, to be cut up and disposed of by the housewife; +vegetables and most of the small fruits could not be bought at all; +stoves were an unknown luxury, all cooking being done in huge +fire-places or brick ovens.</p> + +<p>For thirty years my father and mother labored with unabated energy;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +his work leading him into the highways of public affairs, while her +way lay through the by-paths of home and village life.</p> + +<p>Through these thirty years my father used such influence as he had on +the side of the weak and oppressed. In the matter of procuring a more +respectful consideration of the property rights of women, he was a +pioneer. To attempt a detailed statement of the amelioration of those +legal hardships under which women labored, is beyond the scope or +purpose of this article. I will only mention, in brief, the more +important provisions he was instrumental in passing in the face of +ridicule and violent opposition. These amendments were: The abolition +of simple dower, giving to widows instead, a fee simple interest; +procuring for women the right to their own earnings; abolishing +tenancy by courtesy, which, in effect, made the husband the +beneficiary of the wife's lands, and in several matters of less +radical change rectifying, so far as he could, the injustice of the +common law toward widows; always keeping in view, however, the proper +heirship of children of a former marriage, and guarding the rights of +creditors.</p> + +<p>In the matter of the divorce laws of Indiana, my father has not taken +as prominent a part as is generally supposed. These laws were referred +to him in conjunction with another member of the Legislature for the +revision, and they amended them in a single point, namely: by adding +to the causes for divorce "habitual drunkenness for two years." My +father has expressed himself in full on this point in a discussion +between Horace Greeley and himself, first published in the <i>New York +Tribune</i>.</p> + +<p>As early as 1828, my father advocated an equal position for woman, +publishing these views through <i>The Free Enquirer</i>, a weekly paper +edited by Frances Wright and himself in New York.</p> + +<p>My father's political life comprised several terms in the Legislature +of his own State, being elected in 1850 a member of the Convention +which amended the Constitution of Indiana, and chairman of its +Revision Committee. The debates in this Convention show the difference +in the position of my father and his antagonists.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATES.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Owen</span>: No subject of greater importance has come up since we +met here, as next in estimation to the right of enjoying life and +liberty, our Constitution enumerates the right of acquiring, +possessing, protecting property. And these sections refer to the +latter right, heretofore declared to be natural, inherent, +inalienable, yet virtually withheld from one-half the citizens of +our State. Women are not represented in our legislative halls; +they have no voice in selecting those who make laws<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> and +constitutions for them; and one reason given for excluding women +from the right of suffrage, is an expression of confident belief +that their husbands and fathers will surely guard their +interests. I should like, for the honor of my sex, to believe +that the legal rights of women are, at all times, as zealously +guarded as they would be if women had votes to give to those who +watch over their interests.</p> + +<p>Suffer me, sir, in defense of my skepticism on this point, to lay +before you and this Convention, an item from my legislative +recollection.</p> + +<p>It will be thirteen years next winter, since I reported from a +seat just over the way, a change in the then existing law of +descent. At that time the widow of an intestate dying without +children, was entitled, under ordinary circumstances, to dower in +her husband's real estate, and one-third of his personal +property. The change proposed was to give her one-third of the +real estate of her husband absolutely, and two-thirds of his +personal property—far too little, indeed; but yet as great an +innovation as we thought we could carry. This law remained in +force until 1841. How stands it now? The widow of an intestate, +in case there be no children, and in case there be father, or +mother, or brother, or sister of the husband, is heir to no part +whatever of her deceased husband's real estate; she is entitled +to dower only, of one-third of his estate. I ask you whether your +hearts do not revolt at the idea, that when the husband is +carried to his long home, his widow shall see snatched from her, +by an inhuman law, the very property her watchful care had mainly +contributed to increase and keep together?</p> + +<p>Yet this idea, revolting as it is, is carried out in all its +unmitigated rigor, by the statute to which I have just referred. +Out of a yearly rental of a hundred and fifty dollars, the widow +of an intestate rarely becomes entitled to more than fifty. The +other hundred dollars goes—whither? To the husband's father or +mother? Yes, if they survive! But if they are dead, what then? A +brother-in-law or a sister-in-law takes it, or the husband's +uncle, or his aunt, or his cousin! Do husbands toil through a +life-time to support their aunts, and uncles, and cousins? If but +a single cousin's child, a babe of six months, survive, to that +infant goes a hundred dollars of the rental, and to the widow +fifty. Can injustice go beyond this? What think you of a law like +that, on the statute book of a civilized and a Christian land? +When the husband's sustaining arm is laid in the grave, and the +widow left without a husband to cherish, then comes the law more +cruel than death, and decrees that poverty shall be added to +desolation!</p> + +<p>Say, delegates of the people of Indiana, answer and say whether +you, whether those who sent you here are guiltless in this thing? +Have you done justice? Have you loved mercy?</p> + +<p>But let us turn to the question more immediately before us. Let +us pass from the case of the widow and look to that of the wife: +First, the husband becomes entitled, from the instant of +marriage, to all the goods and chattels of his wife. His right is +absolute, unconditional. Secondly, the husband acquires, in +virtue of the marriage, the rents and profits (in all cases +during her life) of his wife's real estate. The flagrant +injustice of this has been somewhat modified by a statute barring +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> marital right to the rent of lands, but this protection does +not extend to personal property. Is this as it should be? Are we +meting out fair and equal justice?... There is a species of very +silly sentimentalism which it is the fashion to put forth in +after-dinner toasts and other equally veracious forms, about +woman being the only tyrant in a free republic; about the chains +she imposes on her willing slaves, etc.; it would be much more to +our credit, if we would administer a little less flattery and a +little more justice.</p></blockquote> + +<p>From pages upon pages of eloquence delivered in reply, I cull the +following extracts, which are a sample of the spirit of the +opposition:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I am of opinion that to adopt the proposition of the gentleman +from Posey (Mr. Owen), will not ameliorate the condition of +married women."</p> + +<p>"I can not see the propriety of establishing for women a distinct +and separate interest, the consideration of which would, of +necessity, withdraw their attention from that sacred duty which +nature has, in its wisdom, assigned to their peculiar care. I +think the law which unites in one common bond the pecuniary +interests of husband and wife should remain. The sacred ordinance +of marriage, and the relations growing out of it, should not be +disturbed. The common law does seem to me to afford sufficient +protection."</p> + +<p>"If the law is changed, I believe that a most essential injury +would result to the endearing relations of married life. +Controversies would arise, husbands and wives would become armed +against each other, to the utter destruction of true felicity in +married life."</p> + +<p>"To adopt it would be to throw a whole population morally and +politically into confusion. Is it necessary to explode a volcano +under the foundation of the family union?"</p> + +<p>"I object to the gentleman's proposition, because it is in +contravention of one of the great fundamental principles of the +Christian religion. The common law only embodies the divine law."</p> + +<p>"Give to the wife a separate interest in law, and all those high +motives to restrain the husband from wrong-doing will be, in a +great degree, removed."</p> + +<p>"I firmly believe that it would diminish, if it did not totally +annihilate woman's influence."</p> + +<p>"Woman's power comes through a self-sacrificing spirit, ready to +offer up all her hopes upon the shrine of her husband's wishes."</p> + +<p>"Sir, we have got along for eighteen hundred years, and shall we +change now? Our fathers have for many generations maintained the +principle of the common law in this regard, for some good and +weighty reasons."</p> + +<p>"The immortal Jefferson, writing in reference to the then state +of society in France, and the debauched condition thereof, +attributes the whole to the effects of the civil law then in +force in France, permitting the wife to hold, acquire, and own +property, separate and distinct from the husband."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The females of this State are about as happy and contented with +their present position in relation to this right (suffrage), as +it is necessary they should be, and I do not favor the +proposition (of Woman's Suffrage), which my friend from Posey, +Mr. Owen, appears to countenance."</p> + +<p>"It is not because I love justice less, but woman more, that I +oppose this section."</p> + +<p>"This doctrine of separate estate will stifle all the finer +feelings, blast the brightest, fairest, happiest hopes of the +human family, and go in direct contravention of that law which +bears the everlasting impress of the Almighty Hand. Sir, I +consider such a scheme not only as wild, but as wicked, if not in +its intentions, at least in its results."</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is incredible that men in their sane minds should argue day after +day, that if women were allowed to control their own property, it +would "strike at the root of Christianity," "ruin the home," and "open +wide the door to license and debauchery." And yet these men did so +argue through weeks of stormy debate; the bitterest feeling being +shown, not with regard to the proposed change in the law of descent, +but with regard to the right of women to "acquire and possess property +to their sole use and disposal," during the husband's life-time. It is +strange, indeed, that the man who advocated this "most meagre +justice," as he truly says, should have been a target, not only for +ridicule, but for abuse. I append one extract of the latter +description, to illustrate how violent and unreasoning was the +prejudice with which my father contended. One gentleman after quoting +from the marriage contract of my father and mother, the extract in +which he, my father, divests himself of the right to control the +"person and property of another," proceeds as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Sir, I would that my principles on this, in contradistinction +with those of the gentlemen from Posey, were written in +characters of light across the noon-day heavens, that all the +world might read them. (Applause). I have in my drawer numerous +other extracts from the writings of the gentleman from Posey, but +am not allowed to read them; and, indeed, sir, under the +circumstances, decency forbids their use. But if I were permitted +to read them, and show their worse than damning influence upon +society, in conjunction with this system of separate interests, I +venture to aver that gentlemen would turn from them with disgust; +aye, sir, they would shun them as they would shun man's worst +enemy, and flee from them as from a poisonous reptile. (Page +1161, "Debates in Indiana Convention").</p></blockquote> + +<p>The section was finally reconsidered and rejected a few days before +adjournment (p. 2013). But my father, with his characteristic +perseverance, continued his efforts until they were finally crowned +with success in the Legislature, after fifteen years of endeavor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>Most of the arguments used by those delegates, if they can be called +by so dignified a name, bear a singular resemblance to the arguments +used to-day by the opponents of woman's suffrage. May we not then +conclude that the fears which have been proved absolutely groundless +in the one case, may be equally so in the other?</p> + +<p>An enthusiastic public meeting was held in Indianapolis in honor of my +father by the women of the State, Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton taking a +prominent part. On this occasion a beautiful silver pitcher was +presented to him as a token of gratitude for his persevering efforts +in behalf of women. This pitcher still holds a place of honor in our +family dinings on gala days.</p> + +<p>In reply to several slurs in regard to this memorial, my father during +the debates in the Convention thus retorted:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Since I have had occasion to allude to the testimonial which it +is proposed to offer me on behalf of the women of my adopted +State, I will say here, that regarding it as the greatest +compliment—if in so grave a connection a word often so lightly +used may be properly employed—the greatest compliment I ever +received in my life, or ever can receive till I die: it matters +little to me what may be said of myself in that connection; I am +accustomed to personal attack, and am proof against ridicule. But +if any man, whether he disgrace a chair on this floor, or +dishonor by his presence some of the bar-rooms of the city, utter +an insinuation, cast a reproach, directly or indirectly, by open +assertion, or covert insinuation, against the motives or the +character of those courageous women who may have met in +Lawrenceburg or elsewhere, to consult regarding rights shamefully +denied to them, or those who may have publicly expressed +gratitude to the defenders of these rights—if such a man there +be, within or without the walls of this capitol, I say here of +such a one, let him receive it as he will, that I would give my +hand more freely to the inmate of the penitentiary than to him. +(Page 1185, "Debates in Indiana Convention").</p></blockquote> + +<p>In 1843 and 1845 my father was elected to Congress, serving until +1847. In 1853 he was appointed Minister to Naples, remaining there +until 1858. During the war his exertions were unremitting. He was the +friend of Governor Morton, and was consulted by that energetic +statesman in all his more important plans. He wrote several letters on +the political crises of the time, which had a wide circulation and +influence. Mr. Lincoln said to several of his friends, that a letter +addressed to him by Mr. Owen, and a conversation consequent thereon, +had done more toward deciding him in favor of the Emancipation +Proclamation, than any other influence which had been brought to bear. +My father also made strenuous efforts during the winter of 1865-'66 to +postpone the enfranchisement of the freedmen ten years, until 1876. +(See <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, June, 1875). Subsequent events have shown his +judgment to have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> correct and far-sighted. He believed the +conferring of suffrage upon the negro, dim-visioned in the sudden +light of a new liberty, to be a most dangerous experiment; he foresaw +that the ballot which the North gave to them as a protection against +their arrogant masters, would prove a two-edged sword with a terrible +reactionary force in the hands of an untrained race just freed from +mental leading-strings; he knew the difficulty to be inherent, a +difficulty which the existence of slavery must necessarily have +produced. He maintained that although the sword had struck off the +outward chains, the white-heat of ire kindled in the hearts of the +conquered had not fused the inward shackles of the slave, but had +riveted them the firmer, and that the invisible fetters welded by +revengeful hate should be broken most carefully.</p> + +<p>In the latter years of his life my father gave his entire attention to +the study of Modern Spiritualism, or rather to the study of +Spiritualism in both its ancient and its modern phases. He published +two works on this subject, "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another +World," and "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next." In a +letter written shortly before his death, he expresses himself as +follows: "I hope, my child, that you will never, at any period of your +life, be less happy than you now are. If you cultivate your spiritual +nature rationally, I feel assured you never will. For one effect of +rational Spiritualism is to make one more satisfied the longer one +lives, and to make the last scenes of life, hours of pleasant +anticipation, instead of a season of dread, or, as with many it has +been, of horror." It would be well for non-investigators who maintain +that my father's belief in Spiritualism necessarily proves him to have +been illogical, to see to it that they are not falling into the +inconsequence which they are ascribing to him. Reasoning <i>a priori</i>, +should we not believe that the man who saw so clearly the dangers +which were unperceived by some of our keenest statesmen, could not +become, except in a rare instance and for a short time, a misled dupe? +Has any one the right to condemn such a man unproved?</p> + +<p>While my father was exerting his energies for the welfare of the +nation, my mother was giving her life to her children. Sons and +daughters were welcomed into the Owen homestead, and the wide halls +and great rooms of the rambling country house rang with the voices of +children. Three of these little ones slipped back to Heaven before the +portals had closed. The stricken parents with blinded eyes met only +the rayless emptiness of unbelief. May God help the mother, fainting +beneath a bereavement greater than she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> can bear, who cries for help +and finds none; who stretches her empty arms upward in an agony of +appeal and is answered by the hollow echo of her own cry; may God help +her, for she is beyond the help of man. Other children came to fill +the vacant places, other voices filled the air, but the hearts of +father and mother were not filled until years later, when a sweet +faith thrilled the hopeless blank.</p> + +<p>The story of these two is the story of many beside. Husband and wife +began the long journey side by side with equal talent, hope, energy; +his work led him along the high-road, hers lay in a quiet nook; his +name became world-known, hers was scarcely heard beyond the precinct +of her own village; and yet who can say that his life was the more +successful, who can say that the quiet falling rain, with its slow +resultant of flower and fruit in each little garden nook, is less +important than the mighty ship-laden river bearing its wealth of +commerce in triumph to the sea?</p> + +<p>George Eliot, in "Middlemarch," says of Dorothea:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Her finely-touched spirit had its fine issues, though they were +not widely visible.... The effect of her being on those around +her was incalculably diffusive; for the growing good of the world +is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not +so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to +the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in +unvisited tombs.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is true of many Dorotheas; it is true of the Dorothea of whom I +am writing. Geographically, Mary Owen's field of labor was narrow; but +a small Western village of a thousand souls may hold within its +ethical strata all the developments of a continent. Let her who feels +that her small limits imprison her, remember that emotions are not +registered by the census. Lovers and business men, struggling youths +and perplexed mothers, children and veterans, poured their griefs and +fears, their hopes and disappointments, into the listening ear of +sympathy, knowing that the clear judgment of this little woman could +unravel much that seemed to be in hopeless entanglement.</p> + +<p>Well do I remember the cheer of this our home. Simple were its duties, +simple indeed its pleasures. Well do I remember the busy troop of boys +and girls, with the busy mother at their head, directing their +exuberant energy with a rare administrative ability. Besides her own +children, four of whom reached maturity, she took during her life +seven other young people under her protection, so that the great +old-fashioned house was always filled to overflowing with fresh young +life. Pasture and stable, hennery and dairy, yard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> and garden, kitchen +and parlor, all were under her immediate guidance and control. Well do +I remember the pots of golden butter, fresh from her cool hand; the +delicious hams cured under her supervision; the succulent vegetables +and juicy fruits fresh from her garden—that trim, symmetrical garden, +with its well-weeded beds, its well-kept walks! Many a bright summer +morning have I seen her resting on a low bench beneath a huge +overhanging elm, overlooking the field of our labors. To a stranger +the flushed face with its irregular features, might have seemed plain; +the earnest, energetic manner might have seemed almost abrupt; but to +the children who sat on the grass at her feet looking upward, the face +was beautiful. That calm eye had pierced through so many childish +intricacies and made them clear; the firm mouth could smile so gently +at any youthful shortcoming, and the strong voice rang with a hope +which sent fear and doubt skulking away in shamefaced silence. It was +the brightest part of the day, this short respite, before mother, +marshalling her young army, led them to the study-room. This impromptu +lesson-hour was filled with a teaching so trenchant, that oftentimes, +in these lonelier days, when perplexed in the intricacies of life's +journeyings, a word spoken in some long ago summer morning, floats +down the years and rises before my troubled vision a guiding star.</p> + +<p>When her children were grown, and the task she had undertaken years +before had been well done, our mother turned her attention for a time +to public work. She gave much thought to the Woman Question, +especially that portion of it pertaining to woman's work, and +addressed one or two meetings in New York on this subject. Miss +Anthony recently said to me: "Miss Owen, you do not know how great an +impression your mother made upon us—a woman who had lived nearly her +whole life in a small Western village, absorbed in petty cares, and +yet who could stand before us<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> with a calm dignity, telling us +searching truths in simple and strong words." The only lecture I heard +my mother deliver was in the church of our village. Her subject was +the rearing of children. A calm light rested on her silver hair and +broad brow; her manner was the earnest manner of a woman who has +looked into the heart of life. Blessed is the daughter to whom it is +given to reverence a mother as I reverenced mine that night. A quiet, +but deep attention was given to her words, for the fathers and mothers +who were listening to her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> knew that she was speaking on a subject to +which she had given long years of careful thought and faithful +endeavor. It would not be possible in the space allotted me to give a +detailed account of my mother's teachings with regard to the rearing +of children; but I will state a few of the more prominent +theories—theories proved by practice, which I remember.</p> + +<p>Self-government was the primary principle, the broad foundation. She +held this qualification to be the only guarantee of success in the +broadest sense of the word, and that to be effectual and never-failing +it must be interwoven into the very fiber of the child. During the +earliest years our mother administered punishment, or rather she +invented some means by which the child should be made to feel the +result of its bad conduct. Injuring another was held to be a cardinal +sin. For this misdeed our hands were tied behind us for an +interminable length of time; for running away we were tied to the +bed-post; for eating at irregular hours we were deprived of dainties +at the next meal, etc. But as soon as we reached the age of reason, +she exerted, not a controlling, but a guiding hand. We were restricted +by few rules, for our mother believed in the largest possible liberty, +and she held that it was better to pass over the smaller shortcomings +unnoticed, than constantly to be finding fault. She maintained that +scolding should be indulged in most sparingly, as much of it was +detrimental both to the temper of the child and the dignity of the +mother. She believed that too little allowance was made for the +heedlessness growing out of pure exuberance of spirits. But when a law +was once established it was unalterable, and no child ever thought of +resisting it. For instance, no one, large or small, was allowed to +exhibit a peevish ill-nature, either by word or manner, in the public +rooms of the house. My mother merely said, in a quiet tone: "My child, +you are either tired or sick; in either case, it would be better to go +to your own room and lie down until you are quite restored." The +result of this simple rule was an almost uniform cheerfulness. I have +lived in many homes, in many parts of the world, but I have never seen +one which equaled my mother's in this respect. I do not remember a +single command issued by my mother to her older children; but I can +well remember her saying: "I think you had better do so and so"; and I +recollect distinctly that when we obstinately followed our own +unreasoning will, as we were often inclined to do, we were invariably +taught a bitter but wholesome lesson. She believed these lessons to be +much more effectual for good than any arbitrary prohibition on her +part would have been; she reserved such prohibition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> for the cases +where the consequences were not confined to ourselves, or were of too +serious a nature.</p> + +<p>The one mistake made by my mother was in the physical management of +her children. Like many mothers whose bodies and minds are kept at the +highest tension, she failed to give vital strength to her children. +The most promising of these died in early childhood, "by the will of +God," as we say in our blindness. One of them especially, the "little +king," as he was called, being a magnificent child, both in mental and +moral development. Of those who came to maturity, one died at the age +of twenty-seven, one has been an invalid for years, one has fair +health, and one only rejoices in a vigorous physique. This boy was +born in my grandmother's house, near the sea, where my mother had +spent, as she expressed it, "the laziest year of her whole life." +These children have all had a keen love of study, an energy which +carried them far beyond their strength, and she failed sufficiently to +curb them. But in other respects, our mother has done to the +uttermost. Her children had strong propensities both for good and ill. +She has, so far as is possible, strengthened the virtues and repressed +the faults of every child given into her keeping.</p> + +<p>"The sun shines," is a sentence simple and short, but how infinite is +its meaning; myriads of unfolding blossoms flash it back in vivid +coloring; myriads of stalwart trees whisper it; myriads of breathing +things revel in it; myriads of men thank God for it. So is it with the +influence of a good mother. It is not given us to follow each tiny +shaft of light in its endless searchings, neither do we note how the +riot of the waste places within us is pruned by deft hands into a +tenuous symmetry, nor how, in the midst of this life's growth, is laid +the foundation of the kingdom of Heaven, by the silent masonry of a +mother's constant endeavor.</p> + +<p>Mothers, all over this broad land, heavy-laden with the puerile +details of daily living, fling off your shrouding cares, and lift your +worn faces that you may see with a broad outlook how full-fruited is +the vineyard in which you are toiling; the thorns are irritating; the +glebe is rough; your spirit faints in the heat of the toilsome day. +Look up! the lengthening shadows are falling like dew upon you! tired +hearts, look up! purple-red hangs the clustering fruit of your +life-long work; the vintage has come, the freest from blight that can +ever come—the vintage of a faithful mother!</p> + +<p>The name of Mary Owen was not written upon the brains of men, but it +is graven upon the hearts of these her children; so long as they live, +the blessed memory of that home shall abide with them, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> home wherein +all that was sweet, and strong, and true, was nurtured by a wise hand, +was sunned into blossoming by a loving heart.</p> + +<p>A benediction rests upon the brow of him who has given his best work +to help this world onward, even though it be but a hair's-breadth; but +the mother who has given herself to her children through long years of +an unwritten self-abnegation, who has thrilled every fiber of their +beings with faith in God and hope in man, a faith and a hope which no +canker-worm of worldly experience can ever eat away, she shall be +crowned with a sainted halo.</p> + + +<h3>REMINISCENCES BY DR. MARY F. THOMAS AND AMANDA M. WAY.</h3> + +<p>At an anti-slavery meeting held in Greensboro, Henry Co., in 1851, a +resolution was offered by Amanda M. Way, then an active agent in the +"Underground Railroad," as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The women of our land are being oppressed and degraded +by the laws and customs of our country, and are in but little +better condition than chattel slaves; therefore,</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we call a Woman's Rights Convention, and that a +committee be now appointed to make the necessary arrangements.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The resolution was adopted. Amanda M. Way, Joel Davis, and Fanny Hiatt +were appointed.</p> + +<p>The Convention met in October, 1851, in Dublin, Wayne Co., and +organized by electing Hannah Hiatt, President; Amanda Way, +Vice-President; and Henry Hiatt, Secretary. Miss Way made the opening +address, and stated the object of the Convention to be a full, free, +and candid discussion of the legal and social position of women. The +meetings continued two days. Henry C. Wright addressed large audiences +at the evening sessions. A letter was received from Mary F. Thomas, of +North Manchester, urging all those who believe in woman's rights to be +firm and outspoken. She encouraged young ladies to enter the trades +and professions, to fit themselves in some way for pecuniary +independence, and adds, "Although a wife, mother, and housekeeper, +with all that that means, I am studying medicine, and expect to +practice, if I live."</p> + +<p>Such a Convention being a novel affair, called out some ridicule and +opposition, but the friends were so well pleased with their success, +that a committee was appointed to arrange for another the next year, +which was held in Richmond, Oct. 15 and 16, 1852. A few of the +resolutions<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> will show the spirit of the leaders at that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> time. A +Woman's Rights Society was formed at this Convention, a Constitution +and By-laws adopted, and it became one of the permanent organizations +of the State. Hannah Hiatt, President; Jane Morrow, Vice-President; +Mary B. Birdsall, Secretary; Amanda Way, Treasurer.</p> + +<p>Another Convention was held at Richmond October 12, 1853. The +President being absent, Lydia W. Vandeburg presided with dignity and +ability. Frances D. Gage, Josephine S. Griffing, Emma R. Coe, and +Lydia Ann Jenkins were among the prominent speakers. Having heard that +Antoinette Brown had been denied admission as a delegate to the +"World's Temperance Convention," held in New York, on account of her +sex, they passed a resolution condemning this insult offered to all +womankind. Thirty-two persons<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> signed the Constitution in the first +Convention, and the movement spread rapidly in the Hoosier State.</p> + +<p>The fourth annual meeting convened in Masonic Hall, Indianapolis, +October 26, 1854. Frances D. Gage, Caroline M. Severance, and L. A. +Hine were the invited speakers, and right well did they sustain the +banner of equal rights in the capital of the State. J. W. Gordon, then +a young and promising lawyer, and since one of the leading men of the +State, avowed himself in favor of woman suffrage, and added much to +the success of the Convention. The press, as usual, ridiculed, +burlesqued, and misrepresented the proceedings; but the citizens +manifested a serious interest, and requested that the next Convention +be held at the capital.</p> + +<p>About this time the "Maine Liquor Law" was passed in this State. The +women took an active part in the temperance campaign, and helped to +secure the prohibitory law. This made the suffrage movement more +popular, as was shown in the increased attendance at the next +Convention in Indianapolis, October 12, 1855, at which Emma B. Swank +presided. The prominent speakers were James and Lucretia Mott, Frances +D. Gage, Ernestine L. Rose, Joseph Barker, Amanda Way, Henry Hiatt, +and J. W. Gordon. With such women as these to declare the gospel of +equality, and to enforce it with their pure faces, womanly graces, and +noble lives, the people could not fail to give their sympathy, and to +be convinced of the rightfulness of our cause. The two leading papers +again did their best to make the movement ridiculous. The reporters +gave glowing pen sketches of the "masculine women" and "feminine men"; +they described the dress and appearance of the women very minutely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +but said little of the merits of the question, or the arguments of the +speakers. Amanda Way was chosen President of the Society; Dr. Mary +Thomas, Vice-President; Mary B. Birdsall, Secretary; Abbe Lindley, +Treasurer.</p> + +<p>The next annual meeting was held in Winchester, October 16 and 17, +1856. In her introductory remarks, the President referred to the great +change that had taken place in five years. Women were now often seen +on the platform making speeches on many questions, behind the counters +as clerks, in the sick-room as physicians. The temperance organization +of Good Templars, now spreading rapidly over the State, makes no +distinction in its members; women as well as men serve on committees, +hold office, and vote on all business matters. Emma B. Swank and Sarah +E. Underhill were the principal speakers at this Convention. For +logical argument and beauty of style, Miss Swank was said to have few +equals. Dr. Mary Thomas was chosen President for the next year.</p> + +<p>The annual meeting of 1857 was again held in Winchester, by an +invitation from the citizens, and the Methodist Episcopal Church was +tendered for their use. On taking the chair, the President, Dr. Mary +F. Thomas, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>This is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting with +this Association, still my heart, my influence, and my prayers +have all been with the advocates of this cause. Although I have +not enjoyed the privilege of attending the annual meetings, owing +to my many cares, I have not been an idler in the vineyard. By my +example, as well as my words, I have tried to teach women to be +more self-reliant, and to prepare themselves for larger and more +varied spheres of activity.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Frances D. Gage, who was always a favorite speaker in Indiana, was +again present, and scattered seeds of truth that have produced +abundant fruit. On motion of Amanda Way, who said she believed it was +time for us to begin to knock at the doors of the Legislature, a +committee of three was appointed to prepare a form of petition to be +circulated and presented to the next Legislature.</p> + +<p>In 1858 the Convention again met in Richmond, Sarah Underhill, +President. Adeline T. Swift and Anne D. Cridge, of Ohio, both +excellent speakers, were present. The committee appointed to draft a +form of petition, reported the following:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the +State of Indiana:</i></p> + +<p>The undersigned, residents of the State of Indiana, respectfully +ask you to grant to women the same rights in property that are +enjoyed by men. We also ask you to take the necessary steps to +amend the Constitution so as to extend to woman the right of +suffrage.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sarah Underhill, Emma Swank, Mary Birdsall, Agnes Cook, Dr. Mary F. +Thomas, and Amanda Way were appointed to present said petition to the +Legislature. The interest was so great, and the discussions so +animated, for many new speakers from all parts of the State had risen +up, that the Convention continued through three days.</p> + +<p>On the 19th of January, 1859, the petition was presented to the +Legislature by Mary Birdsall, Agnes Cook, and Dr. Mary Thomas. An +account of the proceedings was given in <i>The Lily</i>, a woman's rights +paper, published and edited by Dr. Mary Thomas. The occasion of the +presentation of petitions in person by a delegation of the Indiana +Woman's Rights Association before the assembled Houses of the +Legislature, drew an immense crowd long before the appointed hour. On +the arrival of the Committee, they were escorted to the Speaker's +stand. The President, J. R. Cravens, introduced them to their +Representatives.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Agnes Cook, in a few brief remarks, invited a serious and candid +consideration of the intrinsic merits of the petition about to be +presented, and the arguments of the petitioners.</p> + +<p>Dr. Mary Thomas read the petition signed by over one thousand +residents of Indiana, and urged the Legislature to pass laws giving +equal property rights to married women, and to take the necessary +steps to so amend the Constitution of the State as to secure to all +women the right of suffrage. She claimed these rights on the ground of +absolute justice, as well as the highest expediency, pointing out +clearly the evils that flow from class legislation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Birdsall being introduced, read a clear, concise address, +occupying about half an hour.</p> + +<p>The following resolution, offered by Gen. Steele, was unanimously +adopted:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the addresses just read be spread upon the +Journal, and that copies be requested for publication in the city +papers.</p></blockquote> + +<p>After the Senate adjourned, the Speaker called the House to order, and +on the motion of Mr. Murray, it resolved itself into committee of the +whole on the memorial just presented. On motion of Mr. Hamilton, the +petition was made the special order for Friday, when it was referred +to the Committee on "Rights and Privileges," who reported "that +legislation on this subject is inexpedient at this time," which report +was concurred in by the House.</p> + +<p>The ninth annual meeting was held in Good Templars' Hall, Richmond, in +October, 1859. It continued but one day, as the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> was fully +occupied in business plans for future work. Mary B. Birdsall was +chosen President of the Association.</p> + +<p>The intense excitement of the political campaign of 1860, and the +civil war that followed, absorbed every other interest. The women who +had so zealously worked for their own rights, were just as ready to +help others. Some hastened to the hospitals; others labored in the +sanitary movement. Others did double duty at home, tilling the ground +and gathering in the harvests, that their fathers, husbands, brothers, +and sons might go forth to fight the battles of freedom. No +conventions were held for ten years; but public sentiment had taken a +long stride during those years of conflict, and when the pioneers of +this reform, who had been accustomed to opposition and +misrepresentation, again began the work, they were astonished to find +themselves in a comparatively popular current.</p> + +<p>We find the following letters from Henry C. Wright and Esther Ann +Lukens, in <i>The Liberator</i>:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Dublin, Wayne Co.</span>, Indiana, <i>Oct. 14, 1851</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Garrison</span>:—I am in a Woman's Rights Convention, the first +ever held in this State, called by the women of Indiana to +consider the true position of woman. An excellent but short +address was made by the President, Hannah Hiatt, on the +importance of the movement and the ruinous consequences of +dividing the interests of men and women, and making their +relations antagonistic in the State, the Church, and the affairs +of every-day life. Much was said against woman's taking part in +government. It would degrade her to vote and hold office, and +destroy her influence as mother, wife, daughter, sister. It was +an answer that if voting and holding office would degrade women, +they would degrade men also; whatever is injurious to the moral +nature, delicacy, and refinement of woman is equally so to man. +Moral obligations rest equally on both sexes. Man should be as +refined and chaste as woman if we would make our social life +pure. Women may as well say to men, "Keep away from the +ballot-box and from office, for it degrades you and unfits you to +be our companions," as for man to say so to women. Dr. Curtis, a +Methodist class-leader, said the Bible had placed the <i>final +appeal</i> in all disputes in man; that if woman refused obedience, +God gave man the right to use force. This "Christian teacher" was +the only person in the Convention who appealed to the spirit of +rowdyism, whose language was unbecoming the subject and the +occasion. He was the only one who appealed to the Bible to +justify the subjection of woman. And while he awarded to man the +right to use force, he said the only influence the Bible +authorized woman to use was moral suasion. Man is to rule woman +by violence; woman must rule man by love, kindness, and +long-suffering. So says the Bible according to the interpretation +of the learned Dr. Curtis. The Convention lasted two days. It was +a thrilling meeting.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Henry C. Wright.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours,</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date ltr-clear break"><span class="smcap">New Garden</span>, Ohio, <i>Oct. 2, 1851</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—When Goethe was asked if the world would be better +if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> the Golden Age were restored, he answered, "A synod of good +women shall decide."</p> + +<p>Could his spirit look down upon us he would see those synods, of +which he perhaps prophetically spoke, assembling all over the +land, not to restore an age of semi-barbarism, but to hasten the +advent of a new and far more golden era, when there will be no +dangerous pilgrimage of years' duration to win back the Holy +Sepulchre, but a far more divine and sacred inheritance shall +have been sought and found; namely, freedom for woman to exercise +every right, capacity, and power with which God has endowed her.</p> + +<p>If there are any natural rights, then they belong to all by +virtue of our humanity, and are not graduated by degrees of +superiority. If the privilege of voting had been limited to those +men who were strong in mind and morals, we should never have had +a Governor's signature to "the black laws of Ohio."</p> + +<p>It is perverse and cruel to raise the cry that we make war upon +domestic life; that we would destroy its natural order and +attraction by allowing woman to mingle in the coarse and noisy +scenes of political life. Is not the aid of man equally important +in the family, and would his necessary duties in the home +conflict with his duties as a citizen and a patriot?</p> + +<p>Man can not wrong and oppress woman without jeopardizing his own +liberty. Cramped and crippled as she may be by inexorable law, +she avenges herself, and decides his destiny. So long as woman is +outlawed, man pays the penalty in ignorance, poverty, and +suffering. Our interests are one, we rise or fall together.</p> + +<p>Sisters of Indiana, accept my heartfelt sympathy in the work you +have undertaken. It is well for the pioneers of a new country to +call down God's blessing on their labors by an early claim to an +equality of rights.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Esther Ann Lukens.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, for justice to all,</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">Having never met the brave women who endured the first shower of +ridicule in Indiana, we asked to be introduced to them in some brief +pen-sketches, and in the following manner they present themselves:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">REV. AMANDA M. WAY</p> + +<p>may be truthfully called the mother of "The Woman Suffrage +Association" in Indiana organized in 1851, and took an active +part in all the Conventions until she became a resident in Kansas +in 1872. Miss Way was always an abolitionist, a prohibitionist, +and an uncompromising suffragist—the great pioneer of all +reforms. It is amusing to hear how many places she has been the +first to fill; yet she has done it all in such a quiet way that +no one seemed to feel that she was ever out of place. It was a +common remark, "Amanda can do that, but she is not like other +people." She was the first woman elected Grand Secretary of the +"Indiana Order of Good Templars," in 1856; the first State +lecturer and organizer; the first in the world to be elected +Grand Worthy Chief Templar; the first one in her State to be a +representative to the national lodge; the first one admitted as a +regular representative to the Grand Division, Sons of Temperance, +and the first to be a licensed preacher in the Methodist +Episcopal Church. What is better still, she continues in the work +she began, gaining power and influence with the experience of +years. An editor, speaking of her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> said: "There is no woman more +widely and favorably known in this State than Amanda Way. Her +name is a household word, and in the hearts of the temperance +reformers her memory will ever be sacred."</p> + +<p>In 1859, she was associated with Mrs. Underhill in editing <i>The +Ladies' Tribune</i>, and has since been connected with the press +much of the time. During the Rebellion, her time and thoughts +were given to active labors in the hospitals and the sanitary +movement. Many a soldier returned to his home who would have died +but for her care. In company with Mrs. Swank she presented a +memorial, to the Legislature in 1871, asking the elective +franchise for women, and made a very effective speech on the +occasion.</p> + +<p>Her home-life has been equally active and faithful; a widowed +mother and a sister's orphaned children, have been her special +care, depending on her for support. Once, when asked why she +never married, she laughingly replied, "I never had time."</p> + +<p>She has been a consistent member of the Methodist Church twenty +years, and ten years ago, unsolicited by herself, she was +licensed as a minister by the Winchester Quarterly Conference, +Rev. Milton Mahin, Presiding Elder. In her travels over the State +she preaches almost every Sunday, being invited to fill many +pulpits, both in Kansas and this State.</p> + +<p>She is a calm, forcible, earnest speaker, and, though quiet and +reserved in manner, she is genial and warm in her affections.</p> + +<p>She is now fifty-two years old, and though her life has been a +constant battle with wrongs, she has not become misanthropic nor +despondent. Knowing that progress is the law of life, she has +full faith that the moral world, though moving slowly, is still +moving in the right direction.</p> + + +<p class="heading">HELEN Y. AUSTIN,</p> + +<p>Corresponding Secretary of the State Suffrage Association for +many years, a position for which she was eminently fitted, being +gifted as a writer. Having had a liberal education, and great +enthusiasm in our cause, her labors have been valuable and +effective. She is a correspondent for several journals and +periodicals, is very active in "The State Horticultural Society," +and takes a deep interest in all the progressive movements of the +day.</p> + + +<p class="heading">LOUISE V. BOYD.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Boyd is a lady of fine poetical genius and superior literary +attainments. She has been an earnest advocate of woman suffrage +for many years, and is herself a living argument of woman's +ability to use the rights she asks.</p> + +<p>In 1871 she read a very able essay on the "Women of the Bible," +before the State Association of the Christian Church. It was the +first time a woman's voice had been heard in that religious body. +The success of her effort on that occasion opened the way for +other women. Mrs. Boyd and her husband (Dr. S. S. Boyd, who is +also a zealous friend of our cause), have both been officers of +the State W. S. Association for many years, taking an active part +in all our Conventions.</p> + +<p class="heading">REV. MARY T. CLARK.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Clark has been an acceptable lecturer and preacher for many +years in different parts of the State. She was early a recognized +minister among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> Congregational Quakers. More recently she has +been ordained in the Universalist Church, and enjoys equal rights +and honors with the clergymen of that denomination. She is a +woman of education and culture, and of English parentage.</p> + + +<p class="heading">EMMA B. SWANK.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Swank is one of the most pleasing speakers of Indiana. She +is a graduate of Antioch, and while yet in college she gained +quite a reputation by her lecturing on Astronomy. She spent +several years lecturing to classes of women on Physiology, +Anatomy, and Hygiene. Of late, she has devoted herself to Woman +Suffrage and Temperance. She served as president of the State +Society one year before the war and one since, and has always +done good, service to the cause of woman with both pen and +tongue.</p> + + +<p class="heading">SARAH E. UNDERHILL.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Underhill was first known in Indiana as the editor and +proprietor of the <i>Ladies' Tribune</i> at Indianapolis in 1857. She +associated with her Amanda Way as office editor, that she might +devote her entire time to lecturing. Though she remained in the +State but three years, she was widely and favorably known as an +earnest and effective speaker on Woman Suffrage and Temperance. +When the war began, she was among the first to go to the sick and +wounded soldiers. A brief account of her work in the hospitals +will be found in the "Women of the War."</p> + + +<p class="heading">JANE MORROW.</p> + +<p>Miss Morrow was a pioneer in our movement; attended the Second +Convention in 1852. She was not a speaker, but a practical +business woman, owning and successfully carrying on a dry-goods +store in Richmond for many years. By precept and example, she +taught the doctrine of woman's independence and self-reliance. +She was a kind, genial, sunny-hearted woman, who made all about +her bright and happy, though she was what the world calls an "old +maid." In 1867, she died suddenly, without a moment's warning or +parting word; but "Aunt Jane," as she was familiarly called, will +long be remembered in her native town.</p> + + +<p class="heading">MARY B. BIRDSALL</p> + +<p>was secretary of the Convention of 1852, and held that position +for three years. She purchased <i>The Lily</i>, a Woman's Rights +paper, of Amelia Bloomer, in 1855, and published it for three +years. Her home is in Richmond.</p> + + +<p class="heading">MARY ROBINSON OWEN.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Owen, wife of Robert Dale Owen, was not known to the public +until after the war. It is said, however, that she suggested and +helped prepare the amendments to the laws with reference to +woman's property rights, that her husband carried through our +Legislature. She had a strong, clear intellect, and her lectures +were more argumentative and pointed than rhetorical and flinched. +She sympathized with and aided her husband in all his reformatory +movements, and was his equal in mental power. She was one of the +vice-presidents of our Indiana State Woman Suffrage Association +at the time of her death, 1871.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="heading">MARY F. THOMAS.</p> + +<p>Mary F. Thomas, M.D., was born October 28. 1816, in Montgomery +County, Maryland. Her parents, Samuel and Mary Myers, were +members of the Society of Friends, and resided in their early +days in Berks and Chester Counties, in Pennsylvania. Her father +was the associate of Benjamin Lundy, in organizing and attending +the first anti-slavery meeting held in Washington, at the risk of +their lives.</p> + +<p>Desiring to place his family beyond the evil influences of +slavery, he moved to Columbiana County, Ohio. He purchased a farm +there; his daughters assisted him in his outdoor labors in the +summer, and studied under his instructions in the winter. While +in Washington he frequently took his daughters to the capitol to +listen to the debates, which gave them interest in political +questions. Mary was early roused to the consideration of woman's +wrongs by the unequal wages paid to teachers of her own sex. In +1845 she was much moved in listening to the preaching of Lucretia +Mott at a yearly meeting in Salem, Ohio, and resolved that her +best efforts should be given to secure justice for woman.</p> + +<p>In 1839 she was married to Dr. Owen Thomas. She has three +daughters, all well educated, self-reliant women. Her youngest +daughter, a graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, +took the Greek prize in the intercollegiate contest in 1874. As +Mrs. Thomas' husband was a physician, she studied medicine with +him, and graduated at the Penn Medical College of Philadelphia in +1854. She was the first woman to take her place in the State +Medical Association as a regularly admitted delegate. She is a +member of the Wayne County Medical Association; has been +physician for "The Home for Friendless Women" in the city of +Richmond for nine years, and has filled the office of City +Physician by the appointment of the Commissioners for several +years.</p> + +<p>Though deeply interested in the woman suffrage reform, owing to +her domestic cares and medical studies she could not attend any +public meetings until 1857; since that time she has been one of +the most responsible standard-bearers, and for several years +President of the State Association.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Thomas was always a conscientious abolitionist; the poor +fugitive from bondage did not knock at her door in vain. The +temperance reform, too, has had her warm sympathy and the benefit +of her pure example. She is a member of the Grand Lodge of Good +Templars, and has held important offices in that Order, having +been a faithful disciple in spreading the gospel of temperance +over forty years, always a member of some organization.</p> + +<p>During the war of the rebellion she gave herself in every way +that was open to woman to the loyal service of her country. As +assistant physician in hospitals, looking after the sick and +wounded, and in sanitary work at home, she manifested as much +patriotism as any man did on the battle-field. After her long +experience, she comes to the conclusion, that with the ballot in +her own hand, with the power to coin her will into law, a woman +might do a far more effective work in preventing human misery and +crime, than she ever can accomplish by indirect influence, in +merely mitigating the evils man perpetuates by law.</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> +(<i>From the Liberator of May, 1856</i>).</p> + +<p class="heading">RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN WISCONSIN.</p> + +<p class="hang">Minority Report of C. L. Sholes, from the "Committee on +Expiration and Re-enactment of Laws," to whom were referred +sundry petitions, praying that steps may be taken to confer upon +women the right of suffrage in Wisconsin.</p> + +<p>The minority of the Committee on Expiration and Re-enactment of +Laws, beg leave to report:</p> + +<p>The theory of our government, proclaimed some eighty years since, +these petitioners ask may be reduced to practice. The undersigned +is aware that the opinion has been announced from a high place +and high source, that this theory is, in the instrument which +contains it, a mere rhetorical flourish, admirable to fill a +sentence and round a period, but otherwise useless and +meaningless; that so far from all mankind being born free and +equal, it is those only who have rights that are entitled to +them; those yet out of the pale of that fortunate condition being +intended by Providence always to be and remain there. But +notwithstanding this opinion has the weight of high authority, +and notwithstanding the practice of the American people has thus +far been in strict accordance with such opinion, the undersigned +believes the theory proclaimed is not simply a rhetorical +flourish, nor meaningless, but that it means just what it says; +that it is true, and being true, is susceptible of an application +as broad as the truth proclaimed.</p> + +<p>All humankind, says the theory, are endowed by their Creator with +certain inalienable rights. Other governments proclaim the divine +right of kings, and assume that man is the mere creature of the +government, deriving all his rights from its concessions, and +forever subject to all its impositions, while this government (or +at least its theory) elevates all men to an equality with kings, +brings every man face to face with the author of his being and +the arbiter of his destiny, deriving his rights from that source +alone; and makes government his creature instead of his master, +instituted by him solely for the better protection and +application of his God given rights. It is important to keep in +mind this theory of our government and its difference with the +theories of all other governments. Endowed by their Creator with +certain inalienable rights, it says, because those rights are +necessary to correct relations between each individual of +humanity and his Creator. Herein is the whole merit of the +American theory of government, and of its practice too, so far as +that practice has gone. It is a grand theory, opening as it does +to every human being the boundless plains of progress which +stretch out to the foot of the eternal throne, and implying as it +does such noble powers in humanity, and such noble conditions and +uses for those powers. Its effect upon those who have enjoyed the +benefit of its application has been in harmony with its own +exalted character. Though but a day old, as it were, in the +history of nations, the United States, in a great many respects, +outstrip all other nations of the earth, and are inferior in few +or no particulars to any. The mass of her people are conceded to +be the most intelligent people of the world, and manifest, +individually and collectively, the fruits of superior +intelligence. It will not be denied that our theory of +government, viewing as it does every man as a sovereign, opening +up to every man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> all the distinctions, all the honors, and all +the wealth which man is capable of desiring, appreciating, or +grasping, exercises a powerful, indeed a controlling influence in +making our people what they are, and our nation what it is.</p> + +<p>These petitions ask only that these rights, enjoyed by one +portion of the American people, may be extended to embrace the +whole, not less for the abstract but all-sufficient reason, that +they have been given to the whole by the Creator, than that by +their application to the whole, the more general will be the +benefits experienced; and the deeper, broader, more prevailing +and more enduring will become those benefits. Manifestly, such +must be the case; for as these rights belong to humanity, and +produce their exalted and beneficial fruits by their application +to and upon humanity, it follows that, wherever humanity is, +there they belong, and there they will work out their beneficial +results. To exclude woman from the possession of equal political +rights with man, it should be shown that she is essentially a +different being; that the Creator of man is not her Creator; that +she has not the same evil to shun, the same heaven to gain; in +short, the same grand, immortal destiny which is supposed to +invite to high uses the capacity of man, does not pertain to nor +invite her. We say this must be shown; and if it can not be, as +certainly it can not, then it follows that to withhold these +rights, so beneficial to one portion, is to work an immediate and +particular injury to those from whom they are withheld, and, +although a more indirect, not a less certain injury to all. +Man-masculine is not endowed by his Creator with certain +inalienable rights because he is male, but because he is human; +and when, in virtue of our strong and superior physical capacity, +we deny to man-feminine the rights which are ours only in virtue +of our humanity, we exercise the same indefensible tyranny +against which <i>we</i> felt justified in taking up arms, and +perilling life and fortune.</p> + +<p>The argument against conceding these rights all are familiar +with. They are precisely the same which have been in the mouths +of tyrants from the beginning of time, and have been urged +against any and every demand for popular liberty. A want of +capacity for self-government—freedom will be only +licentiousness—and out of the possession of rights will grow +only the practice of follies and wrongs. This is the argument, in +brief, applied to every step of gradual emancipation on the part +of the male, and now by him applied to the female struggling to +reach the common platform. Should the American male, in the van +of human progress, as the result of this theory of a capacity for +self-government, turn round and ignore this divinity, this +capacity in another branch of the human family? The theory has +worked only good in its application thus far, and it is a most +unreasonable, a most unwarrantable distrust to expect it to +produce mischief when applied to others in all respects mentally +and morally the equals of those who now enjoy it. It neither can +nor will do so; but, necessarily, the broader and more universal +its application, the broader and more universal its benefits.</p> + +<p>The possession of political rights by woman does not necessarily +imply that she must or will enter into the practical conduct of +all the institutions, proper and improper, now established and +maintained by the male portion of the race. These institutions +may be right and necessary, or they may not, and the nature of +woman may or may not be in harmony with them. It is not proposed +to enact a law compelling woman to do certain things, but it is +proposed simply to place her side by side with man on a common +platform of rights, confident<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> that, in that position, she will +not outrage the "higher law" of her nature by descending to a +participation in faults, follies, or crimes, for which she has no +constitutional predilections. The association of woman with man, +in the various relations of life in which such association is +permitted, from the first unclosing of his eyes in the imbecility +of infancy, till they close finally upon all things earthly, is +conceded to be highly beneficial. Indeed, we think it will be +found, on scrutiny, that it is only those institutions of society +in which women have no part, and from which they are entirely +excluded, which are radically wrong, and need either thorough +renovation or entire abrogation. And if we have any duties so +essentially degrading, or any institution so essentially impure, +as to be beyond the renovating influence which woman can bring to +bear on them, beyond question they should be abrogated without +delay—a result which woman's connection with them would speedily +bring about.</p> + +<p>Who dares say, then, that such association would not be equally +beneficial, if in every sphere of activity opened to man, woman +could enter with him and be at his side? Are our politics, in +their practice, so exalted, so dignified, so pure, that we need +no new associations, no purer and healthier influences, than now +connected with them? Is our Government just what we would have +it; are our rulers just what we would have them; in short, have +we arrived at that happy summit where perfection in these +respects is found? Not so. On the contrary, there is an universal +prayer throughout the length and breadth of the land, for reform +in these respects; and where, let us ask, could we reasonably +look for a more powerful agent to effect this reform, than in the +renovating influences of woman? That which has done so much for +the fireside and social life generally, neither can nor will lose +its potent, beneficial effect when brought to bear upon other +relations of life.</p> + +<p>To talk of confining woman to her proper sphere by legal +disabilities, is an insult to the divinity of her nature, +implying, as it does, the absence of instinctive virtue, modesty, +and sense on her part. It makes her the creature of law—of our +law—from which she is assumed to derive her ability to keep the +path of rectitude, and the withdrawal of which would leave her to +sink to the depths of folly and vice. Do we really think so badly +of our mothers, wives, sister, daughters? Is it really we only of +the race who are instinctively and innately so sensible, so +modest, so virtuous, as to be qualified, not only to take care of +ourselves, but to dispense all these exalted qualities to the +weaker, and, as we assume, inferior half of the race? If it be +so, it may be doubted whether Heaven's last gift was its best. +Kings, emperors, and dictators confine their subjects, by the +interposition of law, to what they consider their proper spheres; +and there is certainly as much propriety in it as in the +dictation, by one sex, of the sphere of a different sex. In the +assumption of our strength, we say woman must not have equal +rights with us, because she has a different nature. If so, by +what occult power do we understand that different nature to +dictate by metes and bounds its wants and spheres? Fair play is a +Yankee characteristic; and we submit, if but one-half of the race +can have rights at a time because of their different natures, +whether it is not about time the proscribed half had its chance +in, to assume the reins of Government, and dictate <i>our</i> sphere. +It is no great compliment to that part of the race to venture the +opinion, that the country would be full as well governed as it +now is, and our sphere would be bounded with quite as much +liberality as now is theirs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + +<p>Let every human being occupy a common platform of political +rights, and all will irresistibly gravitate exactly to their +proper place and sphere, without discord, and with none but the +most beneficial results. In this way human energy and capacity +will be fully economized and expended for the highest interest of +all humanity; and this result is only to be obtained by opening +to all, without restriction, common spheres of activity.</p> + +<p>Woman has all the interests on earth that man has—she has all +the interest in the future that man has. Man has rights only in +virtue of his relations to earth and heaven; and woman, whose +relations are the same, has the same rights. The possession of +her rights, on the part of woman, will interfere no more with the +duties of life, than their possession by man interferes with his +duties; and as man is presumed to become a better man in all +respects by the possession of his rights, such must be the +inevitable effect of their possession upon woman.</p> + +<p>The history of the race, thus far, has been a history of tyranny +by the strong over the weak. Might, not right, has been as yet +the fundamental practice of all governments; and under this order +of things, woman, physically weak, from a slave, beaten, bought, +and sold in the market, has but become, in the more civilized and +favored portions of the earth, the toy of wealth and the drudge +of poverty. But we now have at least a new and different theory +of government; and as the aspiration of one age is sure to be the +code of the next, and practice is sure at some time to overtake +theory, we have reason to expect that principle will take the +place of mere brute force, and the truth will be fully realized,</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That men and women have one glory and one shame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Everything that's done inhuman injures all of us the same."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Never, till woman stands side by side with man, his equal in the +eye of the law as well as the Creator, will the high destiny of +the race be accomplished. She is the mother of the race, and +every stain of littleness or inferiority cast upon her by our +institutions will soil the offspring she sends into the world, +and clip and curtail to that extent his fair proportions. If we +would abrogate that littleness of her character which finds a +delight in the gewgaws of fashion, and an enjoyment in the narrow +sphere of gossipping, social life, or tea-table scandal, so long +the ridicule of our sex; open to her new and more ennobling +fields of activity and thought—fields, the exploration of which +has filled the American males with great thoughts, and made them +the foremost people of the world, and which will place the +American females on their level, and make them truly helps meet +for them. When we can add to the men of America a race of women +educated side by side with them, and enjoying equal advantages +with them in all respects, we may expect an offspring of giants +in the comprehension and application of the great truths which +involve human rights and human happiness.</p> + +<p>These petitions ask that the necessary steps may be taken to +strike from the Constitution the legal distinction of sex. Your +Committee is in favor of the prayer of the petitions; but, under +the most favorable circumstances, that is a result which could +not be attained in less than two years. In all probability, it +will not be longer than that before the Constitution will come up +directly for revision, which will be a proper, appropriate, and +favorable time to press the question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> + +<p>Your Committee, therefore, introduces no bill, and recommends no +action at present.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">C. L. Sholes.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0">All of which is respectfully submitted.</p> + + +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">This able report was the result, in a great measure, of the agitation +started by Mrs. Nichols and Mrs. Fowler in 1853, and by Lucy Stone's +lecturing tour in 1855, thus proving that no true words or brave deeds +are ever lost. The experiences of these noble pioneers in their first +visits to Wisconsin, though in many respects trying and discouraging, +brought their own rich rewards, not only in higher individual +development, but in an improved public opinion and more liberal +legislation in regard to the rights of women in that State.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> "The Relation of Woman to Industry in Indiana," by May +Wright Sewall.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> The vast audience of women alone, in Apollo Hall, to +discuss the McFarland and Richardson tragedy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>PENNSYLVANIA.</h3> + + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>William Penn—Independence Hall—British troops—Heroism of +women—Lydia Darrah—Who designed the Flag—Anti-slavery +movements in Philadelphia—Pennsylvania Hall destroyed by a +mob—David Paul Brown—Fugitives—Millard Fillmore—John +Brown—Angelina Grimké—Abby Kelly—Mary Grew—Temperance in +1848—Hannah Darlington and Ann Preston before the +Legislature—Medical College for Women in 1850—Westchester Woman +Rights Convention, 1852—Philadelphia Convention, 1854—Lucretia +Mott answers Richard H. Dana—Jane Grey Swisshelm—Sarah Josepha +Hale—Anna McDowell—Rachel Foster searching the records.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">In</span> 1680, Charles II., King of England, granted to William Penn a tract +of land in consideration of the claims of his father, Admiral Penn, +which he named Pennsylvania. The charter for this land is still in +existence at Harrisburg, among the archives of the State. The +principal condition of the bargain with the Indians was the payment of +two beaver skins annually. This was the purchase money for the great +State of Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>Penn landed at New Castle October 27, 1682, and in November visited +the infant city of Philadelphia, where so many of the eventful scenes +of the Revolution transpired. Penn had been already imprisoned in +England several times for his Quaker principles, which had so +beneficent an influence in his dealings with the Indians, and on the +moral character of the religious sect he founded in the colonies.</p> + +<p>While yet a student he was expelled from Christ Church, Oxford, +because he was converted to Quakerism under the preaching of Thomas +Loe. He was imprisoned in Cork for attending a Quaker meeting, and in +the Tower of London in 1668 for writing "The Sandy Foundation Shaken," +and while there he wrote his great work, "No Cross, No Crown." In +1671, he was again imprisoned for preaching Quakerism, and as he would +take no oath on his trial, he was thrown into Newgate, and while there +he wrote his other great work on "Toleration."</p> + +<p>In 1729 the foundations of Independence Hall, the old State House, +were laid, and the building was completed in 1734. Here the first +Continental Congress was held in September, 1774; a Provincial +Convention in January, 1775; the Declaration of Independence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +proclaimed July 4, 1776, and on the 8th, read to thousands assembled +in front of the building. These great events have made Philadelphia +the birthplace of freedom, the Mecca of this western world, where the +lovers of liberty go up to worship; and made the Keystone State so +rich in memories, the brightest star in the republican constellation, +where in 1776 freedom was proclaimed, and in 1780 slavery was +abolished.</p> + +<p>Philadelphia remained the seat of Government until 1800. The British +troops occupied the city from September 26, 1777, to June 18, 1778. +During this period we find many interesting incidents in regard to the +heroism of women. In every way they aided the struggling army, not +only in providing food and clothes, ministering to the sick in camp +and hospitals, but on active duty as messengers and spies under most +difficult and dangerous circumstances. The brave deeds and severe +privations the women of this nation endured with cheerfulness would +fill volumes, yet no monuments are built to their memory, and only by +the right of petition have they as yet the slightest recognition in +the Government. A few instances that occurred at Philadelphia will +illustrate the patriotism of American women.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>While the American army remained encamped at White Marsh, the +British being in possession of Philadelphia, Gen. Howe made some +vain attempts to draw Washington into an engagement. The house +opposite the headquarters of Gen. Howe, tenanted by William and +Lydia Darrah, members of the Society of Friends, was the place +selected by the superior officers of the army for private +conference, whenever it was necessary to hold consultations.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of the 2d of December, the British +Adjutant-General called and informed the mistress that he and +some friends were to meet there that evening, and desired that +the back room up-stairs might be prepared for their reception. +"And be sure, Lydia," he concluded, "that your family are all in +bed at an early hour. When our guests are ready to leave the +house, I will myself give you notice, that you may let us out and +extinguish the candles."</p> + +<p>Having delivered this order, the Adjutant-General departed. Lydia +betook herself to getting all things in readiness. But she felt +curious to know what the business could be that required such +secrecy, and resolved on further investigation. Accordingly, in +the midst of their conference that night, she quietly approached +the door, and listening, heard a plan for the surprise of +Washington's forces arranged for the next night. She retreated +softly to her room and laid down; soon there was a knocking at +her door. She knew well what the signal meant, but took no heed +until it was repeated again and again, and then she arose +quickly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> and opened the door. It was the Adjutant-General who +came to inform her they were ready to depart. Lydia let them out, +fastened the door, extinguished the fire and lights, and returned +to her chamber, but she was uneasy, thinking of the threatened +danger.</p> + +<p>At the dawn of day she arose, telling her family that she must go +to Frankfort to procure some flour. She mounted her horse, and +taking the bag, started. The snow was deep and the cold intense, +but Lydia's heart did not falter. Leaving the grist at the mill, +she started on foot for the camp, determined to apprise Gen. +Washington of his danger. On the way she met one of his officers, +who exclaimed in astonishment at seeing her, but making her +errand known, she hastened home.</p> + +<p>Preparations were immediately made to give the enemy a fitting +reception. None suspected the grave, demure Quakeress of having +snatched from the English their anticipated victory; but after +the return of the British troops Gen. Howe summoned Lydia to his +apartment, locked the door with an air of mystery, and motioned +her to a seat. After a moment of silence, he said: "Were any of +your family up, Lydia, on the night when I received my company +here?" "No," she replied, "they all <i>retired</i> at eight o'clock." +"It is very strange," said the officer, and mused a few minutes. +"I know you were asleep, for I knocked at your door three times +before you heard me; yet it is certain that we were betrayed."</p> + +<p>Afterward some one asked Lydia how she could say her family were +all in bed while she herself was up; she replied, "Husband and +wife are one, and that one is the husband, and my husband was in +bed." Thus the wit and wisdom of this Quaker woman saved the +American forces at an important crisis, and perhaps turned the +fate of the Revolutionary War.</p></blockquote> + +<p>During that dreadful winter, 1780, at Valley Forge, the ladies of +Philadelphia combined to furnish clothing for the army. Money and +jewels were contributed in profusion. Those who could not give money, +gave their services freely. Not less than $7,500 were contributed to +an association for this purpose, of which Esther De Berdt Reed was +president. Though an English woman, the French Secretary said of her: +"She is called to this office as the best patriot, the most zealous +and active, and the most attached to the interests of the country."</p> + +<p>The archives of the Keystone State prove that she can boast many noble +women from the time of that great struggle for the nation's existence, +the signal for which was given when the brave old bell rang out from +Independence Hall its message of freedom. The very colors then +unfurled, and for the first time named the flag of the United States, +were the handiwork, and in part the invention of a woman. That to the +taste and suggestions of Mrs. Elizabeth Ross, of Philadelphia, we owe +the beauty of the Union's flag can not be denied. There are those who +would deprive her of all credit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> in this connection, and assert that +the committee appointed to prepare a flag gave her the perfected +design; but the evidence is in favor of her having had a large share +in the change from the original design to the flag as it now is; the +same flag which we have held as a nation since the memorable year of +the Declaration of Independence, the flag which now floats on every +sea, whose stars and stripes carry hope to all the oppressed nations +of the earth; though to woman it is but an <i>ignis fatuus</i>, an ever +waving signal of the ingratitude of the republic to one-half its +citizens.</p> + +<p>An anecdote of a female spy is related in the journal of Major +Tallmadge. While the Americans were at Valley Forge he was stationed +in the vicinity of Philadelphia with a detachment of cavalry to +observe the enemy and limit the range of British foraging parties. His +duties required the utmost vigilance, his squad seldom remained all +night in the same position, and their horses were rarely unsaddled. +Hearing that a country girl had gone into the city with eggs; having +been sent by one of the American officers to gain information; +Tallmadge advanced toward the British lines, and dismounted at a small +tavern within view of their outposts. The girl came to the tavern, but +while she was communicating her intelligence to the Major, the alarm +was given that the British light-horse were approaching. Tallmadge +instantly mounted, and as the girl entreated protection, bade her get +up behind him. They rode three miles at full speed to Germantown, the +damsel showing no fear, though there was some wheeling and charging, +and a brisk firing of pistols.</p> + +<p>Tradition tells of some women in Philadelphia, whose husbands used to +send intelligence from the American army through a market-boy, who +came into the city to bring provisions, and carried the dispatches +sent in the back of his coat. One morning, when there was some fear +that his movements were watched, a young girl undertook to get the +papers. In a pretended game of romps, she threw her shawl over his +head, and secured the prize. She hastened with the papers to her +friends, who read them with deep interest, after the windows were +carefully closed. When news came of Burgoyne's surrender, the +sprightly girl, not daring to give vent openly to her exultation, put +her head up the chimney and hurrahed for Gates.</p> + +<p>And not only in the exciting days of the Revolution do we find +abundant records of woman's courage and patriotism, but in all the +great moral movements that have convulsed the nation, she has taken an +active and helpful part. The soil of Pennsylvania is classic with the +startling events of the anti-slavery struggle. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> the first +Anti-Slavery Society, of which Benjamin Franklin was president, women +took part, not only as members, but as officers. The name of Lydia +Gillingham stands side by side with Jacob M. Ellis as associate +secretaries, signing reports of the "Association for the Abolition of +Slavery."</p> + +<p>The important part women took in the later movement, inaugurated by +William Lloyd Garrison, has already passed into history. The interest +in this question was intensified in this State, as it was the scene of +the continued recapture of fugitives. The heroism of the women, who +helped to fight this great battle of freedom, was only surpassed by +those who, taking their lives in their hands, escaped from the land of +slavery. The same love of liberty that glowed in eloquent words on the +lips of Lucretia Mott, Angelina Grimké, and Mary Grew, was echoed in +the brave deeds of Margaret Garner, Linda Brent, and Mrs. Stowe's +Eliza.</p> + +<p>On December 4, 1833, the Abolitionists assembled in Philadelphia to +hold a national convention, and to form the American Anti-Slavery +Society. During all the sessions of three days, women were constant +and attentive listeners. Lucretia Mott, Esther More, Sidney Ann Lewis, +and Lydia White, took part in the discussions.</p> + +<p>The following resolution, passed at the close of the third day, +without dissent, or a word to qualify or limit its application, shows +that no one then thought it improper for women to speak in public:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the thanks of the Convention be presented to our +female friends for the deep interest they have manifested in the +cause of anti-slavery, during the long and fatiguing sessions of +this Convention.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Samuel J. May, in writing of this occasion many years after, says: "It +is one of the proudest recollections of my life that I was a member of +the Convention in Philadelphia, in December, 1833, that formed the +American Anti-Slavery Society. And I well remember the auspicious +sequel to it, the formation of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery +Society. Nor shall I ever forget the wise, the impressive, the +animating words spoken in our Convention by dear Lucretia Mott and two +or three other excellent women who came to that meeting by divine +appointment. But with this last recollection will be forever +associated the mortifying fact, that we <i>men</i> were then so blind, so +obtuse, that we did not recognize those women as members of our +Convention, and insist upon their subscribing their names to our +'Declaration of Sentiments and Purposes.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>PHILADELPHIA ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.</h3> + +<p>No sooner did the National Society adjourn, than the women who had +listened to the discussions with such deep interest, assembled to +organize themselves for action. A few extracts from Mary Grew's final +report of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1870 show +that—</p> + +<blockquote><p>A meeting convened at the school-room of Catherine McDermott, +12th mo. 9th, 1833, to take into consideration the propriety of +forming a Female Anti-Slavery Society; addresses were made by +Samuel J. May, of Brooklyn, Conn., and Nathaniel Southard, of +Boston, who pointed out the important assistance that might be +rendered by our sex in removing the great evil of slavery. After +some discussion upon this interesting subject, it was concluded +to form a Society, in the belief that our combined efforts would +more effectually aid in relieving the oppression of our suffering +fellow-creatures. For this purpose a Committee was appointed to +draft a Constitution, and to propose such measures as would be +likely to promote the Abolition of Slavery, and to elevate the +people of color from their present degraded situation to the full +enjoyment of their rights, and to increased usefulness in +society.</p> + +<p>At a meeting held 12th mo. 14th, the Committee appointed on the +9th submitted a form of Constitution, which was read and adopted. +After its adoption, the following persons signed their names: +Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, Mary Ann Jackson, Margaretta Forten, +Sarah Louisa Forten, Grace Douglass, Mary Sleeper, Rebecca +Hitchins, Mary Clement, A. C. Eckstein, Mary Wood, Leah Fell, +Sidney Ann Lewis, Catherine McDermott, Susan M. Shaw, Lydia +White, Sarah McCrummell, Hetty Burr. The Society then proceeded +to the choice of officers for the ensuing year; when the +following persons were elected: Esther Moore, Presiding Officer; +Margaretta Forten, Recording Secretary; Lucretia Mott, +Corresponding Secretary; Anna Bunting, Treasurer; Lydia White, +Librarian.</p> + +<p>The Annual Reports of the first two years of this Society are not +extant; but from its third, we learn that in each of those years +the Society memorialized Congress, praying for the abolition of +slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories of the +United States. In the second year of its existence, it appointed +a Standing Committee for the purpose of visiting the schools for +colored children in this city, and aiding them in any practicable +way. In the third year it appointed a Committee "to make +arrangements for the establishment of a course of scientific +lectures, which our colored friends were particularly invited to +attend." The phraseology of this statement implies that white +persons were not to be excluded from these lectures, and +indicates a clear-sighted purpose, on the part of the Society, to +bear its testimony against distinctions founded on color. In this +year it published an Address to the Women of Pennsylvania, +calling their attention to the claims of the slave, and urging +them to sign petitions for his emancipation. Mrs. Elizabeth +Heyrick's well-known pamphlet, entitled "Immediate, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> Gradual +Emancipation," was during the same year republished by the +"Anti-Slavery Sewing Society," a body composed of some of the +members of this Association, but not identical with it, which met +weekly at the house of our Vice-President, Sidney Ann Lewis. +Another event, important and far-reaching beyond our power then +to foresee, had marked the year. A member of this Society<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> had +received and accepted a commission to labor as an agent of the +American Anti-Slavery Society. It is evident, from the language +of the Report, that the newly-appointed agent and her +fellow-members regarded the mission as one fraught with peculiar +trial of patience and faith, and anticipated the opposition which +such an innovation on the usages of the times would elicit. Her +appointed field of labor was among her own sex, in public or in +private; but in the next year's Report it is announced that she +had enlarged her sphere. The fact should never be forgotten by us +that it was a member of this Society who first broke the soil in +that field where so many women have since labored abundantly, and +are now reaping so rich a harvest.</p> + +<p>The next year, 1837, was made memorable by a still greater +innovation upon established usage—the first National Convention +of American Anti-Slavery Women. It is interesting and profitable +to notice, as the years passed, that new duties and new +responsibilities educated woman for larger spheres of action. +Each year brought new revelations, presented new aspects of the +cause, and made new demands. Our early Reports mention these +Conventions of Women, which were held during three consecutive +years in New York and this city, as a novel measure, which would, +of course, excite opposition; and they also record the fact that +"the editorial rebukes, sarcasm, and ridicule" which they +elicited, did not exceed the anticipations of the Abolitionists.</p> + +<p>The second of these Conventions was held in this city, in the +midst of those scenes of riot when infuriated Southern +slaveholders and cowardly Northern tradesmen combined for +purposes of robbery and arson, and surrounded Pennsylvania Hall +with their representatives, the mob which plundered and burnt it, +while the City Government looked on consenting to these crimes. +That Convention was the last assembly gathered in that Hall, then +just dedicated to the service of Freedom. Its fifth session, on +the 17th of May, 1838, was held, calmly and deliberately, while +the shouts of an infuriated mob rose around the building, +mingling with the speakers' voices, and sometimes overwhelming +them; while stones and other missiles crashing through the +windows imperilled the persons of many of the audience. The +presence of an assembly of women was supposed to be a partial +protection against the fury of the rioters; and believing that +the mob would not fire the building while it was thus filled, a +committee of anti-slavery men sent a request to the Convention to +remain in session during the usual interval between the afternoon +and evening meetings, if, with their knowledge of their perilous +surroundings, they felt willing to do so. The President laid the +request before the Convention, and asked, Will you remain? A few +minutes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> solemn deliberation; a few moments' listening to the +loud madness surging against the outer walls; a moment's unvoiced +prayer for wisdom and strength, and the answer came: <i>We will</i>; +and the business of the meeting proceeded. But before the usual +hour of adjournment arrived, another message came from the +committee, withdrawing their request, and stating that further +developments of the spirit pervading the mob and the city, +convinced them that it would be unwise for the Convention to +attempt to hold possession of the Hall for the evening. The +meeting adjourned at the usual hour, and, on the next morning, +the burnt and crumbling remains of Pennsylvania Hall told the +story of Philadelphia's disgrace, and the temporary triumph of +the spirit of slavery.</p> + +<p>The experience of that morning is very briefly mentioned in the +published "Proceedings," which state that "the Convention met, +pursuant to adjournment, at Temperance Hall, but found the doors +closed by order of the managers"; that they were offered the use +of a school-room, in which they assembled; and there the +Convention held its closing session of six hours. But they who +made a part of the thrilling history of those times well remember +how the women of that Convention walked through the streets of +this city, from the Hall on Third Street, closed against them, to +the school-room on Cherry Street, hospitably opened to them by +Sarah Pugh and Sarah Lewis, and were assailed by the insults of +the populace as they went. It was a meeting memorable to those +who composed it; and was one of many interesting associations of +our early anti-slavery history which cluster around the +school-house, which in those days was always open to the advocacy +of the slave's cause.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> + +<p>An incident in connection with the last of these Conventions, +shows how readily and hopefully, in the beginning of our work, we +turned for help to the churches and religious societies of the +land; and how slowly and painfully we learned their real +character. It is long since we ceased to expect efficient help +from them; but in those first years of our warfare against +slavery, we had not learned that the ecclesiastical standard of +morals in a nation <i>can not</i> be higher than the standard of the +populace generally.</p> + +<p>A committee of arrangements appointed to obtain a house in which +the Convention should be held, reported: "That in compliance with +a resolution passed at a meeting of this Society, an application +was made to each of the seven Monthly Meetings of Friends, in +this city, for one of their meeting-houses, in which to hold the +Convention." Two returned respectful answers, declining the +application; three refused to hear it read; one appointed two +persons to examine it, and then decided "that it should be +<i>returned without being read</i>," though a few members urged "that +it should be treated more respectfully"; and that from one +meeting no answer was received.</p> + +<p>As to other denominations of professed Christians, similar +applications had been frequently refused by them, although there +was one exception<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> which should be ever held in honorable +remembrance by the Abolitionists of Philadelphia. The use of the +church of the Covenanters, in Cherry street, of which Rev. James +M. Wilson was for many years the pastor, was never refused for an +anti-slavery meeting, even in the most perilous days of our +enterprise. Another fact in connection with the Convention of +1839 it is pleasant to remember now, when the faithful friend +whose name it recalls has gone from among us. The Committee of +Arrangements reported that their difficulties and perplexities +"were relieved by a voluntary offer from that devoted friend of +the slave, John H. Cavender, who, with kindness at once +unexpected and gratifying, offered the use of a large unfurnished +building in Filbert Street, which had been used as a riding +school; which was satisfactorily and gratefully occupied by the +Convention."</p> + +<p>In the year 1840, our Society sent delegates to the assembly +called "The World's Anti-Slavery Convention," which was held in +London, in the month of May of that year. As is well known, that +body refused to admit any delegates excepting those of the male +sex, though the invitation was not thus limited; consequently, +this Society was not represented there.</p> + +<p>The year 1850 was an epoch in the history of the anti-slavery +cause. The guilt and disgrace of the nation was then intensified +by that infamous statute known by the name of "The Fugitive Slave +Law." Its enactment by the Thirty-first Congress, and its +ratification by Millard Fillmore's signature, was the signal for +an extensive and cruel raid upon the colored people of the North. +Probably no statute was ever written, in the code of a civilized +nation, so carefully and cunningly devised for the purpose of +depriving men of liberty. It put in imminent peril the personal +freedom of every colored man and woman in the land. It furnished +the kidnapper all possible facilities, and bribed the judge on +the bench to aid him in his infamous work. The terrible scenes +that followed; the cruel apathy of the popular heart and +conscience; the degradation of the pulpit, which sealed the deed +with its loud Amen! the mortal terror of a helpless and innocent +race; the fierce assaults on peaceful homes; the stealthy +capture, by day and by night, of unsuspecting free-born people; +the blood shed on Northern soil; the mockeries of justice acted +in United States courts; are they not all written in our +country's history, and indelibly engraven on the memories of +Abolitionists?</p> + +<p>The case of Adam Gibson, captured in this city by the notorious +kidnapper, Alberti, and tried before the scarcely less notorious +Ingraham, in the year 1850, and which was succeeded in the next +year by the Christiana tragedy, are instances of many similar +outrages committed in Pennsylvania. No pen can record, no human +power can estimate, the aggregate of woe and guilt which was the +legitimate result of that Fugitive Slave Bill.</p> + +<p>The year 1855 was marked by a series of events unique in our +history. A citizen of Philadelphia, whose name will always be +associated with the cause of American liberty, in the legal +performance of his duty, quietly informed three slaves who had +been brought into this State by their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> master, a Virginia +slaveholder, that by the laws of Pennsylvania they were free. The +legally emancipated mother, Jane Johnson, availing herself of +this knowledge, took possession of her own person and her own +children; and their astonished master suddenly discovered that +his power to hold them was gone forever. No judge, commissioner, +or lawyer, however willing, could help him to recapture his prey. +But a judge of the United States District Court could assist him +in obtaining a mean revenge upon the brave man who had +enlightened an ignorant woman respecting her legal right to +freedom. Judge Kane, usurping jurisdiction in the case, and +exercising great ingenuity to frame a charge of contempt of +Court, succeeded in his purpose of imprisoning Passmore +Williamson in our County jail. The baffled slaveholder also found +sympathizers in the Grand Jury, who enabled him to indict for +riot and assault and battery, Passmore Williamson, William Still, +and five other persons. During the trial which ensued, the +prosecutor and his allies were confounded by the sudden +appearance of a witness whose testimony that she was not forcibly +taken from her master's custody, but had left him freely, +disconcerted all their schemes, and defeated the prosecution. The +presence of Jane Johnson in that court room jeoparded her +newly-acquired freedom; for though Pennsylvania was pledged to +her protection, it was questionable whether the slave power, in +the person of United States officers and their ever ready +minions, would not forcibly overpower State authority and obtain +possession of the woman. It was an intensely trying hour for her +and for all who sympathized with her. Among those who attended +her through that perilous scene, were the president of this +Society, Sarah Pugh, and several of its members. All those ladies +will testify to the calm bearing and firm courage of this +emancipated slave-mother, in the hour of jeopardy to her +newly-found freedom. Protected by the energy and skill of the +presiding Judge, William D. Kelley, and of the State officers, +her safe egress from the court-room was accomplished; and she was +soon placed beyond the reach of her pursuers.</p> + +<p>In 1859 we reaped a rich harvest from long years of sowing, in +the result of the trial of the alleged fugitive slave, Daniel +Webster. This trial will never be forgotten by those of us who +witnessed it. The arrest was made in Harrisburg, in the month of +April, and the trial was in this city before United States +Commissioner John C. Longstreth. We do not, at this distance of +time, need the records of that year, to remind us that "it was +with heavy and hopeless hearts that the Abolitionists of this +city gathered around that innocent and outraged man, and attended +him through the solemn hours of his trial." The night which many +of the members of this Society passed in that court, keeping +vigils with the unhappy man whose fate hung tremulous on the +decision of the young commissioner, was dark with despair; and +the dawn of morning brought no hope to our souls. We confidently +expected to witness again, as we had often witnessed before, the +triumph of the kidnapper and his legal allies over law and +justice and human liberty. In the afternoon of that day we +re-assembled to hear the judicial decision which should consign +the wretched man to slavery, and add another page to the record +of Pennsylvania's disgrace. But a far different experience +awaited us. Commissioner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> Longstreth obeyed the moral sentiment +around him, and doubtless the voice of his conscience, and +pronounced the captive free. "The closing scenes of this trial; +the breathless silence with which the crowded assembly in the +court-room waited to hear the death-knell of the innocent +prisoner; the painfully sudden transition from despair to hope +and thence to certainty of joy; the burst of deep emotion; the +fervent thanksgiving, wherein was revealed that sense of the +brotherhood of man which God has made a part of every human soul; +the exultant shout which went up from the multitude who thronged +the streets waiting for the decision"; these no language can +portray, but they are life-long memories for those who shared in +them. This event proved the great change wrought in the popular +feeling, the result of twenty-five years of earnest effort to +impress upon the heart of this community anti-slavery doctrines +and sentiments. Then for the first time the Abolitionists of +Philadelphia found their right of free speech protected by city +authorities. Alexander Henry was the first Mayor of this city who +ever quelled a pro-slavery mob.</p> + +<p>Our last record of a victim sacrificed to this statute, is of the +case of Moses Horner, who was kidnapped near Harrisburg in March, +1860, and doomed to slavery by United States Judge John +Cadwallader, in this city. One more effort was made a few months +later to capture in open day in the heart of this city a man +alleged to be a fugitive slave, but it failed of ultimate +success. The next year South Carolina's guns thundered forth the +doom of the slave power. She aimed them at Fort Sumter and the +United States Government. God guided their fiery death to the +very heart of American slavery.</p> + +<p>If the history of this Society were fully written, one of its +most interesting chapters would be a faithful record of its +series of annual fairs. Beginning in the year 1836, the series +continued during twenty-six years, the last fair being held in +December, 1861. The social attraction of these assemblies induced +many young persons to mingle in them, besides those who labored +from love of the cause. Brought thus within the circle of +anti-slavery influence, many were naturally converted to our +principles, and became earnest laborers in the enterprise which +had so greatly enriched their own souls. The week of the fair was +the annual Social Festival of the Abolitionists of the State. +Though held under the immediate direction of this Society, it +soon became a Pennsylvania institution. Hither our tribes came up +to take counsel together, to recount our victories won, to be +refreshed by social communion, and to renew our pledges of +fidelity to the slave. There were years when these were very +solemn festivals, when our skies were dark with gathering storms, +and we knew not what peril the night or the morning might bring. +But they were always seasons from which we derived strength and +encouragement for future toil and endurance, and their value to +our cause is beyond our power to estimate.</p> + +<p>The pro-slavery spirit which always pervaded our city, and which +sometimes manifested itself in the violence of mobs, never +seriously disturbed our fair excepting in one instance. In the +year 1859 our whole Southern country quaked with mortal fear in +the presence of John Brown's great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> deed for Freedom. The coward +North trembled in its turn lest its Southern trade should be +imperilled, and in all its cities there went up a frantic cry +that the Union must be saved and the Abolitionists suppressed. +The usual time for holding our fair was at hand. Before it was +opened a daily newspaper of this city informed its readers that +notwithstanding the rebuke which the Abolitionists had received +from a recent meeting of Union-savers, they had audaciously +announced their intention of holding another fair, the avowed +purpose of which was the dissemination of anti-slavery +principles. The indignant journalist asked if Philadelphia would +suffer such a fair to be held. This was doubtless intended as a +summons to a mob, and a most deadly mob responded to the call. It +did not expend its violence upon our fair, but against an +assembly in National Hall, gathered to listen to a lecture by +George W. Curtis, upon the Present Aspect of the Country.</p> + +<p>The High Constable, Mayor, and Sheriff were the agents employed +by the slave power to take and hold possession of Concert Hall, +and in its behalf, if not in its name, to eject us and our +property. The work was commenced by the Mayor, who sent the High +Constable with an order that our flag should be removed from the +street. Its offensiveness consisted in the fact that it presented +to the view of all passers-by a picture of the Liberty Bell in +Independence Hall, inscribed with the words, "Proclaim liberty +throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." The +next step was an attempt to induce the lessee to eject us from +the hall. On his refusal to violate his contract with us, the +trustees obtained legal authority to dispossess us on the plea +that the hall had been rented for a purpose which tended to +excite popular commotion. The sheriff entered, took possession, +and informed the managers that our property must be removed +within three hours. Then were the doors of this hall,<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> where +we are now assembled, opened to us, and here our fair was held, +with great success, during the remainder of the week. In the +stormiest seasons of our enterprise these saloons have never been +closed against anti-slavery meetings; and our fair of 1860 was +welcomed to them amidst the loud threatenings of a mob which were +seeking to appease the angry South, then just rising in open +rebellion against the United States Government. The experience of +those four days of December spent in these rooms will never be +forgotten by us. It was a season of trial, of rejoicing, and of +victory. The veterans of our cause, long accustomed to the +threats and the presence of mobs, found reason for rejoicing in +the courage and serenity with which the young recruits in our +ranks faced the peril of scenes so new to them, and proved their +faith in the principles of our cause and their devotion to the +right. Our victory was complete, our right of peaceful assemblage +maintained, without any active demonstration of hostility from +the indignant citizens who had fiercely resolved that the +Anti-Slavery Fair should be suppressed. Such demonstrations were, +doubtless, restrained by a knowledge of the fact that they would +be met by vigorous and effectual opposition by the Mayor of the +city, who,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> upon that occasion, as upon many other similar ones, +was faithful to the responsibility of his office.</p> + +<p>In the year 1862 the nation was convulsed with the war consequent +upon the Southern Rebellion; our soldiers, wounded and dying in +hospitals and on battle-fields; claimed all possible aid from the +community; anti-slavery sentiments were spreading widely through +the North, and it was believed to be feasible and expedient to +obtain the funds needful for our enterprise by direct appeal to +the old and new friends of the cause. Therefore, our series of +fairs closed with the twenty-sixth, in December, 1861.</p> + +<p>The money raised by this Society in various ways amounted to +about $35,000. Nearly the whole of this revenue has been expended +in disseminating the principles of our cause, by means of printed +documents and public lectures and discussions. In the earlier +years of this Society, a school for colored children, established +and taught by Sarah M. Douglass, was partially sustained from our +treasury. We occasionally contributed, from our treasury, small +sums for the use of the Vigilance Committees, organized to assist +fugitive slaves who passed through this State on their way to a +land where their right to liberty would be protected. But these +enterprises were always regarded as of secondary importance to +our great work of direct appeal to the conscience of the nation, +in behalf of the slave's claim to immediate, unconditional +emancipation. To this end a large number of tracts and pamphlets +have been circulated by this Society; but its chief agencies have +been the anti-slavery newspapers of the country. Regarding these +as the most powerful instrumentalities in the creation of that +public sentiment which was essential to the overthrow of slavery, +we expended a considerable portion of our funds in the direct +circulation of <i>The Liberator</i>, <i>The Pennsylvania Freeman</i>, and +<i>The National Anti-Slavery Standard</i>, and a small amount in the +circulation of other anti-slavery papers. Our largest +appropriations of money have been made to the Pennsylvania and +American Anti-Slavery Societies, and by those Societies to the +support of their organs and lecturing agents.</p> + +<p>The financial statistics of this Society are easily recorded. +Certain great and thrilling events which marked its history are +easily told and written. But the life which it lived through all +its thirty-six years; the influence which flowed from it, +directly and indirectly, to the nation's heart; the work quietly +done by its members, individually, through the word spoken in +season, the brave, self-sacrificing deed, the example of fidelity +in a critical hour, the calm endurance unto the end; these can be +written in no earthly book of remembrance. Its life is lived; its +work is done; its memorial is sealed. It assembles to-day to take +one parting look across its years; to breathe in silence its +unutterable thanksgiving; to disband its membership, and cease to +be. Reviewing its experience of labor and endurance, the united +voices of its members testify that it has been a service whose +reward was in itself; and contemplating the grandeur of the work +accomplished (in which it has been permitted to bear a humble +part), the overthrow of American slavery, the uplifting from +chattelhood to citizenship of four millions of human souls; with +one heart and one voice we cry, "Not unto us, O Lord! not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> unto +us, but unto Thy name" be the glory; for Thy right hand and Thy +holy arm "hath gotten the victory."</p></blockquote> + +<p>In 1838, Philadelphia was the scene of one of the most disgraceful +mobs that marked those eventful days. The lovers of free speech had +found great difficulty in procuring churches or halls in which to +preach the anti-slavery gospel. Accordingly, a number of individuals +of all sects and no sect, of all parties and no party, erected a +building wherein the principles of Liberty and Equality could be +freely discussed.</p> + +<p>David Paul Brown, one of Pennsylvania's most distinguished lawyers, +was invited to give the oration dedicating this hall to "Freedom and +the Rights of Man." In accepting the invitation, he said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>For some time past I have invariably declined applications that +might be calculated to take any portion of my time from my +profession. But I always said, and now say again, that I will +fight the battle of liberty as long as I have a shot in the +locker. Of course, I will do what you require.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">David Paul Brown.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours truly,</p> +<p class="ltr-to clear"><span class="smcap">S. Webb</span> and <span class="smcap">Wm. H. Scott</span>, Esqs.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Whenever fugitives were arrested on the soil of Pennsylvania, this +lawyer stood ready, free of charge, to use in their behalf his skill +and every fair interpretation of the letter and spirit of the law, and +availing himself of every quirk for postponements, thus adding to the +expense and anxiety of the pursuer, and giving the engineers of the +underground railroad added opportunities to run the fugitive to +Canada.</p> + +<p>Pennsylvania Hall was one of the most commodious and splendid +buildings in the city, scientifically ventilated and brilliantly +lighted with gas. It cost upward of $40,000. Over the forum, in large +gold letters, was the motto, "Virtue, Liberty, Independence." On the +platform were superb chairs, sofas, and desk covered with blue silk +damask; everything throughout the hall was artistic and complete. +Abolitionists from all parts of the country hastened to be present at +the dedication; and among the rest came representatives of the Woman's +National Convention, held in New York one year before.</p> + +<p>Notices had been posted about the city threatening the speedy +destruction of this temple of liberty. During this three days' +Convention, the enemy was slowly organizing the destructive mob that +finally burned that grand edifice to the ground. There were a large +number of strangers in the city from the South, and many Southern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +students attending the medical college, who were all active in the +riot. The crowds of women and colored people who had attended the +Convention intensified the exasperation of the mob. Black men and +white women walking side by side in and out of the hall, was too much +for the foreign plebeian and the Southern patrician.</p> + +<p>As it was announced that on the evening of the third day some ladies +were to speak, a howling mob surrounded the building. In the midst of +the tumult Mr. Garrison introduced Maria Chapman,<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> of Boston, who +rose, and waving her hand to the audience to become quiet, tried in a +few eloquent and appropriate remarks to bespeak a hearing for Angelina +E. Grimké, the gifted orator from South Carolina, who, having lived in +the midst of slavery all her life, could faithfully describe its +cruelties and abominations. But the indescribable uproar outside, +cries of fire, and yells of defiance, were a constant interruption, +and stones thrown against the windows a warning of coming danger. But +through it all this brave Southern woman stood unmoved, except by the +intense earnestness of her own great theme.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">ANGELINA GRIMKÉ'S ADDRESS.</p> + +<p>Do you ask, "What has the North to do with slavery?" Hear it, +hear it! Those voices without tell us that the spirit of slavery +is <i>here</i>, and has been roused to wrath by our Conventions; for +surely liberty would not foam and tear herself with rage, because +her friends are multiplied daily, and meetings are held in quick +succession to set forth her virtues and extend her peaceful +kingdom. This opposition shows that slavery has done its +deadliest work in the hearts of our citizens. Do you ask, then, +"What has the North to do?" I answer, cast out first the spirit +of slavery from your own hearts, and then lend your aid to +convert the South. Each one present has a work to do, be his or +her situation what it may, however limited their means or +insignificant their supposed influence. The great men of this +country will not do this work; the Church will never do it. A +desire to please the world, to keep the favor of all parties and +of all conditions, makes them dumb on this and every other +unpopular subject.</p> + +<p>As a Southerner, I feel that it is my duty to stand up here +to-night and bear testimony against slavery. I have seen it! I +have seen it! I know it has horrors that can never be described. +I was brought up under its wing. I witnessed for many years its +demoralizing influences and its destructiveness to human +happiness. I have never seen a happy slave. I have seen him dance +in his chains, it is true, but he was not happy. There is a wide +difference between happiness and mirth. Man can not enjoy +happiness while his manhood is destroyed. Slaves, however, may +be, and sometimes are mirthful. When hope is extinguished, they +say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." [Here stones +were thrown at the windows—a great noise without and commotion +within].</p> + +<p>What is a mob? what would the breaking of every window be? What +would the levelling of this hall be? Any evidence that we are +wrong, or that slavery is a good and wholesome institution? What +if the mob should now burst in upon us, break up our meeting, and +commit violence upon our persons, would that be anything compared +with what the slaves endure? No, no; and we do not remember them, +"as bound with them," if we shrink in the time of peril, or feel +unwilling to sacrifice ourselves, if need be, for their sake. +[Great noise]. I thank the Lord that there is yet life enough +left to feel the truth, even though it rages at it; that +conscience is not so completely seared as to be unmoved by the +truth of the living God. [Another outbreak of the mob and +confusion in the house].</p> + +<p>How wonderfully constituted is the human mind! How it resists, as +long as it can, all efforts to reclaim it from error! I feel that +all this disturbance is but an evidence that our efforts are the +best that could have been adopted, or else the friends of slavery +would not care for what we say and do. The South know what we do. +I am thankful that they are reached by our efforts. Many times +have I wept in the land of my birth over the system of slavery. I +knew of none who sympathized in my feelings; I was unaware that +any efforts were made to deliver the oppressed; no voice in the +wilderness was heard calling on the people to repent and do works +meet for repentance, and my heart sickened within me. Oh, how +should I have rejoiced to know that such efforts as these were +being made. I only wonder that I had such feelings. But in the +midst of temptation I was preserved, and my sympathy grew warmer, +and my hatred of slavery more inveterate, until at last I have +exiled myself from my native land, because I could no longer +endure to hear the wailing of the slave.</p> + +<p>I fled to the land of Penn; for here, thought I, sympathy for the +slave will surely be found. But I found it not. The people were +kind and hospitable, but the slave had no place in their +thoughts. I therefore shut up my grief in my own heart. I +remembered that I was a Carolinian, from a State which framed +this iniquity by law. Every Southern breeze wafted to me the +discordant tones of weeping and wailing, shrieks and groans, +mingled with prayers and blasphemous curses. My heart sank within +me at the abominations in the midst of which I had been born and +educated. What will it avail, cried I, in bitterness of spirit, +to expose to the gaze of strangers the horrors and pollutions of +slavery, when there is no ear to hear nor heart to feel and pray +for the slave? But how different do I feel now! Animated with +hope, nay, with an assurance of the triumph of liberty and +good-will to man, I will lift up my voice like a trumpet, and +show this people what they can do to influence the Southern mind +and overthrow slavery. [Shouting, and stones against the +windows].</p> + +<p>We often hear the question asked, "What shall we do?" Here is an +opportunity. Every man and every woman present may do something, +by showing that we fear not a mob, and in the midst of revilings +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> threatenings, pleading the cause of those who are ready to +perish. Let me urge every one to buy the books written on this +subject; read them, and lend them to your neighbors. Give your +money no longer for things which pander to pride and lust, but +aid in scattering "the living coals of truth upon the naked heart +of the nation"; in circulating appeals to the sympathies of +Christians in behalf of the outraged slave.</p> + +<p>But it is said by some, our "books and papers do not speak the +truth"; why, then, do they not contradict what we say? They can +not. Moreover, the South has entreated, nay, commanded us, to be +silent; and what greater evidence of the truth of our +publications could be desired?</p> + +<p>Women of Philadelphia! allow me as a Southern woman, with much +attachment to the land of my birth, to entreat you to come up to +this work. Especially, let me urge you to petition. Men may +settle this and other questions at the ballot-box, but you have +no such right. It is only through petitions that you can reach +the Legislature. It is, therefore, peculiarly your duty to +petition. Do you say, "It does no good!" The South already turns +pale at the number sent. They have read the reports of the +proceedings of Congress, and there have seen that among other +petitions were very many from the women of the North on the +subject of slavery. Men who hold the rod over slaves rule in the +councils of the nation; and they deny our right to petition and +remonstrate against abuses of our sex and our kind. We have these +rights, however, from our God. Only let us exercise them, and, +though often turned away unanswered, let us remember the +influence of importunity upon the unjust judge, and act +accordingly. The fact that the South looks jealously upon our +measures shows that they are effectual. There is, therefore, no +cause for doubting or despair.</p> + +<p>It was remarked in England that women did much to abolish slavery +in her colonies. Nor are they now idle. Numerous petitions from +them have recently been presented to the Queen to abolish +apprenticeship, with its cruelties, nearly equal to those of the +system whose place it supplies. One petition, two miles and a +quarter long, has been presented. And do you think these labors +will be in vain? Let the history of the past answer. When the +women of these States send up to Congress such a petition our +legislators will arise, as did those of England, and say: "When +all the maids and matrons of the land are knocking at our doors +we must legislate." Let the zeal and love, the faith and works of +our English sisters quicken ours; that while the slaves continue +to suffer, and when they shout for deliverance, we may feel the +satisfaction of "having done what we could."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Abby Kelly</span>, of Lynn, Massachusetts, rose, and said: I ask +permission to pay a few words. I have never before addressed a +promiscuous assembly; nor is it now the maddening rush of those +voices, which is the indication of a moral whirlwind; nor is it +the crashing of those windows, which is the indication of a moral +earthquake, that calls me before you. No, these pass unheeded by +me. But it is the "still small voice within," which may not be +withstood, that bids me open my mouth for the dumb; that bids me +plead the cause of God's perishing poor; aye, <i>God's</i> poor.</p> + +<p>The parable of Lazarus and the rich man we may well bring home +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> ourselves. The North is that rich man. How he is clothed in +purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously! Yonder, yonder, at +a little distance, is the gate where lies the Lazarus of the +South, full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that +fall from our luxurious table. Look! see him there! even the dogs +are more merciful than we. Oh, see him where he lies! We have +long, very long, passed by with averted eyes. Ought not we to +raise him up; and is there one in this Hall who sees nothing for +himself to do?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span>, of Philadelphia, then stated that the present was +not a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American women, +as was supposed by some, and explained the reason why their +meetings were confined to females; namely, that many of the +members considered it improper for women to address promiscuous +assemblies. She hoped that such false notions of delicacy and +propriety would not long obtain in this enlightened country.</p></blockquote> + +<p>While the large Hall was filled with a promiscuous audience, and +packed through all its sessions with full three thousand people, the +women held their Convention in one of the committee-rooms. As they had +been through terrible mobs already in Boston and New York, they had +learned self-control, and with their coolness and consecration to the +principles they advocated, they were a constant inspiration to the men +by their side.</p> + +<p>The Second National Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women +assembled in the lecture-room of Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia, +May 15, 1838, at ten o'clock <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> The following officers were +appointed:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">President</span>—Mary L. Parker, of Boston.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Vice-Presidents</span>—Maria Weston Chapman, Catharine M. Sullivan, +Susan Paul, of Boston, Mass.; Mariana Johnson, Providence, R. I.; +Margaret Prior, Sarah T. Smith, of New York; Martha W. Storrs, of +Utica, N. Y.; Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia; Mary W. Magill, of +Buckingham, Pa.; Sarah Moore Grimké, of Charleston, S. C.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Secretaries</span>—Anne W. Weston, Martha V. Ball, of Boston; Juliana +A. Tappan, of New York; Sarah Lewis, of Philadelphia.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Treasurer</span>—Sarah M. Douglass, of Philadelphia.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Business Committee</span>—Sarah T. Smith, Sarah R. Ingraham, Margaret +Dye, Juliana A. Tappan, Martha W. Storrs, New York; Miriam +Hussey, Maine; Louisa Whipple, New Hampshire; Lucy N. Dodge, +Miriam B, Johnson, Maria Truesdell, Waity A. Spencer, Rebecca +Pittman, Rhode Island; Lucretia Mott, Mary Grew, Sarah M. +Douglass, Hetty Burr, Martha Smith, Pennsylvania; Angelina Grimké +Weld, South Carolina.</p> + +<p>On motion of <span class="smcap">Sarah Push</span>, Elizabeth M. Southard, Mary G. Chapman, +and Abby Kelly were appointed a committee to confer with other +associations and the managers of Pennsylvania Hall to arrange for +meetings during the week.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sarah T. Smith</span>, from the Business Committee, presented letters +from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> the Female Anti-Slavery Societies of Salem and +Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, signed by their respective +secretaries, Mary Spencer and L. Williams.</p></blockquote> + +<p>At this time, even the one and only right of woman, that of petition, +had been trampled under the heel of slavery on the floor of Congress, +which roused those noble women to a just indignation, as will be seen +in their resolutions on the subject, presented by Juliana A. Tappan:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That whatever may be the sacrifice, and whatever +other rights may be yielded or denied, we will maintain +practically the right of petition until the slave shall go free, +or our energies, like Lovejoy's, are paralyzed in death.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That for every petition rejected by the National +Legislature during their last session, we will endeavor to send +five the present year; and that we will not cease our efforts +until the prayers of every woman within the sphere of our +influence shall be heard in the halls of Congress on this +subject.</p></blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary Grew</span> offered the following resolution, which was adopted:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The disciples of Christ are commanded to have no +fellowship with the "unfruitful works of darkness"; and</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, Union in His Church is the strongest expression of +fellowship between men; therefore</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That it is our duty to keep ourselves separate from +those churches which receive to their pulpits and their communion +tables those who buy, or sell, or hold as property, the image of +the living God.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This resolution was supported by Miss Grew, Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelly, +Maria W. Chapman, Anne W. Weston, Sarah T. Smith, and Sarah Lewis; and +opposed by Margaret Dye, Margaret Prior, Henrietta Wilcox, Martha W. +Storrs, Juliana A. Tappan, Elizabeth M. Southard, and Charlotte +Woolsey. Those who voted in the negative stated that they fully +concurred with their sisters in the belief that slaveholders and their +apologists were guilty before God, and that with the former, Northern +Christians should hold no fellowship; but that, as it was their full +belief that there was moral power sufficient in the Church, if rightly +applied, to purify it, they could not feel it their duty to withdraw +until the utter inefficiency of the means used should constrain them +to believe the Church totally corrupt. And as an expression of their +views, Margaret Dye moved the following resolution:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the system of American slavery is contrary to +the laws of God and the spirit of true religion, and that the +Church is deeply implicated in this sin, and that it therefore +becomes the imperative duty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> her members to petition their +ecclesiastical bodies to enter their decided protests against it, +and exclude slaveholders from their pulpits and communion tables.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The last session was opened by the reading of the sixth chapter of 2 +Corinthians, and prayer by Sarah M. Grimké. An Address to Anti-Slavery +Societies was read by Sarah T. Smith, and adopted. We copy from it the +plea and argument for woman's right and duty to be interested in all +questions of public welfare:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">ADDRESS TO ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—In that love for our cause which knows not the +fear of man, we address you in confidence that our motives will +be understood and regarded. We fear not censure from you for +going beyond the circle which has been drawn around us by +physical force, by mental usurpation, by the usages of ages; not +any one of which can we admit gives the right to prescribe it; +else might the monarchs of the old world sit firmly on their +thrones, the nobility of Europe lord it over the man of low +degree, and the chains we are now seeking to break, continue +riveted, on the neck of the slave. Our faith goes not back to the +wigwam of the savage, or the castle of the feudal chief, but +would rather soar with hope to that period when "right alone +shall make might"; when the truncheon and the sword shall lie +useless; when the intellect and heart shall speak and be obeyed; +when "He alone whose right it is shall rule and reign in the +hearts of the children of men."</p> + +<p>We are told that it is not within "the province of woman" to +discuss the subject of slavery; that it is a "political +question," and that we are "stepping out of our sphere" when we +take part in its discussion. It is not true that it is merely a +political question; it is likewise a question of justice, of +humanity, of morality, of religion; a question which, while it +involves considerations of immense importance to the welfare, and +prosperity of our country, enters deeply into the home—concerns +the every-day feelings of millions of our fellow beings. Whether +the laborer shall receive the reward of his labor, or be driven +daily to unrequited toil: whether he shall walk erect in the +dignity of conscious manhood, or be reckoned among the beasts +which perish; whether his bones and sinews shall be his own, or +another's; whether his child shall receive the protection of its +natural guardian, or be ranked among the live-stock of the +estate, to be disposed of as the caprice or interest of the +master may dictate; whether the sun of knowledge shall irradiate +the hut of the peasant, or the murky cloud of ignorance brood +darkly over it; whether "every one shall have the liberty to +worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience," or +man assume the prerogative of Jehovah and impiously seek to plant +himself upon the throne of the Almighty. These considerations are +all involved in the question of liberty or slavery.</p> + +<p>And is a subject comprehending interests of such magnitude, +merely a "political question," and one in which woman "can take +no part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> without losing something of the modesty and gentleness +which are her most appropriate ornaments"? May not the "ornament +of a meek and quiet spirit" exist with an upright mind and +enlightened intellect? Must woman necessarily be less gentle +because her heart is open to the claims of humanity, or less +modest because she feels for the degradation of her enslaved +sisters, and would stretch forth her hand for their rescue?</p> + +<p>By the Constitution of the United States, the whole physical +power of the North is pledged for the suppression of domestic +insurrections; and should the slaves maddened by oppression +endeavor to shake off the yoke of the task-master, the men of the +North are bound to make common cause with the tyrant, to put down +at the point of the bayonet every effort on the part of the slave +for the attainment of his freedom. And when the father, husband, +son, and brother shall have left their homes to mingle in the +unholy warfare; "to become the executioners of their brethren, or +to fall themselves by their hands," will the mother, wife, +daughter, and sister feel that they have no interest in this +subject? Will it be easy to convince them that it is no concern +of theirs, that their homes are rendered desolate and their +habitations the abodes of wretchedness? Surely this consideration +is of itself sufficient to arouse the slumbering energies of +woman, for the overthrow of a system which thus threatens to lay +in ruins the fabric of her domestic happiness; and she will not +be deterred from the performance of her duty to herself, her +family, and her country, by the cry of "political question."</p> + +<p>But, admitting it to be a political question, have we no interest +in the welfare of our country? May we not permit a thought to +stray beyond the narrow limits of our own family circle and of +the present hour? May we not breathe a sigh over the miseries of +our countrywomen nor utter a word of remonstrance against the +unjust laws that are crushing them to the earth? Must we witness +"the headlong rage of heedless folly" with which our nation is +rushing onward to destruction, and not seek to arrest its +downward course? Shall we silently behold the land which we love +with all the heart-warm affection of children, rendered a hissing +and a reproach throughout the world by the system which is +already "tolling the death-knell of her decease among the +nations"?</p> + +<p>No; the events of the last two years have "cast their dark +shadows before," overclouding the bright prospects of the future, +and shrouding our country in more than midnight gloom; and we can +not remain inactive. Our country is as dear to us as to the +proudest statesman; and the more closely our hearts cling to "our +altars and our homes," the more fervent are our aspirations, that +every inhabitant of our land may be protected in his fireside +enjoyments by just and equal laws; that the foot of the tyrant +may no longer invade the domestic sanctuary, nor his hand tear +asunder those whom God himself has united by the most holy ties.</p> + +<p>Let our course then still be onward! Justice, humanity, +patriotism; every high and every holy motive urge us forward, and +we dare not refuse to obey. The way of duty lies open before us, +and though no pillar of fire be visible to the outward sense, yet +an unerring light shall illumine our pathway, guiding us through +the sea of persecution and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> wilderness of prejudice and +error, to the promised land of freedom, where "every man shall +sit under his own vine and fig-tree, and none shall make him +afraid."</p></blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Thankful Southwick</span><a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> moved the following:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That it is the duty of all those who call themselves +Abolitionists, to make the most vigorous efforts to procure for +the use of their families the products of <span class="smcap">free labor</span>, so that +their hands may be clean in this particular when inquisition is +made for blood.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Esther Moore</span> made remarks upon the importance of carrying into +effect the resolutions that had been passed.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This was the last meeting held in Pennsylvania Hall! Business +connected with the safety of the building made it necessary for +members of the board of managers to pass several times through the +saloon, when this Convention was in session, and they said</p> + +<blockquote><p>they never saw a more dignified, calm, and intrepid body of +persons assembled. Although the building was surrounded all day +by the mob who crowded about the doors, and at times even +attempted to enter the saloon, yet the women were perfectly +collected, unmoved by the threatening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> tempest. The cause which +they were assembled to promote is one that nerves the soul to +deeds of noble daring. The Convention had already adjourned late +in the afternoon, when the mob which destroyed the building began +to assemble. The doors were blocked up by the crowd, and the +streets almost impassable from the multitude of "fellows of the +baser sort." But these "American Women" passed through the whole +without manifesting any sign of fear, as if conscious of their +own greatness and of the protecting care of the God of the +oppressed.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We give our readers these interesting pages of anti-slavery history +because they were the initiative steps to organized public action and +the Woman Suffrage Movement <i>per se</i>, and to show how much more +enthusiasm women manifested in securing freedom for the slaves, than +they ever have in demanding justice and equality for themselves. Where +are the societies to rescue unfortunate women from the bondage they +suffer under unjust law? Where are the loving friends who keep +midnight vigils with young girls arraigned in the courts for +infanticide? Where are the underground railroads and watchful friends +at every point to help fugitive wives from brutal husbands? The most +intelligent, educated women seem utterly oblivious to the wrongs of +their own sex; even those who so bravely fought the anti-slavery +battle have never struck as stout blows against the tyranny suffered +by women.</p> + +<p>Take, for example, the resolution presented by Mary Grew, and passed +in the Woman's Anti-Slavery Convention forty-three years ago, +declaring that it was the Christian duty of every woman to withdraw +from all churches that fellowshiped with slavery, which was a sin +against God and man. Compare the conscience and religious earnestness +for a principle implied in such a resolution with the apathy and +supineness of the women of to-day. No such resolution has ever yet +passed a woman's rights convention. And yet is injustice to a colored +man a greater sin than to a woman? Is liberty and equality more sweet +to him than to her! Is the declaration by the Church that woman may +not be ordained or licensed to preach the Gospel, no matter how well +fitted, how learned or devout, because of her sex, less insulting and +degrading than the old custom of the negro pew?</p> + +<p>The attitude of the Church to-day is more hostile and insulting to +American womanhood than it ever was to the black man, by just so much +as women are nearer the equals of priests and bishops than were the +unlettered slaves. When women refuse to enter churches that do not +recognize them as equal candidates for the joys of earth and heaven, +equal in the sight of man and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> God, we shall have a glorious revival +of liberty and justice everywhere.</p> + +<p>How fully these pages of history illustrate the equal share woman has +had in the trials and triumphs of all the political and moral +revolutions through which we have passed, from feeble colonies to an +independent nation; suffering with man the miseries of poverty and +war, all the evils of bad government, and enjoying with him the +blessings of luxury and peace, and a wise administration of law. The +experience of the heroines of anti-slavery show that no finespun +sentimentalism in regard to woman's position in the clouds ever exempt +her from the duties or penalties of a citizen. Neither State officers, +nor mobs in the whirlwind of passion, tempered their violence for her +safety or benefit.</p> + +<p>When women proposed to hold a fair in Concert Hall, their flag was +torn down from the street, while they and their property were ejected +by the high constable. When women were speaking in Pennsylvania Hall, +brickbats were hurled at, them through the windows. When women +searched Philadelphia through for a place where they might meet to +speak and pray for the slave-mother and her child (the most miserable +of human beings), halls and churches were closed against them. And who +were these women? Eloquent speakers, able writers, dignified wives and +mothers, the most moral, religious, refined, cultured, intelligent +citizens that Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, and +Pennsylvania could boast. There never was a queen on any European +throne possessed of more personal beauty, grace, and dignity than +Maria Weston Chapman.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> The calmness and impassioned earnestness of +Angelina Grimké, speaking nearly an hour 'mid that howling mob, was +not surpassed in courage and consecration even by Paul among the wild +beasts at Ephesus. Here she made her last public speech, and as the +glowing words died upon her lips, a new voice was heard, rich, deep, +and clear upon the troubled air; and the mantle of self-sacrifice, so +faithfully worn by South Carolina's brave daughter, henceforth rested +on the shoulders of an equally brave and eloquent Quaker girl from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +Massachusetts,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> who for many years afterward preached the same glad +tidings of justice, equality, and liberty for all.</p> + + +<h3>TEMPERANCE.</h3> + +<p>In this reform, also, the women of Pennsylvania took an equally active +part. We are indebted to Hannah Darlington, of Kennett Square, Chester +Co., for the following record of the temperance work in this State:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Kennett Square</span>, 2 mo., 6, 1881.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Stanton</span>:—I did not think our early temperance work of +sufficient account to preserve the reports, hence with +considerable research am able to send you but very little. Many +mixed meetings were held through the county before 1847. +Woods-meetings, with decorated stands, were fashionable in +Chester in warm weather, for several years before we branched off +with a call for a public meeting. That brought quite a number +together in Friends' Meeting-house at Kennett Square, where we +discussed plans for work and appointed committees to carry them +out.</p> + +<p>Sidney Peirce, Ann Preston, and myself, each prepared addresses +to read at meetings called in such places as the Committee +arranged; and with Chandler Darlington to drive us from place to +place, we addressed many large audiences, some in the day-time +and some in the evening; scattered appeals and tracts, and +collected names to petitions asking for a law against licensing +liquor-stands.</p> + +<p>In 1848, we went to Harrisburg, taking an address to the +Legislature written by Ann Preston, and sanctioned by the meeting +that appointed us. The address, with our credentials and +petitions, was presented to the two Houses, read in our presence, +and referred to the Committee on "Vice and Immorality," which +called a meeting and invited us to give our address. Sidney +Peirce, who was a good reader, gave it with effect to a large +roomful of the Committee and legislators. It was listened to with +profound attention, complimented highly, and I think aroused a +disposition among the best members to give the cause of +temperance more careful consideration. The Local Option Law was +passed by that Legislature.</p> + +<p>We also aided the mixed meetings by our presence and addresses, +and by circulating petitions, and publishing appeals in the +county papers; helping in every way to arouse discussion and +prepare the people to sustain the new law. But the Supreme Court +of the State, through the liquor influence, declared the law +unconstitutional, after a few months' successful trial. Drinking, +however, has not been as respectable since that time. We +continued active work in our association until the inauguration +of the Good Templars movement, in which men and women worked +together on terms of equality.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Hannah M. Darlington.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Respectfully yours,</p> +</blockquote> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading ltr-clear">TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> + +<p>A Temperance Convention of Women of Chester County, met at +Marlborough Friends' Meeting-house, on Saturday, the 30th of +December, 1848, and was organized by the appointment of <span class="smcap">Martha +Hayhurst</span>, President; <span class="smcap">Sidney Peirce</span> and <span class="smcap">Hannah Pennock</span>, +Secretaries.</p> + +<p>Letters received by a Committee of Correspondence, appointed at a +Convention last winter, were read; one, from Pope Bushnell, +Chairman of the Committee on Vice and Immorality, to which +temperance petitions were referred; and also from our +Representatives in the Legislature, pledging themselves to use +all their influence to obtain the passage of a law to prohibit +the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage amongst us. The +Business Committee reported addresses to the men and women of +Chester County, which were considered, amended, and adopted, as +follows:</p> + +<p><i>To the Women of Chester County</i>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sisters</span>:—Again we would urge upon you the duty and +necessity of action in the temperance cause. Notwithstanding the +exertions that have been made, intoxicating liquors continue to +be sold and drank in our midst. Still, night after night, the +miserable drunkard reels to that home he has made desolate. +Still, wives and sisters weep in anguish as they look on those +dearer to them than life, and see, trace by trace, their delicacy +and purity of soul vanishing beneath the destroying libations +that tempt them when they pass the domestic threshold.</p> + +<p>We need not depict to you the poverty and crime and unutterable +woe that result from intemperance, nor need you go far to be +reminded of the revolting fact, that under the sanction of laws, +men still make it a deliberate business to deal out that terrible +agent, the only effect of which is to darken the God-like in the +human soul, and to foster in its place the appetites of demons. +The law passed the 7th of April, 1846, under which the sale of +intoxicating drinks was prohibited by vote of the people in most +of the townships in Chester County, has been decided by the +Supreme Court to be unconstitutional; and this decision, by +inspiring confidence in the dealers and consumers of the fatal +poison, seems to have given a new impetus to this diabolical +traffic. Wider and deeper its ravages threaten to extend +themselves; and to every benevolent mind comes the earnest +question, What must now be done? It is too late for women to +excuse themselves from exertion in this cause, on the ground that +it would be indelicate to leave the sheltered retirement of home. +Alas! where is the home-shelter that guards the delicacy of the +drunkard's wife and daughter? We all recognize the divine +obligation to relieve suffering and to cherish virtue as binding +alike on man and woman. Our hearts thrill at the mention of those +women who were "last at the cross and earliest at the grave" of +the crucified Nazarine. We commend her whose prayers and +entreaties once saved her native Rome from pillage. We admire the +heroism of a Joan of Arc, as it is embalmed in history and song. +We boast of virgin martyrs to the faith of their convictions, and +we dare not now put forth the despicable plea of feminine +propriety to excuse our supineness, when fathers, sons, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +brothers are falling around us, degraded, bestialized, thrice +murdered by this foe at our doors. No! we have solemn obligations +resting upon us, and we should be unfaithful to the holiest call +of duty, false to the instincts of womanhood and the pleading +voice of love, if we should sit quietly down in careless ease +while vice is thus spreading around us, and human souls are +falling into the fell snare of the destroyer.</p> + +<p>By meeting together and taking counsel one with another, we will +become more alive to our duty in relation to this momentous +subject. The more we prize the sweet privacy of happy homes, the +more strong is the appeal to us to labor to make sacred and +joyful the hearth-stones of others. If <i>men</i> will remain +comparatively supine we must the more energetically sound the +alarm, and point them to the danger. If rulers will devise +wickedness by law, we must give them no rest, till, like the +unjust judge, they yield to our very importunity, and repeal +their iniquitous statutes. The temporal and spiritual welfare of +many an immortal being is at stake, and we should esteem it a +high privilege to labor in this holy cause with an earnest and, +if need be, a life-long consecration. Let us, then, apply +ourselves devotedly to the work, and a fresh and resistless +impulse will be given to the temperance reformation. The +electrical fervor of earnest spirits ever communicates itself to +others, and the Legislature itself can not long resist our united +efforts. In such a cause "we have great allies." God and humanity +are on our side, our own souls Will be strengthened and elevated +by the work; "failure" is a word that belongs not to us, since +our efforts are in a righteous cause.</p> + +<p><i>To the Men of Chester County:</i></p> + +<p>Permit us once more to plead with you on behalf of temperance. We +know that to some of you this may seem an old and wearisome +subject, but we know also that the sorrow and crime caused by +intemperance are <i>not</i> old; new, fresh cases are around us now. +Its ravages are repeated every day, and we must beseech you to +"hear us for our cause." We can not be silent while the grog-shop +stands like the poisonous upas amongst us, and men openly deal +out crime and wretchedness in the form of intoxicating drinks.</p> + +<p>We need not in this place enlarge upon the danger ever attendant +upon the use of those stimulants, nor will we now stop long to +dwell upon the solemn fact, that whoever, at the demand of +appetite, drinks even the sweet cider, weakens his own moral +strength, becomes a tempter to the weak, and casts away the pure +influence of an unsullied example. Reckless and guilty indeed is +that man who, in the light of this day, dares to insult humanity +and defy heaven by publicly putting the glass to his lips.</p> + +<p>Men of Chester County! you possess the power to put a stop to the +traffic in liquors, and we conjure you by the sacred obligations +of virtue and humanity, as you hope to stand acquitted before the +just tribunal of God, to arise in your might and banish it from +the community; think, we beseech you, of the depths of pollution +to which intemperance leads, of the bestial appetites it fosters, +of all the unnameable impurities that revel in its abodes; think +of the hearth-stones desolated, of the mothers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> and daughters +whose earthly hopes and joys have been destroyed by that +charnel-house, the tavern. The incendiary who applies the +midnight torch to peaceful dwellings, the robber who commits +murder to secure his prey, is not an enemy to society half so +dangerous, as he who inflames all evil passions and scatters +wretchedness through a community, by dispensing alcoholic poison. +Oh! are there not sorrows enough in our best condition? have we +not temptations strong enough within and without? Shall men +progress too fast in the "onward and upward" road of virtue and +happiness, that you leave before them these sinks of pollution, +these trap-doors of ruin, these fatal sirens, enticing the unwary +listener to destruction? Call us not fanatical. Indifference is +crime; silence is fatal here. When the midnight cry of fire is +sounded, you rush from your slumbers, and, heedless of danger, +hasten to extinguish the flames; but here is a devouring element, +burning on from year to year, consuming not mere shingles and +rafters, but the priceless hopes and aspirations of immortal +souls, leaving blackened ruins in the place of beauty; and we +must continue to cry "Fire! fire!" until you hasten to stop the +fearful conflagration. Tell us not of liberty and natural right, +as a plea for this traffic. It is the liberty to rob innocent +families and reduce them to pauperism; the right to break hearts +and hopes, to reduce men to demons, to scatter vice and anguish +and desolation around the land. Well may we exclaim with Madame +Roland, when she was taken along the bloody streets of Paris, +about to be murdered in the abused name of freedom, "Oh, Liberty, +what crimes are committed in thy name!"</p> + +<p>Fathers and brothers, shall woman in her agony, and man in his +degradation, appeal to you in vain? Too long has this evil been +borne, too long have minor points of public good taken precedence +of this reform. It must not be that you will be content to dwell +in quiet indifference, in the midst of a rum-selling community, +and die, leaving your children exposed to the tempter's snare. It +must not be endured that this infernal traffic, this shame to +civilization, this slur on Christianity, shall continue amongst +us. It must not be endured that men shall be clothed with the +monstrous authority to demoralize neighborhoods and scatter the +fire-brands of death and destruction. The power to arrest this +horrible work is in your hands. Be vigilant, be active. There is +resistless might in the energy of earnest wills devoted to a +noble cause. Petition, remonstrate, work while yet it is day. Say +not that we can gain nothing by petitioning. Was it not through +this means, we obtained the law under which a vote of the +majority excluded the sale of intoxicating liquors amongst us? +Did not our petitions last winter cause a bill for its +prohibition to be reported in the Legislature, which was lost in +the House by a small majority? True, the law we desire may not +entirely prevent drunkenness, but it will certainly act as a +restraint. It will make drinking less reputable, and thus prevent +drunkard-making. It will have the moral influence of a State +verdict against the practice. The dread responsibility of this +traffic must rest upon you, if, through silent acquiescence, you +permit its ravages. Do what you can, and peace and prosperity +will soon sit where the blackness of ruin has brooded, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> the +sweet reward of approving consciences and the blessings of joyful +hearts will gladden your pathway.</p> + +<p>The following resolutions were adopted:</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That petitioning the Legislature is the most definite +and efficient means at our command, whereby to obtain a law to +abolish the sale of intoxicating drinks, as a beverage amongst +us.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the following persons be appointed to obtain +names in their respective neighborhoods, to the petition referred +to: Sarah Evans, Grace Anna Lewis, Jane Kimber, H. A. +Pennypacker, Catherine Hawley, Deborah Way, Sarah Wood, M. B. +Thomas, Anna Parke, Margaret Lea, Susannah Cox, Elizabeth Evans, +E. Garrett, M. Darlington, Eliza Agnew, M. P. Wilson, Eliza Pyle, +Mary Chambers, H. M. Barnard, Mrs. Jefferis, Alice Speakman, +Sarah S. Barnard, Susan Fulton, Mary W. Coates, Millicent Stern, +Mrs. Ramsey, Mrs. Hamilton, A. E. Valentine, Ruth Ann Seal, R. W. +Taylor, M. K. Darlington, Lydia Agnew, M. Taylor, Alice Lewis, +Ann Barnard, Rebecca Pugh, Lydia Jacobs, Margaret Ross, Rachel +Leake, Ann Preston, M. W. Cox, Ann Coates, Rachel Good, Esther +Jane Kent, Ellen Wilkinson, Mary Pugh, Sarah Ann Cunningham, +Eliza Lysle, Beulah Hughes, Sarah Ann Conard.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we urgently solicit those having care of +petitions, to make use of every opportunity to obtain men's and +women's names in different columns, or on separate petitions, and +thus aid the Chester County Temperance Society in procuring the +names of those favorable to obtaining a prohibitory law.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That Hannah Cox, Sidney Peirce, Ann Preston, Mary +Cox, Mary Ann Fulton, Dinah Mendenhall, Mary K. Darlington, Mary +S. Agnew, and Hannah M. Darlington, be a committee to call +meetings of the people in different neighborhoods, at which to +read the addresses to men and women, obtain signatures to +petitions, etc.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we offer the proceedings of this meeting for +publication in the County papers and <i>Temperance Standard</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we adjourn to meet in Kennett Square, on +Saturday, the 3d of February, 1849.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Martha Hayhurst</span>, <i>President</i>.</p> + +<table summary="Secretaries"> +<tr> +<td class='left'><span class="smcap">Sidney Peirce<br />Hannah Pennock</span></td> +<td class='left big1'>}</td> +<td class='left'><i>Secretaries</i>.</td> +</tr> +</table> + +</blockquote> + +<p>At their next Convention in Kennett Square, another stirring appeal +was issued, and the following resolutions adopted:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The peace of our homes, the security of our property, +and our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of +happiness, are all jeoparded by intemperance; and whereas, this +monstrous vice, with all its attendant train of evils, will +continue to spread its ravages over our fair country so long as +the traffic in intoxicating drinks is supported and sanctioned by +law; and,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The people have the same right to be protected from the +desolations of this vice, that they have to be protected from the +depredations of the incendiary, the robber, and the murderer, +whose deeds are but too often instigated by it; therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we demand of the Representatives of the people, +at the next session, a law for the total prohibition of the +traffic in intoxicating drinks as a beverage, within the limits +of Chester County.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we see neither reason nor consistency in the +conduct of our law-makers in restraining the thief, the burglar, +the counterfeiter, and the robber, while they let loose upon +society the legalized rum-seller.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Will they the felon fox restrain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet take oft the tiger's chain?"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we hail with joy the appearance of a recent +pastoral letter issued by the Synod of the Free Church of +Cincinnati, containing sentiments in regard to the advancement of +this reform, which meet our hearty approval, and which, if +adopted by all religious bodies, would insure the speedy triumph +of temperance, with all the blessings that follow in its train.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we adjourn to meet at Old Kennett, on Saturday, +the 8th of December, 1849.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hannah M. Darlington</span>, <i>President</i>.</p> + +<table summary="Secretaries"> +<tr> +<td class='left'><span class="smcap">Alice Lewis<br />Mary S. Agnew</span></td> +<td class='left big1'>}</td> +<td class='left'><i>Secretaries</i>.</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<p class="heading">NORTH AMERICAN AND UNITED STATE GAZETTE, FEB. 6, 1852.</p> + +<p>The ladies of the City and County of Philadelphia, and all other +persons who feel impressed with the importance of <span class="smcap">petitioning the +Legislature to enact a law prohibiting the use of all +intoxicating drinks</span> as a beverage, are earnestly requested to +attend a meeting to be held at the <span class="smcap">Chinese Museum</span>, corner of +<span class="smcap">Ninth</span> and <span class="smcap">George Streets</span>, on <span class="smcap">Saturday Evening</span>, Feb. 7th, at 7½ +o'clock.</p> + +<p>The meeting will be addressed by the <span class="smcap">Rev. Albert Barnes, Rev. +John Chambers, Judge Kelley, Dr. Jas. Bryan</span>, and <span class="smcap">Wm. J. Mullen</span>. +<span class="smcap">Judge Allison</span> will preside. The <span class="smcap">Ladies' Temperance Union</span> is +particularly invited to attend. Admittance five cents, to defray +expenses.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Two weeks after this, Feb. 21st, a Woman's Temperance Mass Meeting was +held in Philadelphia; an immense assemblage of both sexes.</p> + +<p><i>The Pennsylvania Freeman</i> of March 4, 1852, says: "A large number of +petitions from various parts of the State, most of them numerously +signed, asking for the passage of the Maine Anti-Liquor Law, have been +presented in both Houses. On Tuesday, in the Senate, one was presented +from this city signed by 15,580 ladies; and another in the House, +signed by 14,241 ladies. What the Legislature will do we shall not +venture to predict."</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note the same successive steps in every State, +and how naturally, in laboring for anti-slavery and temperance, women +have at last in each case demanded freedom for themselves. In the +anti-slavery school, 'mid violence and persecution they learned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> the +a, b, c of individual rights; in the temperance struggle they learned +that the ultimate power in moral movements is found in wise +legislation, and in graduating on the woman suffrage platform, they +have learned that prayers and tears are worth little until coined into +law, and that to command the attention of legislators, petitioners +must represent votes.</p> + +<p>A moral power that has no direct influence on the legislation of a +nation, is an abstraction, and might as well be expended in the clouds +as outside of codes and constitutions, and this has too long been the +realm where women have spent their energies fighting shadows. The +power that makes laws, and baptizes them as divine at every church +altar, is the power for woman to demand now and forever.</p> + + +<h3>WESTCHESTER CONVENTION.<br /> +<small><i>June 2, 1852</i></small>.</h3> + +<p>The first Woman's Rights Convention held in Pennsylvania was called in +the leafy month of June, in the quiet Quaker town of West Chester, in +one of the loveliest regions of that State. Chester County had long +been noted for its reform movements and flourishing schools, in which +the women generally took a deep interest.</p> + +<p>It was among these beautiful hills that Bayard Taylor lived and wrote +his "Hannah Thurston," a most contemptible burlesque of his own +neighbors and the reforms they advocated.</p> + +<p>Kennett Square and Longwood have for years been noted for their +liberal religious meetings, in which the leading reformers of the +nation have in turn been annually represented. In those gatherings of +the Progressive Friends, all the questions of the hour were freely +discussed, and their printed testimonies sent forth to enlighten the +people.</p> + +<p>The Convention assembled at ten o'clock in Horticultural Hall, and was +called to order by Lucretia Mott, and the following officers chosen:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">President</span>.—Mariana Johnson.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Service-Presidents</span>.—Mary Ann Fulton, William Jackson, Chandler +Darlington.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Secretaries</span>.—Sarah L. Miller, Hannah Darlington, Sidney Peirce, +Edward Webb.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Business Committee</span>.—James Mott, Ann Preston, Lucretia Mott, +Frances D. Gage, Sarah D. Barnard, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Joseph A. +Dugdale, Margaret Jones, Ernestine L. Rose, Alice Jackson, Jacob +Painter, Phebe Goodwin.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Finance Committee</span>, appointed by the Chair.—Hannah Darlington, +Jacob Painter, Isaac Mendenhall, Elizabeth Miller.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Mott read the following call:</p> + +<p>The friends of Justice and Equal Rights are earnestly invited to +assemble in Convention, to consider and discuss the present +position of Woman in Society, her Natural Eights and Relative +Duties.</p> + +<p>The reasons for such a Convention are obvious. With few +exceptions, both the radical and conservative portions of the +community agree that woman, even in this progressive age and +country, suffers under legal, educational, and vocational +disabilities which ought to be removed. To examine the nature of +these disabilities, to inquire into their extent, and to consider +the most feasible and proper mode of removing them, will be the +aim of the Convention which it is proposed to hold.</p> + +<p>If it shall promote in any degree freedom of thought and action +among women; if it shall assist in opening to them any avenues to +honorable and lucrative employment (now unjustly and unwisely +closed); if it shall aid in securing to them more thorough +intellectual and moral culture; if it shall excite higher +aspirations; if it shall advance by a few steps just and wise +public sentiment, it will not have been held in vain.</p> + +<p>The elevation of woman is the elevation of the human race. Her +interests can not be promoted or injured without advantage or +injury to the whole race. The call for such a Convention is +therefore addressed to those who desire the physical, +intellectual, and moral improvement of mankind. All persons +interested in its objects are respectfully requested to be +present at its sessions and participate in its deliberations.</p> + + +<p class="heading">THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS</p> + +<p>The position in which woman has been placed is an anomaly. On the +one hand she is constantly reminded of duties and +responsibilities from which an angel might shrink. The world is +to be saved by her prayers, her quiet and gentle efforts. Man, +she is told, is ruled by her smiles; his whole nature subdued by +the potency of her tears. Priests, politicians, and poets assure +her with flattering tongue, that on her depend the progress and +destiny of the race. On the other hand, she is told that she must +lovingly confide in the strength and skill of man, who has been +endowed with superior intellectual powers; that she must count it +her highest honor to reflect upon the world the light of his +intelligence and wisdom, as the moon reflects the light of the +sun!</p> + +<p>We may congratulate one another on this occasion in view of the +cheering indications so manifest on every hand that the ignorance +and darkness which have so long brooded over the prospects of +woman, are beginning to give place to the light of truth. In the +summer of 1848, in the village of Seneca Falls, a small number of +women, disregarding alike the sneers of the ignorant and the +frowns of the learned, assembled in Convention and boldly claimed +for themselves, and for their sex, the rights conferred by God +and so long withheld by man. Their courageous words were the +expression of sentiments which others had felt as deeply as +themselves, but which the restraints imposed by long-established +custom had taught them to suppress. But now the hour had come, +and the world stood prepared for the reception of a new thought, +which is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> destined to work a revolution in human society, more +beneficent than any that has preceded it. The seeds of truth +which that Convention planted in faith and hope were not left to +perish. In many thoughtful minds they germinated apace and +brought forth fruit. That fruit was seen in the large Convention +held in Ohio in the spring of 1850, in that held in Massachusetts +in the autumn of the same year, and in those which have followed +since in New England and the West.</p> + +<p>Woman at length is awaking from the slumber of ages. Many of the +sex already perceive that knowledge, sound judgment, and perfect +freedom of thought and action are quite as important for the +mothers as for the fathers of the race. They weary of the +senseless talk of "woman's sphere," when that sphere is so +circumscribed that they may not exert their full influence and +power to save their country from war, intemperance, slavery, +licentiousness, ignorance, poverty, and crime, which man, in the +mad pursuit of his ambitious schemes, unchecked by their presence +and counsel, permits to desolate and destroy all that is fair and +beautiful in life and fill the world with weeping, lamentation, +and woe. Woman begins to grow weary of her helpless and dependent +position, and of being treated as if she were formed only to +cultivate her affections, that they may flow in strong and deep +currents merely to gratify the self-love of man.</p> + +<p>She does not listen with delight, as she once did, when she hears +her relations to her equal brother represented by the poetical +figure of the trellis and creeping tendril, or of the oak and the +gracefully clinging vine. No, she feels that she is, like him, an +accountable being—that the Infinite Father has laid +responsibilities upon her which may not be innocently transferred +to another, but which, in her present ignorance, she is not +prepared to meet. She is becoming rapidly imbued with the spirit +of progress, and will not longer submit, without remonstrance, to +the bondage of ancient dogmas and customs. In the retirement and +seclusion of life, the stirring impulse of the times has reached +even the heart of woman, and she feels the necessity of a more +thorough culture and a wider field of usefulness. She sees the +glaring injustice by which she has long been deprived of all fair +opportunity to earn an independent livelihood, and thus, in too +many instances, constrained to enter the marriage relation, as a +choice of evils, to secure herself against the ills of impending +poverty. The wrong she so deeply feels she is at length arousing +herself to redress.</p> + +<p>What, then, is the substance of our demand? I answer, we demand +for woman equal freedom with her brother to raise her voice and +exert her influence directly for the removal of all the evils +that afflict the race; and that she be permitted to do this in +the manner dictated by her own sense of propriety and justice. We +ask for her educational advantages equal to those enjoyed by the +other sex; that the richly endowed institutions which she has +been taxed to establish and support, may be open alike to all her +children. We claim for her the right to follow any honorable +calling or profession for which she may be fitted by her +intellectual training and capacity. We claim for her a fair +opportunity to attain a position of pecuniary independence, and +to this end that she receive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> for her labor a compensation +equivalent to its recognized value when performed by the other +sex.</p> + +<p>These demands, we think, must be admitted to be essentially wise +and just. We make them in no spirit of selfish antagonism to the +other sex, but under a deep conviction that they are prompted by +an enlightened regard for the highest welfare of the race. Some +one has justly said that God has so linked the human family +together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt +throughout its length. The true interests of the sexes are not +antagonistic, but harmonious. There can be no just conflict +between their respective rights and duties. For the coming of the +day when this great truth shall be universally received, we must +work and pray as we have opportunity. When that day shall arrive, +it will be clearly perceived that in the true Harmonic Order +"woman and her brother are pillars in the same temple and priests +of the same worship."</p> + +<p>The Secretary, <span class="smcap">Sidney Peirce</span>, read the following letter from</p> + + +<p class="heading">SARAH M. GRIMKÉ.</p> + +<p>When an insect emerges with struggles from its chrysalis state, +how feeble are all its movements, how its wings hang powerless +until the genial air has dried and strengthened them, how +patiently the insect tries again and again to spread them, and +visit the flowers which bloom around, till at last it enjoys the +recompense of its labors in the nectar and the fragrance of the +garden.</p> + +<p>This illustrates the present condition of Woman. She is just +emerging from the darkness and ignorance by which she has been +shrouded. She looks forth from her chrysalis and sees the natural +and intellectual world lying around her clothed in radiant +beauty, and inviting her to enter and possess this magnificent +inheritance. How came I, she asks, to be excluded from all these +precious privileges? I will arise and go to my Father and say, +"Father, permit me to share the labors of my brethren and partake +of the fruits which they enjoy." "Go, my daughter," is the +paternal response. "Be unto man, in an infinitely higher sense +than heretofore, a help-meet." How is woman fulfilling her divine +mission? Is she looking on the benefits she is commissioned to +bestow on the human race, or is she keeping her eye on her own +interests and seeking her own elevation, with little of that +expansive benevolence, that philosophical foresight which seeks +the development of all?</p> + +<p>Woman is now in the transition state, a glorious mission is +before her, a glorious destiny awaits her. To fulfill that +mission, to be worthy of that destiny, she must patiently wait +and quietly hope, blessing those who scorn and deride her feeble +and often unsuccessful efforts, to free herself from her +entanglements. She must expect many failures in her attempts to +emancipate herself from the thralldom of public opinion. Those +who have long held the reins of power and the rank of +superiority, naturally look with distrust on a movement which +threatens to overturn long established customs and transform the +baby and the toy into an intellectual being, desiring equal +rights with themselves and asserting her claim to all the +immunities they enjoy. Woman must be willing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> to see herself as +she is, the slave of fashion, assuming all the Proteus forms she +invents, without reference to health or convenience. She must +remember how few of us give evidence of sufficient development to +warrant our claims; and whilst we feel a divine impulse to +proceed in achieving the enlargement of woman, whilst we hear a +voice saying, "Ye have compassed this mountain long enough; speak +to the people that they go forward," let us not be dismayed at +the hindrances we shall encounter from those whom we are laboring +to release from the swaddling bands of infancy, or the +grave-clothes of superstition, time-honored opinion and crushing +circumstances. We are now in a perilous and difficult position. +We feel all the inconveniences of our past condition, all the +disadvantages and uneasiness of the one we are constrained to +occupy, and see in bold relief all the advantages which a change +will yield us. But let us remember that our transition state, +although replete with temptations and suffering, is necessary to +our improvement; we need it to strengthen us and enable us to +bear hardships as good soldiers of truth.</p> + +<p>To regard any state of society as fixed, is to regard it as the +ultimate good, as the best condition to which we can attain. But +when man has progressed, when his morality and his religion have +assumed a higher tone, it is impossible to perpetuate his +childhood, or to give permanence to institutions and opinions +whose days are numbered. When reform has truth for its basis and +is instinct with the life of progression, no power can dress it +in the habiliments of the grave, and bury it out of sight, either +in the Potter's-field or under the magnificent mausoleum. There +is nothing so precious to man as progress; he has defended it +with his heart's best blood, and according to his development has +aided it, although sometimes in his blindness he has scattered +fire and sword, destruction and misery around, in endeavoring to +force mankind to adopt the truths he thought essential to +progress. "Woman has come on the stage," says Horace Mann, "6,000 +years after man, to profit by his misdeeds and correct his +errors." Until now, the world was not prepared to receive, in +full measure, the hallowed influence which woman is designed to +shed. Her holy mission is to bring peace on earth and good-will +to man. She does not ask for irresponsible power; she has seen +that from the earliest records of the human race the possession +of such power is fraught with danger, that it has always made +tyrants. She feels Divinity stirring within her, and its +irrepressible aspirings can not, should not be controlled. +Mankind have always rejected the means appointed by Infinite +Wisdom to assist their upward flight. Let us then go calmly +forward, alike regardless of the scorn and ridicule of the +shallow, the grave denunciations of the bigot, or the weighty +counsel of the narrow-minded and selfish, who would point out the +exact position fitted for us to occupy, and with seeming +condescension invite us to fill some posts of honor and profit, +while they undertake to confine us within their bounds, leaving +nothing to our good sense, intelligence, intuitive desires, and +aspiring hopes. The truth is, "It is not in man that walketh to +direct his steps." God alone is competent to do this, and in the +present movement His power, wisdom, and will, are so +conspicuous,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> that it will be well to set no bounds to His work, +but let it have free course, expecting that contradictions and +inconsistencies will mar it, but believing that those +contradictions will cease, those inconsistencies disappear, and +the perfected human being be developed.</p> + +<p>If we adopt as our watchword the language of Margaret Fuller, we +can not but overcome all obstacles, outlive all opposition: "Give +me Truth. Cheat me by no illusion. Oh, the granting of this +prayer is sometimes terrible; I walk over the burning plowshares +and they sear my feet—yet nothing but Truth will do."</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Sarah M. Grimké</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span> addressed the Convention, briefly referring to the +importance of the movement and expressing her gratification on +seeing the response given to the call, by the great number of +persons assembled. She saw before her not only a large delegation +from the immediate vicinity, but a goodly number from other and +distant States.</p> + +<p>The movement for the enfranchisement of woman is indeed making +rapid progress. Since the first Convention held at Seneca Falls, +in 1848, where a few women assembled, and notwithstanding their +ignorance of the parliamentary modes of conducting business, +promulgated these principles, which took deep root, and are +already producing important results. Other large Conventions have +been held in different places, which have done much toward +disseminating the great principles of equality between the sexes; +and a spirit of earnest inquiry has been aroused. She referred to +the fact that the agitation commenced in those States most +distinguished for intellectual and moral culture, while we in +Pennsylvania are ready to embrace their views on this subject; +and trusted that the Convention now assembled, would be neither +less interesting nor less efficient than those that have been +already held.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Clarina Howard Nichols</span>, of Brattleboro, Vermont, spoke +briefly on the absurdity of the popular idea of woman's sphere. +She thought the sphere of sex could only be determined by +capacity and moral obligation. She had once thought politics +necessarily too degrading for woman, but she had changed her +views. The science of government, it is said, is of divine +origin; a participation in its administration can not then +necessarily involve anything to deteriorate from the true dignity +of woman. The world's interests have never yet been fully +represented. The propriety of woman voting had been to her a +stumbling-block; the idea was repelling. She was not yet allowed +to vote, but she had ceased to consent to the arrangement which +deprived her of that right, and therefore experienced a freedom +of spirit which she had not known before. The idea that woman +could not go to the ballot-box without a sacrifice of her +delicacy was absurd. Women were allowed to vote in church matters +unquestioned. They can hold railroad stock, bank stock, and stock +of other corporations, where their influence is in proportion to +the amount held.</p> + +<p>But we are not called upon to maintain the position of the +propriety or expediency of women voting. The question is, Shall +they have the right so to do?—the propriety should be left to +themselves. Woman can now travel alone securely, where formerly +it was considered a risk. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> can deposit her vote with men, +with as much propriety as she can ride with them in railroad +cars, on steamboats, etc. She came all the way from the Green +Mountains without any male attendant; she traveled with members +of Congress and delegates to the Baltimore Convention, and not a +"bear" among them offered her the least indignity.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span> quoted the testimony of Horace Mann,<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> that +our Legislatures were "bear gardens, our representatives too rude +and rough for woman's association, hence the impropriety and +indelicacy of her mingling in politics." But we are told it is +woman's province to soothe the angry passions and calm the +belligerent feelings of man, and if what Horace Mann says is +true, where can we find a riper harvest awaiting us than in the +halls of legislation!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Harriet K. Hunt then read an address upon the medical education of +women; on concluding, she offered the following resolutions:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>1st. Resolved</i>, That the present position of medical +organizations, precluding women from the same educational +advantages with men, under pretext of delicacy, virtually +acknowledges the impropriety of his being her medical attendant.</p> + +<p><i>2d. Resolved</i>, That we will do all in our power to sustain those +women who, from a conviction of duty, enter the medical +profession, in their efforts to overcome the evils that have +accumulated in their path, and in attacking the strongholds of +vice.</p> + +<p><i>3d. Resolved</i>, That the past actions and present indications of +our medical schools should not affect us at all; and +notwithstanding Geneva and Cleveland Medical Colleges closed +their doors after graduating one woman each, and Harvard, through +the false delicacy of the students, declared it inexpedient to +receive one who had been in successful practice many years, we +would still earnestly follow in peace and love where duty points, +and leave the verdict to an enlightened public sentiment.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The address of Dr. Hunt called out a discussion on the importance of a +thorough medical training for women in all departments of science +belonging to that profession.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Nichols</span> spoke earnestly of the imperfect education of woman. +With no knowledge of the laws of health, she has no means of +obtaining the required information. Men hold the purse even when +it is filled by the labor of both. They close the college doors, +though we have helped to build and endow them. And at what a +fearful cost of life and health are we thus wronged. Does it cost +too much to educate the future mothers of this nation in the +science of life? Who can estimate how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> much greater are the +expenses incurred by our ignorant violation of the laws of +health?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Frances Dana Gage</span>, of Ohio, spoke of the high scholarship and +very successful examinations of those women who had been admitted +into the medical colleges, far surpassing the young men in their +recitations and general intelligence. So long as the lives of +children are conceded to be in the hands of their mothers, it is +of vital consequence to the race that women be thoroughly +educated for the medical profession.</p> + +<p>Mrs. ROSE said: These are mighty questions. When our little ones +are removed by death from our care and affection, we feel most +keenly our ignorance, and long to know something of those +immutable laws of life and health we have so long violated. Woman +should at least know enough to be physician to herself and +children, but she is denied the advantages granted to man for +obtaining knowledge of these things more necessary if possible to +her than to him.</p> + +<p>The idea of a female doctor is ridiculed. But what is she worth +as a nurse of the sick without a knowledge of the art of healing? +Why am I in the prime of life in such feeble health? In my +country, the laws of life are, comparatively speaking, kept in a +nutshell. The girl must not exercise; it is not fashionable. She +must not be seen in active life; it is not feminine. The boy may +run, the girl must creep. It is to discuss all these grave +inequalities that we have assembled here, and I trust the +influence of this Convention may be felt in opening to woman all +honest and honorable means of self-support and self-development, +and in removing all the legal shackles that block her pathway +through life.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Eva Pugh</span> said: The degradation of one sex is the degradation of +the other. This question is universal, affecting all alike. No +fact is better established than that the character of the parent +is inherited by the child. Can noble men be born of infirm women? +Who are the mothers of great men? Women of mind, of thought, of +independence; not women degraded by man's tyranny, laboring in +prescribed limits, thinking other people's thoughts, and echoing +their opinions. This question of woman's rights affects the whole +human race. We know from sad experience that man can not rise +while woman is degraded.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span> spoke of the great change in public sentiment within +her recollection in regard to the so-called sphere of woman. +Twenty years ago people wondered how a modest girl could attend +lectures on Botany; but modest girls did attend them and other +places frequented only by men, and the result was not a loss of +delicacy, but a higher and nobler development; a true modesty.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Joseph A. Dugdale</span> made a few remarks on the injustice of the laws +by which happy households are often broken up on the death of the +husband and father. He said there remained one way in which this +great evil could be avoided even while the law remains unchanged, +and that was by a will of the husband conveying the whole +property of their joint industry and economy to the wife, in the +event of his death. He urged this as the duty of every husband +and father. He closed his remarks with the following extract from +the will of Martin Luther, proving that other errors than those +of the Church, were deemed by the great reformer of sufficient +magnitude to awaken his earnest opposition:</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">MARTIN LUTHER'S WILL.</p> + +<p>"This is all I am worth, and I give it all to my wife for the +following reasons:</p> + +<p>"1. Because she has always conducted herself toward me lovingly, +worthily, and beautifully, like a pious, faithful, and noble +wife; and by the rich blessings of God, she has borne and brought +up five living children, who yet live, and God grant they may +long live.</p> + +<p>"2. Because she will take upon herself and pay the debts which I +owe and may not be able to pay during my life, which, so far as I +can estimate, may amount to about 450 florins, or perhaps a +little more.</p> + +<p>"3. But most of all, because I will not have her dependent on the +children, but the children on her; that they may hold her in +honor, and submit themselves to her as God has commanded. For I +see well and observe, how the devil, by wicked and envious +mouths, heats and excites children, even though they be pious, +against this command; especially when the mothers are widows, and +the sons get wives, and the daughters get husbands, and again +<i>socrus murum, nurus socrum</i>. For I hold that the mother will be +the best guardian for her own children, and will use what little +property and goods she may have, not for their disadvantage and +injury, but for their good and improvement, since they are her +own flesh and blood, and she carried them under her heart.</p> + +<p>"And if, after my death, she should find it necessary or +desirable to marry again (for I can not pretend to set limits to +the will or providence of God), yet I trust and herewith express +my confidence that she will conduct herself toward our mutual +children as becometh a mother, and will faithfully impart to them +property, and do whatever else is right.</p> + +<p>"And herewith I humbly pray my most gracious lord, his grace Duke +John Frederick, elector of Saxony, graciously to guard and +protect the above-named gifts and property.</p> + +<p>"I also entreat all my good friends to be witnesses for my dear +Catey, and help to defend her should any good-for-nothing mouth +reprove and slander her, as if she had secretly some personal +property of which she would defraud the poor children. For I +testify there is no personal property except the plate and +jewelry enumerated above.</p> + +<p>"Finally, I beg, since in this will or testament I have not used +legal forms or words (and thereto I have my reasons), that every +one may let me be the person that I am in truth, namely, openly +and known both in heaven and earth, and in hell, and let me have +respect and authority enough so that I may be trusted and +believed more than any lawyer. For so God the Father of all +mercies hath entrusted to me, a poor, miserable, condemned +sinner, the Gospel of His dear Son, and therein thus far I have +behaved and conducted myself truly and faithfully, and it has +made much progress in the world through me, and I am honored as a +teacher of truth, notwithstanding the curse of the Pope and the +wrath of emperors, kings, princes, priests, and all kinds of +devils; much rather then let me be believed in this little +matter, especially as here in my hand which is very well known; +and I hope it may be enough, when it can be said and proved that +this is the serious and deliberate desire of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> Dr. Martin Luther +(who is God's lawyer and witness of His Gospel) to be proved by +his own hand and seal, Sept. 16, 1542."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span> (see 8th resolution) thought it important that we +should not disclaim the antagonism that woman's present position +rendered it necessary she should assume. Too long had wrongs and +oppressions existed without an acknowledged wrong-doer and +oppressor. It was not until the slaveholder was told, "thou art +the man," that a healthful agitation was brought about. Woman is +told that the fault is in herself, in too willingly submitting to +her inferior condition; but, like the slave, she is pressed down +by laws in the making of which she has had no voice, and crushed +by customs that have grown out of such laws. She can not rise, +therefore, while thus trampled in the dust. The oppressor does +not see himself in that light until the oppressed cry for +deliverance.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In commenting on the will just read, she further said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The extract from Luther's will which has been read, while it +gives evidence of the appreciation of the services of his wife, +to a certain extent, and manifests a generous disposition to +reward her as a faithful wife, still only proves the degrading +relation she bore to her husband. There is no recognition of her +equal right to their joint earnings. While the wife is obliged to +accept as a gift that which in justice belongs to her, however +generous the boon, she is but an inferior dependent.</p> + +<p>The law of our State and of New York, has within a few years been +so amended that the wife has some control over a part of her +property. Much yet remains to be done; and if woman "contend +earnestly" for the right, man will co-operate with her in +adjusting all her claims. We have only to look back a few years, +to satisfy ourselves that the demands already made are met in a +disposition to redress the grievances. When a delegation of women +to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, could find no +favor in London, what were the reasons assigned for the +exclusion? Not that the right of representation was not as much +woman's as man's, but that "they would be ridiculed in the +morning papers."</p> + +<p>Daniel O'Connell felt the injustice done to those delegates, and +in a letter on the subject to me, expressed his deep regret, that +owing to business engagements, he was not able to attend the +Convention and take part in the discussion.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></p> + +<p>Dr. Bowring advocated the admission of the delegates at that +time; and afterward in a letter to this country, said: "How often +have I regretted that the woman's question, to me of singular +interest, was launched with so little preparation, so little +knowledge of the manner in which it had been entangled, by the +fears of some and the follies of others! But, bear up! for the +coming of those women will form an era in the future history of +philanthropic daring. They made a deep, if not a wide impression; +and have created apostles, if as yet they have not multitudes of +followers. The experiment was well worth making. It honored +America—it will instruct England. If in some matters of high +civilization<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> you are behind us, in this matter of courageous +benevolence how far are you before us!"</p> + +<p>Since that time women have fairly entered the field as students +of medicine and as physicians, as editors and lecturers, engaged +in schools of design, and in the taking of daguerres, as well as +in some other works of art, and in holding Conventions in several +of the States of our Union for the advocacy of our entire claims. +A National Society has been formed; and the proceedings of these +Conventions and Society meetings have been fairly reported, and +have received favorable notices in many of the papers of this +country, as well as in the <i>Westminster Review</i> in England.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Frances D. Gage</span> said that allusion had been made in the address +to the popular sentiment, that men are what their mothers made +them. She repelled this sentiment as an indignity to her sex. +What mother, she asked, ever taught her son to drink rum, gamble, +swear, smoke, and chew tobacco? The truth was, that the boy was +virtually taught to regard his mother as inferior, and that it +was not manly to follow her instructions. When he left the +hearth-stone he was beyond her reach. He found men, and those, +too, in elevated stations, addicted to vulgar and vicious +practices, and he was liable, in forgetfulness of all that his +mother had taught him, to fall into such habits himself. Men +allowed grog-shops to be set up on the street corners, and +permitted gambling-houses to exist, to tempt the boy from the +path of virtue; and when the mothers asked for the abatement of +these evils, they were told to keep in their sphere. In the town +where she resided (McConnellsville, Morgan Co., Ohio), the women +sent a large petition to the court asking that grog-shops might +not be licensed. The judge thereupon remarked that "woman's place +was in the nursery and the parlor, and that when she interfered +with public affairs, or set herself up as an instructor of the +courts, she was out of her sphere." Thus men perpetuate +institutions which undermine the influence of the mothers, and +corrupt the morals of the sons. The boys were, therefore, in many +cases, what men made them. True, there were some cases in which +the mother, by superior power, shaped the destiny of her sons, in +spite of adverse influences. Such cases were not the rule, but +the exception. Mothers, generally, could not exert their full +influence over their sons, unless they were permitted to stand by +them as the equals of their fathers in all relations of life.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The following address, written by Ann Preston, and adopted as an +exposition of the principles and purposes of the Convention, was +impressively read by the author:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">ANN PRESTON'S ADDRESS.</p> + +<p>The question is repeatedly asked by those who have thought but +little upon the subject of woman's position in society, "What +does woman want more than she possesses already? Is she not +beloved, honored, guarded, cherished? Wherein are her rights +infringed, or her liberties curtailed?"</p> + +<p>Glowing pictures have been drawn of the fitness of the present +relations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> of society, and of the beauty of woman's dependence +upon the protecting love of man, and frightful visions have been +evoked of the confusion and perversion of nature which would +occur if the doctrine of the equal rights of man and woman was +once admitted.</p> + +<p>The idea seems to prevail that movements for the elevation of +woman arise, not from the legitimate wants of society, but from +the vague restlessness of unquiet spirits; not from the serene +dictates of wisdom, but from the headlong impulses of fanaticism.</p> + +<p>We came not here to argue the question of the relative strength +of intellect in man and woman; for the reform which we advocate +depends not upon its settlement. We place not the interests of +woman in antagonism to those of her brother, for</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The woman's cause is man's:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They rise or sink together,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dwarfed or God-like, bond or free."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>We maintain not that woman should lose any of that refinement and +delicacy of spirit which, as a celestial halo, ever encircles the +pure in heart. We contend not that she shall become noisy and +dictatorial, and abjure the quiet graces of life. We claim not +that she, any more than her brother, should engage in any +vocation or appear in any situation to which her nature and +abilities are not fitted. But we ask for her, as for man, +equality before the law, and freedom to exercise all her powers +and faculties under the direction of her own judgment and +volition.</p> + +<p>When a woman dies, leaving behind her a husband and children, no +appraisers come into the desolated home to examine the effects; +the father is the guardian of his offspring; the family relation +is not invaded by law. But when a man dies the case is entirely +different; in the hour of the widow's deep distress strangers +come into the house to take an inventory of the effects, +strangers are appointed to be the guardians of her children, and +she, their natural care-taker, thenceforth has no legal direction +of their interests; strangers decide upon the propriety of the +sale of the property—earned, perhaps, by her own and her +husband's mutual efforts—and her interest in the estate is +coolly designated as the "widow's incumbrance!" In the extremity +of her bereavement there is piled upon her, not only the dread of +separation from her children, but that of being sent homeless +from the spot where every object has been consecrated by her +tenderest affections.</p> + +<p>Nor is the practical working of this law better than its theory; +all over the country there are widows who have been made doubly +desolate by its provisions—widows separated from their children, +who, if they had had the disposal of their own and their +husbands' mutual property, might have retrieved their +circumstances, and kept the household band together. We ask for +such change in public sentiment as shall procure the repeal of +this oppressive law.</p> + +<p>We ask that woman shall have free access to vocations of profit +and honor, the means of earning a livelihood and independence for +herself! As a general rule, profitable employments are not +considered open to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> woman, nor are her business capabilities +encouraged and developed by systematic training. Gloomy must be +the feelings of the father of a family of young daughters, when +he is about to bid farewell to the world, if he is leaving them +without the means of pecuniary support. Their brothers may go out +into society and gain position and competency; but for them there +is but little choice of employment, and, too often, they are left +with repressed and crippled energies to pine and chafe under the +bitter sense of poverty and dependence.</p> + +<p>Their pursuits are to be determined, not by their inclination, +judgment, and ability, as are those of man, but by the popular +estimate of what is proper and becoming. In Turkey public +delicacy is outraged if a woman appears unveiled beyond the walls +of the harem; in America a sentiment no less arbitrary presumes +to mark out for her the precise boundaries of womanly propriety; +and she who ventures to step beyond them, must do it at the peril +of encountering low sneers, coarse allusions, and the withering +imputation of want of feminine delicacy.</p> + +<p>Even for the same services woman generally receives less than +man. The whole tendency of our customs, habits, and teaching, is +to make her dependent—dependent in outward circumstances, +dependent in spirit.</p> + +<p>As a consequence of her fewer resources, marriage has been to her +the great means of securing position in society. Thus it is that +this relation—which should ever be a "holy sacrament," the +unbiased and generous election of the free and self-sustained +being—too often is degraded into a mean acceptance of a shelter +from neglect and poverty! We ask that woman shall be trained to +unfold her whole nature; to exercise all her powers and +faculties.</p> + +<p>It is said that the domestic circle is the peculiar province of +woman; that "men are what mothers make them." But how can that +woman who does not live for self-culture and self-development, +who has herself no exalted objects in life, imbue her children +with lofty aspirations, or train her sons to a free and glorious +manhood? She best can fulfill the duties of wife and mother, who +is fitted for other and varied usefulness.</p> + +<p>The being who lives for one relation only can not possess the +power and scope which are required for the highest excellence +even in that one. If the whole body is left without exercise, one +arm does not become strong; if the tree is stunted in its growth, +one branch does not shoot into surpassing luxuriance.</p> + +<p>That woman whose habits and mental training enable her to assist +and sustain her husband in seasons of difficulty, and whose +children rely on her as a wise counselor, commands a life-long +reverence far deeper and dearer than can be secured by transient +accomplishments, or the most refined and delicate imbecility! All +women are not wives and mothers, but all have spirits needing +development, powers that grow with their exercise.</p> + +<p>Those who are best acquainted with the state of society know that +there is, at this time, a vast amount of unhappiness among women +for want of free outlets to their powers; that thousands are +yearning for fuller development, and a wider field of usefulness. +The same energies which in man find vent in the professions, and +in the thousand forms of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> business and study, must find an +ennobling channel in woman, else they will be frittered away in +trifles, or turned into instruments to prey upon their possessor.</p> + +<p>To follow the empty round of fashion, to retail gossip and +scandal, to be an ornament in the parlor or a mere drudge in the +kitchen, to live as an appendage to any human being, does not +fill up nor satisfy the capacities of a soul awakened to a sense +of its true wants, and the far-reaching and mighty interests +which cluster around its existence.</p> + +<p>We protest against the tyranny of that public sentiment which +assigns any arbitrary sphere to woman. God has made the happiness +and development of His creatures to depend upon the free exercise +of their powers and faculties. Freedom is the law of beauty, +written by His fingers upon the human mind, and the only +condition upon which it can attain to its fall stature, and +expand in its natural and beautiful proportions.</p> + +<p>It is recognized, in reference to man, that his judgment, +opportunities, and abilities are the proper measure of his +sphere. "The tools to him who can use them." But the same +principles are not trusted in their application to woman, lest, +forsooth, she should lose her feminine characteristics, and, like +the lost Pleiad, forsake her native sphere!</p> + +<p>It seems to be forgotten that the laws of nature will not be +suspended; that the human mind, when released from pressure, like +water, must find its own level; that woman can not, if she would, +cast away her nature and instincts; that it is only when we are +left free to obey the inward attractions of our being that we +fall into our natural places, and move in our God-appointed +orbits.</p> + +<p>We ask that none shall dare to come in between woman and her +Maker, and with unhallowed hands attempt to plant their shallow +posts and draw their flimsy cords around the Heaven-wide sphere +of an immortal spirit! We maintain that God has not so failed in +His adaptations as to give powers to be wasted, talents to be +wrapped in a napkin; and that the possession of faculties and +capabilities is the warrant of nature, the command of the +All-Wise for their culture and exercise.</p> + +<p>We believe that the woman who is obeying the convictions of her +own soul, and whose ability is commensurate with her employment, +is ever in her own true sphere; whether in her quiet home she is +training her children to nobleness and virtue, or is standing as +a physician by the bed of sickness and sorrow; whether, with +Elizabeth Fry, she is preaching the gospel of glad tidings to the +sad dwellers in prison, or like the Italian, Lauri Bassi, is +filling a professor's chair and expounding philosophy to admiring +and instructed listeners.</p> + +<p>While we demand for woman a more complete physical, intellectual, +and moral education, as the means of strengthening and +beautifying her own nature, and of ennobling the whole race, we +also ask for a more elevated standard of excellence and moral +purity in man; and we maintain that if there is any place of +resort or employment in society, which necessarily would sully +the delicacy of woman's spirit, in that, man also must be +contaminated and degraded. Woman indeed should wear about her, +wherever she moves, the protecting investment of innocence and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> +purity; but not less is it requisite that he, who is the +companion of her life, should guard his spirit with the same +sacred and beautiful covering.</p> + +<p>We believe that woman, as an accountable being, can not +innocently merge her individuality in that of her brother, or +accept from him the limitations of her sphere. In all life's +great extremities she also is thrown upon her inward resources, +and stands alone. Man can not step in between her and the +"accusing angel" of her own conscience; alone in the solitude of +her spirit she must wrestle with her own sorrows; none can walk +for her "the valley of the shadow of death!" When her brother +shall be able to settle for her accountabilities, and "give to +God a ransom for her soul," then, and not till then, may she +rightly commit to him the direction of her powers and activities.</p> + +<p>We ask, in fine, for the application of the fundamental +principles of Christianity and republicanism to this, as to all +other questions of vital importance; and appealing to all who +desire the progression and happiness of the whole race, we ask +them, as magnanimous men and true women, to examine this subject +in the spirit of a generous and candid investigation.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rush Plumly</span> said: Although institutions which recognize all the +rights of all classes of the people, and allow scope for the +growth and activity of every faculty, must, in their very nature, +increase in power and permanence; yet, compared with the duration +of things, the oldest nations and the best founded governments +have had but an ephemeral existence, appearing, maturing, and +decaying with startling rapidity and endless succession.</p> + +<p>No form has been exempt from this national mortality. +Theocracies, oligarchies, monarchies, despotisms, republics, have +arisen, flourished, and vanished into history or tradition. So +inevitable does the successive ruin appear, that we have +incorporated into our religious faith the idea that limitation, +conflict, and decay, rather than expansion, permanence, and +peace, are inherent in all human governments, and, in despair man +postpones his hope of national, as well as of individual +stability and happiness, to some future existence.</p> + +<p>For results so certain and so universal among all people, in +every age, there must be some profound and radical cause which +religion and philosophy have not discovered, or for which they +have proposed no remedy. It is not sufficient to say that these +are consequences of human imperfection; that we know; but whence +arises the imperfection? It does not satisfy us to assert that +they proceed from the depravity of man; how came he depraved? Nor +is it more consoling to declare that all human institutions must +change and perish. Why must they? Human institutions, if founded +upon eternal principles, become divine, and may be immortal; it +is not the human, but the inhuman institutions which perish; not +humanity, but inhumanity which fills the earth with strife and +blood.</p> + +<p>No! there is behind and below all these imaginary causes, a real +cause for the degeneracy of the race. It may be traced to the +long continued disregard of the laws of God in relation to woman, +and the retribution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> is worked out physiologically upon the whole +nature of man, reaching every tissue of his body and every +faculty of his mind.</p> + +<p>It is a law of God, well understood, that whenever and wherever +any community forcibly depresses any class of its people below +the general level, it not only injures and degrades that class, +but is itself injured, degraded, and deranged in exact proportion +to the wrong it perpetrates. Whenever we crowd any portion of our +fellow-beings into an abyss of ignorance and servitude, we are +drawn irresistibly, by their weight, to the brink of the same +gulf.</p> + +<p>If this be the inevitable result of the oppression of an +individual, or a class, how much more forcibly must it apply when +one-half the world, the "mothers of the living," are made subject +to systematic deprivation of rights and tyrannous restriction in +the exercise of high and noble faculties.</p> + +<p>I do not propose to detail the disabilities under which woman +suffers. They have been ably depicted by women in this meeting. +But I wish to indicate the breadth and basis of this reform, for +the consideration of those people who suppose it to be a +fractional and transient movement.</p> + +<p>Whatever suffering or degradation woman is subjected to, by the +depression of the whole sex below the level of society, reacts +with frightful force upon man; who is thus compelled to +compensate for the cruel and mistaken policy, which, in all time, +has denied to her equal opportunities of education and +development, closed to her those avenues to profit and progress +open to him, ignored her in the Church and State as feeble and +inferior, rejected her counsels, and derided her authority in the +creation of those institutions of society to which not only she, +but her children are to be subject; although, if there be any +induction more striking than another it is this, that a child, +who is the offspring of the physical union of man and woman, can +only be truly educated and nurtured by institutions springing +from the unity of mental and moral elements in the father and +mother.</p> + +<p>This universal ignoring of the feminine element pervades not only +the politics, but the religion of every country on earth. Men +worship, as their supreme God, only an embodiment of the +masculine element—"Power," whether in Jove or Jehovah; and ever +in the Christian Trinity or Unity, the same masculine ideal is +maintained. Jesus did, indeed, recognize the feminine element in +His emphatic declaration that "God is Love," but His professed +followers have "not so learned Him," for they not only declare +God to be a triune masculinity, but they have driven woman from +the pulpit, and would dispute with her the place at the cross and +the sepulchre.</p> + +<p>The religions of antiquity permitted woman to be a priestess at +the expense of wifehood and maternity, but our Christian +Protestantism denies to her the mission of minister, even with +that penalty. It is true the Catholic Church does recognize women +among its divinities, and it might be a curious and instructive +inquiry, how far that Church owes its perpetuity, despite its +gigantic crimes and crushing despotism, to the recognition of +"Mary the mother of God." In its effort to perpetuate the +servitude of woman, as in other attempts to defend oppression +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> falsehood, society has suborned the handmaids of progress, +Religion and Science, to justify its wickedness; the one to prove +inferiority from her organism, the other to add the weight of its +anathema against any effort at equality.</p> + +<p>But Nature vindicates herself against the first, by presenting De +Staël, Margaret Fuller, and others; and to the cavilling bigot it +may be said that whoever declared that "man is the head of the +woman," if he designed to justify the present interpretation of +that expression, has forfeited all claim to the apostleship of a +religion whose highest merit it is to equalize the people by +elevating the oppressed. But Paul taught no such doctrine.</p> + +<p>The result of all this circumscription of woman has been to +enfeeble and misdirect her faculties, to weaken the influence of +her nature upon society and especially upon her offspring. Driven +from the thousand avenues to wealth and position open to man, +denied access to the best institutions of learning, permitted to +acquire only superficial accomplishments, she is ushered into +society at an age when her brothers are preparing to enter +colleges and halls of learning from which she is excluded, and +thus undeveloped and comparatively helpless, her instincts +vitiated and no freedom for her affinities, she is turned adrift +to encounter obstacles for which she is unprepared, and in the +severe conflict to barter her honor for subsistence; or if she +escape that horrible contingency, to exchange her beauty or her +services for a matrimonial establishment, and thus prepare to +perpetuate human degeneracy.</p> + +<p>There are many exceptions to this statement, but the statement is +the rule. From these unequal and discordant relations, and the +feeble and restricted influence of the mother, spring generations +of children who are born constitutionally defective in the +feminine qualities of gentleness, purity, and love; and the utter +rejection of that element in the societary arrangements under +which they grow to manhood, aggravates their inherited +tendencies, until whole nations of warriors founding governments +of blood have filled the earth, and war and rapine have not only +become the occupation and the pastime of man, but have grown into +his religion and become incarnate in the Deities he worships.</p> + +<p>It is thus that the seeds of violence and vice are sown with the +germs of the generations, and they spring to a frightful harvest +in each succeeding growth of the race. Millions of human beings +issue into life, pre-ordained—not in the theological, but in the +physiological sense—to violence and crime, and they go forth to +make their calling and election sure. From these the world +recruits its armies, renews its tyrants, refills its slave-pens +and its brothels, populates its prisons, alms-houses, and +asylums. It is in vain to hope for other results while woman, +upon whom, as "mother of the living," depends the progress of +man, is denied any other than a limited and indirect influence in +the fabric of society.</p> + +<p>We may abolish slavery, remove intemperance, banish war and +licentiousness, but they will have frightful reproduction in the +elemental discord of our natures; for that which is "in us will +be revealed." Man indicates his condition by the institutions he +creates; they are the issues of the life he lives at the time, +the outward sign of his inward state.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p> + +<p>To improve that inward condition, and arrest at their origin +these causes of human degeneracy, is the object of this reform. +It proposes, as before stated, not only to cure, but to prevent +the diseases of the body politic; to place man and woman in such +natural and true relations of equal and mutual development, and +to so sanctify marriage that from their union under the highest +auspices, a regenerate humanity shall not only cease to be +violent and vicious, but shall outgrow the dispositions to +violence and vice.</p> + +<p>We know that this is a work for whole generations, but as we +believe it to be radical and effectual, it should be at once +begun. We think the first great step is to clear away the rubbish +of ages from the pathway of woman, to abolish the onerous +restrictions which environ her in every direction, to open to her +the temples of religion, the halls of science and of art, and the +marts of commerce, affording her the same opportunity for +education and occupation now enjoyed by man; no longer, by +corrupt public sentiment and partial legislation, to limit her to +a few and poorly paid pursuits to obtain subsistence and thus +increase her dependence upon the charity of man, nor to deny her +admission to any institution of learning, whose richly endowed +professorships and vast advantages she by her labor has +contributed to create, only to see them monopolized by man. I +know that in answer to this it is urged that she has organic +limits intellectually which deny to her such attainments. It is +sufficient to reply, that under all the disabilities to which she +is subject, her sex has produced De Staël and Margaret Fuller.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Letters were read from Mary Mott, of Auburn, De Kalb County, Indiana; +Paulina Wright Davis, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, William and Mary +Johnson, and a series of resolutions passed.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Oliver Johnson took +an active part in the discussions, and at the close of the Convention, +moved a resolution of thanks to the friends who had come from a +distance, and contributed so much to the success of the meeting. The +Convention then adjourned <i>sine die</i>.</p> + +<p>In 1849, Richard H. Dana, of Boston, well known as a man of rare +literary culture, delivered a lecture on womanhood throughout the +country. He ridiculed the new demand of American women for civil and +political rights, and for a larger sphere of action, and eulogized +Shakespeare's women, especially Desdemona, Ophelia, and Juliet, and +recommended them to his dissatisfied countrywomen as models of +innocence, tenderness, and confiding love in man, for their study and +imitation.</p> + +<p>He gave this lecture in Philadelphia, and Lucretia Mott was in the +audience. At the close she asked an introduction, and told him that +while she had been much interested in his lecture, and profited by the +information it contained, she could not respond to his idea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> of +woman's true character and destiny. "I am very sorry," he replied +quickly, at the first word of criticism, and rushed out of the house, +leaving Mrs. Mott, who had hoped to modify his views, somewhat +transfixed with surprise. In describing the scene to some friends +afterward, she remarked that she had never been treated with more +rudeness by one supposed to understand the rules of etiquette that +should always govern the behavior of a gentleman.</p> + +<p>Soon after this, she delivered the following discourse in the Assembly +buildings in Philadelphia. After giving the Bible view of woman's +position as an equal,</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span> said: I have not come here with a view of answering +any particular parts of the lecture alluded to, in order to point +out the fallacy of its reasoning. The speaker, however, did not +profess to offer anything like argument on that occasion, but +rather a sentiment. I have no prepared address to deliver to you, +being unaccustomed to speak in that way; but I felt a wish to +offer some views for your consideration, though in a desultory +manner, which may lead to such reflection and discussion as will +present the subject in a true light.</p> + +<p>Why should not woman seek to be a reformer? If she is to shrink +from being such an iconoclast as shall "break the image of man's +lower worship," as so long held up to view; if she is to fear to +exercise her reason, and her noblest powers, lest she should be +thought to "attempt to act the man," and not "acknowledge his +supremacy"; if she is to be satisfied with the narrow sphere +assigned her by man, nor aspire to a higher, lest she should +transcend the bounds of female delicacy; truly it is a mournful +prospect for woman. We would admit all the difference, that our +great and beneficent Creator has made, in the relation of man and +woman, nor would we seek to disturb this relation; but we deny +that the present position of woman is her true sphere of +usefulness; nor will she attain to this sphere, until the +disabilities and disadvantages, religious, civil, and social, +which impede her progress, are removed out of her way. These +restrictions have enervated her mind and paralyzed her powers. +While man assumes that the present is the original state designed +for woman, that the existing "differences are not arbitrary nor +the result of accident," but grounded in nature; she will not +make the necessary effort to obtain her just rights, lest it +should subject her to the kind of scorn and contemptuous manner +in which she has been spoken of.</p> + +<p>So far from her "ambition leading her to attempt to act the man," +she needs all the encouragement she can receive, by the removal +of obstacles from her path, in order that she may become the +"true woman." As it is desirable that man should act a manly and +generous part, not "mannish," so let woman be urged to exercise a +dignified and womanly bearing, not womanish. Let her cultivate +all the graces and proper accomplishments of her sex, but let not +these degenerate into a kind of effeminacy, in which she is +satisfied to be the mere plaything or toy of society,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> content +with her outward adornings, and the flattery and fulsome +adulation too often addressed to her.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;"> +<a name="v1_1369" id="v1_1369"> +<img src="images/v1_1369.png" width="368" height="500" +alt="Lucretia Mott (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>Did Elizabeth Fry lose any of her feminine qualities by the +public walk into which she was called? Having performed the +duties of a mother to a large family, feeling that she owed a +labor of love to the poor prisoner, she was empowered by Him who +sent her forth, to go to kings and crowned heads of the earth, +and ask audience of these, and it was granted her. Did she lose +the delicacy of woman by her acts? No. Her retiring modesty was +characteristic of her to the latest period of her life. It was my +privilege to enjoy her society some years ago, and I found all +that belonged to the feminine in woman—to true nobility, in a +refined and purified moral nature. Is Dorothea Dix throwing off +her womanly nature and appearance in the course she is pursuing? +In finding duties abroad, has any "refined man felt that +something of beauty has gone forth from her"? To use the +contemptuous word applied in the lecture alluded to, is she +becoming "mannish"? Is she compromising her womanly dignity in +going forth to seek to better the condition of the insane and +afflicted? Is not a beautiful mind and a retiring modesty still +conspicuous in her?</p> + +<p>Indeed, I would ask, if this modesty is not attractive also, when +manifested in the other sex? It was strikingly marked in Horace +Mann, when presiding over the late National Educational +Convention in this city. The retiring modesty of William Ellery +Channing was beautiful, as well as of many others who have filled +elevated stations in society. These virtues, differing as they +may in degree in man and woman, are of the same nature, and call +forth our admiration wherever manifested.</p> + +<p>The noble courage of Grace Darling is justly honored for risking +her own life on the coast of England, during the raging storm, in +order to rescue the poor, suffering, shipwrecked mariner.</p> + +<p>Woman was not wanting in courage in the early ages. In war and +bloodshed this trait was often displayed. Grecian and Roman +history have lauded and honored her in this character. English +history records her courageous women too, for unhappily we have +little but the records of war handed down to us. The courage of +Joan of Arc was made the subject of a popular lecture not long +ago by one of our intelligent citizens. But more noble, moral +daring is marking the female character at the present time, and +better worthy of imitation. As these characteristics come to be +appreciated in man too, his warlike acts with all the miseries +and horrors of the battle-ground will sink into their merited +oblivion, or be remembered only to be condemned. The heroism +displayed in the tented field must yield to the moral and +Christian heroism which is shadowed in the signs of our times.</p> + +<p>The lecturer regarded the announcement of woman's achievements, +and the offering of appropriate praise through the press, as a +gross innovation upon the obscurity of female life—he complained +that the exhibition of attainments of girls in schools was now +equal to that of boys, and the newspapers announce that "Miss +Brown received the first prize for English grammar," etc. If he +objected to so much excitement of emulation in schools, it would +be well; for the most enlightened teachers discountenance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> these +appeals to love of approbation and self-esteem. But while prizes +continue to be awarded, can any good reason be given why the name +of the girl should not be published as well as that of the boy? +He spoke with scorn, that "we hear of Mrs. President so and so; +and committees and secretaries of the same sex." But if women can +conduct their own business, by means of presidents and +secretaries of their own sex, can he tell us why they should not? +They will never make much progress in any moral movement while +they depend upon men to act for them. Do we shrink from reading +the announcement that Mrs. Somerville is made an honorary member +of a scientific association? That Miss Herschel has made some +discoveries, and is prepared to take her equal part in science? +Or that Miss Mitchell, of Nantucket, has lately discovered a +planet, long looked for? I can not conceive why "honor to whom +honor is due" should not be rendered to woman as well as man; nor +will it necessarily exalt her, or foster feminine pride. This +propensity is found alike in male and female, and it should not +be ministered to improperly in either sex.</p> + +<p>In treating upon the affections, the lecturer held out the idea +that as manifested in the sexes they were opposite if not +somewhat antagonistic, and required a union as in chemistry to +form a perfect whole. The simile appeared to me far from a +correct illustration of the true union. Minds that can +assimilate, spirits that are congenial, attract one another. It +is the union of similar, not of opposite affections, which is +necessary for the perfection of the marriage bond. There seemed a +want of proper delicacy in his representing man as being bold in +the demonstration of the pure affection of love. In persons of +refinement, true love seeks concealment in man as well as in +woman. I will not enlarge upon the subject, although it formed so +great a part of his lecture. The contrast drawn seemed a fallacy, +as has much, very much, that has been presented in the sickly +sentimental strains of the poet from age to age.</p> + +<p>The question is often asked, "What does woman want, more than she +enjoys? What is she seeking to obtain? Of what rights is she +deprived? What privileges are withheld from her?" I answer, she +asks nothing as favor, but as right; she wants to be acknowledged +a moral, responsible being. She is seeking not to be governed by +laws in the making of which she has no voice. She is deprived of +almost every right in civil society, and is a cipher in the +nation, except in the right of presenting a petition. In +religious society her disabilities have greatly retarded her +progress. Her exclusion from the pulpit or ministry, her duties +marked out for her by her equal brother man, subject to creeds, +rules, and disciplines made for her by him, is unworthy her true +dignity.</p> + +<p>In marriage there is assumed superiority on the part of the +husband, and admitted inferiority with a promise of obedience on +the part of the wife. This subject calls loudly for examination +in order that the wrong may be redressed. Customs suited to +darker ages in Eastern countries are not binding upon enlightened +society. The solemn covenant of marriage may be entered into +without these lordly assumptions and humiliating concessions and +promises.</p> + +<p>There are large Christian denominations who do not recognize +such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> degrading relations of husband and wife. They ask no aid +from magistrate or clergyman to legalize or sanctify this union. +But acknowledging themselves in the presence of the Highest and +invoking His assistance, they come under reciprocal obligations +of fidelity and affection, before suitable witnesses. Experience +and observation go to prove that there may be as much harmony, to +say the least, in such a union, and as great purity and +permanence of affection, as can exist where the common ceremony +is observed.</p> + +<p>The distinctive relations of husband and wife, of father and +mother of a family, are sacredly preserved, without the +assumption of authority on the one part, or the promise of +obedience on the other. There is nothing in such a marriage +degrading to woman. She does not compromise her dignity or +self-respect; but enters married life upon equal ground, by the +side of her husband. By proper education, she understands her +duties, physical, intellectual, and moral; and fulfilling these, +she is a helpmeet in the true sense of the word.</p> + +<p>I tread upon delicate ground in alluding to the institutions of +religious Associations; but the subject is of so much importance +that all which relates to the position of woman should be +examined apart from the undue veneration which ancient usage +receives.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To reverence what is ancient, and can plead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A course of long observance for its use,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That even servitude, the worst of ills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because delivered down from sire to son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>So with woman. She has so long been subject to the disabilities +and restrictions with which her progress has been embarrassed, +that she has become enervated, her mind to some extent paralyzed; +and like those still more degraded by personal bondage, she hugs +her chains. Liberty is often presented in its true light, but it +is liberty for man. I would not go so far, either as regards the +abject slave or woman; for in both cases they may be so degraded +by the crushing influences around them, that they may not be +sensible of the blessings of freedom. Liberty is not less a +blessing, because oppression has so long darkened the mind that +it can not appreciate it. I would, therefore, urge that woman be +placed in such a situation in society, by the recognition of her +rights, and have such opportunities for growth and development, +as shall raise her from this low, enervated, and paralyzed +condition, to a full appreciation of the blessing of entire +freedom of mind.</p> + +<p>It is with reluctance that I make the demand for the political +rights of women, because this claim is so distasteful to the age. +Woman shrinks, in the present state of society, from taking any +interest in politics. The events of the French Revolution, and +the claim for woman's rights, are held up to her as a warning. +Let us not look at the excesses of women alone, at that period; +but remember that the age was marked with extravagances and +wickedness in men as well as women. Political life abounds with +these excesses and with shameful outrage. Who knows but that if +woman acted her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> part in governmental affairs, there might be an +entire change in the turmoil of political life? It becomes man to +speak modestly of his ability to act without her. If woman's +judgment were exercised, why might she not aid in making the laws +by which she is governed? Lord Brougham remarked that the works +of Harriet Martineau upon Political Economy were not excelled by +those of any political writer of the present time. The first few +chapters of her "Society in America," her views of a Republic, +and of government generally, furnish evidence of woman's capacity +to embrace subjects of universal interest.</p> + +<p>Far be it from me to encourage women to vote, or to take an +active part in politics in the present state of our government. +Her right to the elective franchise, however, is the same, and +should be yielded to her, whether she exercise that right or not. +Would that man, too, would have no participation in a government +recognizing the life-taking principle; retaliation and the sword. +It is unworthy a Christian nation. But when in the diffusion of +light and intelligence a Convention shall be called to make +regulations for self-government on Christian principles, I can +see no good reason why women should not participate in such an +assemblage, taking part equally with man.</p> + +<p>Professor Walker, of Cincinnati, in his "Introduction to American +Law," says: "With regard to political rights, females form a +positive exception to the general doctrine of equality. They have +no part or lot in the formation or administration of government. +They cannot vote or hold office. We require them to contribute +their share in the way of taxes to the support of government, but +allow them no voice in its direction. We hold them amenable to +the laws when made, but allow them no share in making them. This +language applied to males would be the exact definition of +political slavery; applied to females custom does not teach us so +to regard it." Woman, however, is beginning so to regard it.</p> + +<p>He further says: "The law of husband and wife, as you gather it +from the books, is a disgrace to any civilized nation. The theory +of the law degrades the wife almost to the level of slaves. When +a woman marries, we call her condition coverture, and speak of +her as a <i>femme covert</i>. The old writers call the husband baron, +and sometimes in plain English, lord.... The merging of her name +in that of her husband is emblematic of the fate of all her legal +rights. The torch of Hymen serves but to light the pile on which +these rights are offered up. The legal theory is, that marriage +makes the husband and wife one person, and that person is the +husband. On this subject, reform is loudly called for. There is +no foundation in reason or expediency for the absolute and +slavish subjection of the wife to the husband, which forms the +foundation of the present legal relations. Were woman, in point +of fact, the abject thing which the law in theory considers her +to be when married, she would not be worthy the companionship of +man."</p> + +<p>I would ask if such a code of laws does not require change? If +such a condition of the wife in society does not claim redress? +On no good ground can reform be delayed. Blackstone says: "The +very being and legal existence of woman is suspended during +marriage; incorporated or consolidated into that of her husband +under whose protection and cover she performs everything." +Hurlbut, in his Essay upon Human Rights, says: "The laws touching +the rights of women are at variance with the laws of the Creator. +Rights are human rights, and pertain to human beings without +distinction of sex. Laws<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> should not be made for man or for +woman, but for mankind. Man was not born to command, nor woman to +obey.... The law of France, Spain, and Holland, and one of our +own States, Louisiana, recognizes the wife's right to property, +more than the common law of England.... The laws depriving woman +of the right of property are handed down to us from dark and +feudal times, and are not consistent with the wiser, better, +purer spirit of the age. The wife is a mere pensioner on the +bounty of her husband. Her lost rights are appropriated to +himself. But justice and benevolence are abroad in our land +awakening the spirit of inquiry and innovation; and the Gothic +fabric of the British law will fall before it, save where it is +based upon the foundation of truth and justice."</p> + +<p>May these statements lead you to reflect upon this subject, that +you may know what woman's condition is in society, what her +restrictions are, and seek to remove them. In how many cases in +our country the husband and wife begin life together, and by +equal industry and united effort accumulate to themselves a +comfortable home. In the event of the death of the wife the +household remains undisturbed, his farm or his workshop is not +broken up or in any way molested. But when the husband dies he +either gives his wife a portion of their joint accumulation, or +the law apportions to her a share; the homestead is broken up, +and she is dispossessed of that which she earned equally with +him; for what she lacked in physical strength she made up in +constancy of labor and toil, day and evening. The sons then +coming into possession of the property, as has been the custom +until of later time, speak of having to keep their mother, when +she in reality is aiding to keep them. Where is the justice of +this state of things? The change in the law of this State and of +New York in relation to the property of the wife, goes to a +limited extent toward the redress of these wrongs which are far +more extensive and involve much more than I have time this +evening to point out.</p> + +<p>On no good ground can the legal existence of the wife be +suspended during marriage, and her property surrendered to her +husband. In the intelligent ranks of society the wife may not in +point of fact be so degraded as the law would degrade her; +because public sentiment is above the law. Still, while the law +stands, she is liable to the disabilities which it imposes. Among +the ignorant classes of society, woman is made to bear heavy +burdens, and is degraded almost to the level of the slave. There +are many instances now in our city, where the wife suffers much +from the power of the husband to claim all that she can earn with +her own hands. In my intercourse with the poorer class of people, +I have known cases of extreme cruelty from the hard earnings of +the wife being thus robbed by the husband, and no redress at law.</p> + +<p>An article in one of the daily papers lately presented the +condition of needle-women in England. There might be a +presentation of this class in our own country which would make +the heart bleed. Public attention should be turned to this +subject in order that avenues of more profitable employment may +be opened to women. There are many kinds of business which women, +equally with men, may follow with respectability and success. +Their talents and energies should be called forth, and their +powers brought into the highest exercise. The efforts of women in +France are sometimes pointed to in ridicule and sarcasm, but +depend upon it, the opening of profitable employment to women in +that country is doing much for the enfranchisement of the sex.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +In England and America it is not an uncommon thing for a wife to +take up the business of her deceased husband and carry it on with +success.</p> + +<p>Our respected British Consul stated to me a circumstance which +occurred some years ago, of an editor of a political paper having +died in England; it was proposed to his wife, an able writer, to +take the editorial chair. She accepted. The patronage of the +paper was greatly increased, and she a short time since retired +from her labors with a handsome fortune. In that country, +however, the opportunities are by no means general for woman's +elevation.</p> + +<p>In visiting the public school in London a few years since, I +noticed that the boys were employed in linear drawing, and +instructed upon the black-board in the higher branches of +arithmetic and mathematics; while the girls, after a short +exercise in the mere elements of arithmetic, were seated during +the bright hours of the morning, stitching wristbands. I asked +why there should be this difference made; why the girls too +should not have the black-board? The answer was, that they would +not probably fill any station in society requiring such +knowledge.</p> + +<p>The demand for a more extended education will not cease until +girls and boys have equal instruction in all the departments of +useful knowledge. We have as yet no high-school in this State. +The normal school may be a preparation for such an establishment. +In the late convention for general education, it was cheering to +hear the testimony borne to woman's capabilities for head +teachers of the public schools. A resolution there offered for +equal salaries to male and female teachers when equally +qualified, as practiced in Louisiana. I regret to say, was +checked in its passage by Bishop Potter; by him who has done so +much for the encouragement of education, and who gave his +countenance and influence to that Convention. Still, the fact of +such a resolution being offered, augurs a time coming for woman +which she may well hail. At the last examination of the public +schools in this city, one of the alumni delivered an address on +Woman, not as is too common in eulogistic strains, but directing +the attention to the injustice done to woman in her position in +society in a variety of ways, the unequal wages she receives for +her constant toil, etc., presenting facts calculated to arouse +attention to the subject.</p> + +<p>Women's property has been taxed equally with that of men's to +sustain colleges endowed by the States; but they have not been +permitted to enter those high seminaries of learning. Within a +few years, however, some colleges have been instituted where +young women are admitted upon nearly equal terms with young men; +and numbers are availing themselves of their long denied rights. +This is among the signs of the times, indicative of an advance +for women. The book of knowledge is not opened to her in vain. +Already is she aiming to occupy important posts of honor and +profit in our country. We have three females editors in our +State, and some in other States of the Union. Numbers are +entering the medical profession; one received a diploma last +year; others are preparing for a like result.</p> + +<p>Let woman then go on, not asking favors, but claiming as right, +the removal of all hindrances to her elevation in the scale of +being; let her receive encouragement for the proper cultivation +of all her powers, so that she may enter profitably into the +active business of life; employing her own hands in ministering +to her necessities, strengthening her physical being by proper +exercise and observance of the laws of health. Let her not be +ambitious to display a fair hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> and to promenade the +fashionable streets of our city, but rather, coveting earnestly +the best gifts, let her strive to occupy such walks in society as +will befit her true dignity in all the relations of life. No fear +that she will then transcend the proper limits of female +delicacy. True modesty will be as fully preserved in acting out +those important vocations, as in the nursery or at the fireside +ministering to man's self-indulgence. Then in the marriage union, +the independence of the husband and wife will be equal, their +dependence mutual, and their obligations reciprocal.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, let me say, with Nathaniel P. Willis: "Credit not +the old-fashioned absurdity that woman's is a secondary lot, +ministering to the necessities of her lord and master! It is a +higher destiny I would award you. If your immortality is as +complete, and your gift of mind as capable as ours of increase +and elevation, I would put no wisdom of mine against God's +evident allotment. I would charge you to water the undying bud, +and give it healthy culture, and open its beauty to the sun; and +then you may hope that when your life is bound up with another, +you will go on equally and in a fellowship that shall pervade +every earthly interest."</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>NATIONAL CONVENTION IN PHILADELPHIA.</h3> + +<p>October 18, 1854, the Fifth National Convention was held in Sansom +Street Hall, where a large audience, chiefly of ladies, assembled at +an early hour.</p> + +<p>At half-past ten o'clock Lucretia Mott made her appearance on the +platform, accompanied by several ladies and gentlemen, notably Lucy +Stone in Bloomer costume. She was the observed of all observers; the +neatness of her attire, and the grace with which she wore it, did much +to commend it to public approval. The press remarked that the officers +of the Convention were all without bonnets, and that many ladies in +the audience had their knitting-work. "A casual visitor," says <i>The +Bulletin</i>, "would have been impressed with the number and character of +this assembly, both among the actors and spectators. Every variety of +age, sex, race, color, and costume were here represented. Bloomers +were side by side with the mouse-colored gowns and white shawls of the +wealthy Quaker dames, and genteelly dressed ladies of the latest Paris +fashion."</p> + +<p>The house was crowded, and on the steps ascending the platform were +seated William Lloyd Garrison and James Mott, side by side with men of +the darkest hue. The colored people scattered through the audience +seemed quite at their ease, and were evidently received on grounds of +perfect equality, which was the subject of much comment by outsiders.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Frances D. Gage, President of the last Convention at Cleveland, +called the assembly to order, and read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THE CALL.</p> + +<p>In accordance with a vote passed at the adjournment of the +Woman's Rights Convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, in October, +1853, the Fifth National Convention will be held in Philadelphia, +October 18th, to continue three days. The subjects for +consideration will be the Equal Right of Woman to all the +advantages of education, literary, scientific, artistic; to full +equality in all business avocations, industrial, commercial, +professional; briefly, all the rights that belong to her as a +citizen.</p> + +<p>This wide range of subjects for discussion can not fail to awaken +the attention of all classes; hence we invite all persons +irrespective of sex or color to take part in the deliberations of +the Convention, and thus contribute to the progress of truth and +the redemption of humanity.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">On behalf of the Central Committee,</p> +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Paulina Wright Davis</span>, <i>President</i>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Antoinette L. Brown</span>, <i>Secretary</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The following officers were chosen for the Convention:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">President</span>.—Ernestine L. Rose, of New York.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Vice-Presidents</span>.—Lucretia Mott, Philadelphia; Frances D. Gage, +Missouri; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts; Martha C. +Wright, New York; Thomas Garrett, Delaware; Hannah Tracy Cutler, +Illinois; Robert Purvis; Pennsylvania; John O. Wattles, Indiana; +Marenda B. Randall, Vermont; George Sunter, Canada.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Secretaries</span>.—Joseph A. Dugdale, Abby Kimber, Hannah M. +Darlington.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Business Committee</span>.—Lucy Stone, William Lloyd Garrison, Myra +Townsend, Mary P. Wilson, Sarah Pugh, Lydia Mott, Mary Grew.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Finance Committee</span>.—Susan B. Anthony, James Mott, Ruth Dugdale, +Rebecca Plumbly.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Rose, on taking the chair, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>There is one argument which in my estimation is the argument of +arguments, why woman should have her rights; not on account of +expediency, not on account of policy, though these too show the +reasons why she should have her rights; but we claim—I for one +claim, and I presume all our friends claim—our rights on the +broad ground of human rights; and I for one again will say, I +promise not how we shall use them. I will no more promise how we +shall use our rights than man has promised before he obtained +them, how he would use them. We all know that rights are often +abused; and above all things have human rights in this country +been abused, from the very fact that they have been withheld from +half of the community.</p> + +<p>By human rights we mean natural rights, and upon that ground we +claim our rights, and upon that ground they have already been +conceded by the Declaration of Independence, in that first great +and immutable truth which is proclaimed in that instrument, "that +all men are created equal," and that therefore all are entitled +to "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, +and the pursuit of happiness." Our claims are based upon that +great and immutable truth, the rights of all humanity. For is +woman not included in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> phrase, "all men are created free and +equal"? Is she not included in that expression? Tell us, ye men +of the nation, ay, ye wise law-makers and law-breakers of the +nation, whether woman is not included in that great Declaration +of Independence? And if she is, what right has man to deprive her +of her natural and inalienable rights? It is natural, it is +inherent, it is inborn, it is a thing of which no one can justly +deprive her. Upon that just and eternal basis do we found our +claims for our rights; political, civil, legal, social, +religious, and every other.</p> + +<p>But, at the outset, we claim our equal political rights with man, +not only from that portion of the Declaration of Independence, +but from another, equally well-established principle in this +country, that "taxation and representation are inseparable." +Woman, everybody knows, is taxed; and if she is taxed, she ought +to be represented.</p> + +<p>I will simply here throw out a statement of these principles upon +which our claims are based; and I trust each separate resolution +will be taken up by this Convention, fully canvassed and +commented upon, so as to show it not only an abstract right, but +a right which can be wisely made practical.</p> + +<p>Again, it is acknowledged in this country, and it is eternally +true, that "all the just powers of government are derived from +the consent of the governed." If so, then, as woman is a subject +of government, she ought to have a voice in enacting the laws. If +her property is taxed to maintain government, she ought to have a +voice in forming that government. If she has to pay taxes to +maintain government, she ought to have a voice in saying how +those taxes shall be applied.</p> + +<p>On these grounds we make our claims, on natural, humane, eternal, +and well-recognized laws and principles of this republic. On +these grounds we ask man to meet us, and meet us in the spirit of +inquiry, in the spirit of candor and honesty, as rational human +beings ought to meet each other, face to face, and adduce +arguments, if they can, to convince us that we are not included +in that great Declaration of Independence; that although it is a +right principle that taxation and representation are inseparable, +yet woman ought to be taxed, and ought not to be represented; and +that although it is an acknowledged principle that all just power +of government is derived from the consent of the governed, yet +woman should be governed without her consent. Let them meet us +fairly and openly; let them meet us like rational men, men who +appreciate their own freedom, and we will hear them. If they can +convince us that we are wrong, we will give up our claims; but if +we can convince them that we are right in claiming our rights, as +they are in claiming theirs, then we expect them in a spirit of +candor and honesty to acknowledge it.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Joseph Dugdale read several letters, which, as usual, seemed to be +something of a bore to the audience. When he finished, Lucretia Mott +suggested that if there were any more lengthy epistles to be read, it +would be well for the secretaries to look them over, and omit all that +in their wisdom might not be worth reading.</p> + +<p>Lucy Stone, from the Business Committee, read a series of +resolutions,<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> and as some one from the audience called, "Louder!" +she remarked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> that if ladies would keep their bonnets tied down over +their ears, they must not ask others to find lungs of sufficient power +to penetrate the heavy pasteboard and millinery over them. She spoke +briefly on the resolutions, and the steadily increasing interest in +the subject of woman's rights.</p> + +<p>Hannah Tracy Cutler gave a report of Illinois, Frances Dana Gage of +Missouri, and Susan B. Anthony of New York.</p> + +<p>Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of Massachusetts, said he had a matter of +business to present. Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis being too ill to attend +the Convention, Mr. Higginson read a letter from her sister, Mary K. +Spaulding, suggesting the establishment of a newspaper in the city of +New York as "the national organ" of the Woman's Rights movement. He +doubted the wisdom of such a step, and after setting forth the expense +of a central organ and the great danger of its creating a schism, he +offered the following resolutions:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That in the opinion of this Convention it is not +expedient, at present, to establish a newspaper as The National +Organ of the Woman's Rights Movement.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That it is expedient to appoint a Committee who shall +provide for the preparation and publication, in widely circulated +journals, facts and arguments relating to the cause.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span> approved of the resolutions, and said they had arrived +at a similar conclusion in the Syracuse Convention; she fully +concurred in the views of Mr. Higginson.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">William Lloyd Garrison</span> replied, that if organization for any good +cause be right, it was right for this. Every reform movement +needs an organ of its own. And this cause needs a paper of the +most radical character; that shall make no compromises with +popular prejudices; far above the paralyzing influences of Church +and State.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span> said she did not oppose organization, but was in favor +of individual freedom and responsibility. <i>The Liberator</i>, Mr. +Garrison's paper, has done far more good than <i>The Anti-Slavery +Standard</i>, the organ of the Anti-Slavery movement.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Garrison</span> said <i>The Liberator</i> was not simply an anti-slavery +paper, but an advocate of general reform.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Remarks were made on this point by Elizabeth Paxton, Susan H. Cox, +George P. Davis, and George Sunter, of Canada.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> advocated the resolutions; her experience in the +anti-slavery cause had taught her a lesson of wisdom for this +movement. We are rich in principle and enthusiasm, but not in +silver and gold, and therefore should avoid taking on our +shoulders a national organ. Widely circulated journals are now +open to us, in which we can express our opinions with freedom and +without expense. There is nothing so strong as individual purpose +and freedom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> to carry it out. The papers established by Mrs. +Davis and Mrs. Bloomer are good, and she hoped the friends would +give generously to their support.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, +of New York; Paulina Wright Davis, of Rhode Island; Thomas Wentworth +Higginson and Lucy Stone, of Massachusetts; and Oliver Johnson, of New +York, were appointed as the Committee to superintend the work.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said she had a new item of business to propose. She +knew that those who came to these Conventions went away feeling +stronger and better. She held in her hand a pamphlet containing +five tracts; one from Wendell Phillips, one from Theodore Parker, +one from <i>The Westminster Review</i>, by Mrs. John Stuart Mill, one +from Mr. Higginson, and last, but not least, one from Mrs. C. I. +H. Nichols, which should be distributed. They were able papers, +and all interested in the movement should exert themselves to +circulate them. The people only wanted light.</p> + +<p>Another mode of disseminating the principles was by stories +illustrating the wrongs of women under the present laws. The +right of a woman to what she earns; to the custody of her person; +to the guardianship of her children, and all of her other rights, +should be illustrated in fiction. Prizes should be offered for +the best stories upon these subjects. She pledged herself to +raise $500 for the purpose. She pointed to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to +show what fiction could accomplish, and trusted that action would +be taken upon the subject before the Convention adjourned.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Garrison</span>arose to say "ditto to Lucy Stone." In regard to +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," it was known that Mrs. Stowe was induced to +write it from a request of Dr. Bailey, of <i>The National Era</i>, to +write a story for his paper. And he thought that such an offer +might now call forth something to aid the cause of woman. He +praised the tracts to which Miss Stone alluded.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">President</span> appointed Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, +and Mary Channing Higginson, the Committee on prize tracts.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Tracy Cutler</span> read an invitation from the Female Medical +College for the members of the Convention to visit that +institution and attend its lectures, and took the opportunity to +compliment Philadelphia as being the first city, not only in the +United States, but in the world, to establish a Medical College +for Women.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Ann Preston</span> gave an interesting report of The Woman's Medical +College; of all the persecutions women had encountered in +securing a medical education and entering that profession. She +noted the signs of a growing liberality with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>The Rev. <span class="smcap">Henry Grew</span>, of Philadelphia, then appeared upon the +platform, and said he was sorry to differ from the general tone +of the speakers present, but he felt it to be his duty to give +his views on the questions under consideration. His opinions as +to woman's rights and duties were based on the Scriptures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> He +quoted numerous texts to show that it was clearly the will of God +that man should be superior in power and authority to woman; and +asserted that no lesson is more plainly and frequently taught in +the Bible, than woman's subjection.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Cutler</span> replied at length, and skillfully turned every text +he had quoted directly against the reverend gentleman, to the +great amusement of the audience. She showed that man and woman +were a simultaneous creation, with equal power and glory on their +heads, and that dominion over the fowl of the air, the fish of +the sea, and every creeping thing on the earth was given to them, +and not to man alone. The time has come for woman to read and +interpret Scripture for herself; too long have we learned God's +will from the lips of man and closed our eyes on the great book +of nature, and the safer teaching of our own souls. It is a pity +that those who would recommend the Bible as the revealed will of +the all-wise and benevolent Creator, should uniformly quote it on +the side of tyranny and oppression. I think we owe it to our +religion and ourselves to wrest it from such hands, and proclaim +the beautiful spirit breathed through all its commands and +precepts, instead of dwelling so much on isolated texts that have +no application to our day and generation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span> said: It is not Christianity, but priestcraft that has +subjected woman as we find her. The Church and State have been +united, and it is well for us to see it so. We have had to bear +the denunciations of these reverend (irreverend) clergymen, as in +New York, of late. But if we look to their authority to see how +they expound the text, quite likely we shall find a new reading. +Why, when John Chambers returned to Philadelphia from the World's +Temperance Convention at New York, he gave notice that he would +give an address, and state the rights of woman as defined by the +Bible. Great allowance has been made by some of the speakers in +this Convention, on account of his ignorance, and certainly this +was charitable. But I heard this discourse. I heard him bring up +what is called the Apostolic prohibition, and the old Eastern +idea of the subjection of wives; but he kept out of view some of +the best ideas in the Scriptures.</p> + +<p>Blame is often attached to the position in which woman is found. +I blame her not so much as I pity her. So circumscribed have been +her limits that she does not realize the misery of her condition. +Such dupes are men to custom that even servitude, the worst of +ills, comes to be thought a good, till down from sire to son it +is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. Woman's existence is +maintained by sufferance. The veneration of man has been +misdirected, the pulpit has been prostituted, the Bible has been +ill-used. It has been turned over and over as in every reform. +The temperance people have had to feel its supposed +denunciations. Then the anti-slavery, and now this reform has +met, and still continues to meet, passage after passage of the +Bible, never intended to be so used. Instead of taking the truths +of the Bible in corroboration of the right, the practice has +been, to turn over its pages to find example and authority for +the wrong, for the existing abuses of society. For the usage of +drinking wine, the example of the sensualist Solomon, is always +appealed to. In reference to our reform, even admitting that Paul +did mean preach, when he used that term, he did not say that the +recommendation of that time was to be applicable to the churches +of all after-time. We have been so long pinning our faith on +other people's sleeves that we ought to begin examining these +things daily ourselves, to see whether they are so; and we should +find on comparing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> text with text, that a very different +construction might be put upon them. Some of our early Quakers +not seeing how far they were to be carried, became Greek and +Hebrew scholars, and they found that the text would bear other +translations as well as other constructions. All Bible +commentators agree that the Church of Corinth, when the apostle +wrote, was in a state of great confusion. They fell into +discussion and controversy; and in order to quiet this state of +things and bring the Church to greater propriety, the command was +given out that women should keep silence, and it was not +permitted them to speak, except by asking questions at home. In +the same epistle to the same Church, Paul gave express directions +how women shall prophesy, which he defines to be preaching, +"speaking to men," for "exhortation and comfort." He recognized +them in prophesying and praying. The word translated servant, is +applied to a man in one part of the Scripture, and in another it +is translated minister. Now that same word you will find might be +applied to Phebe, a deaconess. That text was quoted in the sermon +of John Chambers, and he interlarded it with a good many of his +ideas, that women should not be goers abroad, and read among +other things "that their wives were to be teachers." But properly +translated would be "deaconesses."</p> + +<p>It is not so Apostolic to make the wife subject to the husband as +many have supposed. It has been done by law and public opinion +since that time. There has been a great deal said about sending +missionaries over to the East to convert women who are immolating +themselves on the funeral pile of their husbands. I know this may +be a very good work, but I would ask you to look at it. How many +women are there now immolated upon the shrine of superstition and +priestcraft, in our very midst, in the assumption that man only +has a right to the pulpit, and that if a woman enters it she +disobeys God; making woman believe in the misdirection of her +vocation, and that it is of divine authority that she should be +thus bound. Believe it not, my sisters. In this same epistle the +word "prophesying" should be "preaching"—"preaching godliness," +etc. On the occasion of the first miracle which it is said Christ +wrought, a woman went before Him and said, "Whatsoever he biddeth +you do, that do." The woman of Samaria said, "Come and see the +man who told me all the things that ever I did."</p> + +<p>These things are worthy of note. I do not want to dwell too much +upon Scripture authority. We too often bind ourselves by +authorities rather than by the truth. We are infidel to truth in +seeking examples to overthrow it. The very first act of note that +is mentioned when the disciples and apostles went forth after +Jesus was removed from them, was the bringing up of an ancient +prophecy to prove that they were right in the position they +assumed on that occasion, when men and women were gathered +together on the holy day of Pentecost, when every man heard and +saw those wonderful works which are recorded. Then Peter stood +forth—some one has said that Peter made a great mistake in +quoting the prophet Joel—but he stated that "the time is come, +this day is fulfilled the prophecy, when it is said, I will pour +out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters +shall prophesy," etc.—the language of the Bible is beautiful in +its repetition—"upon my servants and my handmaidens I will pour +out my spirit and they shall prophesy." Now can anything be +clearer than that?</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Henry Grew</span> again quoted Scripture in reply to Mrs. Mott, and +said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> the coming of Christ into the world did not restore man and +woman to the original condition of our first parents. If the +position assumed by the women be true, then must the Divine Word +from Genesis to Revelation be set aside as untrue, that woman may +be relieved from the, perhaps, unfortunate limitations that hold +her back in this age of progress.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Higginson</span> related a story of an old Methodist clergyman who +by chance stepped into a Quaker meeting where he heard a woman +speaking, which so shocked him that he thought Anti-Christ was +now bound to rule. He went home sad. He had four daughters, one +of whom, at the age of sixteen, in a few minutes opened the eyes +of his understanding after he had groped in darkness a long time, +by showing him a passage in the Testament describing a friend of +Paul's at Phillippi, who had four daughters that prophesied. This +girl referred her father to the Greek Testament, and showed him +that the original word, properly translated, means to preach +instead of to prophesy. Before we resort to Scriptural texts we +should be careful to ascertain that they are right, or all +arguments founded on them must fall.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Grew</span> did not consider that the story of the four daughters +invalidated his position.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Garrison</span> said: Consulting the Bible for opinions as to +woman's rights, is of little importance to the majority of this +Convention. We have gone over the whole ground, and placed our +cause upon the decrees of nature. We <i>know</i> that man and woman +are equal in the sight of God. We know that texts and books are +of no importance, and have no taste for the discussion of dry +doctrinal points.</p> + +<p>But with the American people the case is different. The masses +believe the Bible directly from God; that it decrees the +inequality of the sexes; and that settles the question. There is +no doubt that there are many persons connected with the +Protestant churches who would be with the movement were it not +for the supposed Bible difficulty. They shudder at anything they +think against the Bible, as against the will of God. Take away +this incubus, and these persons would experience a change in +their views; they would be with us.</p> + +<p>In regard to Mr. Grew, Mr. G. said he had long known him and +loved him. He was a man of purity and charity, and he was glad he +had given his views. Yet this kindly man did not stand upon a +solid foundation.</p> + +<p>Why go to the Bible to settle this question? As a nation, we have +practically ignored the Bible. The assertion of the equality and +inalienability of the rights of man, in the Declaration of +Independence, includes the whole of the human race. He would +never attempt to prove to an American the right of any man to +liberty. He asserted the fact; and considered that in holding +slaves while they proclaimed liberty to all men, the American +people were hypocrites and tyrants. Mr. Grew goes to St. Paul to +prove that woman is not equal to man. Why go to the Bible? What +question was ever settled by the Bible? What question of theology +or any other department? None that I ever heard of! With this +same version of the Bible, and the same ability to read it, we +find that it has filled all Christendom with theological +confusion. All are Ishmaelites; each man's hand against his +neighbor.</p> + +<p>The human mind is greater than any book. The mind sits in +judgment on every book. If there be truth in the book, we take +it; if error, we discard it. Why refer this to the Bible? In this +country, the Bible has been used to support<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> slavery and capital +punishment; while in the old countries, it has been quoted to +sustain all manner of tyranny and persecution. All reforms are +anti-Bible. We must look at all things rationally. We find women +endowed with certain capacities, and it is of no importance if +any book denies her such capacities. Would Mr. Grew say that +woman can not preach, in the face of such a preacher as <span class="smcap">Lucretia +Mott</span>?</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span> begged leave to substitute friend Grew's own daughter, +Mary Grew, who has already spoken on this platform!! and said, +Mr. Grew himself does not take all the Bible as inspiration, in +which most of the speakers concurred. She expressed her +attachment to the Scriptures, and said many excellent lessons +could be learned from them. She showed the misinterpretations of +the texts quoted by Mr. Grew and others against the equality of +the sexes. Mr. Grew does not take the Bible for his guide, +altogether. Mrs. Mott then quoted St. Paul in regard to marriage, +and said: Why in opposition to that text has Mr. Grew married a +second time? It was because he did not really believe that the +Scriptures were entirely inspired.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Emma R. Coe</span> made a few remarks on the position of the clergy +generally toward this reform, the most beneficent in its results +of any, man has ever yet been called upon to consider. We often +hear it remarked that woman owes so much to Christianity. It can +not be the Christianity that the clergy have proclaimed on our +platform. From them we hear only of woman's degradation and +subjection. We have certainly nothing to be thankful for if such +are the principles Christ came into the world to declare; the +subjection of one-half of the race to the other half, as far as +we are concerned, is no improvement upon the religions of all +nations and ages.</p></blockquote> + +<p>At the close of this protracted discussion on the Bible position of +woman, the following resolutions, presented by Mr. Garrison, were +unanimously adopted:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That while remembering and gladly acknowledging the +exceptional cases which exist to the contrary, we feel it a duty +to declare in regard to the sacred cause which has brought us +together, that the most determined opposition it encounters is +from the clergy generally, whose teachings of the Bible are +intensely inimical to the equality of woman with man.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That whatever any book may teach, the rights of no +human being are dependent upon or modified thereby, but are +equal, absolute, essential, inalienable in the person of every +member of the human family, without regard to sex, race, or +clime.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">John Sidney Jones</span> made a few remarks on the monopoly of the +pulpit.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span> wished to remind the friends, before separating, +of one practical measure to be considered in the advancement of +our noble enterprise. For the purpose of holding Conventions, +circulating tracts and petitions, giving prizes for good stories, +supporting newspapers and agents, the first great requisite is +money, and I hope every one present will contribute generously to +help us carry on this grand reform.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Garrison</span> seconded Miss Anthony's demand for "the sinews of +war." He said we Americans are a theoretical people, and we are +also a practical people. If the women intend to knock at the door +of every State house to demand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> their rights, the question must +be argued in a practical way with facts and statistics.</p> + +<p>When I undertook to have the gallows abolished in Massachusetts, +I asked the Committee of the Legislature if they wanted a certain +number of Bible texts quoted on each side of the question, they +said, "No, we want facts and statistics; we do not ask the +opinions of Moses and Aaron on this point, but the result of +human experience in the punishment of crime." So in this case; +Legislatures will not ask for nor appreciate Bible arguments; +they will ask for facts as to woman's achievements in education, +industry, and practical usefulness.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Joseph Dugdale</span>, whose special concern always seemed to be the +action of dead men on this question, said it had been his fortune +to be present at the making of the last wills and testaments of +many men, and he never knew of a case where a dying husband would +practically admit that his wife was his equal. He stated a case +in which a husband of his acquaintance proposed to leave a large +property, the inheritance and accumulation of his wife's labors, +to <i>her</i> as long as she remained his widow, and then to divide it +among <i>his</i> family relatives. And yet this husband claimed to +have great admiration and affection for this woman whom he would +deliberately rob of her inheritance from her own father. The +magnanimity of man passes all understanding!</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Prince</span>, a colored woman, invoked the blessing of God upon +the noble women engaged in this enterprise, and said she +understood woman's wrongs better than woman's rights, and gave +some of her own experiences to illustrate the degradation of her +sex in slavery. On a voyage to the West Indies the vessel was +wrecked, and she was picked up and taken to New Orleans. Going up +the Mississippi she saw the terrible suffering of a cargo of +slaves on board, and on the plantations along the shores. On her +return voyage, attached to the steamboat was a brig containing +several hundred slaves, among them a large number of young +quadroon girls with infants in their arms as fair as any lady in +this room.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Matilda Joslyn Gage</span> spoke at length of the brilliant record of +women in the past in every department of human activity—in art, +science, literature, invention; of their heroism and patriotism +in time of war, and their industry and endurance in many equally +trying emergencies in time of peace. Woman has so fully proved +her equality with man in every position she has filled, that it +is too late now for clergymen on our platform to remand us to the +subjection of the women of Corinth centuries ago. We have learned +too well the lessons of liberty taught in our revolution to +accept now the position of slaves.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Tracy Cutler</span>: It would appear, after all, that we women are +placed pretty much in the condition of the veriest slave. We must +prove our own humanity by exhibiting our skill in work. We must +bring forth our own samples; put them, as it were, on the +auction-block, and thus make our claim to equality of rights a +matter of dollars and cents. Is it here only that woman can touch +man's sympathy? She then described the degraded condition of +women in Europe, and particularly in London, where poverty and +the tyranny of man have driven women to despair, until they were +forced to prostitute their own bodies to procure bread. This +vice, horribly revolting as it is, seems to go hand in hand with +intemperance. She did not wish women to go into the field to be +yoked with mules, or to turn scavenger, to pick up rags and +crusts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> in the streets to carry home in their aprons. Men bring +the elements to their aid, and we wish women to do the same. She +then adverted to the difference in the labor of the kitchen and +other pursuits open to women. Let the printer advertise for two +girls to set type, and a hundred applications will be made, while +women for the kitchen are very scarce. The reason for this is, +that all other kinds of work are better paid. When woman's labor +is justly remunerated and equally respected in all departments of +industry, there will be no such difference in the supply of help +for the factory, shop, and kitchen.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Frances D. Gage</span> said: The reason why the work of the kitchen is +looked upon as degrading, is because the girl is never taken by +the hand. Where are your philanthropic ladies who assist her? +Where is she to go when her work is done? Does she sit in the +same room with you? Does she eat at the same table? No, to your +shame, she is confined to the basement and the garret. It is not +so much because the pay for kitchen labor is not so good, as it +is chiefly because of the public opinion that they are employed +to <i>serve</i>. It is true that there are many who will take a +quarter off the wages of a girl to put a new bow on their own +bonnets. The men are not to be blamed for this; they have enough +sins to answer for.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Coe</span> said: It would afford women great pleasure to be able to +pay their own expenses on pleasure excursions and to the +concert-room, instead of being always compelled to allow the +gentlemen to foot the bills for them. Women must have equal pay +for equal work. Among the Quakers the sexes stand on an equality, +and everything moves on smoothly and happily.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span>, after relating several instances of the +injustice of the laws that made the wife subject to the husband, +said: And all these wrongs are to be redressed by appeals to the +State Legislatures. In New York and Ohio the women had already +commenced with every prospect of success. Thousands of petitions +had been sent into both Legislatures asking for suffrage and +equal property rights, and their Committees had granted hearings +to our representatives—Caroline M. Severance, in Ohio; Ernestine +L. Rose, Rev. William Henry Channing, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, +Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, and herself, in New York. And closed +with an earnest appeal to the women of every State to petition, +<span class="smcap">petition</span>, remembering that "what is worth having is worth asking +for," and that "who would be free must themselves strike the +blow."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Frances D. Gage moved that the next National Convention be held at +Cincinnati, Ohio. A gentlemen suggested Washington, to which Mr. +Garrison replied, "We shall go there by and by."<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> After discussion +by Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Rose, and others, the motion was unanimously +adopted. Mrs. Gage then spoke of the Press of the city; its faithful +reports of the proceedings of the Convention, and moved a vote of +thanks. Edward M. Davis begged Mrs. Gage to accept as a substitute the +following resolutions:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the thanks of this Convention are due, and are +hereby conveyed, to Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, of New York, for the +courtesy, impartiality, and dignity with which she has presided +over its proceedings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in the crowded and intelligent audiences which +have attended the sessions of this Convention; in the earnest +attention given to its proceedings from the commencement to its +close; in the fair reports of the Press of the city, and in the +spirit of harmony and fraternity which has prevailed amongst its +members, we see evidence of the rapid progress of our cause, and +find incitement to renewed and more earnest efforts in its +behalf.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus closed another most successful Convention. Notwithstanding an +admission fee of ten cents during the day and twenty-five at night, +the audiences grew larger every session, until the last evening the +spacious hall, aisles, stairs, and all available standing-room, was +densely packed, and hundreds went away unable to get in.</p> + +<p>Let us remember that behind the chief actors in these Conventions, +there stands in each State, a group of women of stern moral principle, +large experience, refinement and cultivation, filling with honor the +more private walks of life, who, by their sympathy, hospitality, and +generous contributions, are the great sources of support and +inspiration to those on the platform, who represent the ideas they +hold sacred, whose tongues and pens proclaim their thoughts. Among +such in Pennsylvania, let us ever remember Sarah Pugh, Mary Ann +McClintock, Elizabeth Phillips, Anna and Adeline Thomson, Abby and +Gertrude Kimber, Margaretta Forten, Harriet Forten Purvis, Hannah M. +Darlington, Dinah Mendenhall, Sarah Pierce, Elizabeth and Sarah +Miller, and Ruth Dugdale. When success shall at last crown our +efforts, in according due praise to those who have achieved the +victory, such names as these must not be forgotten.</p> + +<p>Alice Bradley Neal, of Philadelphia, ridiculed this Woman's Rights +Convention in her husband's<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> paper, and Jane Grey Swisshelm +indignantly replied in her <i>Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor</i> as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. Neal can not be ignorant that the principal object of the +Convention, and all the agitation about woman's rights, is to +secure to the toiling millions of her own sex a just reward for +their labor; to save them from the alternative of prostitution, +starvation, or incessant life-destroying toil; and yet the whole +subject furnishes her with material for scorn and merriment! Tell +it not in Gath! Publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest +the sons of the Phillistines rejoice that one of the daughters of +Eve, beautiful and gentle, throws down her knitting-pins, and +tries her strength to wield the hammer of old Vulcan to aid them +in forging fetters for the wrists of her unfortunate sisters. We +would that it had been some one else than the gentle Alice Neal +who had volunteered to soil her white hands and sweat her fair +face, laboring in such a blacksmith-shop.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p> + +<p>While ever and anon during the last forty years Mrs. Swisshelm has +seized some of these <i>dilettante</i> literary women with her metaphysical +tweezers, and held them up to scorn for their ridicule of the woman +suffrage conventions, yet in her own recently published work in her +mature years, she vouchsafes no words of approval for those who have +inaugurated the greatest movement of the centuries. She complains that +in some of the woman suffrage conventions she attended, there was not +a strict observance of parliamentary rules, and that the resolutions +and speeches were unworthy the occasion. Yet the only time Mrs. +Swisshelm ever honored our platform at a National Convention, her +speech was far below the level of most of the others, and the +resolutions she offered were so verbose and irrelevant, that the +Committee declined to present them to the Convention.</p> + +<p>It is quite evident from her last pronunciamento that she has no just +appreciation of the importance and dignity of our demand for justice +and equality. A soldier without a leg is a fact so much more readily +understood, than all women without ballots, and his loss so much more +readily comprehended and supplied, that we can hardly blame any one +for doing the work of the hour, rather than struggling a life-time for +an idea. Hence it is not a matter of surprise that most women are more +readily enlisted in the suppression of evils in the concrete, than in +advocating the principles that underlie them in the abstract, and thus +ultimately doing the broader and more lasting work. On this ground we +can excuse the author of "Half a Century" for giving the reader one +hundred and twenty-five pages of her own work in hospitals and three +to the Woman Suffrage movement, but considering the tone of the three +pages, the advocates of the measure should be thankful she gave no +more.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Swisshelm's contempt is only surpassed by Mrs. Hale's "Jeremiad" +over the infidelity of the noble leader of our movement. For a woman +so thoroughly politic and time-serving, who, unlike the great master +she professed to follow, never identified herself with one of the +unpopular reforms of her day, whose pen never by any chance slipped +outside the prescribed literary line of safety, to cheer the martyrs +to truth in her own generation; lamentations from such a source over +Lucretia Mott, are presumptuous and profane. If such a life of +self-sacrifice and devotion to the best interests of humanity; such +courage to stand alone, to do and say the right,'mid persecution, +violence and mobs; such charity and faithfulness in every relation of +life, as daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend; such calm +declining years and peaceful death could all be realized without a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> +belief in the creed of Sarah Josepha Hale; the philosophical +conclusion is that there may be some Divine light and love outside of +Mrs. Hale's horizon; that her shibboleth may after all not be the true +measure for the highest Christian graces.</p> + +<p>Sarah J. Hale, shuddering over the graves of such women as Harriet +Martineau, Frances Wright, Mary Wollstonecroft, George Sand, George +Eliot and Lucretia Mott, might furnish a subject for an artist to +represent as "bigotry weeping over the triumphs of truth."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, as Mrs. Hale lived in Pennsylvania forty years, the +women of that State may rejoice in the fact that in her great work, +"Woman's Record," she has given "Sketches of all the distinguished +women from the Creation to <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1868"; a labor for which our sex owe +her a debt of gratitude. To exhume nearly seventeen hundred women from +oblivion, classify them, and set forth their distinguished traits of +character, was indeed an herculean labor. This is a valuable book of +reference for the girls of to-day. When our opponents depreciate the +achievements of woman they can turn to the "Woman's Record" and find +grand examples of all the cardinal virtues, of success in art, +science, literature, and government.</p> + +<p>In Jane Grey Swisshelm, Pennsylvania can boast a successful editor of +a liberal political newspaper during the eventful years of our +anti-slavery struggle. <i>The Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor</i> was +established Jan. 20, 1848. It was owned and edited by Mrs. Swisshelm +for some years; merged into <i>The Family Journal and Visitor</i> in 1852, +in which she was co-editor until 1857, when she removed to Minnesota. +In spite of a few idiosyncrasies, Mrs. Swisshelm is a noble woman, and +her influence has been for good in her day and generation. However +much we may differ from her in some points, we must concede that she +is a strong, pointed writer.</p> + +<p>Among the editors of Pennsylvania, Anna E. McDowell deserves mention. +In <i>The Una</i> of January, 1855, we find the following:</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THE WOMAN'S ADVOCATE.</p> + +<p>We have received the first number of a paper bearing the above +name. It is a fair, handsome sheet, seven columns in width, +edited by Miss Anna E. McDowell, in Philadelphia. It claims to be +an independent paper. Its design is not to press woman's right to +suffrage, but to present her wrongs, and plead for their redress. +It is owned by a joint stock company of women, and is printed and +all the work done by women. We most heartily bid it God-speed, +for the great need of woman now is work, work, that she may eat +honest bread.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss McDowell continued her paper several years, and has ever since +been a faithful correspondent in many journals, and now edits a +"Woman's Department" in <i>The Philadelphia Sunday Republic</i>. She pleads +eloquently for the redress of all the wrongs of humanity. Jails, +prisons, charitable institutions, the oppression of women and +children, the laborer, the Indian, have all in turn been subjects of +her impartial pen.</p> + +<p>Philadelphia was the first city in this country to open her retail +stores to girls as clerks, and among the first to welcome them as +type-setters in the printing offices.</p> + +<blockquote><p>In the city press, from 1849 to 1854, we find the following +announcements, which show the general agitation on woman's +position:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Pennsylvania Freeman</i>: "A Discourse on Woman," to be +delivered by Lucretia Mott, at the Assembly Buildings, +December 17, 1849.</p> + +<p>Lectures by Elizabeth Oakes Smith, April 6, 8, and 10, 1853, +on "Manhood," "Womanhood," "Humanity."</p> + +<p><i>North American and United States Gazette</i>: Lucretia Mott +will deliver a lecture on the "Medical Education of Woman," +February 2, 1853.</p> + +<p>Horace Mann will lecture on "Woman," February 3, 1853.</p> + +<p><i>Philadelphia Public Ledger</i>, January 20, 1854: Lucy Stone +will deliver a lecture on "Woman's Rights," at Musical Fund +Hall, Saturday evening, January 21.</p> + +<p>April 12, 1854: Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose will lecture on +Thursday evening, April 13, at Spring Garden Institute, on +"The Education and Influence of Woman"; and on Friday +evening, April 14th, at Sansom Street Hall, on "The Legal +Disabilities of Woman." Tickets, 25 cents.</p></blockquote> +</blockquote> + + +<h3>WOMAN'S MEDICAL COLLEGE OF PENNSYLVANIA.</h3> + +<p>In September, 1850, in a rented building, No. 229 Arch Street, +Philadelphia, the College began its first session with six pupils; +others were added before the class graduated, so that it then numbered +eight:—Hannah E. Longshore, Ann Preston, Phebe W. May, Susanna H. +Ellis, Anna M. Longshore, Pennsylvania; Martha M. Laurin, +Massachusetts; Angonette A. Hunt, New York; Frances G. Mitchell, +England. Since its foundation, the "Woman's Medical College of +Pennsylvania" has prospered, and on its lists of graduates we see, +among other familiar names, those of Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott (1856), +Dr. Mary J. Scarlett Dixon (1857), and Dr. Emeline H. Cleveland +(1855).</p> + +<p>Chief among those interested in placing the medical education of woman +on a sound foundation was Ann Preston. The "Woman's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> Medical College +of Pennsylvania" was the first ever chartered for this purpose, and +Dr. Preston early became identified with its interests. She was one of +its first students, and a graduate at its first commencement. After +the didactic teaching of the regular college course was well +established, each year showed to her more clearly the necessity for +clinical and hospital instruction, since its students were denied such +advantages in other places; and to Dr. Preston's thorough appreciation +of this need may be traced the very origin of the Woman's Hospital in +Philadelphia. Speaking of her efforts in this direction, she says: "I +went to every one who I thought would give me either money or +influence." She was liberally assisted by many noble and true-hearted +men and women, and at last raised sufficient funds, obtained the +charter, found competent men and women willing to serve as Managers, +and skillful physicians who would act on a Consulting Board; and, when +the Hospital was opened, was herself appointed one of the Managers, +Corresponding Secretary, and Consulting Physician—offices which she +held till her death, April 18, 1872.</p> + +<p>At the same time, she was serving with equal fidelity and ability the +College whose advancement had so long been one of the chief interests +of her life. For nineteen years she had been one of its Professors, +for six years Dean of the Faculty, and for four years a member of its +Board of Corporators. She lived long enough to see the fruits of her +labors, and to foresee to some extent the position which both College +and Hospital would hold in the medical world. And when, after her +death, her will was published, the friends of the College and Hospital +found that both institutions had been remembered by endowments.</p> + +<p>Almost contemporary in length of days with the Medical College is +another useful institution, The Philadelphia School of Design for +Women, which began its corporate existence the first Monday of +November, 1853. There had previously been a class for women in +connection with the Franklin Institute, and this school was its +further development. It was mainly supported by contributions, the +scholars' fees paying merely for the coal, gas, and other necessaries +of the house. The management of the institution was vested in a Board +of twelve Directors, elected annually, and a Board of twelve Lady +Managers, elected by the Board of Directors at the first stated +meeting after the election; these ladies disburse the money received +at the school, and also that appropriated monthly by the Directors. It +is noticeable in the first report of the School<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> of Design for Women, +that men held the leading positions and received the highest salaries, +but that has since been changed.</p> + +<p>That there was no organized action in this State, no woman suffrage +association formed, until after the war, was undoubtedly due to the +fact that the same women were prominent in both the anti-slavery and +woman's rights movements. And as Pennsylvania bordered on three slave +States, the escape of fugitives and their innumerable trials in the +courts, just as the whole system was on the eve of dissolution, +compelled the Philadelphia friends to incessant vigilance in the care +and concealment of the unhappy victims. Thus their hands and thoughts +were wholly occupied until the first gun at Sumter proclaimed freedom +in the United States.</p> + +<p>For collecting many of the facts contained in this chapter we are +indebted to Julia and Rachel Foster, daughters of Heron Foster, who +founded <i>The Pittsburgh Dispatch</i>. What an inspiring vision it would +have been to the earnest women sitting in that Convention in 1854, +could they in imagination have stretched forward to the bright winter +days of 1881, and seen these two young girls tastefully attired, +enthusiastic in the cause of woman's suffrage, tripping through the +streets of Philadelphia, paper and pencil in hand, intent on some +important errand, now here, now there, climbing up long flights of +stairs into the offices of the various journals, to find out from the +records what Lucretia Mott, Frances Dana Gage, and Ernestine L. Rose +had said over a quarter of a century before, about the rights and +wrongs of women. Turning over the dusty journals hour after hour as +they copied page by page, it would have been a pleasing study to watch +their earnest faces, now sad, now pleased, reflecting with every +changing sentiment they read the feelings of their souls, just as +their diamonds paled and glowed in the changing light.</p> + +<p>Could the satisfaction of these girls in reading Garrison's stern +logic, Mrs. Mott's repartee and earnest appeal, and all the arguments +by which their opponents had been fairly vanquished; could the +new-born dignity they realized in the conscious possession of rights +and liberties once unknown, confident that full equality could not be +long deferred; could all this have been pre-visioned by the actors in +those scenes, they would have felt themselves fully compensated for +the persecution and ridicule they had endured. And thus the great work +of life goes on; the toils of one generation are the joys of the next. +We have reaped what other hands have planted; let us then in turn sow +bountifully for those who shall follow us, that our children may enter +into a broader inheritance than any legal parchment can bequeath.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>ANGELINA GRIMKÉ.<br /> +<small><i>Reminiscences by E. C. S.</i></small></h3> + +<p>My first introduction to Mrs. Weld was two years after her marriage, +when she and her husband had retired from the stormy scenes of the +anti-slavery conflict, and in their own home found a harbor of rest, +for quiet though useful occupation. In company with my husband and +Charles Stuart, a Scotch Abolitionist, we took one of those long +closely-covered stages peculiar to New Jersey, for a twelve miles +drive to Belleville, where at the door of an old Dutch-built stone +house, Theodore Weld and the famous daughters of South Carolina gave +us a welcome. There was nothing attractive at first sight in those +plain, frail women, except their rich voices, fluent language, and +Angelina's fine dark eyes. The house with its wide hall, spacious +apartments, deep windows, and small panes of glass was severely +destitute of all tasteful, womanly touches, and though neat and +orderly, had a cheerless atmosphere. Neither was there one touch of +the artistic in the arrangement of the ladies' hair and dresses. They +were just then in the Graham dispensation, and the peculiar table +arrangements, with no tray to mark the charmed circle whence the usual +beverages were dispensed, the cold dishes without a whiff of heat, or +steam, gave one a feeling of strangeness; all those delightful +associations gathering round a covered dish and hot beefsteak, the +tea-pot and china cups and saucers, were missing. A cool evening in +the month of May, after a long drive had left us in a condition +peculiarly susceptible to the attractions of something hot and +stimulating; but they came not. There was no catering in this +household to the weaknesses of those who were not yet weaned from the +flesh-pots of Egypt. The sharp edge of our appetite somewhat dulled +with the simple fare, we were thrown on our own resources, and +memories of tea and coffee for stimulus.</p> + +<p>After our repast, the high discourse was slightly interrupted by the +appearance of the infant, Charles Stuart Weld, and his formal +presentation to the distinguished gentleman after whom he was named. +And when Mr. Weld told us how near the boy, in the initiative steps of +his existence, came to being sacrificed to a theory, the old stone +walls rang with bursts of laughter.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> But the chilling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> environments +of these noble people were modified by the sincere hospitality with +which we were received. My husband and Mr. Weld had been classmates in +Lane Seminary, and were among the students who left that institution +when the discussion of the slavery question was forbidden by the +President, Dr. Lyman Beecher. They talked with zest of those early +days until a late hour. As Charles Stuart and the two sisters were +also good conversationalists, I listened with pleasure and profit, and +during the three days under that roof obtained much general knowledge +of anti-slavery and church history; volumes of information were +condensed in those familiar talks, of lasting benefit to me, who then +knew so little of reforms.</p> + +<p>How changed was the atmosphere of that home to me next day. True, +there were still no pictures on the walls, but the beautiful boy in +his bath, the sunlight on his golden hair, with some new grace or +trick each day, surpassed what any brush could trace. No statues +graced the corners; but the well-built Northern hero of many slavery +battles, bound with the silken cords of love and friendship to those +brave women from the South, together sacrificing wealth and fame and +ease for a great principle, formed a group worthy the genius of a +Rogers to portray.</p> + +<p>It has been my good fortune to meet these noble friends occasionally +in the course of our busy lives, sometimes under their roof, sometimes +under mine, and as, day by day, the nobility, the transparency, the +unselfishness of their characters have grown upon me, the memories of +the old stone house and its care-worn inmates, have stood transfigured +before me, with almost a celestial radiance. In grouping the main +facts of this eventful life, and analyzing the impelling motives that +made Angelina Grimké the heroic woman she was, I can not serve her +memory better than in giving the beautiful tributes of loving friends +at the close of her life.</p> + +<p>Angelina, the youngest daughter of Judge Grimké, of the Supreme Court +of South Carolina, was born in Charleston, S. C., February 20, 1805. +From her earliest years, her sympathies were with the cruelly treated +race around her; and when a child, she had her little bottle of oil, +and other simple medicaments, with which in the darkness she would +steal out of the house to some wretched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> creature who had been +terribly whipped, and do what she could to assuage his sufferings. At +the age of fourteen, she was asked by the rector of the Episcopal +church to which her family belonged, to be confirmed—a form, she was +told, which all her companions went through as a matter of course. But +she insisted on knowing the meaning of this form, and, on reading it +in the Prayer-Book, she said she could not promise what was there +required. "But it is only a form," she was told. "If with my feelings +and views as they now are, I should go through that form, it would be +a lie. I can not do it." This single-hearted truthfulness, without +regard to personal consequences to herself, was the key to all her +conduct.</p> + +<p>Some years afterward, under the influence of an eloquent Presbyterian +preacher, her religious sensibilities were awakened. Her eyes were +opened to a new world. Through deeper and more vital spiritual +experiences, she entered into a new life, which took entire possession +of all her faculties. She joined the Presbyterian church, and carried +into it the fervor and strength of a regenerated nature. She became a +teacher in its Sunday-school, and after a lapse of fifty years, there +came a letter from one of her first Sunday-school scholars, living in +Georgia, to express thanks for the benefits which her instructions had +been to her. Angelina soon endeavored to impress upon the officers of +the church a sense of what they should do for the slaves, but her +pleadings for them found no response. "Could it then," said she, "be a +Church of Christ?"</p> + +<p>There was in Charleston at that time a Friends' Meeting-house, where +there were only two worshipers, and they agreed with her in regard to +slavery. For a year she worshiped there in silence. No word was +spoken. The two aged men, and this young, accomplished, attractive +woman, sat there under a canopy of divine silence, sanctified and +blessed to her. At length she felt that her mission there was ended. +Her elder sister, Sarah, had united with the Friends in Philadelphia; +and she joined her in 1830, giving up in agony of heart all the dear +ties that bound her to her home. But even in the Friends' +Meeting-house, her eye was quick to see negro seats where women of the +despised race were still publicly humiliated. She and her sister +seated themselves with them. The Friends were grieved by their +conduct, and called them to account. The sisters replied: "While you +put this badge of degradation on our sisters, we feel that it is our +duty to share it with them."</p> + +<p>In 1883, they attached themselves to the American Anti-Slavery +Society, and lent their powerful aid to the work which it was doing. +There was no more effective or eloquent speaker in the cause than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +Angelina Grimké. She had not thought at first of speaking in public; +but wherever she was, among friends and neighbors, she sought relief +to her burdened spirit by testifying to the cruel and fatal influences +of slavery. A few women at first came together to meet her and her +sister Sarah. The numbers and the interest increased till she became +widely known. She and her sister talked to them about slavery in their +own parlors. Soon no parlors could hold the throngs that gathered to +hear her. The small vestry of a church was given to her, then a large +vestry. But this was too small, and the body of the church was opened +to the crowd which had been attracted by her. There, on a platform +beneath the pulpit, for the first time she stood and spoke at what +might be called a public meeting, though she spoke only to women. In +the spring of 1837, the sisters went through a similar experience in +Boston, speaking to women only. She went to Lynn to address the women, +and there men crowded in with their wives and daughters. That was the +beginning of women's speaking to promiscuous assemblies in +Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>"Hers was the eloquence of a broken heart. As she gave way to the deep +yearnings of affection for the mother that bore her, still a +slaveholder, for her brothers and sisters, a large family circle, and +for all who had been most closely bound to her by ties of kindred and +neighborhood, she must have felt the desolation of a soul disappointed +and broken in its dearest earthly hopes and love. All the sweet and +tender affections which intertwine themselves so inseparably with the +thought of home had been turned into instruments of torture. As she +thought of her native city, and spoke out her feelings toward it, her +language might well remind one of the lamentations of the ancient +prophets, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and +stonest them that are sent unto thee!' But this broken heart had a +higher life and a mightier voice than can be given or taken away by +any earthly affection. While therefore she often spoke with a pathos +which melted and subdued those who listened to her, she also rose into +a loftier strain, and spoke with the mingled love and sternness of a +messenger from God."</p> + +<p>Passages like the following may give some idea of the solemnity and +power with which she, who had left all and taken up her cross in +defence of a poor and friendless race, could appeal to assembled +multitudes:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The sufferings of the slaves are not only innumerable, but they +are indescribable. I may paint the agony of kindred torn from +each other's arms, to meet no more in time; I may depict the +inflictions of the blood-stained lash; but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> can not describe +the daily, hourly, ceaseless torture, endured by the heart that +is constantly trampled under the foot of arbitrary power. This is +a part of the horrors of slavery which, I believe, no one has +ever attempted to delineate. I wonder not at it; it mocks all +power of language. Who can describe the anguish of that mind +which feels itself impaled upon the iron of arbitrary power—its +living, writhing, helpless victim! every human susceptibility +tortured, its sympathies torn, and stung, and bleeding—always +feeling the death weapon in its heart, and yet not so deep as to +kill that humanity which is made the curse of its existence?</p> + +<p>No one who has not been an integral part of a slaveholding +community can have any idea of its abominations. It is a whited +sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Blessed +be God, the angel of truth has descended, and rolled away the +stone from the mouth of the sepulchre, and sits upon it. The +abominations so long hidden are now brought forth before all +Israel and the sun. Yes, the angel of truth sits upon this stone, +and it can never be rolled back again.</p> + +<p>There is a spirit abroad in this country which will not consent +to barter principle for an unholy peace—a spirit which will not +hide God's eternal principles of right and wrong, but will stand +erect in the storm of human passion, prejudice, and interest, +holding forth the light of truth in the midst of a crooked and +perverse generation; a spirit which will never slumber nor sleep +till man ceases to hold dominion over his fellow-creatures, and +the trump of universal liberty rings in every forest, and is +re-echoed by every mountain and rock.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"She who spoke in tones like these never lost one of her purely +feminine qualities. Graceful, gentle, retiring, taking upon herself +the lowliest duties as if she had been born to them, this woman, who +stood up that her light might shine on all, and reveal to them the +terrible atrocities of slavery, was like Jeremy Taylor's taper, which +cast ever a modest shadow round itself. She had a very lofty idea of +what a woman should be. 'Whatever it is morally right for a man to do, +it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human +rights. I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for in +Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.' 'Sure I am that woman +is not to be, as she has been, a mere "second-hand agent" in the +regeneration of a fallen world, but the acknowledged equal and +co-worker with man in this glorious work.... Just in proportion as her +moral and intellectual capacities become enlarged, she will rise +higher and higher in the scroll of creation, until she reaches that +elevation prepared for her by her Maker, and upon whose summit she was +originally stationed, only 'a little lower than the angels.'"</p> + +<p>In the darkest hours of that fearful conflict with slavery in which +she was engaged, when its advocates were everywhere met with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> +violence, and threatened with death, she wrote to William Lloyd +Garrison as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I can hardly express to thee the deep and solemn interest with +which I have viewed the violent proceedings of the last few +weeks. Although I expected opposition, yet I was not prepared for +it so soon; it took me by surprise, and I greatly feared the +Abolitionists would be driven back in the first onset and thrown +into confusion. I was afraid of even opening one of thy papers +lest I should see some indications of a compromise, some +surrender, some palliation. But I read thy appeal to the citizens +of Boston, and found my fears were utterly groundless, and that +thou stoodest firm in the midst of the storm, determined to +suffer and to die rather than yield one inch!</p> + +<p>Religious persecution always begins with mobs; it is always +unprecedented in any age or country in which it commences, and +therefore there are no laws by which reformers can be punished; +consequently, a lawless band of unprincipled men determine to +take the matter into their hands, and act out in mobs what they +know are the principles of a large majority of those who are too +high in Church and State to condescend to mingle with them, +though they secretly approve and rejoice over their violent +measures. The first martyr who ever died was stoned by a lawless +mob; and, if we look at the rise of various sects—Methodists, +Friends, etc.—we shall find that mobs began the persecution +against them; and it was not until after the people had thus +spoken out their wishes that laws were framed to fine, imprison, +or destroy them. Let us, then, be prepared for the enactment of +laws, even in our free States, against Abolitionists. And how +ardently has the prayer been breathed that God would fit us for +all He is preparing for us!</p> + +<p>My mind has been especially turned toward those who are standing +in the fore-front of the battle; and the prayer has gone up for +their preservation, not the preservation of their lives, but the +preservation of their minds in humility and patience, faith, +hope, and charity, that charity which is the bond of perfectness. +If persecution is the means which God has ordained for the +accomplishment of this great end—emancipation—then, in +dependence upon Him for strength to bear it, I feel as if I could +say, let it come; for it is my deep, solemn conviction that this +is a cause worth dying for. At one time, I thought this system +would be overthrown in blood, with the confused noise of the +warrior; but a hope gleams across my mind that our blood will be +spilt instead of the slaveholders'; that our lives will be taken, +and theirs spared. I say a hope; for of all things I desire to be +spared the anguish of seeing our beloved country desolated with +the horrors of a servile war.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"These words were written by one who was standing not apart in a place +of safety, but in the foremost post of danger, and who knew that she +was as likely as any one to share in the martyrdom which she foresaw. +The spirit which dictated these sentences went through her whole life +as its ruling influence.</p> + +<p>"There is the courage of the mariner who buffets the angry waves. +There is the courage of the warrior who marches up to the cannon's +mouth, coolly pressing forward amidst engines of destruction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> on every +side. But hers was a courage greater than theirs. She not only faced +death at the hands of stealthy assassins and howling mobs in her +loyalty to truth, duty, and humanity, but she encountered +unflinchingly the awful frowns of the mighty consecrated leaders of +society, the scoffs and sneers of the multitude, the outstretched +finger of scorn, and the whispered mockery of pity, standing up for +the lowest of the low. Nurtured in the very bosom of slavery, by her +own observation and thought, of one thing she became certain, that it +was a false, cruel, accursed relation between human beings. And to +this conviction, from the very budding of her womanhood, she was +true."</p> + +<p>"Well do I remember," said one, "when, after the American Anti-Slavery +Society, founded in 1838, had battled for a year or two with the +combined forces of the mob, the press, and the commercial, political, +and ecclesiastical authorities, and it was said in the highest +quarters that we had only exasperated the slaveholders, and made all +the North sympathize with them, when the storm of public indignation, +gathering over the whole heavens, was black upon us, and we were +comparatively only a handful, there appeared in the <i>Anti-Slavery</i> +office in New York this mild, modest, soft-speaking woman, then in the +prime of her beauty, delicate as the lily-of-the-valley. She placed in +my hands a roll of manuscript, beautifully written. It was her 'Appeal +to the Christian Women of the South.' It was like a patch of blue sky +breaking through that storm cloud." The manuscript was passed round +among the members of our Executive Committee, and read with wet eyes. +The Society printed it in a pamphlet of thirty-six pages, and +circulated it widely. It made its author a forced exile from her +native State, but it touched hearts that had been proof against +everything else. I remember that the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine +for October, 1836, said of it something to this effect:</p> + +<blockquote><p>This eloquent pamphlet is from the pen of a sister of the late +Thomas S. Grimké, of Charleston, S. C. We need hardly say more of +it than that it is written with that peculiar felicity and +unction which characterized the works of her lamented brother. +Among anti-slavery writings there are two classes, one specially +adapted to make new converts, the other to strengthen the old. We +can not exclude Miss Grimké's Appeal from either class. It +belongs pre-eminently to the former. The converts that will be +made by it, we have no doubt, will be not only numerous, but +thorough-going.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Many of us remember," said another, "with what awakening power such +God-inspired souls have roused us from the apathy of our lives.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> Some +great wrong, like slavery, over which the world had slept for ages, +becomes thus revealed to the clearer vision. Slavery, war, +intemperance, licentiousness, injustice to woman, have thus one after +another been brought to the light, as violations of God's eternal +laws. The soul of Angelina Grimké, and that of her sister Sarah, were +in vital sympathy with all attempts to reform these great wrongs; but +the one which then had pre-eminence above all was human slavery. All +of us who are advanced in years can recall with what almost +overwhelming effect the appeals of our beloved and lamented Garrison +first came to our minds. The conscience of the community was +slumbering over this sin: his utterances stung it to frenzy. In the +midst of it, and in the heartiest response to his appeals, came the +gentle, calm voices of Sarah and Angelina Grimké, enforcing those +appeals by facts of their own observation and experience. I have said +that their nature was full of tenderness and compassion; but, in +addition to this, Angelina, especially, possessed a rare gift of +eloquence, a calm power of persuasion, a magnetic influence over those +that listened to her, which carried conviction to hearts that nothing +before had reached." "I shall never forget the wonderful manifestation +of this power during six successive evenings in what was then called +the Odeon, at the corner of Franklin and Federal Streets. It was the +old Boston Theater, which had been converted into a music hall, the +four galleries rising above the auditorium all crowded with a silent +audience, carried away with the calm, simple eloquence which narrated +what she and her sister had seen from their earliest days. And yet +this Odeon scene, the audience so quiet and intensely absorbed, +occurred at the most enflamed period of the anti-slavery contest. The +effective agent in this phenomenon was Angelina's serene, commanding +eloquence, a wonderful gift, which enchained attention, disarmed +prejudice, and carried her hearers with her."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span> said:</p> + +<p>Friends, this life carries us back to the first chapter of that great +movement with which the name of Angelina Grimké is associated—when +our cities roared with riot, when William Lloyd Garrison was dragged +through the streets, when Dresser was mobbed in Nashville, and +Mackintosh burned in St. Louis. At that time, the hatred toward +Abolitionists was so bitter and merciless that the friends of Lovejoy +left his grave a long time unmarked; and at last ventured to put, with +his name, on his tombstone, only this piteous entreaty: <i>Jam parce +sepulto</i>, "Spare him now in his grave."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> We were but a handful then, +and our words beat against the stony public as powerless as if against +the north wind. We got no sympathy from most Northern men: their +consciences were seared as with a hot iron. At this time, a young girl +came from the proudest State in the slave-holding section. She come to +lay on the altar of this despised cause, this seemingly hopeless +crusade, both family and friends, the best social position, a high +place in the church, genius, and many gifts. No man at this day can +know the gratitude we felt for this help from such an unexpected +source. After this came James G. Birney from the South, and many able +and influential men and women joined us. At last John Brown laid his +life, the crowning sacrifice, on the altar of the cause. But no man +who remembers 1837 and its lowering clouds will deny that there was +hardly any contribution to the anti-slavery movement greater or more +impressive than the crusade of these Grimké sisters from South +Carolina through the New England States.</p> + +<p>Gifted with rare eloquence, she swept the chords of the human heart +with a power that has never been surpassed, and rarely equaled. I well +remember, evening after evening, listening to eloquence such as never +then had been heard from a woman. Her own hard experience, the long, +lonely, intellectual and moral struggle from which she came out +conqueror, had ripened her power, and her wondrous faculty of laying +bare her own heart to reach the hearts of others, shone forth till she +carried us all captive. She was the first woman to whom the halls of +the Massachusetts Legislature were opened. My friend, James C. Alvord, +was the courageous chairman who broke that door open for the +anti-slavery women. It gave Miss Grimké the opportunity to speak to +the best culture and character of Massachusetts; and the profound +impression then made on a class not often in our meetings was never +wholly lost. It was not only the testimony of one most competent to +speak, but it was the profound religious experience of one who had +broken out of the charmed circle, and whose intense earnestness melted +all opposition. The converts she made needed no after-training. It was +when you saw she was opening some secret record of her own experience, +that the painful silence and breathless interest told the deep effect +and lasting impression her words were making on minds, that afterward +never rested in their work.</p> + +<p>In 1840, '41, this anti-slavery movement was broken in halves by the +woman question. The people believed in the silence of women. But, when +the Grimkés went through New England, such was the overpowering +influence with which they swept the churches that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> men did not +remember this dogma till after they had gone. When they left, and the +spell weakened, some woke to the idea that it was wrong for a woman to +speak to a public assembly. The wakening of old prejudice to its +combat with new convictions was a fearful storm. But she bore it, when +it broke at last, with the intrepidity with which she surmounted every +obstacle. By the instinctive keenness of her conscience, she only +needed to see truth to recognize it, as the flower turns to the sun. +God had touched that soul so that it needed no special circumstance, +no word of warning or instruction from those about her; for she was +ever self-poised.</p> + +<p>When I think of her, there comes to me the picture of the spotless +dove in the tempest, as she battles with the storm, seeking for some +place to rest her foot. She reminds me of innocence personified in +Spencer's poem. In her girlhood, alone, heart-led, she comforts the +slave in his quarters; mentally struggling with the problems his +position wakes her to. Alone, not confused, but seeking something to +lean on, she grasps the Church, which proves a broken reed. No whit +disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying each by the +infallible touchstone of that clear, childlike conscience. The two old +lonely Quakers in their innocence rest her foot awhile. But the eager +soul must work, not rest in testimony. Coming North, at last, she +makes her own religion,—one of sacrifice and toil. Breaking away +from, rising above all forms, the dove floats at last in the blue sky +where no clouds reach.</p> + +<p>And thus exiled from her native city, she goes forth with her sister +to seek the spot where she can most effectually strike at the +institution. Were I to single out the moral and intellectual trait +which most won me, it was her serene indifference to the judgment of +those about her. Self-poised, she seemed morally sufficient to +herself. Her instincts were all so clear and right she could trust +their lesson. But a clear, wide, patient submission to all suggestion +and influence preceded opinion, and her public addresses were +remarkable for the fullness and clearness of the arguments they urged. +She herself felt truths, but patiently argued them to others.</p> + +<p>The testimony she gave touching slavery was, as she termed it, "the +wail of a broken-hearted child." It was known to a few that the +pictures she drew were of her own fireside. That loving heart! how +stern a sense of duty must have wrung it before she was willing to +open that record! But with sublime fidelity, with entire +self-sacrifice, she gave all she could to the great argument that was +to wake a nation to duty. Listen to the fearful indictment she records +against the system. And this was not slavery in its most brutal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> +repulsive form. It was slavery hid in luxury, when refinement seemed +to temper some of its worst elements. But, with keen sense of right, +even a child of a dozen years saw through the veil, saw the system in +its inherent vileness, saw the real curse of slavery in the hardened +heart of the slave-holder.</p> + +<p>A few years of active life, extensive and most influential labor, many +sheaves and a rich harvest, God's blessing on her service, then +illness barring her from the platform. How serenely she took up the +cross! So specially endowed; men bowing low so readily to the power +and magic of her words; she could not but have seen the grand +possibilities that were opening before her. How peacefully she +accepted the bond, and set herself to training others for the work +against which her own door was shut! East, West, North, and South, +come up to give testimony that these later years bore ample fruit. How +many souls have cause to thank that enforced silence! I have listened +to such testimonies, spoken sometimes in tears, on the shores of the +Great Lakes and beyond the Mississippi."</p> + +<p>From the following facts and anecdotes told by her husband, we see +that Angelina united with the highest moral heroism, the physical +courage and coolness in the hour of danger that but few men can boast. +Theodore D. Weld, in his published sketch, says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Though high physical courage is also fairly inferrable from her +anti-slavery career, yet only those most with her in life's +practical affairs can appreciate her self-poise in danger. Peril +was to her a sedative; it calmed and girded her, bringing out +every resource, and making self-command absolute. She knew +nothing of that flutter which confuses. Great danger instantly +brought thought and feeling to a focus, and held them there. +Several perilous emergencies in her life are vividly +recalled—such as being overturned while in a carriage with a +child in her arms, the horse meanwhile floundering amid the +<i>débris</i>, a shaft broken, and dash-board kicked into splinters. +At another time, shots at the road-side set off the horses in a +run. Seeing her husband, in his struggle to rein them in, jerked +up from his seat and held thus braced and half-standing, she +caught him round the waist, adding her weight to his, and thus +enabled him to pull the harder, till the steady, silent tug upon +the reins tamed down the steeds. Her residence at Belleville, N. +J., had no near neighbors, stood back from the road, and was +nearly hidden by trees and shrubbery. The old stone structure, +dating back to 1700, was known as the "haunted house." Being very +large, with barn, sheds, and several out-houses, it was specially +attractive to stragglers and burglars. Stories had been long +afloat of outrages perpetrated there, among which was a murder a +century before, with a burglary and robbery more recent. We had +not been long there, when one night Angelina, waked by suspicious +noises, listened, till certain that a burglar must be in the +house. Then, stealing softly from the room, she struck a light, +and explored from cellar to attic, looking into closets, behind +doors, and under beds. For a slight, weak woman, hardly able to +lift an empty tea-kettle, thus to dare, shows, whether we call it +courage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> or presumption, at least the absence of all fear. None +of the family knew of this fact, until an accident long after +revealed it.</p> + +<p>Some years after this, when visiting in a friend's family in the +absence of the parents, she often took the children to ride. Upon +returning one day, she said to the cook, "Maggie, jump in, and +I'll give you a ride." So away they went. Soon a by-road struck +off from the main one. Turning in to explore it, she found that +it ran a long way parallel to the railroad. Suddenly Maggie +screamed: "O missus! I forgot. This is just the time for the +express, and this is the horse that's awful afraid of the cars, +and nobody can hold him. Oh, dear, dear!" Seeing Maggie's fright, +she instantly turned back, saying, "Now, Maggie, if the train +should come before we get back to the turn, do just what I tell +you, and I'll bring you out safe." "Oh, yes, missus! I will! I +will!" "Mark, now. Don't scream; don't touch the reins; don't +jump out; 'twill kill you dead if you do. Listen, and, as soon as +you hear the cars coming, drop down on the bottom of the wagon. +Don't look out; keep your eyes and mouth shut tight. I'll take +care of you." Down flat dropped Maggie on the bottom, without +waiting to hear the train. Soon the steam-whistle screamed in +front, instead of rear, as expected! Short about she turned the +horse, and away he sprang, the express thundering in the rear. +For a mile the road was a straight, dead level, and right along +the track. At utmost speed the frantic animal strained on. On +plunged the train behind. Neither gained nor lost. No sound came +but the rushing of steed and train. It was a race for life, and +the blood horse won. Then, as the road turned from the track up a +long slope, the train shot by, taming the horse's fright; but, as +his blood was up, she kept him hard pushed to the crest of the +slope, then slacked his pace, and headed him homeward. Faithful +Maggie stuck fast to her promise and to the wagon-bottom, until +told, "It's all over," when she broke silence with her +wonderments. When she got home the kitchen rang with +exclamations. That race was long her standing topic, she always +insisting that she wasn't scared a bit, not she, because she +"knew the missus wasn't."</p> + +<p>While living in New Jersey, word came that a colored man and his +wife, who had just come to the township, were lying sick of +malignant small-pox, and that none of their neighbors dared go to +them. She immediately sought them out, and found them in a +deplorable plight, neither able to do anything for the other, and +at once became to them eyes, hands, feet, nurse, care-taker and +servant in all needed offices; and thus, relieved in nursing and +watching by a friend, her patients were able, after three days, +to minister in part to each other. Meanwhile, no neighbor +approached them.</p> + +<p>Some striking traits were scarcely known, except by her special +intimates; and they were never many. Her fidelity in friendship +was imperishable. Friends might break with her; she never broke +with them, whatever the wrong they had done her. She never stood +upon dignity, nor exacted apology, nor resented an unkindness, +though keenly feeling it; and, if falsely accused, answered +nothing. She never spoke disparagingly of others, unless clearest +duty exacted it. Gossips, tattlers, and backbiters were her +trinity of horrors. Her absolute truthfulness was shown in the +smallest things. With a severe sincerity, it was applied to all +those customs looked upon as mere forms involving no +principle—customs exacting the utterance of what is not meant, +of wishes unfelt, sheer deceptions. She never invited a visit or +call not desired.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> If she said, "Stay longer," the words voiced a +wish felt. She could not be brought under bondage to any usage or +custom, any party watch-word, or shibboleth of a speculative +creed, or any mode of dress or address. In Charleston, she was +exact in her Quaker costume, because, to the last punctilio, it +was an anti-slavery document; and for that she would gladly make +any sacrifice of personal comfort. But, among the "Friends" in +Philadelphia, she would not wear an article of dress which caused +her physical inconvenience, though it might be dictated by the +universal usage of "Friends." Upon first exchanging the warmth of +a Carolina winter for the zero of a Northern one, she found the +"regulation" bonnet of the "Friends" a very slight protection +from the cold. So she ordered one made of fur, large enough to +protect both head and face. For this departure from usage, she +was admonished, "It was a grief to 'Friends,'" "It looked like +pride and self-will," "It was an evil example," etc. While +adhering strictly to the principles of "Friends," neither she nor +her sister Sarah could conform to all their distinctive usages, +nor accept all their rules. Consequently, their examples were +regarded as quiet protests against some of the settled customs of +the Society. Such they felt bound to make them in word and act. +Thus they protested against the negro-seat in their +meeting-house, by making it their seat. They also felt +constrained to testify against a rule requiring that no Friend +should publish a book without the sanction of the "Meeting for +Sufferings"; so, also, the rule that any one who should marry out +of the Society should, unless penitent, be disowned. +Consequently, when Angelina thus married, she was disowned, as +was Sarah for sanctioning the marriage by her presence. The +committee who "dealt" with them for those violations of the rule, +said that if they would "express regret," they would relieve the +meeting from the painful necessity of disowning them. The sisters +replied that, feeling no regret, they could express none; adding +that, as they had always openly declared their disapproval of the +rule, they could neither regret their violation of it, nor +neglect so fit an occasion for thus emphasizing their convictions +by their acts; adding that they honored the "Friends" all the +more for that fidelity which constrained them to do, however +painful, what they believed to be their duty.</p> + +<p>Angelina's "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South" "made her +a forced exile from her native State." As she never voluntarily +spoke of what she had done or suffered, few, if any, of the +Abolitionists, either knew then, or know now, that she was really +exiled by an Act of the Charleston city government. When her +"Appeal" came out, a large number of copies were sent by mail to +South Carolina. Most of them were publicly burned by postmasters. +Not long after this, the city authorities learned that Miss +Grimké was intending to visit her mother and sisters, and pass +the winter with them. Thereupon the mayor of Charleston called +upon Mrs. Grimké, and desired her to inform her daughter that the +police had been instructed to prevent her landing while the +steamer remained in port, and to see to it that she should not +communicate, by letter or otherwise, with any persons in the +city; and, further, that if she should elude their vigilance, and +go on shore, she would be arrested and imprisoned, until the +return of the steamer. Her Charleston friends at once conveyed to +her the message of the mayor, and added that the people of +Charleston were so incensed against her, that if she should go +there, despite the mayor's threat of pains and penalties, she +could not escape personal violence at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> bands of the mob. She +replied to the letter, that her going would doubtless compromise +her family; not only distress them, but put them in peril, which +she had neither heart nor right to do; but for that fact, she +would certainly exercise her constitutional right as an American +citizen, and go to Charleston to visit her relatives, and, if for +that the authorities should inflict upon her pains and penalties, +she would willingly bear them, assured that such an outrage would +help to reveal to the free States the fact that slavery defies +and tramples alike constitutions and laws, and thus outlaws +itself.</p> + +<p>When the American Anti-Slavery Society wrote to Miss Grimké, +inviting her to visit New York city, and hold meetings in private +parlors with Christian women, on the subject of slavery, upon +reading their letter, she handed it to her sister Sarah, saying, +"I feel this to be God's call. I can not decline it." A long +conversation followed, the details of which I received from Sarah +not long after; and, as they present vividly the marked +characteristics of both sisters, I give in substance such as I +can recall.</p> + +<p>S.—But you know that you are constitutionally retiring, +self-distrustful, easily embarrassed. You have a morbid shrinking +from whatever would make you conspicuous.</p> + +<p>A.—Yes, you have drawn me to the life. I confess that I have all +that, and yet at times I have nothing of it. I know that I am +diffident about assuming responsibilities; but when I feel that +anything is mine to do, no matter what, then I have no fear.</p> + +<p>S.—You are going among strangers, you wear strange garments, +speak in a strange language, will be in circumstances wholly +novel, and about a work that you never attempted, and most of +those who will listen to you have prejudices against +Abolitionists, and also against a woman's speaking to any +audience. Now in all there embarrassing circumstances, and in +your lack of self-confidence when you come to face an +unsympathizing audience, does not it seem likely that you will +find it impossible to speak to edification, and thus will be +forced to give it up altogether?</p> + +<p>A.—Yes, it seems presumptuous for me to undertake it; but yet I +can not refuse to do it. The conviction is a part of me. I can +not absolve myself from it. The responsibility is thrust upon me. +I can not thrust it off.</p> + +<p>S.—I know you will not and can not. My only desire is for you +deliberately to look at all things just as they are, and give +each its due weight. If, after that, your conviction is +unchanged, with my whole heart I'll help you to carry it out. +There is but one thing more that I think of. If you were to go +upon this mission without the sanction of the "Meeting for +Sufferings," it would be regarded as disorderly, a violation of +the established usage of the Society, and they would probably +feel compelled to disown you. [This was prior to the disownment +that followed the marriage].</p> + +<p>A.—As my mind is made up absolutely to go, I can not ask their +leave to go. For their fidelity to their views of duty, I honor +them. It is a grief to me to grieve them, but I have no +alternative. Very unpleasant it will be to be disowned, but +misery to be self-disowned.</p> + +<p>S.—I have presented these considerations, that you might +carefully traverse the whole question and count all the costs. I +dare not say a word against your decision. I see that it is +final, and that you can make no other. To me, it is sacred. While +we have been talking, I, too, have made my decision. It is this: +where you go, I will go; what you do, I will to my utmost help +you in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> doing. We have always thought and wept and prayed +together over this horrible wrong, and now we will go and work +together. There will be a deal to be done in private also; that I +can help you about, and thus you will have the more strength to +give to the meetings.</p> + +<p>So Miss Grimké wrote at once to the committee, accepting their +invitation, thanking them for the salary offered, but declining +to receive any; informing them that her sister would accompany +her, and that they should both go exclusively at their own +expense.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In 1864, Mr. and Mrs. Weld removed to Hyde Park, where the sisters +spent the rest of their days. No one who met Angelina there would have +any suspicion of the great work which she had done: she was interested +in her household duties, and the little charities of the neighborhood. +Once, during the war, she was persuaded to go out of her daily +routine, and to attend a small meeting called for the purpose of +assisting the Southern people—freedmen, and those who had formerly +held them in slavery. Very simply and modestly, but very clearly and +impressively, she spoke of the condition of things at the South, of +her friends there, and how we could best help them—all in the most +loving and tender spirit, as if she had only grateful memories of what +they had been, and as if no thought of herself mingled with the +thought of them. The simplicity, directness, and practical good sense +of her speech then, its kindliness toward those who had done her the +greatest wrong, and the entire absence of self-consciousness, made +those who heard her feel that a woman might speak in public without +violating any of the proprieties or prejudices of social traditions +and customs. There was a refinement and dignity about her, an +atmosphere of gentleness and sweetness and strength, which won their +way to the heart. To those who knew her history, there was something +very affecting, sublime, in her absolute self-forgetfulness. As one +who knew her most intimately said, "She seems to have been born in +that mood of mind which made vanity or display impossible. She was the +only person I have ever known who was absolutely free from all +ambition."</p> + +<p>Space prevents a fitting record of the noble words and deeds of Sarah +Moore Grimké. She published in 1838, a volume of "Letters on the +Equality of the Sexes," which called out much discussion on woman's +position in both State and Church. The last time Angelina spoke in +public was at the Loyal League Convention in New York in 1863. She +took an active part in the discussion of resolutions, speaking clearly +and concisely on every point, and read a beautiful address she had +prepared—"To the Soldiers of our Second Revolution." All through the +years that Angelina was illustrating woman's capacity on the platform +by holding her audiences spell-bound, Sarah was defending woman's +right to be there with her pen.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Angelina E. Grimké.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> This building, the property of Jacob Peirce, was thus +imperilled with his free consent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> The Assembly Buildings, opened to us by the kindness of +the lessee, Mr. John Toy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> She was the positive power of so much anti-slavery work, +that James Russell Lowell spoke of her as "the coiled-up mainspring of +the movement."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> In speaking of her, Lydia Maria Child said in her +obituary notice in the <i>National Anti-Slavery Standard</i> of May 11, +1867: "All survivors of the old Abolition band will remember Thankful +Southwick as one of the very earliest, the noblest, and the most +faithful of that small army of moral combatants who fought so bravely +and so perseveringly for the deliverance of the down-trodden. Mrs. +Southwick was born and educated in the Society of Friends, and to +their calmness of demeanor she added their indomitable persistence in +the path of duty. One of the most exciting affairs that ever occurred +in Boston was known as the 'Baltimore Slave Case.' Two girls had +escaped in a Boston vessel, and when about to be carried back, were +brought out on a writ of 'habeas corpus.' All Boston was in a ferment +for and against the fugitives. The commercial world were determined +that this Southern property should be restored to the white claimants, +and the Abolitionists were determined that it should remain in the +possession of the original owners until a bill of sale from the +Almighty could be produced. By the vigilance and ingenious +arrangements of 'Father Snowden' and Thankful Southwick, at a given +signal the slaves were spirited away from the crowded court-room, and +out of the city. The agent of the slaveholders standing near Mrs. +Southwick, and gazing with astonishment at the empty space, where an +instant before the slaves stood, she turned her large gray eyes upon +him and said, 'Thy prey hath escaped thee.' Wherever working or +thinking was to be done for our righteous cause, there was Thankful +Southwick ever ready with wise counsel and energetic action. She and +her excellent husband were among the very first to sustain Garrison in +his unequal contest with the strong Goliath of slavery. At that time +they were in affluent circumstances, and their money was poured forth +freely for the unpopular cause which had as yet found no adherents +among the rich. Their commodious house was a caravansary for fugitive +slaves, and for anti-slavery pilgrims from all parts of the country. +At the anniversary meetings when most of the Abolitionists were +desirous to have for their guests, Friend Whittier, the Hon. James G. +Birney, George Thompson, Theodore, or Angelia Weld, Joseph and +Thankful Southwick were quietly looking about for such of the +anti-slavery brothers and sisters as were too little known to be +likely to receive invitations. Always kindly unpretending, +clear-sighted to perceive the right, and faithful in following it +wherever it might lead. They were upright in all their dealings with +the world, tender and true in the relations of private life and the +memory they have left is a benediction."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> On a recent visit at the home of Robert Purvis, of +Philadelphia, in talking over those eventful days one evening in +company with Daniel Neale, it was amusing and gratifying to hear those +gentlemen dilate on the grandeur of her bearing through those mobs in +Pennsylvania Hall. It seems on that occasion she had a beautiful +crimson shawl thrown gracefully over her shoulders. One of these +gentlemen remarked, "I kept my eye on that shawl, which could be seen +now here, now there, its wearer consulting with one, cheering another; +and I made up my mind that until that shawl disappeared, every man +must stand by his guns."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Abby Kelly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Just previous to this Convention Horace Mann, President +of Antioch College, had been giving a lecture through the country, and +made many severe strictures on the false philosophy of the woman +suffrage movement, or rather what he supposed it to be. This was +considered the more damaging because Mr. Mann so strongly favored +co-education. It was as if one in our own camp had suddenly turned +traitor. Among other things he said that our legislative halls were +such bear gardens that they were not fit for women to enter. It is to +this remark reference is made in the debates.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> This letter will be found in "Reminiscences of Lucretia +Mott," at the close of this chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> In accordance with this plan Matilda Joslyn Gage +prepared a story, entitled "The Household," treating different phases +of woman's wrongs, and presented it to the Committee. But as nothing +was ever done to carry out the proposition, the manuscript was +returned to the author, and slumbers in her garret with other rejected +manuscripts.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> The first National Convention held in Washington was in +January, 1869.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Joseph C. Neal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> It seems these inexperienced parents had armed +themselves with the most approved works on the construction and +capacities of infants, in one of which they found the statement that +the stomach of a new-born child could hold only one tablespoonful of +milk. Accordingly the boy was restricted to that amount, once an hour. +Although he protested against this limited supply by constant wailing, +and shrivelled from day to day into a miniature mummy, the system was +pursued, until at last "Sister Sarah," who had had suspicions for some +time that the child's capacity was underrated, thought she would +assume the responsibility of giving him for once all the milk he could +take. What he did do, so far outmeasured what the doctrinaire said he +could do, that the child was happily permitted ever after to decide +for himself. The faith of the trusting parents was thus visibly shaken +in one theory, and I am happy to add, in due time in many others, +regarding the Graham system of dietetics.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>LUCRETIA MOTT.</h3> + + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Eulogy at the Memorial Services<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> held in Washington by the +National Woman Suffrage Association, January 19, 1881. By +Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</p> +</div> + +<p>On the 3d of January, 1793, the little island of Nantucket, fifteen +miles by three and a half, lying far out into the sea on the coast of +Massachusetts, welcomed to its solitude a child destined to be one of +America's most famous women. This was a fitting birthplace for +Lucretia Mott; as the religion and commerce of the island (named for a +woman) had been guided by a woman's brain. In 1708 Mary Starbuck, +known as "The Great Merchant," a woman of remarkable breadth of +intellect, as well as great executive ability, converted the colony to +Quakerism, and vindicated woman's right to interest herself in the +commerce of the world. Perhaps she, like the good genii of old, +brought her gifts to that cradle and breathed into the new life the +lofty inspiration that made this woman the prophet and seer she was. +Here were the descendants of John Wolman, William Rotch, George Fox, +the Macys, the Franklins, the Folgers; and in this pure atmosphere, +and from these distinguished ancestors, Lucretia Mott received her +inheritance. Her father was an honest, sea-faring Quaker. Her mother +belonged to the Folger family, whose culture, genius, common-sense, +and thrift culminated in Benjamin Franklin, and later, in Lucretia +Mott. The resemblance between her head and that of the philosopher and +statesman, was apparent to the most casual observer.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mott says in her diary: "I always loved the good in childhood, +and desired to do the right. In those early years I was actively +useful to my mother, who, in the absence of my father on his long +voyages, was engaged in mercantile business, often going to Boston to +purchase goods in exchange for oil and candles, the staple of the +island. The exercise of women's talents in this line, as well as the +general care which devolved upon them, in the absence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> their +husbands, tended to develop and strengthen them mentally and +physically.</p> + +<p>"In 1804 my father's family removed to Boston, and in the public and +private schools of that city I mingled with all classes without +distinction. It was the custom then to send the children of such +families to select schools; but my parents feared that would minister +to a feeling of class pride, which they felt was sinful to cultivate +in their children. And this I am glad to remember, because it gave me +a feeling of sympathy for the patient and struggling poor, which but +for this experience I might never have known." Under such humane +influences, with such ancestors and associations, in the public +schools, in the Friends' meeting, on the adventurous island, and in +the suburbs of Boston, the child passed into girlhood, with lessons of +industry and self-denial well learned, and with her life all before. +She lived in a period when women of genius had vindicated their right +to be recognized in art, science, literature, and government, and +through many of the great events that have made the United States a +Nation. It was such a combination of influences that developed +Lucretia Mott into the exceptional woman she was.</p> + +<p>In an unlucky hour her father endorsed for a friend, and to save his +honor, was compelled to lose his property. It was a blow from which he +did not recover, and henceforward much of the support of the family +devolved upon the mother, who had remarkable tact, energy, and +courage. Both parents were ambitious for their children, and did all +they could for their education; that was one thing about which all +Quakers were tenacious. In her fourteenth year Lucretia and her elder +sister were sent to "The Nine Partners," a Friends boarding-school in +Dutchess County, New York, and there pursuing her studies with patient +zeal, she remained two years without once going home for a holiday +vacation. At fifteen, a teacher having left, Lucretia was made an +assistant, and at the end of the second year, was tendered the place +of teacher, with the inducement beside, that her services would +entitle a younger sister to her education.</p> + +<p>Her well-balanced character enabled her to meet with calmness, all +life's varied trials, of which she had her full share. As one of eight +children in her father's house, with his financial embarrassments, and +sudden death: and afterward with five children of her own, and her +husband's reverses; Lucretia's heroism and strength of mind were +fairly tested. In both of these financial emergencies, she opened a +school, and by her success as a teacher, bridged over the chasm.</p> + +<p>In her eighteenth year, Lucretia Coffin and James Mott, according<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> to +Quaker ceremony, became husband and wife, the result of an attachment +formed at boarding-school, which proved to be an exceptionally happy +union, and through their long wedded life, of over half a century, +they remained ever loyal to one another. James Mott, though a Quaker, +was in all personal qualities the very opposite of his wife. He had +the cool judgment, she the enkindling enthusiasm. He had the slow, +sure movement; she the quick, impulsive energy. He enjoyed nothing +more than silence; she nothing more than talking. The one was +completely the complement of the other. She possessed a delicate love +of fun, and was full of dry humor. Once during a visit from her +husband's brother, Richard Mott, of Toledo, Ohio, who like James was a +very silent man, she became suddenly aware of their absence and +started to look for them. Finding them seated on either side of a +large wood fire in the drawing-room, she said, "Oh, I thought you must +both be here it was so quiet."</p> + +<p>In speaking of them, Robert Collyer says: "If James and Lucretia had +gone around the world in search of a mate, I think they would have +made the choice which heaven made for them. They had lived together +more than forty years when I first knew them. I thought then, as I +think now, that it was the most perfect wedded life to be found on +earth. They were both of a most beautiful presence. He, large, fair, +with kindly blue eyes, and regular features. She, slight, with dark +eyes and hair. Both, of the sunniest spirit; both, free to take their +own way, as such fine souls always are, and yet their lives were so +perfectly one that neither of them led or followed the other, so far +as one could observe, by the breadth of a line. He could speak well, +in a slow, wise way, when the spirit moved him, and the words were all +the choicer because they were so few. But his greatness, for he was a +great man, lay still in that fine, silent manhood, which would only +break into fluent speech as you sat with him by the bright wood fire +in winter, while the good wife went on with her knitting, putting it +swiftly down a score of times in an hour, to pound a vagrant spark +which had snapped on the carpet, or as we sat under the trees in the +summer twilight. Then James Mott would open his heart to those he +loved, and touch you with wonder at the depth and beauty of his +thoughts; or tell you stories of the city where when a young man he +lived, or of the choice humors of ancient Quakers, who went through +the world esteeming laughter vain, and yet set the whole world which +knew them laughing at their quaint ways and curious fancies."</p> + +<p>In his young days, James Mott was a teacher; later on he engaged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> in +the cotton business, but abandoned it when it was becoming +remunerative, because of its connection with slave labor. He finally +took up the wool business, and retired with a competency some years +before his death, which enabled them to take a trip to Europe, and +afterward live the life of leisure they desired, indulging their +literary tastes. James Mott wrote a very creditable book of their +travels, and Lucretia carried enough observations of foreign life in +her head to fill folios.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mott was a housekeeper of the old school, in so far as everything +from garret to cellar passed under her supervision. She took the +entire care of her children, and although with remarkable economy +supplying the wants and guarding against the wastes of a large family, +she did not allow these necessary cares to absorb all her time and +thought, but cultivated the talents entrusted to her in broader +interests than family life. She felt she had duties in the Church and +the State as well as the home. The time most wives and mothers spend +in gaiety and embroidery, she spent in reading and committing to +memory choice thoughts in poetry and prose. The money others spent in +filling their homes with bric-a-brac she spent in books, and the +result proves the superior wisdom of her course.</p> + +<p>When conventions were held in Philadelphia, her house was always +filled with guests. As presiding officer in a woman's convention +nothing escaped her notice. She felt responsible that everything +should be done in good taste and order. Her opinions on woman's +nature, sphere, destiny, were thoroughly digested, and any speaker +that did not come up to her exact ideal, was taken delicately to task +when her turn came to speak. As some one remarks, "she had a playful +way of tapping a speaker in a public meeting, as a skillful driver +touches his horses with the tip end of his whip." Once, says Wendell +Phillips, she tried the experiment on me when I had ventured to say +that one of the drawbacks to the movement, was the indifference of +women themselves. Other speakers too expressed sentiments on which +Mrs. Mott differed from them. When she arose she touched them all +round with her gentle raillery, offending no one, just pronounced +enough in her speech to be effective, and in no way compromising +herself. Glancing at the platform on one occasion in Philadelphia, the +central figure, is Lucretia Mott in Quaker costume, in the zenith of +her refined beauty; around her are grouped James Mott, William Lloyd +Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Robert Purvis, +Charles Burleigh, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances Dana Gage, Hannah Tracy +Cutler, Lydia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Ann Preston, Sarah Pugh, Hannah<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> +Darlington, Mary Grew, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy +Stone, as refined and remarkable an assembly of men and women as could +be found in any European court. Yet these were the people so hated and +ridiculed by the press and the pulpit, whose grand utterances and +spicy debates were stigmatized as "the maudlin sentimentalisms of +unsexed men and women."</p> + +<p>But let us follow these friends to the home of Lucretia Mott. A large +house on Arch Street, like all buildings in the city of brotherly +love, with white shutters, marble cappings and steps, and dining-room +on the second floor of the rear building. There are our stern +reformers, round the social board, as genial a group of martyrs as one +could find. Without the shadow of a doubt as to the rightfulness of +their own position, and knowing too that the common sense of the +nation was on their side, they made merry over the bigotry of the +Church, popular prejudices, conservative fears, absurd laws and +customs hoary with age. How they did hold up in their metaphysical +tweezers the representatives of the dead past that ever and anon +ventured upon our platform. With what peals of laughter their +assumptions and contradictions were chopped into mince meat. On this +occasion, William Lloyd Garrison occupied the seat of honor at Mrs. +Mott's right hand, and led the conversation which the hostess always +skillfuly managed to make general. When seated around her board, no +two-and-two side talk in monotone was ever permissible; she insisted +that the good things said should be enjoyed by all. At the close of +the meal, while the conversation went briskly on, with a neat little +tray and snowy towel, she washed up the silver and china as she +uttered some of her happiest thoughts. James Mott at the head of the +table maintained the dignity of his position, ever ready to throw in a +qualifying word, when these fiery reformers became too intense.</p> + +<p>Theirs was the ideal home, perfect in its appointments, and where +discussion on all subjects took the widest range. Being alike in +search of truth, one felt no fear of shocking them. Those accustomed +to see priests and bigots, whenever a doubt was expressed as to any of +their cherished opinions, rise and leave the room with a deeply +wounded expression, were surprised to see James and Lucretia Mott +calmly discussing with guests, their own most cherished creeds, and +questioning the wisdom of others in turn. Freedom was not a deity in +their home to be worshiped afar off, but the patron saint of the +household, influencing all who entered there, giving her benedictions +to each at every feast.</p> + +<p>Their home was the castle of safety for runaway slaves, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> +paradise of the unfortunate. All knew that if the mistress met them +empty handed, she would cheer their lonely hearts with kind words, +recognizing their humanity, and with sure promise of some future +consideration. Her house was a resort too for people of distinction. +When Frederika Bremer, Harriet Martineau, Lord Morpeth, Lord and Lady +Amberley, visited this country, the reformers were the people they +desired to see, and chief among them Lucretia Mott, after whom Lady +Amberley named her first daughter. Thus titled foreigners, scholars, +and politicians often met at her fireside. I have frequently heard +Gerrit Smith describe a call he once made there. In a conversation of +an hour, she was interrupted half a dozen times with applications for +charity. At last, in came the glorious Fanny Kemble, meeting Mrs. Mott +in a manner that clearly showed they were warm and well-known friends; +and soon came Frederick Douglass. There sat the millionaire +philanthropist, the world-renowned actor, the grandest representative +of slavery, and the fearless disciple of Elias Hicks. I doubt if the +Quaker City ever unveiled so magnificent a tableaux for the pen of an +artist.</p> + +<p>In her diary Mrs. Mott says: "At twenty-five years of age, surrounded +with a family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life of +devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in the 'Society of +Friends,' receiving every encouragement from those in authority until +the separation amongst us in 1827, when my convictions led me to +adhere to those who believed in the sufficiency of the light within, +resting on 'truth for authority rather than authority for truth.' The +popular doctrine of original sin never commended itself to my reason +or conscience, except on the theory of original holiness also. I +searched the Scriptures daily, ofttimes finding a construction of the +text wholly different from that which had been pressed on our +acceptance. The highest evidence of a sound faith being the practical +life of the Christian, I have felt a far greater interest in the moral +movements of the age than in any theological discussion."</p> + +<p>In 1818 she began to preach in "Friends' Meeting," and through New +England, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, she spoke at an early +day on the tenets of her sect. She affiliated with the branch called +"Hicksite," or "Unitarian Quakers." As Mrs. Mott was a disciple of +Elias Hicks, we can get some insight as to her religious faith by a +few extracts from different points in his creed as stated by himself. +In one of his sermons he says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God. +What is the Spirit of God? It is the light and life in the soul +of man. All that men and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> books can do is to point us to this +great principle which is only to be known in our own souls. The +way to arrive at a knowledge of this divine love and divine +light, and to fulfill the whole law, is to love all the creation +of God, and do right to all men and beasts.</p> + +<p>Again he speaks of the divine love and divine light which he says +are one, indivisibly one. The Lord is love, and love may be +considered as comprehending all His power and all His wisdom; but +goodness is the most proper term that we can apply. Every one, he +says, is enlightened by the same divine light that enlightened +Jesus, and we receive it from the same source. He had the +fullness of it as we have our several allotments. All the varied +names given in Scripture to this divine light and life such as, +"Emmanuel," "Jesus," "Sent of God," "Great Prophet," "Christ our +Lord," "Grace," "Unction," "Anointed," mean one and the same +thing, and are nothing less nor more than the spirit and power of +God in the soul of man as his Creator, Preserver, Condemner, +Redeemer, Saviour, Sanctifier, and Justifier.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The Hicksites differed from the other Friends in that they placed the +light within above all external authority, while the Orthodox Friends +make the Scriptures the surer guide, though some make the written word +and inner light of equal authority. In a letter to John C. Sanders, in +1828, Elias Hicks says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Not all the books ever written, nor all the miracles recorded in +the Scriptures, nor all other external evidence of what kind +soever, has ever revealed God (who is an eternal invisible +Spirit) to any one of the children of men. Heaven is not a fixed +place above, nor hell below, but both are states of the soul. The +blood of Christ shed upon the cross has no more power to cleanse +us from sin than the blood of bullocks and rams poured out on +Jewish altars could cleanse that people from their sins. We must +know Christ within us to save us from sin; men depend so much on +the crucifixion that they heed not the light within.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This wonderful prophet and seer was seventy-nine years old when the +separation began in Philadelphia. The division in this country created +great excitement among the Quakers in England, who were very active in +their hostility to Elias Hicks and his doctrines. Some of them came to +America to bear their testimony. Among others, Annie Braithwaite +traveled extensively and addressed Friends' meetings. Mrs. Mott states +that on one occasion when she was present, the English Quakeress, in +preaching salvation by the blood of Christ, had spoken with more than +usual unction and enthusiasm. As soon as she finished a profound +silence reigned. Elias Hicks, slowly rising and removing his hat, said +in deep inspired tones: "Friends, to the Christ that never was +crucified; to the Christ that never was slain; to the Christ that can +not die. I commend you."</p> + +<p>Many of the professed followers of Elias Hicks lacked the courage and +conscience to maintain his principles when the magnetism of his direct +influence was withdrawn by his death. Hence even in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> that division of +the Friends to which she belonged, Mrs. Mott encountered much +opposition, especially for her public identification with unpopular +reforms. Many would have gladly seen her withdraw from their +membership, and others were desirous that she should be disowned. But +she understood her own rights and Friends Discipline too well to +violate a single rule. Although her enemies kept close watch, they +never caught her off her guard. At the time of the division, she +remarked to an acquaintance: "It seemed to me almost like death at +first to be shut out of the Friends Meeting where I had loved to go +for religious communion, to see the cold averted looks from those +whose confidence I once enjoyed, to be shunned as unworthy of notice; +all this was hard to endure, but it was the price I paid for being +true to the convictions of my own soul."</p> + +<p>Her spiritual life was deep and earnest, but entirely her own. It was +intuitional, not emotional. It was expressed in her love for man in +God, and not God in creeds and ceremonies. She prized the free +sentiments of William Ellery Channing, read his works with avidity, +and always had some volume of his at hand. The Life of Rev. Joseph +Blanco White, a rare book, was for years one of the companions of her +solitude. It was thoroughly worn, and the margin covered with her +notes and marks of approval. Dean Stanley and Buckle's "History of +Civilization" were favorites with her also. Cowper's "Task" and +Young's "Night Thoughts," which had been her text-books at "Nine +Partners," never lost their charm for her. She could repeat pages of +them. In her last days she read "The Light of Asia" with intense +pleasure. When she had already passed her eighty-seventh year, Susan +B. Anthony visiting her, says: "She read aloud to us from that +charming poem until after eleven o'clock at night." Her conversation, +as well as her public addresses, were sprinkled with beautiful and apt +citations from her favorite authors, as it was the habit of her life +to commit to memory sentiments she most valued in poetry and prose.</p> + +<p>It was not possible that a woman like Lucretia Mott should keep +silence in the churches, no matter what Paul might say to the +contrary, because that great brain was created to think, that noble +heart to beat through making and moulding speech, and those fine gray +eyes to see what the prophets in all times have seen. I can not +imagine her as one of the silent sisters who though having something +to say, dare not say it though to save her own soul or the souls of +those about her.</p> + +<blockquote><p>An old friend in Lancaster County, says Robert Collyer, told me +of his first hearing her in the early days when as yet she was +almost unknown. It had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> been a dreary time among Friends up +there, and being a man who did not care for the traditions of +"first day" and "fourth day," he was getting tired of silence. +One "first day" he went to his meeting expecting nothing as +usual, and pretty sure he would not be disappointed. Nor was he +for a time. But presently a young woman arose in the high seat he +had never seen before, whose presence touched him with strange +new expectations. She looked, he said, as one who had no great +hold on life, and began to speak in low tones, with just a touch +of hesitation as of one feeling after her thought, and there was +a tremor in her voice as if she felt the burden of the spirit. +But she soon found her way out of this, and then he said he began +to hold his breath. He had never heard such speaking in all his +life, so born of conviction, so radiant with that inward light +for which he had been waiting, that he went home feeling as he +supposed they must have felt in the olden time who thought they +had heard an angel.</p> + +<p>I once heard such an outpouring. It was at a woods-meeting up +among the hills where quite a number of us had our say, and then +my friend's turn came. She was well on in years then, but the old +fire still burned clear, and God's breath touched her out of +heaven and she prophesied. I suppose she spoke for two hours, but +after the first moment she never faltered or failed to hold the +multitude spell-bound, and waiting on her words. Yet there was +not the least hint of premeditation, while there was boundless +wealth of meditation in her deep, pregnant thoughts. I have said +she prophesied, no other term would answer to her speech. Her +eyes had seen the coming glory of the Lord, and she testified +that she had seen; and this was all the more wonderful to me, +because it was the habit of her mind in later years to reason, as +President McCosh does, from premise to conclusion. But she had +seen a vision there sitting in the August splendor with the voice +of God's presence whispering in the trees, and the vision had set +the heart high above the brain. These were care-worn and +work-worn folks she saw about her with knotted hands resting on +the staff, or folded quietly on the lap. They had nearly done the +good day's work, and now preacher and prophet were needed to tell +them what that day's work meant, where they keep the books for +us, and so it was not a speech, but a psalm of life.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Mott was safe at all points in taking Elias Hicks for a teacher +of morals, as he was pronounced on every reform. On the question of +woman's rights, he says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>If Paul said of women preachers what we find in Corinthians and +Timothy, I judge that he had no allusion at all to their +preaching or prophesying in the churches; and if he had, we have +no right to admit it as sound doctrine, as it contradicts a +number of his own declarations (and the general testimony of +Scripture), which are more rational and clear, as in the +fourteenth chapter of Romans; and in Philippians where he speaks +of the women who labored with him in the Gospel; and in 1st +Corinthians where he speaks of women praying and prophesying; and +Paul assures us that male and female are one in Christ. Also +under the law there were prophetesses as well as prophets, and +the effusion of the Spirit in the latter days as prophesied by +Joel was to be equally on sons and daughters, servants and +handmaids. To believe otherwise is irrational and inconsistent +with the divine attributes, and would charge the Almighty with +partiality and injustice to one-half of His rational creation. +Therefore I believe it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> would be wrong to admit it, although +asserted in the most plain and positive manner by men or angels.</p> + +<p>In our last conflict with Great Britain, Elias Hicks called the +attention of "Friends" to a faithful support of their testimony +against war and injustice, desiring them to maintain their +Christian liberties against encroachment of the secular powers, +laws having been enacted levying taxes for the support of the +war. At one meeting there was considerable altercation; as some +Friends who refused payment had been distrained some three or +four fold more than the tax demanded, while others complied, paid +the tax, and justified themselves in so doing. On this point his +mind was deeply exercised and he labored to encourage Friends to +faithfulness to exalt their testimonies for the Prince of Peace.</p> + +<p>Elias Hicks preached against slavery both in Maryland and +Virginia. He says of a meeting in Baltimore that he especially +addressed slave-holders. Further, he opposed the use of +slave-grown goods. At a meeting in Providence, R. I., he said he +was moved to show the great and essential difference there is +between the righteousness of man comprehended in his laws, +customs, and traditions, and the righteousness of God which is +comprehended in pure, impartial, unchangeable justice. They who +continue this traffic, and enrich themselves, by the labor of +these deeply oppressed Africans, violate these plain principles +of justice, and no cunning sophistical reasoning in the wisdom of +this world can justify them, or silence the convictions of +conscience.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Some other Friends were much opposed to the use of slave products, but +the Society in general "had no concern" on this point. Lucretia Mott +used "free goods," and thought that Elias' preaching such extreme +doctrines on all these practical reforms, had their effect in the +division. To refuse to pay taxes, or to use any "slave produce," +involved more immediate and serious difficulties, than any theoretical +views of the hereafter, and even Friends may be pardoned for feeling +some interest in their own pecuniary independence. To see their +furniture, cattle, houses, lands, all swept away for exorbitant taxes, +seemed worse than paying a moderate one to start with. From these +quotations from the great reformer and religious leader, we see how +fully Mrs. Mott accepted his principles; not because they were his +principles, for she called no man master, but because she felt them to +be true. In her diary she says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>My sympathy was early enlisted for the poor slave by the +class-books read in our schools, and the pictures of the +slave-ship, as published by Clarkson. The ministry of Elias Hicks +and others on the subject of the unrequited labor of slaves, and +their example in refusing the products of slave labor, all had +effect in awakening a strong feeling in their behalf.</p> + +<p>The unequal condition of woman in society, also early impressed +my mind. Learning while at school that the charge for the +education of girls was the same as that for boys, and that when +they became teachers women received but half as much as men for +their services, the injustice of this was so apparent,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> that I +early resolved to claim for my sex all that an impartial Creator +has bestowed.</p> + +<p>The Temperance reform too engaged my attention; and for more than +forty years I have practiced total abstinence from all +intoxicating drinks.</p> + +<p>The cause of Peace has had a share of my efforts; leading to the +ultra non-resistance ground; that no Christian can consistently +uphold a government based on the sword, or relying on that as an +ultimate resort.</p> + +<p>The oppression of the working classes by existing monopolies, and +the lowness of wages often engaged my attention; and I have held +many meetings with them, and heard their appeals with compassion, +and a great desire for a radical change in the system which makes +the rich richer, and the poor poorer. The various associations +and communities, tending to greater equality of condition, have +had from me a hearty God-speed.</p> + +<p>But the millions of down-trodden slaves in our land being the +most oppressed class, I have felt bound to plead their cause, in +season and out of season, to endeavor to put my soul in their +souls' stead, and to aid in every right effort for their +immediate emancipation. This duty was impressed upon me at the +time I consecrated myself to that Gospel which anoints to "preach +deliverance to the captive," to "set at liberty them that are +bruised." From that time the duty of abstinence, as far as +practicable, from slave-grown products was so clear that I +resolved to make the effort "to provide things honest" in this +respect. Since then, our family has been supplied with free +labor, groceries, and to some extent, with cotton goods unstained +by slavery.</p> + +<p>The labors of the devoted Benjamin Lundy, and his "Genius of +Universal Emancipation," published in Baltimore, added to the +untiring exertions of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others in +England, including Elizabeth Heyrick, whose work on slavery +aroused them to a change in their mode of action; and of William +Lloyd Garrison, in Boston, prepared the way for a Convention in +Philadelphia, to take the ground of immediate, not gradual +emancipation, and to impress the duty of unconditional liberty +without expatriation.</p></blockquote> + +<p>December 3, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in +Philadelphia. Among the sixty-two people present were Lucretia Mott, +Lydia White, and Esther Moore, Rev. Beriah Green in the chair. In +reading and discussing their Declaration of Sentiments, Mrs. Mott +wishing to make some suggestions, asked the chairman in her modest way +if she might speak. Mr. Green promptly and enthusiastically responded, +"Certainly, certainly, say all you are moved to say." She at once +proposed to strike out two words from one sentence in the Declaration, +"We may be personally defeated, but our principles never (can be)." +One readily sees how much stronger the sentence is made by striking +out the last two words. The quickness of Mrs. Mott in grasping the +sentiment and phraseology of a resolution or appeal was always +remarkable in our conventions. Mr. Garrison, who wrote the +anti-slavery Declaration, readily accepted her amendment. When the +members were asked for their signatures, as James Mott pen in hand +stood near the desk,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> Thomas Shipley said that before signing it would +be well to consider, as it would bring down on their heads terrible +persecutions and great losses in their business relations. He said he +should sign it himself, but he would advise James Mott and others to +pause. The moment Mr. Shipley ceased speaking, Lucretia, in a brave +inspiring tone said, "James, put down thy name," which he quickly did, +joining in the general smile of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Soon after the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, at a social gathering one +evening, Dr. Moore in conversation with Mrs. Mott strongly condemned +the fanaticism and impolicy of the Abolitionists, and especially the +women; he said they should do all their reform work through the +Friends' meeting. Being much excited, in the course of his remarks, he +became very insulting. Mrs. Mott patiently reasoned with him for +awhile; at last becoming very indignant, she arose, and leaving him +remarked: "All I have to say to thee in parting is, 'Get thee behind +me, Satan.'" He immediately took his hat and in silence left the +house. Lucretia Mott ante-dated even Mr. Garrison in her protests +against slavery. Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia, says he heard her as +early as 1829 preach against slavery, on several occasions in the +colored church.</p> + +<blockquote><p>In 1833, says Mrs. Mott, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery +Society was formed, and being actively associated in the efforts +for the slaves' redemption, I have traveled thousands of miles in +this country, holding meetings in some of the slave States, have +been in the midst of mobs and violence, and have shared +abundantly in the odium attached to the name of an uncompromising +modern Abolitionist, as well as partaken richly of the sweet +return of peace, attendant on those who would "undo the heavy +burdens and let the oppressed go free; and break every yoke."</p> + +<p>In 1840, a World's Anti-Slavery Convention was called in London. +Women from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were delegates to +that Convention. I was one of the number; but, on our arrival in +England, our credentials were not accepted, because we were +women. We were, however, treated with the greatest courtesy and +attention, as strangers, and were admitted to chosen seats as +spectators and listeners, while our right of membership was +denied. This brought the woman question more into view, and an +increase of interest on the subject has been the result. In this +work, too, I have engaged heart and hand; as my labors, travels, +and public discourses evince. The misrepresentation, ridicule, +and abuse heaped upon this, as well as other reforms, do not in +the least deter me from my duty. To those whose name is cast out +as evil for the truth's sake, it is a small thing to be judged of +man's judgment.</p> + +<p>This imperfect sketch may give some idea of the mode of life of +one who has found it "good to be always zealously affected in a +good thing."</p></blockquote> + +<p>When, as an enthusiastic Abolitionist, Mrs. Mott crossed the ocean to +take part in the deliberations of the World's Anti-Slavery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> +Convention, the last drop in her cup of sorrow was the humiliation she +was called to suffer on account of sex. The vote by which this +injustice was perpetrated, was due to the overwhelming majority of the +clergy, who, with Bible in hand, swept all before them. No man can +fathom the depths of rebellion in woman's soul when insult is heaped +upon her sex, and this is intensified when done under the hypocritical +assumption of divine authority. This fresh baptism into woman's +degradation impelled the current of her thoughts into a new channel, +and returning home, she, with a few friends as rebellious as herself, +called the first Woman's Rights Convention. To this cause she brought +a zeal unknown before, as here she could see the wrongs of a class +from a purely subjective point of view.</p> + +<p>There are often periods in the lives of earnest, imaginative beings, +when some new book or acquaintance comes to them like an added sun in +the heavens, lighting the darkest recesses and chasing every shadow +away. Thus came Lucretia Mott to me, at a period in my young days when +all life's problems seemed inextricably tangled; when, like Noah's +dove on the waters, my soul found no solid resting-place in the whole +world of thought. The misery of the multitude was too boundless for +comprehension, too hopeless for tender feeling; despair supplanted all +other emotions, and the appalling views of the future threw their dark +shadows over the sweetest and most innocent pleasures of life. Before +meeting Mrs. Mott, I had heard a few men of liberal opinions discuss +various political, religious, and social theories, but with my first +doubt of my father's absolute wisdom, came a distrust of all men's +opinions on the character and sphere of woman; and I naturally +inferred that if their judgments were unsound on a question I was sure +I did understand, they were quite likely to be so on those I did not. +Hence, I often longed to meet some woman who had sufficient confidence +in herself to frame and hold an opinion in the face of opposition, a +woman who understood the deep significance of life to whom I could +talk freely; my longings were answered at last.</p> + +<p>In June, 1840, I met Mrs. Mott for the first time, in London. Crossing +the Atlantic in company with James G. Birney, then the Liberty Party +candidate for President, soon after the bitter schism in the +anti-slavery ranks, he described to me as we walked the deck day after +day, the women who had fanned the flames of dissension, and had +completely demoralized the anti-slavery ranks. As my first view of +Mrs. Mott was through his prejudices, no prepossessions in her favor +biased my judgment. When first introduced to her at our hotel in Great +Queen Street, with the other ladies from Boston and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> Philadelphia who +were delegates to the World's Convention, I felt somewhat embarrassed, +as I was the only lady present who represented the "Birney faction," +though I really knew nothing of the merits of the division, having +been outside the world of reforms. Still, as my husband and my cousin, +Gerrit Smith, were on that side, I supposed they would all have a +feeling of hostility toward me. However, Mrs. Mott, in her sweet, +gentle way, received me with great cordiality and courtesy, and I was +seated by her side at dinner.</p> + +<p>No sooner were the viands fairly dispensed, than several Baptist +ministers began to rally the ladies on having set the Abolitionists +all by the ears in America, and now proposing to do the same thing in +England. I soon found that the pending battle was on woman's rights, +and that unwittingly I was by marriage on the wrong side. As I had +thought much on this question in regard to the laws, Church action, +and social usages, I found myself in full accord with the other +ladies, combating most of the gentlemen at the table; our only +champion, George Bradburn, was too deaf to hear a word that was said. +In spite of constant gentle nudgings by my husband under the table, +and frowns from Mr. Birney opposite, the tantalizing tone of the +conversation was too much for me to maintain silence. Calmly and +skillfully Mrs. Mott parried all their attacks, now by her quiet humor +turning the laugh on them, and then by her earnestness and dignity +silencing their ridicule and sneers. I shall never forget the look of +recognition she gave me when she saw by my remarks that I fully +comprehended the problem of woman's rights and wrongs. How beautiful +she looked to me that day.</p> + +<p>I had always regarded a Quaker woman, as one does a Sister of Charity, +a being above ordinary mortals, ready to be translated at any moment. +I had never spoken to one before, nor been near enough to touch the +hem of a garment. Mrs. Mott was to me an entire new revelation of +womanhood. I sought every opportunity to be at her side, and +continually plied her with questions, and I shall never cease to be +grateful for the patience and seeming pleasure with which she fed my +hungering soul. Seeing the lions in London together, on one occasion +with a large party we visited the British Museum, where it is supposed +all people go to see the wonders of the world. On entering, Mrs. Mott +and myself sat down near the door to rest for a few moments, telling +the party to go on, that we would follow. They accordingly explored +all the departments of curiosities, supposing we were slowly following +at a distance; but when they returned, after an absence of three +hours, there we sat in the same spot, having seen nothing but each +other, wholly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> absorbed in questions of theology and social life. She +had told me of the doctrines and divisions among "Friends," of the +inward light, of Elias Hicks, of Channing, of a religion of practical +life, of Mary Wollstonecroft, her social theories, and her demands of +equality for women. I had been reading Combe's "Constitution of Man" +and "Moral Philosophy," Channing's works, and Mary Wollstonecroft, +though all tabooed by orthodox teachers, but I had never heard a woman +talk what, as a Scotch Presbyterian, I had scarcely dared to think.</p> + +<p>On the following Sunday I went to hear Mrs. Mott preach in a Unitarian +church. Though I had never heard a woman speak, yet I had long +believed she had the right to do so, and had often expressed the idea +in private circles; but when at last I saw a woman rise up in the +pulpit and preach as earnestly and impressively as Mrs. Mott always +did, it seemed to me like the realization of an oft-repeated happy +dream. The day we visited the Zoological Gardens, as we were admiring +the gorgeous plumage of some beautiful birds, one of our gentlemen +opponents remarked, "You see, Mrs. Mott, our Heavenly Father believes +in bright colors. How much it would take from our pleasure if all the +birds were dressed in drab." "Yes," said she, "but immortal beings do +not depend on their feathers for their attractions. With the infinite +variety of the human face and form, of thought, feeling, and +affection, we do not need gorgeous apparel to distinguish us. +Moreover, if it is fitting that woman should dress in every color of +the rainbow, why not man also? Clergymen, with their black clothes and +white cravats, are quite as monotonous as the Quakers."</p> + +<p>I remember on one occasion the entire American delegation were invited +to dine with Samuel Gurney, a rich Quaker banker. He had an elegant +place, a little out of London. The Duchess of Sutherland and Lord +Morpeth, who had watched our anti-slavery struggle in this country +with great interest, were quite desirous of meeting the American +Abolitionists, and had expressed the wish to call on them at this +time. Standing near Mrs. Mott when the coach and four gray horses with +the six out-riders drove up, Mr. Gurney, in great trepidation, said, +"What shall I do with the Duchess?" "Give her your arm," said Mrs. +Mott, "and introduce her to each member of the delegation." A +suggestion no commoner in England would have presumed to follow. When +the Duchess was presented to Mrs. Mott, her gracious ease was fully +equaled by that of the simple Quaker woman. Oblivious to all +distinctions of rank, she talked freely and wisely on many topics, and +proved herself in manner and conversation the peer of the first woman +in England.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> Mrs. Mott did not manifest the slightest restraint or +embarrassment during that marked social occasion. No fictitious +superiority ever oppressed her, neither did she descend in familiar +surroundings from her natural dignity, but always maintained the +perfect equilibrium of respect for herself and others.</p> + +<p>I found in this new friend a woman emancipated from all faith in +man-made creeds, from all fear of his denunciations. Nothing was too +sacred for her to question, as to its rightfulness in principle and +practice. "Truth for authority, not authority for truth," was not only +the motto of her life, but it was the fixed mental habit in which she +most rigidly held herself. It seemed to me like meeting a being from +some larger planet, to find a woman who dared to question the opinions +of Popes, Kings, Synods, Parliaments, with the same freedom that she +would criticise an editorial in the <i>London Times</i>, recognizing no +higher authority than the judgment of a pure-minded, educated woman. +When I first heard from the lips of Lucretia Mott that I had the same +right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin, and John Knox had, and +the same right to be guided by my own convictions, and would no doubt +live a higher, happier life than if guided by theirs, I felt at once a +new-born sense of dignity and freedom; it was like suddenly coming +into the rays of the noon-day sun, after wandering with a rushlight in +the caves of the earth. When I confessed to her my great enjoyment in +works of fiction, dramatic performances, and dancing, and feared from +underneath that Quaker bonnet (I now loved so well) would come some +platitudes on the demoralizing influence of such frivolities, she +smiled, and said, "I regard dancing a very harmless amusement"; and +added, "the Evangelical Alliance that so readily passed a resolution +declaring dancing a sin for a church member, tabled a resolution +declaring slavery a sin for a bishop."</p> + +<p>Sitting alone one day, as we were about to separate in London, I +expressed to her my great satisfaction in her acquaintance, and +thanked her for the many religious doubts and fears she had banished +from my mind. She said, "There is a broad distinction between religion +and theology. The one is a natural, human experience common to all +well-organized minds. The other is a system of speculations about the +unseen and the unknowable, which the human mind has no power to grasp +or explain, and these speculations vary with every sect, age, and type +of civilization. No one knows any more of what lies beyond our sphere +of action than thou and I, and we know nothing." Everything she said +seemed to me so true and rational, that I accepted her words of wisdom +with the same confiding satisfaction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> that did the faithful Crito +those of his beloved Socrates. And yet this pure, grand woman was +shunned and feared by the Orthodox Friends throughout England. While +in London a rich young Quaker of bigoted tendencies, who made several +breakfast and tea parties for the American delegates, always omitted +to invite Mrs. Mott. He very politely said to her on one occasion when +he was inviting others in her presence, "Thou must excuse me, +Lucretia, for not inviting thee with the rest, but I fear thy +influence on my children!!"</p> + +<p>On several occasions when we all met at social gatherings in London, +Elizabeth Fry studiously avoided being in the same apartment with +Lucretia Mott. If Mrs. Mott was conversing with a circle of friends on +the lawn, Mrs. Fry would glide into the house. If Mrs. Mott entered at +one door, Mrs. Fry walked out the other. She really seemed afraid to +breathe the same atmosphere. On another occasion, at William Ball's, +at Tottenham, when more circumscribed quarters made escape impossible, +it was announced that Mrs. Fry felt a concern to say something to +those present. When all was silent she knelt and prayed, pouring forth +a solemn Jeremiad against the apostasy and infidelity of the day in +language so pointed and personal, that we all felt that Mrs. Mott was +the special subject of her petition. She accepted the intercession +with all due humility, and fortunately for the harmony of the occasion +was not moved to pray for Mrs. Fry, that she might have more love and +charity for those who honestly differed with her on unimportant points +of theology. How hateful such bigotry looks to those capable of +getting outside their own educational prejudices. How pitiable, that +even good people should thus allow themselves to ostracise and +persecute those who hold different opinions from their own. Elizabeth +Fry was not afraid to mingle in Newgate prison with the scum of the +earth, but she was afraid to touch the hem of Lucretia Mott's garment. +If Mrs. Fry felt that she had a higher truth, how did she know that +she might not influence Mrs. Mott for good? Lucretia was never afraid +of anybody. Nothing would have pleased her better than to compare her +pearls of thought and faith with Elizabeth Fry.</p> + +<p>Visiting in many Quaker families during our travels in England, I was +amazed to hear Mrs. Mott spoken of as a most dangerous woman. Again +and again I was warned against her influence. She was spoken of as an +infidel, a heretic, a disturber, who had destroyed the peace in the +Friends Society in Pennsylvania, and thrown a firebrand into the +World's Convention, and that in a recent speech in London she quoted +sentiments from Mary Wollstonecroft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> and Thomas Paine. Having just +learned to worship Lucretia Mott as the embodiment of all that was +noble and charming in womanhood, the terrible fear that she inspired +among English "Friends" filled me with sorrow and surprise. I never +ventured to mention her name in their homes unless they first +introduced it.</p> + +<p>Sitting in the World's Convention one day after half the world had +been voted out, when Joseph Sturge, a wealthy Quaker, occupied the +chair, I suggested to Mrs. Mott a dangerous contingency. Said I, +"Suppose in spite of the vote of excommunication the Spirit should +move you to speak, what could the chairman do, and which would you +obey? the Spirit or the Convention?" She promptly replied, "Where the +Spirit of God is, there is liberty."</p> + +<p>Many anecdotes are told of Mrs. Mott's rigid economy, such as sewing +together the smallest rags to be woven into carpets, and writing +letters on infinitesimal bits of paper; but it must not be inferred +from this peculiarity that she was penurious, as she was generous in +her charities, and in the support of every good cause. Considering her +means and the self-denial she practiced in her personal expenses, her +gifts were lavish. Alfred Love, President of the Peace Society, who +frequently received letters from Mrs. Mott, says: "The one before me +is two and a half inches wide by two and a quarter inches long, +written on both sides, and contains one hundred and forty-one words, +and treats of seven distinct matters, and disposes of them in good +order, apologizing for her apparent economy of paper, and enclosing a +contribution of five dollars for a benevolent object." Though she +always dressed in Quaker costume, she attached no special significance +to it as a means of grace. One Sunday morning at a religious meeting, +she was in her accustomed seat in the gallery, when a young man, a +stranger to many, spoke in behalf of Peace. At the close of the +meeting some one who could not see the speaker asked Lucretia Mott his +name, and added: "Does he wear a standing collar and dress plain?" She +replied in her happy, cheerful manner, "Well, really I did not look to +see, I was too much interested in what he said to look at the cut of +his coat."</p> + +<p>'Mid all the differences, dissensions, and personal antagonisms, +through the years we have labored together in the Woman's Rights +movement, I can not recall one word or occasion in which Mrs. Mott's +influence has not been for harmony, good-will, and the broadest +charity. She endured too much persecution herself ever to join in +persecuting others. In every reform she stood in the fore-front of the +battle. Wherever there was a trying emergency to be met, there you +could rely on Lucretia Mott. She never dodged responsibility nor +disagreeable occasions. At one time when excitement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> on the divorce +question ran high in New York, and there was a great hue and cry about +free love on our platform, I was invited to speak before the +Legislature on the bill then pending asking "divorce for drunkenness." +We chose the time at the close of one of our Conventions, that Mrs. +Mott might be present, which she readily consented to do, and promised +to speak if she felt moved. She charged Ernestine Rose and myself not +to take too radical ground, in view of the hostility to the bill, but +to keep closely to the merits of the main question. I told her she +might feel sure of me, as I had my speech written, and I would read it +to her, which I did, and received her approval.</p> + +<p>The time arrived for the hearing, and a magnificent audience greeted +us at the Capitol. The bill was read, I made the opening speech, Mrs. +Rose followed. We had asked for the modification of certain statutes +and the passage of others making the laws more equal for man and +woman. Mrs. Mott having listened attentively to all that was said, and +coming to the conclusion that with eighteen different causes for +divorce in the different States, there might as well be no laws at all +on the question, she arose and said, that "she had not thought +profoundly on this subject, but it seemed to her that no laws whatever +on this relation would be better than such as bound pure, innocent +women in bondage to dissipated, unprincipled men. With such various +laws in the different States, and fugitives from the marriage bond +fleeing from one to another, would it not be better to place all the +States on the same basis, and thus make our national laws +homogeneous?" She was surprised on returning to the residence of Lydia +Mott, to hear that her speech was altogether the most radical of the +three. The bold statement of "no laws," however, was so sugar-coated +with eulogies on good men and the sacredness of the marriage relation, +that the press complimented the moderation of Mrs. Mott at our +expense. We have had many a laugh over that occasion.</p> + +<p>An amusing incident occurred the first year, 1869, we held a +Convention in Washington. Chaplain Gray, of the Senate, was invited to +open the Convention with prayer. Mrs. Mott and I were sitting close +together, with our heads bowed and eyes closed, listening to the +invocation. As the chaplain proceeded, he touched the garden scene in +Paradise, and spoke of woman as a secondary creation, called into +being for the especial benefit of man, an afterthought with the +Creator. Straightening up, Mrs. Mott whispered to me, "I can not bow +my head to such absurdities." Edward M. Davis, in the audience, +noticed his mother's movements, and knowing that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> what had struck his +mind had no doubt disturbed hers also, he immediately left the hall, +returning shortly after Bible in hand, that he might confound the +chaplain with the very book he had quoted. He ascended the platform +just as Mr. Gray said "amen," and read from the opening chapter of +Genesis, the account of the simultaneous creation of man and woman, in +which dominion was given to both alike over every living thing. After +Mr. Davis made a few pertinent remarks on the allegorical character of +the second chapter of Genesis, Mrs. Mott followed with a critical +analysis of the prayer, and the portion of the Scripture read by her +son, showing the eternal oneness and equality of man and woman, the +union of the masculine and feminine elements, like the positive and +negative magnetism, the centripetal and centrifugal forces in nature, +pervading the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, the whole world +of thought and action, as there could have been no perpetuation of +creation without these elements equal and eternal in the Godhead. The +press commented on the novelty of reviewing an address to the throne +of grace, particularly when uttered by the chaplain of Congress. Mrs. +Mott remarked on these criticisms, "If we can teach clergymen to be as +careful what they say to God as to man, our Conventions at the capital +will be of great service to our representatives."</p> + +<p>As a writer Mrs. Mott was clear and concise; her few published +sermons, her charming private letters and diary, with what those who +knew her best can remember, are all of her thoughts bequeathed to +posterity. As a speaker she was calm, clear, and unimpassioned; +indulged but little in wit, humor, or pathos, but by her good common +sense and liberality on all questions, by her earnestness and +simplicity, she held the most respectful attention of her audiences. +Hence an occasional touch of humor or sarcasm, or an outburst of +eloquent indignation came from her with great power. She had what the +Friends call unction; that made the most radical utterances from her +lips acceptable. In her conversation she was original and brilliant, +earnest and playful. Such was her persuasiveness of voice and manner +that opinions received with hisses from another speaker, were +applauded when uttered by Mrs. Mott.</p> + +<p>Some one has said that "sagacity, a mental quick-wittedness for +meeting an emergency, a sagacity that might have been called +shrewdness, had it not been for a pervading heart quality that went +with it, was one of her prominent traits." Perhaps a wise diplomacy +might express this quality more nearly. No one knew better than she +how to avoid the sharp angles of a character or an occasion, as the +many anecdotes told of her so fully illustrate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span></p> + +<p>Returning from England in 1840, in a merchant vessel, a large number +of Irish emigrants were on board in the steerage. On the voyage Mrs. +Mott was moved to hold a religious meeting among them, but the matter +being broached to them, their Catholic prejudices objected. They would +not hear a woman preach, for women priest were not allowed in their +Church. But the spirit that was pressing upon the "woman preacher" for +utterance was not to be prevented from delivering its message without +a more strenuous effort to remove the obstacle. She asked that the +emigrants might be invited to come together to consider with her +whether they would have a meeting. This was but fair and right, and +they came. She then explained how different her idea of a meeting was +from a church service to which they were accustomed; that she had no +thought of saying anything derogatory of that service nor of the +priests who ministered to them; that her heart had been drawn to them +in sympathy, as they were leaving their old homes for new ones in +America; and that she had wanted to address them as to their habits +and aims in their every-day life in such a way as to help them in the +land of strangers to which they were going. And then asking if they +would listen (and they were already listening because her gracious +voice and words so entranced them they could not help it), she said +she would give an outline of what she had wanted to say at the +meeting, and so she was drawn on by the silent sympathy she had +secured until the Spirit's message was delivered; and only the keenest +witted of her Catholic hearers waked up to the fact, as they were +going out, that they had got the preachment from the woman priest +after all.</p> + +<p>Presiding at a woman's convention on one occasion, a speaker painted a +very vivid picture in the darkest colors of this nation's injustice to +oppressed classes, and from the experience of other nations not based +upon principle, he foretold the certain downfall of our republic. On +rising, he had said that "he feared he should not be able to do his +theme justice, as he had just risen from a bed of sickness," but +warming up with his subject he rivaled Isaiah in his Jeremiad, and +left his audience in gloom and despair, the president sharing in the +general feeling, for the appeal had been thrilling and terrible. In a +moment, however, Mrs. Mott arose, saying: "I trust our future is not +as hopeless as our faithful friend, Parker Pillsbury, has just +pictured. We must remember he told us in starting that he had just +risen from a bed of sickness, and that may in a measure account for +his gloomy forebodings." The audience burst forth into a roar of +applause and laughter, and the president introduced the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> next speaker, +seemingly unconscious that she had stabbed the prophet through and +through, and dissipated the effect of his warnings.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mott was frequently chosen the presiding officer of the early +conventions. Though she seldom regarded Cushing's Manual in her +rulings, she maintained order and good feeling by the persuasiveness +and serenity of her voice and manner. Emerson says: "It is not what +the man says, but it is the spirit behind it which makes the +impression." It was this subtle magnetism of the true, grand woman, +ever faithful to her highest convictions of truth, that made her +always respected in every position she occupied. Hers was pure moral +power, for in that frail organization there could be but little of +what is called physical magnetism. Her placid face showed that she was +at peace with herself, the first requisite in a successful leader of +reform. That Mrs. Mott could have maintained her sweetness and charity +to the end, is a marvel in view of the varied and protracted +persecutions she endured.</p> + +<p>Rarely have so many different and superior qualities been combined in +one woman. She had great personal beauty; her brow and eye were +remarkable. Although small in stature, it is said of her as it was of +Channing, he too being of diminutive size, that she made you think she +was larger than she was. She had a look of command. The amount of will +force and intelligent power in her small body was enough to direct the +universe; yet she was modest and unassuming and had none of the +personal airs of leadership. Her manners were gentle and +self-possessed under all circumstances. Her conversation, though +generally serious, earnest and logical, was sometimes playful and +always good humored. Her attitude of mind was receptive. She never +seemed to think even in her latest years that she had explored all +truth. Though she had very clearly defined opinions on every subject +that came under her consideration, she never dogmatized.</p> + +<p>It was this healthy balance of good qualities that made her great +among other women of genius; and the multiplicity of her interests in +human affairs that kept her fresh and young to the last. The thinkers, +the scholars, the broadest intellects are often the octogenarians, +while the narrow selfish souls dry up in their own channels. One of +her noble sisters in reform has truly said, "Birth made Victoria a +queen, but her own pure, sweet life made Lucretia Mott a queen; queen +of a realm on which the sun never sets, the realm of humanity. If ever +any one inherited the earth it was this blessed Quaker woman."</p> + +<p>Space fails me to tell of all the pleasant memories of our forty +years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> friendship, of the inspiration she has been to those on our +platform, of the bond of union to hold us together, of the innumerable +conventions over which she has presided, of the many long journeys +both North and South to carry the glad tidings of justice, liberty, +and equality to all. A missionary who always traveled at her own +expense, giving her best thoughts freely, asking nothing in return, +neither money, praise, nor honor; for misrepresentation and cruel +persecution were the only return she had for years. Both in religion +and reform hers was a free gospel to the multitude.</p> + +<p>As division has been the law in politics, religion, and reform, woman +suffrage proved no exception. But Lucretia Mott and her noble sister, +Martha O. Wright, remained steadfast with those who had taken the +initiative steps in calling the first Convention, and with the larger +and more radical division their sympathies remained, both being +prominent officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association at the +time of their death. They fully endorsed the great lesson of the war, +National protection for United States citizens, applied to woman as +well as to the African race, the doctrine the association to which +they belonged has so successfully advocated at Washington for twelve +years.</p> + +<p>Reading the numerous complimentary obituary notices of our long loved +friend, so fair, so tender, so full of praise, we have exclaimed, what +changes the passing years have wrought in the popular estimate of a +woman once considered so dangerous an innovator in the social and +religious world; and yet the Lucretia Mott of to-day is only the +perfected, well-rounded character of half a century ago. But the +slowly moving masses that feared her then as an infidel, a fanatic, an +unsexed woman, have followed her footsteps until a broader outlook has +expanded their moral vision. The "vagaries" of the anti-slavery +struggle, in which she took a leading part, have been coined into law; +and the "wild fantasies" of the Abolitionists are now the XIII., XIV., +and XV. Amendments to the National Constitution. The prolonged and +bitter schisms in the Society of Friends have shed new light on the +tyranny of creeds and scriptures. The infidel Hicksite principles that +shocked Christendom, are now the corner-stones of the liberal +religious movement in this country. The demand for woman's social, +civil, and political equality—in which she was foremost—laughed at +from the Atlantic to the Pacific, has been recognized in a measure by +courts and legislatures, in Great Britain and the United States. The +old Blackstone code for woman has received its death-blow, and the +colleges, trades, and professions have been opened for her admission.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span></p> + +<p>The name of Lucretia Mott represents more fully than any other in the +nineteenth century, the sum of all womanly virtues. As wife, mother, +friend, she was marked for her delicate sentiments, warm affections, +and steadfast loyalty; as housekeeper, for her rigid economy, +cleanliness, order, and exhaustless patience with servants and +children; as neighbor, for justice and honor in all her dealings; as +teacher, even at the early age of fifteen, for her skill and +faithfulness.</p> + +<p>One who has lived eighty-eight years 'mid a young, impressible people +like ours, ever reflecting the exalted virtues of the true woman, the +earnest reformer, the religious teacher, must have left her impress +for good in every relation of life. When we remember that every word +we utter, every act we perform, the individual atmosphere we create +have their effect, not only on all who come within the circle of our +daily life, but through them are wafted to innumerable other circles +beyond, we can in a measure appreciate the far-reaching influence of +one grand life. Great as has been the acknowledged, moral power of +Lucretia Mott, it would have been vastly greater, had her opinions +been legitimately recognized in the laws and constitutions of the +nation; and could she have enjoyed the consciousness of exerting this +direct influence, it would have intensified the holy purpose of her +life. "The highest earthly desire of a ripened mind," says Thomas +Arnold, "is the desire of taking an active share in the great work of +government." Those only who are capable of appreciating this dignity +can measure the extent to which this noble woman has been defrauded as +a citizen of this great Republic. Neither can they measure the loss to +the councils of the nation, of the wisdom of such a representative +woman.</p> + +<p>In the manifold tributes to the memory of our beloved friend, we have +yet to see the first mention of her political degradation, which she +so keenly felt and so often deplored on our platform. Why are the +press and the pulpit, with all their eulogiums of her virtues, so +oblivious to the humiliating fact of her disfranchisement? Are +political disabilities, accounted such grievous wrongs to the Southern +aristocrat, to the emancipated slave, to the proud Anglo-Saxon man in +every latitude, of so little value to woman that when a nation mourns +the loss of the grandest representative of our sex, no tear is shed, +no regret expressed, no mention even made of her political +degradation?</p> + +<p>We might ask the question why this universal outpouring of tributes to +our venerated friend, exceeding all honors hitherto paid to the great +women of our nation, who, one by one, have passed away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> It is because +Lucretia Mott was a philanthropist; her life was dedicated to the +rights of humanity. When the poet, the novelist, the philosopher, and +the metaphysican have been forgotten, the memory of the true reformer +will remain engraven on the hearts of the multitude. Behold! the +beauty of yonder fountain, after its upward flight, is where it turns +again to earth, so is the life of one morally beautiful, ever drawn by +a law of its being from the clouds of speculation to the common +interests of humanity.</p> + +<p>The question is often asked of us on this platform, will the children +of these reformers take up the work that falls from their hands? It is +more than probable they will not. It is with reformers' children as +others, they seldom follow in the footsteps of their parents. As a +general thing the son of a farmer hates the plow, the son of a lawyer +is not attracted to the bar, nor the son of a clergyman to the pulpit. +The daughter of the pattern housekeeper turns to literature or art, +and the child of the reformer has no heart for martyrdom. It is +philosophical that our sons and daughters should not be here. To a +certain extent they have shared the odium and persecution we have +provoked, they have been ostracised and ignored for heresies they have +never accepted. The humiliation of our children has been the bitterest +drop in the cup of reformers. Look around our platform, not one +representative of the brave band of women who inaugurated this +movement is here! Not one of our kindred has ever yet in these +conventions echoed our demands. Nevertheless we are, and shall be +represented! We see bright new faces; we hear eloquent new voices; +brave young women are gathering round us, to plead our cause in more +august assemblies, and to celebrate the victory at last. These are our +kindred, by holier ties than blood. As their way through life will be +smoother for all our noble friend has dared and suffered, may they by +the same courage and conscientious devotion to principle, shed new +light on the path of those who follow their footsteps. This is the +great moral lesson the life of our dear friend should impress on the +coming generation.</p> + +<p>Having known Lucretia Mott, not only in the flush of life, when all +her faculties were at their zenith, but in the repose of advanced age, +her withdrawal from our midst seems as natural and as beautiful as the +changing foliage of some grand oak from the spring-time to the +autumn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE.</h3> + +<p>The following interesting correspondence in regard to the exclusion of +women from the World's Convention, reveals the fact that the action +was the result, after all, of religious bigotry more than prejudice +against sex. And this opinion is further confirmed by the decided +opposition promptly manifested to Lucretia Mott's proposal to have a +series of meetings for women alone. Some of the Orthodox Friends said +they were afraid, that under the plea of discussing emancipation for +the slave, other subjects might be introduced. Mrs. Mott, desiring to +know what Daniel O'Connell thought of the action of the Convention, +wrote him as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>To Daniel O'Connell, M.P.:</i></p> + +<p>The rejected delegates from America to the "General Anti-Slavery +Conference," are desirous to have the opinion of one of the most +distinguished advocates of universal liberty, as to the reasons +urged by the majority for their rejection, viz: that the +admission of women being contrary to English usage would subject +them to ridicule, and that such recognition of their acknowledged +principles would prejudice the cause of human freedom.</p> + +<p>Permit me, then, on behalf of the delegation, to ask Daniel +O'Connell the favor of his sentiments as incidentally expressed +in the meeting on the morning of the 13th inst., and oblige his +sincere friend,</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Lucretia Mott.</p> +<p class="ltr-to"><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>sixth mo., 17, 1840</i>.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date break">16 <span class="smcap">Pall Mall</span>, <i>20th June, 1840</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Madam</span>:—Taking the liberty of protesting against being supposed +to adopt any of the complimentary phrases in your letter as being +applicable to me, I readily comply with your request to give my +opinion as to the propriety of the admission of the female +delegates into the Convention.</p> + +<p>I should premise by avowing that my first impression was strong +against that admission; and I believe I declared that opinion in +private conversation. But when I was called on by you to give my +personal decision on the subject, I felt it my duty to +investigate the grounds of the opinion I had formed; and upon +that investigation I easily discovered that it was founded on no +better grounds than an apprehension of the ridicule it might +excite if the Convention were to do what is so unusual in +England—admit women to an equal share and right of the +discussion. I also without difficulty recognized that this was an +unworthy, and, indeed, a cowardly motive, and I easily overcame +its influence.</p> + +<p>My mature consideration of the entire subject convinces me of the +right of the female delegates to take their seats in the +Convention, and of the injustice of excluding them. I do not care +to add that I deem it also impolitic; because, that exclusion +being unjust, it ought not to have taken place even if it could +also be politic. My reasons are:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>First.</i> That as it has been the practice in America for females +to act as delegates and office-bearers, as well as in common +capacity of members of Anti-Slavery Societies, the persons who +called this Convention ought to have warned the American +Anti-Slavery Societies to confine their choice to males, and for +want of this caution many female delegates have made long +journeys by land and crossed the ocean to enjoy a right which +they had no reason to fear would be withheld from them at the end +of their tedious voyage.</p> + +<p><i>Secondly.</i> The cause which is so intimately interwoven with +every good feeling of humanity and with the highest and most +sacred principles of Christianity—the Anti-Slavery cause in +America—is under the greatest, the deepest, the most +heart-binding obligations to the females who have joined the +Anti-Slavery Societies in the United States. They have shown a +passive but permanent courage, which ought to put many of the +male advocates to the blush. The American ladies have persevered +in our holy cause amidst difficulties and dangers, with the zeal +of confessors and the firmness of martyrs; and, therefore, +emphatically they should not be disparaged or discouraged by any +slight or contumely offered to their rights. Neither are this +slight and contumely much diminished by the fact that it was not +intended to offer any slight or to convey any contumely. Both +results inevitably follow from the fact of rejection. This <span class="smcap">ought +not</span> to be.</p> + +<p><i>Thirdly.</i> Even in England, with all our fastidiousness, women +vote upon the great regulation of the Bank of England; in the +nomination of its directors and governors, and in all other +details equally with men; that is, they assist in the most +awfully important business—the regulation of the currency of +this mighty Empire—influencing the fortunes of all commercial +nations.</p> + +<p><i>Fourthly.</i> Our women in like manner vote at the India House; +that is, in the regulation of the government of more than one +hundred millions of human beings.</p> + +<p><i>Fifthly.</i> Mind has no sex; and in the peaceable struggle to +abolish slavery all over the world, it is the basis of the +present Convention to seek success by peaceable, moral, and +intellectual means alone, to the utter exclusion of armed +violence. We are engaged in a strife not of strength, but of +argument. Our warfare is not military; it is Christian. We wield +not the weapons of destruction or injury to our adversaries. We +rely entirely on reason and persuasion common to both sexes, and +on the emotions of benevolence and charity, which are more lovely +and permanent amongst women than amongst men.</p> + +<p>In the Church to which I belong the female sex are devoted by as +strict rules and with as much, if not more, unceasing austerity +to the performance (and that to the exclusion of all worldly or +temporal joys and pleasures) of all works of humanity, of +education, of benevolence, and of charity, in all its holy and +sacred branches, as the men. The great work in which we are now +engaged embraces all these charitable categories; and the women +have the same duties, and should, therefore, enjoy the same +rights with men in the performance of their duties.</p> + +<p>I have a consciousness that I have not done <i>my</i> duty in not +sooner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> urging these considerations on the Convention. My excuse +is that I was unavoidably absent during the discussion on the +subject.</p> + +<p>I have the honor to be, very respectfully, madam,</p> + +<p class="center">Your obedient servant,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc close">Daniel O'Connell.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0 close"><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">The following earnest and friendly letter from William Howitt, was +highly prized by Mrs. Mott:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>June 27, 1840</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—....I regret that I was prevented from making a +part of the Convention, as nothing should have hindered me from +stating there in the plainest terms my opinion of the <i>real +grounds</i> on which you were rejected. It is a pity that you were +excluded on the plea of being women; but it is disgusting that +under that plea you were actually excluded as heretics. That is +the real ground, and it ought to have been at once proclaimed and +exposed by the liberal members of the Convention; but I believe +they were not aware of the fact. I heard of the circumstance of +your exclusion at a distance, and immediately said: "Excluded on +the ground that they are women?" No, that is not the real cause; +there is something behind. And what are these female delegates? +Are they orthodox in religion? The answer was "No, they are +considered to be of the Hicksite party of Friends." My reply was, +"That is enough; <i>there</i> lies the real cause, and there needs no +other. The influential Friends in the Convention would never for +a moment tolerate their presence there if they could prevent it. +They hate them because they have dared to call in question their +sectarian dogmas and assumed authority; and they have taken care +to brand them in the eyes of the Calvinistic Dissenters, who form +another large and influential portion of the Convention, as +Unitarians; in their eyes the most odious of heretics."</p> + +<p>But what a miserable spectacle is this! The "World's Convention" +converting itself into the fag-end of the Yearly Meeting of the +Society of Friends! That Convention met from various countries +and climates to consider how it shall best advance the sacred +cause of humanity; of the freedom of the race, independent of +caste or color, immediately falls the victim of bigotry; and one +of its first acts is to establish a caste of sectarian opinion, +and to introduce color into the very soul! Had I not seen of late +years a good deal of the spirit which now rules the Society of +Friends, my surprise would have been unbounded at seeing <i>them</i> +argue for the exclusion of women from a public assembly, <i>as +women</i>. But nothing which they do now surprises me. They have in +this case to gratify their wretched spirit of intolerance, at +once abandoned one of the most noble and most philosophical of +the established principles of their own Society.</p> + +<p>That Society claims, and claims justly, to be the first Christian +party which has recognized the great Christian doctrine that +<span class="smcap">there is no sex in souls</span>; that male and female are one in Christ +Jesus. There were Fox and Penn and the first giants of the +Society who dared in the face of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> the world's prejudices to place +woman in her first rank; to recognize and maintain her moral and +intellectual equality. It was this Society which thus gave to +woman her inalienable rights, her true liberty; which restored to +her the exercise of mind, and the capacity to exhibit before her +assumed ancient lord and master, the highest qualities of the +human heart and understanding; discretion, sound counsel, sure +sagacity, mingled with feminine delicacy, and that beautiful +innate modesty which avails more to restrain its possessor within +the bounds of prudence and usefulness than all the laws of +corrupt society. It was this Society which, at once fearless in +its confidence in woman's goodness and sense of propriety, gave +its female portion its own meetings of discipline, meetings of +civil discussion and transaction of actual and various business. +It was this Society which did more; which permitted its women in +the face of a great apostolic injunction to stand forth in its +churches and preach the Gospel. It has, in fact, sent them out +armed with the authority of its certificates to the very ends of +the earth to preach in public; to visit and persuade in private.</p> + +<p>And what has been the consequence? Have the women put their faith +And philosophy to shame? Have they disgraced themselves or the +Society which has confided in them? Have they proved by their +follies, their extravagances, their unwomanly boldness and want +of a just sense of decorum that these great men were wrong? On +the contrary, I will venture to say, and I have seen something of +all classes, that there is not in the whole civilized world a +body of women to be found of the same numbers, who exhibit more +modesty of manner and delicacy of mind than the ladies of the +Society of Friends; and few who equal them in sound sense and +dignity of character. There can be no question that the +recognition of the moral and intellectual equality of the most +lovely and interesting portion of our Society has tended, and +that very materially, to raise them greatly in value as wives, as +bosom friends and domestic counselors, whose inestimable worth is +only discovered in times of trial and perplexity.</p> + +<p>And here have gone the little men of the present day, and have +knocked down in the face of the world all that their ancestors, +in this respect, had built up! If they are at all consistent they +must carry out their new principle and sweep it through the +ancient constitution of their own Society. They must at once put +down meetings of discipline among their women; they must call +home such as are in distant countries, or are traversing this, +preaching and visiting families. There must be no appointments of +women to meet committees of men to deliberate on matters of great +importance to the Society. But the fact is, my dear friend, that +bigotry is never consistent except that is always narrow, always +ungracious, and always under plea of uniting God's people, +scattering them one from another, and rendering them weak as +water.</p> + +<p>I want to know what religious opinions have to do with a "World's +Convention." Did you meet to settle doctrines, or to conspire +against slavery? Many an august council has attempted to settle +doctrines, and in vain; and you had before you a subject so vast, +so pressing, so momentous, that in presence of its sublimity, any +petty jealousy and fancied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> idea of superiority ought to have +fallen as dust from the boughs of a cedar. You as delegates, had +to meet this awful fact in the face, and to consider how it +should be grappled with; how the united power of civilized +nations should be brought to bear upon it! The fact that after +nearly a century of gradually growing and accumulating efforts to +put down slavery and the slave trade, little has been done; that +there are now more slaves in the world than ever, and that the +slave trade is far more extensive and monstrous than it was when +Clarkson raised his voice against its extinction; that is a fact +which, if the men who now take the lead in warring on the evil +were truly great men, it would silence in them every other +feeling than that of its enormity, and the godlike resolve that +all hands and all hearts should be raised before Heaven and +united in its spirit to chase this spreading villainy from the +earth speedily and forever. But men, however benevolent, can not +be great men if they are bigots. Bigots are like the peasants who +build their cabins in the mighty palaces of the ancient Cæsars. +The Cæsars who raised the past fabrics are gone, and the power in +which they raised them is gone with them. Poor and little men +raise their huts within those august palace walls, and fancy +themselves the inhabitants of the palaces themselves. So in the +mighty fane of Christianity, bigots and sectarians are +continually rearing their little cabins of sects and parties, and +would fain persuade us, while they fill their own narrow +tenements, that they fill the glorious greatness of Christianity +itself!</p> + +<p>It is surely high time that after eighteen hundred years of +Christ's reign we should be prepared to allow each other to hold +an opinion on the most important of all subjects to ourselves! It +is surely time that we opened our eyes sufficiently to see what +is so plain in the Gospel: the sublime difference between the +Spirit of Christ and the spirit of His disciples when they fain +would have made a bigot of Him. "We saw men doing miracles in thy +name; and we forbade them." "Forbid them not, for they who are +not against us are for us." It is not by <i>doctrines</i> that Christ +said His disciples should be known, but by their fruits; and by +the greatest of all fruits—love.</p> + +<p>You, dear friend, and those noble women to whom I address myself +when addressing you, have shown in your own country the grand +Christian testimonial of love to mankind in the highest degree. +You have put your lives in your hands for the sake of man's +freedom from caste, color, and mammon; and the greatest disgrace +that has of late years befallen this country is, that you have +been refused admittance as delegates to the Convention met +ostensibly to work that very work for which you have so +generously labored and freely suffered. The Convention has not +merely insulted you, but those who sent you. It has testified +that the men of America are at least far ahead of us in their +opinion of the discretion and usefulness of women. But above all, +this act of exclusion has shown how far the Society of Friends is +fallen from its ancient state of greatness and catholic nobleness +of spirit.</p> + +<p>But my time is gone. I have not said one-half, one-tenth, +one-hundredth part of what I could say to you and to your +companions on this subject; but of this be assured, time and your +own delegators will do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> you justice. The true Christians in all +ages were the heretics of the time; and this I say not because I +believe exactly as you do, for in truth I neither know nor desire +to know exactly how far we think alike. All that I know or want +to know is, that you have shown the grand mark of Christian +truth—love to mankind.</p> + +<p>I have heard the noble Garrison blamed that he had not taken his +place in the Convention because you and your fellow-delegates +were excluded. I, on the contrary, honor him for his conduct. In +mere worldly wisdom he might have entered the Convention and +there made his protest against the decision; but in at once +refusing to enter where you, his fellow-delegates, were shut out, +he has made a far nobler protest; not in the mere Convention, but +in the world at large. I honor the lofty principle of that true +champion of humanity, and shall always recollect with delight, +the day Mary and I spent with you and him.</p> + +<p>I must apologize for this most hasty and I fear illegible scrawl, +and with our kind regards and best wishes for your safe return to +your native country, and for many years of honorable labor there +for the truth and freedom, I beg to subscribe myself,</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Most sincerely your friend,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">William Howitt.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Harriet Martineau, who had visited Mrs. Mott when in America, and was +prevented from attending the Convention by illness, wrote as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I can not be satisfied without sending you a line of love and +sympathy. I think much of you amidst your present trials, and +much indeed have I thought of you and your cause since we parted. +May God strengthen you. It is a comfort to me that two of my best +friends, Mrs. Reid and Julia Smith, are there to look upon you +with eyes of love. I hear of you from them, for busy as they are, +they remember me from day to day, and make me a partaker of your +proceedings.... I can not but grieve for you in the +heart-sickness which you have experienced this last week. We must +trust that the spirit of Christ will in time enlarge the hearts +of those who claim his name, that the whites as well as the +blacks will in time be free.</p></blockquote> + +<p>After the Convention, Mrs. Mott visited Miss Martineau, who was an +invalid, staying at Tynemouth, for the benefit of sea air. And on her +return to London, she received another letter, from which we extract +the following:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I felt hardly as if I knew what I was about that morning, but I +was very happy, and I find that I remember every look and word. I +did not make all the use I might of the opportunity; but when are +we ever wise enough to do it? I do not think we shall ever meet +again in this world, and I believe that was in your mind when you +said farewell. I feel that I have derived somewhat from my +intercourse with you that will never die, and I am thankful that +we have been permitted to meet. You will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> tell the Furnesses +(Rev. Wm. H.) where and how you found me. Tell them of my +cheerful room and fine down and sea. I wish my friends would +suffer for me no more than I do for myself. I hope you have yet +many years of activity and enjoyment before you. My heart will +ever be in your cause and my love with yourself.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In James Mott's published volume, "Three months in Great Britain," he +speaks of many distinguished persons who extended to them most +gracious hospitalities, for although Mrs. Mott had been ostracised by +some of the more bigoted "Friends," others were correspondingly marked +in their attentions. Among such was that noble-hearted young woman, +Elizabeth Pease, of Darlington, who was one of the first to call upon +them on their arrival in London, and the last to bid them farewell on +the morning they sailed from Liverpool; having in company with her +father gone from Manchester for that purpose. Her cultivated mind and +fine talents were devoted to subjects of reform, with an energy and +perseverance rarely equaled.</p> + +<p>Ann Knight, another sincere friend and advocate of human rights, was +quite indignant, that a Convention called for such liberal measures +should reject women on the flimsy plea, "that it being contrary to +English usage, it would subject them to ridicule and prejudice their +cause." She was unremitting in her attentions to the American women, +doing many things to make their visit pleasant while in London, and +afterward, entertaining several as guests in her own "quiet home." +Amelia Opie, with her happy face and genial manners, was in constant +attendance at the Convention. On entering one of the sessions, she +accosted Mrs. Mott, saying, "though in one sense the women delegates +were rejected, yet they were held in high esteem, and their coming +would have immense influence on the action of future assemblies."</p> + +<p>At the "Crown and Anchor," one evening, the members of the Convention +took a parting cup of tea; nearly five hundred persons were present. +As the resolution excluding women did not extend to this company, Mrs. +Mott gave her views on the use of slave products, which were well +received. In the course of her remarks she referred to the example and +faithfulness of the "Society of Friends," in using as far as possible +the produce of free labor in their families. Josiah Forster, ever +vigilant on the battlements of bigotry, could not allow this allusion +to pass unnoticed, and when Mrs. Mott sat down, he arose and said he +"could not conscientiously refrain from informing the company, that +Mrs. Mott did not represent the Society of Friends. He did so with no +other than feelings of kindness, but,"—when he had proceeded thus far +it was evident he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> about to disclaim religious fellowship with +her, and a general burst of disapprobation was manifested by cries of +"down, down! order, order! shame, shame!"—but he finished his +disavowal amidst the confusion, though few heard what he said, neither +did they wish to hear his expressions of intolerance. As soon as he +had finished his speech he left the room, probably displeased that his +feelings met with so little sympathy, or at the manifestation of +dissatisfaction with his remarks.</p> + +<p>At a dinner party, at Elizabeth J. Reid's, a few days after, Lady +Byron was one of the company; with whom Mr. and Mrs. Mott had a +previous acquaintance, through a letter of introduction from George +Combe. As Colonel Miller, one of the American delegation, had been in +the Greek war with Lord Byron, and knew him well, several interesting +interviews with the wife and daughter grew out of that acquaintance. +They also visited Dr. Bowring and his interesting family several +times, and on one occasion met there Charles Pelham Villiers, the +leading advocate in Parliament for the modification of their corn +laws. Dr. Bowring was a near neighbor and great admirer of Jeremy +Bentham, and entertained them with many anecdotes of his original +friend. William H. Ashurst, a lawyer of eminence in London, gave them +a cordial welcome to his family circle, where they met William and +Mary Howitt, and Robert Owen, the philanthropist. Mr. Ashurst took an +active part in favor of reducing the postage on letters and papers.</p> + +<p>At Birmingham, they passed a few days with their liberal "Friend," +William Boultbee, and visited several of the great manufacturing +establishments. Here they made the acquaintance of a Catholic priest, +Thomas M. McDonald, a man of broad views and marked liberality. He +tendered Mrs. Mott the use of a large room at his disposal, and urged +her to hold a meeting. At Liverpool, they were the guests of William +Rathbone and family. In Dublin, they met James Houghton, Richard +Allen, Richard Webb, and the Huttons, who entertained them most +hospitably and gave them many charming drives in and about the city. +At Edinburgh, they joined Sarah Pugh and Abby Kimber, who had just +returned from the Continent, and had a cordial reception at the home +of George Thompson. They passed two days with George Combe, the great +phrenologist, who examined and complimented Mrs. Mott's head, as +indicating a strong symmetrical character. They took tea with his +brother, Andrew Combe, the author of that admirable work on "Infancy," +which has proved a real blessing to many young mothers.</p> + +<p>At a meeting in Glasgow, to hear George Thompson on the subject<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> of +British India, Mrs. Mott asked the chairman for the liberty of +addressing the audience for a few minutes, but was denied, though a +colored man, Charles Lenox Remond, of Salem, Massachusetts, was +listened to with attention, as he had been in London and other places, +showing that the unholy prejudice against color was not so bitter in +England as that against sex. George Harris, the minister of the +Unitarian Chapel in Glasgow, cordially extended to Mrs. Mott the use +of his church for a lecture on slavery, which was gladly accepted. The +house was crowded, and there was abundant reason to believe the people +were well pleased. But the small handful of "Friends" in that city did +not suffer so good an opportunity of disclaiming them to pass, and +accordingly had the following communication published in the papers:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>To the Editor of the Glasgow Gazette:</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Respected Friend</span>:—Intimation having been given on the 8th, +current, by means of placards extensively posted throughout the +city, that "On Sabbath first, the 9th instant, Mrs. Lucretia +Mott, a minister of the Society of Friends, Philadelphia, would +hold a meeting in the Christian Unitarian Chapel"; and that the +meeting was held and numerously attended by our fellow-citizens, +we deem it right on behalf of the Society of Friends residing in +Glasgow, to inform the public that we hold no religious +fellowship with Lueretia Mott, nor with the body in the United +States called Hicksites, to which she belongs, they not being +recognized by the Society of Friends in the United Kingdom, nor +by those "Friends" with whom we are in connection in America; and +that we do not wish to be in any way identified with, or +considered responsible for any sentiments that Lucretia Mott may +have uttered at the meeting above referred to.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">We are, respectfully, thy friends,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">William Smeal, William White, John Maxwell,<br /> +James Smeal, Edward White.</p> +<p class="ltr-to"><span class="smcap">Glasgow</span>, <i>12th of 8th mo., 1840</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>To us who knew, loved, and honored Lucretia Mott for her many virtues, +these manifestations of bigotry, so narrowing and embittering in their +effect on the mind, should be an added warning against that evil +spirit of persecution that has brought such sorrow to mankind. We +sincerely hope these few examples we have endeavored to place in their +true light, may awaken thought in the minds of our readers, and +incline them to renewed charity and a wiser appreciation of what is +and what is not vital in religion. Surely life must ever stand for +more than faith.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> In the midst of our first volume the announcement of the +death of Lucretia Mott, Nov. 11th, 1880, reached us. As she was +identified with so many of the historical events of Pennsylvania, +where nearly seventy years of her life were passed, it is fitting that +this sketch should follow the State in which she resided for so long a +period.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>NEW JERSEY.</h3> + + +<p><span class="sc">In</span> 1682, William Penn purchased Eastern Jersey, and under a Governor +of his choosing, Robert Barclay, the colony became a refuge for the +persecuted "Friends." It was no doubt due to the peaceful measures of +William Penn in his dealings with the Indians, that this colony was +free from all troubles with them. The last loyal Governor of New +Jersey—1763—was William Franklin, a natural son of Benjamin +Franklin, and a bitter Tory.</p> + +<p>The struggle for independence was at this time interesting and +exciting, and behind the Governor was a strong party for +reconciliation with Great Britain. Besides the Governor's instructions +against independence, the Assembly had resolved on a separate petition +to the King.</p> + +<p>Aware of this feeling in New Jersey, Congress sent that illustrious +trio, John Dickinson, John Jay, and George Wythe, to procure a +reversal of their determination. They were courteously received on the +floor, and urged in their addresses that nothing but unity and bravery +in the Colonies would bring Great Britain to terms; that she wanted to +procure separate petitions, but that such a course would break the +union, when the Colonies would be like a rope of sand. The Assembly +yielded to their entreaties, and on the 25th of June, 1776, Governor +Franklin, who opposed the action of Congress, was deposed,<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> and +William Livingston, a true patriot, was elected Governor, and +re-elected for fourteen years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span></p> + +<p>The intense excitement of this period in New Jersey roused many women +loyal to freedom and the independence of the Colonies to persistent +action. Among these was Hannah Arnett, of Elizabethtown, whose story +was first made public one hundred years after the date of its +occurrence.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> The latter part of the year 1776 was a period of doubt +and despondency to the patriot troops. Although the Colonies had +declared their independence several months before, the American forces +had since suffered many severe defeats, and it seemed not unlikely +that Great Britain would be victorious in her struggle with the +new-born republic. On the 30th of November, Gen. Howe had issued his +celebrated proclamation offering amnesty and protection to all who, +within sixty days, should declare themselves peaceable British +subjects, and bind themselves to neither take up arms nor encourage +others to do so.</p> + +<p>After his victory at Fort Lee, Lord Cornwallis marched his army to New +Jersey, encamping at Elizabethtown. His presence on New Jersey soil so +soon after Gen. Howe's proclamation, and the many defeats of the +patriot army, had a very depressing effect. Of this period Dr. Ashbel +Green wrote: "I heard a man of some shrewdness once say, that when the +British troops overran the State of New Jersey, in the closing part of +the year 1776, the whole population could have been bought for +eighteen pence a head."</p> + +<p>But however true this statement may have been of the men of New +Jersey, it could not be justly made in regard to its women, one of +whom, at least, did much to stem the tide of panic so strong at this +point where Cornwallis was encamped. A number of men of Elizabeth +assembled one evening in one of the spacious mansions for which this +place was rather famous, to discuss the advisability of accepting the +proposed amnesty. The question was a momentous one, and the discussion +was earnest and protracted. Some were for accepting this proffer at +once; others hesitated; they canvassed the subject from various +points, but finally decided that submission was all that remained to +them. Their hope was gone, and their courage with it; every remnant of +patriotic spirit seemed swept away in the darkness of the hour. But +there was a listener of whom they were ignorant; a woman, Hannah +Arnett, the wife of the host, sitting at her work in an adjoining +room. The discussion had reached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> her ears, rousing her intense +indignation. She listened until she could sit still no longer; +springing to her feet she pushed open the parlor door, confronting the +amazed men. The writer from whom we glean these facts, says: "Can you +fancy the scene? A large, low room, with the dark, heavy furniture of +the period, dimly lighted by the tall wax candles and the wood fire +which blazed on the hearth. Around the table the group of men, pallid, +gloomy, dejected, disheartened. In the door-way the figure of the +woman in in antique costume, with which in these Centennial days we +have become so familiar. Can you not fancy the proud poise of her +head, the indignant light of her blue eyes, the crisp, clear tones of +her voice, the majesty, and defiance, and scorn, which clothed her as +with a garment?"</p> + +<p>The men were appalled and started at the sight. She seemed like some +avenging angel about to bring them to judgment for the words they had +spoken; and, indeed, such she proved. It was strange to see a woman +thus enter the secret councils of men, and her husband hastily +approaching her, whispered: "Hannah, Hannah, this is no place for you, +we do not want you here just now;" and he tried to take her hand to +lead her from the room. But she pushed him gently back, saying to the +startled group: "Have you made your decision, gentlemen? Have you +chosen the part of men, or traitors?"</p> + +<p>They stammered and blundered as they tried to find answer. Things +appeared to them in a new light as this woman so pointedly questioned +them. Their answers were a mixture of excuses and explanations. They +declared the country to be in a hopeless condition; the army starving, +half-clothed, undisciplined, the country poor, while England's trained +troops were backed by the wealth of a thousand years.</p> + +<p>Hannah Arnett listened in silence until the last abject word was +spoken, when she rapidly inquired: "But what if we should live after +all?" The men looked at each other, but not word was spoken. "Hannah, +Hannah," cried her husband, "do you not see these are no questions for +you? We are discussing what is best for us all. Women do not +understand these things; go to your spinning-wheel and leave us to +discuss these topics. Do you not see that you are making yourself +ridiculous?"</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Arnett paid no heed. Speaking to the men in a strangely +quiet, voice, she said: "Can you not tell me? If, after all, God does +not let the right perish; if America should win in the conflict, after +you have thrown yourselves upon British clemency, where will you be +then?" "Then?" spoke a hesitating voice, "why then, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> it ever could +be so, we should be ruined. We must then leave home and country +forever. But the struggle is an entirely hopeless one. We have no men, +no money, no arms, no food, and England has everything."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mrs. Arnett, "you have forgotten one thing which England +has not, and which we have—one thing which outweighs all England's +treasures, and that is the right. God is on our side; and every volley +from our muskets is an echo of His voice. We are poor and weak and +few, but God is fighting for us. We counted the cost before we began; +we knew the price and were willing to pay; and now, because for the +time the day is going against us, you would give up all and sneak back +like cravens, to kiss the feet that have trampled upon us! And you +call yourselves men; the sons of those who gave up homes and fortune +and fatherland to make for themselves and for dear liberty a +resting-place in the wilderness! Oh, shame upon you, cowards!"</p> + +<p>The words had rushed out in a fiery flood which her husband had vainly +striven to check. Turning to the gentlemen present, Mr. Arnett said: +"I beg you will excuse this most unseemly interruption to our council. +My wife is beside herself, I think. You all know her, and that it is +not her custom to meddle with politics. To-morrow she will see her +folly; but now I beg your patience."</p> + +<p>But her words had roused the slumbering manhood of her hearers. Each +began to look upon himself as a craven, and to withdraw from the +position he had taken. No one replied to her husband, and Mrs. Arnett +continued. "Take your protection if you will. Proclaim yourselves +traitors and cowards, false to your country and your God, but horrible +will be the judgment upon your heads and the heads of those that love +you. I tell you that England will never conquer. I know it and feel it +in every fiber of my heart. Has God led us thus far to desert us now? +Will He who led our fathers across the stormy winter seas forsake +their children who have put their trust in Him? For me, I stay with my +country, and my hand shall never touch the hand, nor my heart cleave +to the heart of him who shames her"; and she turned a glance upon her +husband; "Isaac, we have lived together for twenty years, and for all +of them I have been a true and loving wife to you. But I am the child +of God and of my Country, and if you do this shameful thing, I will +never again own you for my husband."</p> + +<p>"My dear wife!" he cried, aghast, "you do not know what you are +saying. Leave me for such a thing as this?" "For such a thing as +this!" she cried, scornfully. "What greater cause could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> there be? I +married a good man and true, a faithful friend, and it needs no +divorce to sever me from a traitor and a coward. If you take your +amnesty you lose your wife, and I—I lose my husband and my home!"</p> + +<p>With the last words her voice broke into a pathetic fall, and a mist +gathered before her eyes. The men were deeply moved; the words of Mrs. +Arnett had touched every soul. Gradually the drooping heads were +raised, and eyes grew bright with manliness and resolution. Before +they left the house that night they had sworn a solemn oath to stand +by the cause they had adopted, and the land of their birth through +good or evil, and to spurn as deadliest insult the proffered amnesty +of their tyrannical foe.</p> + +<p>Some of the men who met in this secret council afterward fought nobly, +and died upon the field of battle for their country. Others lived to +rejoice when the day of triumph came; but the name of this woman was +found upon no heroic roll, nor is it on the page of any history that +men have since written, although she made heroes of cowards, and +helped to stay the wave of desolation which, in the dark days of '76, +threatened to overwhelm the land.</p> + +<p>At one time some British officers quartered themselves at the house of +Mrs. Dissosway, situated at the western end of Staten Island, opposite +Amboy. Her husband was a prisoner; but her brother, Captain Nat. +Randolph, was in the American army, and gave much annoyance to the +tories by his frequent incursions. A tory colonel promised Mrs. +Dissosway to procure the release of her husband on condition of her +prevailing on her brother to stay quietly at home. "And if I could," +she replied, with a look of scorn, drawing up her tall figure to its +utmost height, "if I could act so dastardly a part, think you General +Washington has but one Captain Randolph in his army?"</p> + +<p>At a period when American prospects were most clouded, and New Jersey +overrun by the British, an officer stationed at Borden-town (said to +be Lord Cornwallis) endeavored to intimidate Mrs. Borden into using +her influence over her husband and son, who were absent in the +American army. The officer promised her that if she would induce them +to quit the standard they followed and join the royalists, her +property should be protected; while in case of refusal, her estate +would be ravaged and her elegant mansion destroyed. Mrs. Borden +answered, "Begin your threatened havoc then; the sight of my house in +flames would be a treat to me; for I have seen enough to know that you +never injure what you have power to keep and enjoy. The application of +a torch to my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> dwelling I should regard as a signal for your +departure." The house was burned in fulfillment of the threat, and the +estate laid waste; but, as Mrs. Borden predicted, the retreat of the +spoiler quickly followed.</p> + +<p>During the battle of Monmouth a gunner named Pitcher was killed, and +the call was made for some one to take his place; his wife, who had +followed him to the camp and thence to the field of conflict, +unhesitatingly stepped forward and offered her services. The gun was +so well managed as to draw the attention of General Washington to the +circumstance, and to call forth an expression of his admiration of her +bravery and fidelity to her country. To show his appreciation of her +virtues and her highly valuable services, he conferred on her a +lieutenant's commission. She afterward went by the name of "Captain +Molly."</p> + +<p>As early as 1706, Thomas Chalkley, visiting the Conestogae Indians, +near Susquehannah, says: "We treated about having a meeting with them +in a religious way, upon which they called a council, in which they +were very grave, and spoke one after another without any heat or +jarring (and some of the most esteemed of their women do sometimes +speak in their councils). I asked our interpreter why they suffered or +permitted the women to speak; he answered: 'Some women are wiser than +some men.' Our interpreter told me that they had not done anything for +many years without the counsel of an ancient, grave woman, who, I +observed, spoke much in their councils, for I was permitted to be +present, and asked what she said. He replied that she was an empress, +and that they gave much heed to what she said amongst them; that she +then said to them that she looked upon our coming to be more than +natural, because we did not come to buy nor sell nor get gain, but +came in love and respect to them, and desired their well doing both +here and hereafter; and that our meeting among them might be very +beneficial to their young people. She related a dream she had three +days before, and interpreted it, advising them to hear us and +entertain us kindly, etc., which they did.</p> + +<p>Chief Justice Green, in behalf of Miss Leake, of Trenton, presented to +the New Jersey Historical Society copies of the correspondence between +Colonel Mawhood of the British forces, and Colonel Hand of the +American army, proposing to the latter to surrender, and each man to +go to his home, etc., dated Salem County, March, 1778. The New Jersey +Historical Society has a photographic copy of a print, contemporary +with the event, representing the triumphal arch erected by the ladies +of Trenton in honor of Washington, on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> his passage through the place +in April, 1779, and a photographic copy of the following original note +(now in possession of the lady who received it), which was written by +Washington at the time:</p> + +<blockquote><p>General Washington can not leave this place without expressing +his acknowledgements to the Matrons and Young Ladies who received +him in so novel and grateful a manner at the Triumphal Arch in +Trenton, for the exquisite sensations he experienced in that +affecting scene. The astonishing contrast between his former and +actual situation at the same spot, the elegant taste with which +it was adorned for the present occasion, and the innocent +appearance of the <i>white-robed choir</i>, who met him with the +gratulatory song, have made such an impression on his remembrance +as he assures them will never be effaced.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Trenton</span>, <i>April 21, 1789</i>.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE ORIGIN, PRACTICE, AND PROHIBITION OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN NEW +JERSEY.</h3> + +<p>William A. Whitehead, Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey +Historical Society, read the following paper at their annual meeting, +January 21, 1858:</p> + +<blockquote><p>By the Proprietary laws, the right of suffrage in New Jersey was +expressly to the <i>free men</i> of the province; and in equally +explicit terms a law passed in 1709 prescribing the +qualifications of electors, confined the privilege to male +freeholders having one hundred acres of land in their own right, +or worth fifty pounds, current money of the province, in real and +personal estate, and during the whole of the colonial period +these qualifications remained unaltered.</p> + +<p>By the Constitution adopted July 2, 1776, the elective franchise +was conferred upon all inhabitants of this colony, of full age, +who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate in +the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim +a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election; and +the same, or similar language, was used in the different acts +regulating elections until 1790; but I have not discovered any +instance of the exercise of the right by females, under an +interpretation which the full import of the words, "all +inhabitants," was subsequently thought to sanction, during the +whole of this period.</p> + +<p>In 1790, however, a revision of the election law then in force +was proposed, and upon the committee of the Legislature to whom +the subject was referred was Mr. Joseph Cooper, of West Jersey, a +prominent member of the Society of Friends. As the regulations of +that society authorized females to vote in matters relating +thereto, Mr. Cooper claimed for them the like privilege in +matters connected with the State, and to support his views, +quoted the provisions of the Constitution as sanctioning such a +course. It was therefore to satisfy him that the committee +consented to report a bill in which the expression, "he or she," +applied to the voter, was introduced into the section specifying +the necessary qualifications; thus giving a legislative +endorsement of the alleged meaning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> of the Constitution. Still, +no cases of females voting by virtue of this more definite +provision are on record, and we are warranted in believing that +the women of New Jersey then, as now, were not apt to overstep +the bounds of decorum, or intrude where their characteristic +modesty and self-respect might be wounded.</p> + +<p>This law and its supplements were repealed in 1797, and it is +some proof that the peculiar provision under review had not been +availed of to any extent, if at all (as its evil consequences +would otherwise have become apparent), that we find similar +phraseology introduced into the new act. The right of suffrage +was conferred upon "all free inhabitants of this State of full +age," etc., thus adopting the language of the Constitution with +the addition of the word "free," and "no person shall be entitled +to vote in any other township or precinct than that in which he +or she doth actually reside," etc., and in two other places is +the possible difference in the sex of the voters recognized.</p> + +<p>The first occasion on which females voted, of which any precise +information has been obtained, was at an election held this year +(1797) at Elizabethtown, Essex County, for members of the +Legislature. The candidates between whom the greatest rivalry +existed, were John Condit and William Crane, the heads of what +were known a year or two later as the "Federal Republican" and +"Federal Aristocratic" parties, the former the candidate of +Newark and the northern portions of the county, and the latter +the candidate of Elizabethtown and the adjoining country, for the +Council. Under the impression that the candidates would poll +nearly the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown leaders +thought that by a bold <i>coup d'état</i> they might secure the +success of Mr. Crane. At a late hour of the day, and, as I have +been informed, just before the close of the poll, a number of +females were brought up, and under the provisions of the existing +laws, allowed to vote; but the manœuvre was unsuccessful, the +majority for Mr. Condit, in the county, being ninety-three, +notwithstanding. These proceedings were made the topic of two or +three brief articles in the <i>Newark Sentinel</i>, in one of which +the fact that "no less than seventy-five women were polled at the +late election in a neighboring borough," was used as a pretended +argument for the admission of females to office, and to service +in the diplomatic corps; while another ironically asserts that +"too much credit can not be given to the Federal leaders of +Elizabethtown for the heroic virtue displayed in advancing in a +body to the poll to support their favorite candidates."</p> + +<p>So discreditable was this occurrence thought, that although +another closely contested election took place the following year, +we do not find any other than male votes deposited then, in Essex +County, or elsewhere, until the Presidential election of 1800, +between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, at which females voted very +generally throughout the State; and such continued to be the +practice until the passage of the act positively excluding them +from the polls. At first the law had been so construed as to +admit single women only, but as the practice extended, the +construction of the privilege became broader and was made to +include females eighteen years old, married or single; and even +women of color. At a contested election in Hunterdon County, in +1802, the votes of two or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> three such, actually electing a member +of the Legislature. It is remarkable that these proceedings did +not sooner bring about a repeal of the laws which were thought to +sanction them; but that event did not occur until 1807, and it is +noticeable that, as the practice originated in Essex County, so +the flagrant abuses which resulted from it reached their maximum +in that county, and brought about its prohibition.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 417px;"> +<a name="v1_1449" id="v1_1449"> +<img src="images/v1_1449.png" width="417" height="500" +alt="Antoinette L. Brown (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>The circumstances attendant upon this event afford abundant +matter for a most interesting chapter of local history, which I +am happy to say has been written by a member of the Society (Mr. +James Ross),<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> and will be communicated before long, I trust, +for insertion in our Proceedings. But the scope of this paper +merely calls for a statement of facts. These are as follows:</p> + +<p>In the year 1806 a new Court House and Jail were to be erected in +the county of Essex. Strenuous exertions were made to have them +located elsewhere than at Newark, which had been the county town +from a very early period. Sufficient influence was brought to +bear upon the Legislature to secure the passage of an act +(approved November 5th of that year) authorizing a special +election, at which "the inhabitants" of the county, "qualified to +vote in elections for members of the State Legislature," etc., +were described as the qualified electors to determine by their +votes where the buildings should be located. The contest caused a +great excitement throughout the county, and, under the existing +laws, when the election was held in February, 1807, women of +"full age," whether single or married, possessing the required +property qualification, were permitted by the judges of election +to vote. But as the conflict proceeded, and the blood of the +combatants waxed warmer, the number of female voters increased, +and it was soon found that every single and every married woman +in the county was not only of "full age," but also "worth fifty +pounds proclamation money, clear estate," and as such entitled to +vote if they chose. And not only once, but as often as by change +of dress or complicity of the inspectors, they might be able to +repeat the process.</p> + +<p>This was not confined to any one precinct, but was more or less +the case in all, and so apparent were these and many other frauds +that the Legislature at the ensuing session did not hesitate to +sat it aside as having been illegally conducted; and, by +repealing the act authorizing it, left the buildings to be +erected in Newark, to which they legitimately belonged. And, in +order that no future occurrence of the kind should take place, an +act was passed (approved November 16, 1807), the preamble to +which is as follows:</p> + +<p>"Whereas, doubts have been raised and great diversities in +practice obtained throughout the State in regard to the admission +of aliens, females, and persons of color or negroes to vote in +elections, as also in regard to the mode of ascertaining the +qualifications of voters in respect to estate; and whereas, it is +highly necessary to the safety, quiet good order and dignity of +the State to clear up the said doubts by an act of the +representatives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> of the people declaratory of the true sense and +meaning of the Constitution, and to ensure its just execution in +these particulars according to the intent of the framers thereof: +Therefore," etc., etc.</p> + +<p>This act confined the right of suffrage to free white male +citizens twenty-one years of age, worth fifty pounds proclamation +money, clear estate; and disposed of the property qualification +by declaring that every person otherwise entitled to vote whose +name should be enrolled on the last tax-lists for the State or +County should be considered as worth the fifty pounds, thus by +legislative enactment determining the meaning of the Constitution +and settling the difficulty. The law remained unchanged until the +adoption of the new Constitution a few years since, which +instrument is equally restrictive as to persons who shall vote, +and removes the property qualification altogether.</p> + +<p>Very recently a refusal to respond to a demand for taxes legally +imposed, was received from a distinguished advocate of "Woman's +Rights" in one of the northern counties; who gave as her reasons +"that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, +which is not only unjust to one-half of the adult population, but +is contrary to our Theory of Government"—and that when the +attention of men is called to the wide difference between their +theory of government and its practice in this particular, that +they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing +taxes on women when they refuse them the right of suffrage.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> + +<p>Similar arguments were advanced by a sister of Richard Henry Lee, +in 1778,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> when, if ever, they were calculated to receive due +consideration, yet the distinguished Virginian did not hesitate +to show the unreasonableness of the demand; in the course of his +able answer remarking that (setting aside other motive for +restricting the power to males) "perhaps 'twas thought rather out +of character for women to press into those tumultuous assemblages +of men where the business of choosing representatives is +conducted!" And as it is very evident that when in times past the +right was, not only claimed, but exercised in New Jersey, it +never accorded with public sentiment; so it maybe safely +predicted that, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> was the case in 1807, "the safety, quiet, +good order, and dignity of the State," will ever call for its +explicit disavowal in times to come.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In his speech at the Woman's Rights Convention, 1853, in New York, +Rev. John Pierpont said: "I can go back forty years; and forty years +ago, when most of my present audience were not in, but behind, their +cradles, passing a stranger, through the neighboring State of New +Jersey, and stopping for dinner at an inn, where the coach stopped, I +saw at the bar where I went to pay, a list of the voters of the town +stuck up. My eye ran over it, and I read to my astonishment the names +of several women. 'What!' I said, 'do women vote here?' 'Certainly,' +was the answer, 'when they have real estate.' Then the question arose +in my mind, why should not women vote: Laws are made regulating the +tenure of real estate, and the essence of all republicanism is, that +they who feel the pressure of the law should have a voice in its +enactment."</p> + +<h3>DEFECTS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF NEW JERSEY.</h3> + +<p>In a very singular pamphlet published in Trenton, 1779, called +"Eumenes: A collection of papers on the Errors and Omissions of the +Constitution of New Jersey," the writer is very severe upon the fact +that women were allowed to exercise the same right as the sterner sex; +observing that "Nothing can be a greater mockery of this inalienable +right, than to suffer it to be exercised by persons who do not pretend +any judgment on the subject."<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<p>Extract from "Eumenes," page 31, No. 8: "Defects of the Constitution +respecting the Qualification of Electors and Elected":</p> + +<blockquote><p>It will not be denied that a Constitution ought to point out what +persons may elect and who may be elected; and that it should as +distinctly prescribe their several qualifications, and render +those qualifications conformable to justice and the public +welfare. Indeed, on the proper adjustment of the elective +franchise depends, in a great measure, the liberty of the citizen +and the safety of the Government. Upon examination it will be +found that the Constitution requires amendment upon this head in +several particulars.</p> + +<p>It has ever been a matter of dispute upon the Constitution, +whether females, as well as males, are entitled to elect officers +of Government. If we were to be guided by the letter of the +charter, it would seem to place them on the same footing in this +particular; and yet, recurring to <i>political right</i> and the +nature of things, a very forcible construction has been raised +against the admission of <i>women</i> to participate in the public +suffrage.</p> + +<p>The 4th Article of the Constitution declares that "<i>all the +inhabitants</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> of this colony of full age who are worth fifty +pounds, shall be entitled to vote for representatives."</p> + +<p>Those who support the rights of women say, that "all inhabitants" +must mean "<i>all women</i>" inhabitants as well as "<i>all men</i>." +Whereas, it is urged on the other side that the makers must have +meant "all <i>male</i> inhabitants," and that the expression is to be +restrained so as to arrive at the <i>intent</i> of the framers of the +instrument.</p> + +<p>This difference of sentiment has given rise to diversity of +<i>practice</i> on this head, and furnished a pretence from which many +an electioneering trick has resulted. I could refer to instances +which would prove what is advanced, but the people want no +proofs. It is well known that women are admitted or rejected, +just as may suit the views of the persons in direction. The thing +should be rectified. If women are fit persons to take part in +this important franchise, though excluded from other public +functions, it should be expressed in the Constitution. They would +then know their rights, and those rights could not be sported +with to serve the wretched purposes of a party election.</p> + +<p>To my mind, without going into an historical or philosophical +deduction of particulars on the subject, it is evident that +women, generally, are neither by nature, nor habit, nor +education, nor by their necessary condition in society, fitted to +perform this duty with credit to themselves or advantage to the +public. In a note the author adds: It is perfectly disgusting to +witness the manner in which women are polled at our elections. +Nothing can be greater mockery of this invaluable and sacred +right, than to suffer it to be exercised by persons who do not +even pretend to any judgment on the subject. The great practical +mischief, however, resulting from their admission under our +present form of government, is that the towns and populous +villages gain an unfair advantage over the country, by the +greater facility they enjoy over the latter in drawing out their +women to the elections. Many important election contests have +been terminated at last by these auxiliaries in favor of +candidates supported by town interests.</p> + +<p>I believe that the Convention which framed the Constitution had +no view to the admission of females, either single women or +widows, to elect the public officers. But such is the phraseology +of the Constitution that it seems a violation of it not to admit +their votes. The best constitutions have guarded against mistakes +on this head. Those of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, +Maryland, Vermont, etc., do not admit of female electors. Whether +this be right or wrong, the objection to our Constitution is, +that it does not settle the point one way or the other with an +absolute certainty. The practice is variable. The generally +received opinion, however, is that the Constitution permits it. +In this state of the matter it is not competent for the +Legislature to interfere. Nothing short of a constitutional +declaration can decide the question; which is, in fact, an +important one, and is growing more and more so to the country in +proportion as the towns and villages increase in numbers and +population. For, independent of the theoretic question, it is +evident that the admission of these votes gives a vast advantage +to the thickly settled places over the more dispersed population +of the country.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span></p> + +<p>In another note the author says: "Mr. Fox in his late harangue in +the British House of Commons, in favor of more <i>equal</i> suffrage, +concedes the unfitness of <i>females</i> to share in elections. He +says no instance of their participation of public suffrage in any +government can be shown; and that this right (which many of his +party hold to be a natural one, though he affects to stop short +of that) is properly denied to the fairest productions of nature. +Of widows and spinsters above twenty-one, there can not, I +imagine, be fewer than 10,000. It is certainly not unimportant to +leave doubtful the rights of so great a number of people."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Whitehead's report clearly shows three unjust inferences from the +facts stated:</p> + +<p><i>First.</i> That all the corruptions of that special election in Essex +County could be traced to the women.</p> + +<p><i>Second.</i> That the quiet, good order, and dignity of the State could +be secured only by the restriction of the suffrage to "free white male +citizens worth fifty pounds."</p> + +<p><i>Third.</i> "The unreasonableness of the demand" for representation by +women tax-payers.</p> + +<p>1st. Tradition shows that the voting early and often in varied +feminine costume, was done by men five feet four, "picked men," not +for their bravery, but for their inferiority. Depriving women of their +right to vote, because the men abused their privilege, under cover of +sex, in 1807, was, however, on the same principle that politicians in +1881 propose to disfranchise the women of Utah, because of their +polygamous relations. That is, punish the women who claim a right to +only one-sixth part of a man's time and affections, because the men +claim six wives apiece. The question naturally suggests itself to any +fair mind, why not deprive the men of the suffrage, and let the women +vote themselves each one husband? Who doubts the fate of the system +under such legislation? Every woman in her normal condition, unless +wholly perverted by the religious dogma of self-sacrifice and +self-crucifixion, desires to own the man she loves as absolutely and +completely, as every man desires to consecrate to himself alone the +woman he loves. So to deprive the women of Essex of their right to +vote to have the county buildings in Elizabeth, because of the undue +excitement and dishonesty of the men, was to punish the best class of +citizens for the crimes of the worst.</p> + +<p>2d. The assumption that "free white male citizens worth fifty pounds," +could legislate for "aliens, women, and negroes," better than those +classes could for themselves, is to deny the fundamental principle of +republicanism; Governments derive their just powers from the consent +of the governed; and to reassert the despotic ideas of the old world +that national safety depends on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> wisdom of privileged +orders—nobles, kings, and czars. The experiment in Wyoming has fully +proved that when "free white male citizens" reigned supreme, the polls +there were scenes of drunkenness, violence, and death; men knocking +each other down and putting bullets through each other's brains were +of annual occurrence. But when the suffrage was extended, and women +admitted to the polling booths, quiet, good order, and dignity were +inaugurated.</p> + +<p>3d. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." James Otis said: "To +tax a man's property without his consent, is in effect disfranchising +him of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush, +after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at the pleasure +of another?" Is not such injustice as grievous to woman as man? Does +the accident of sex place woman outside of all ordinary principles of +law and justice? It is the essence of cruelty and tyranny to take her +hard earnings without her consent, blocked as her way is to wealth and +independence, to make sidewalks, highways, and bridges; to build +jails, prisons, and alms-houses, the legitimate outgrowth of the +whisky traffic, which she abhors. On what principle of republican +government is one class of tax-payers thus defrauded of one of the +most sacred rights of citizenship? What logical argument can be made +to prove "the unreasonableness of this demand," for one class above +all others? Principles of justice, to have any value or significance, +must be universal in their application to all humanity.</p> + +<p>4th. As to the point made by "Eumenes," "that women are not fit +persons to take part in government," "that they do not even pretend to +any judgment on the subject," we have simply to say that the writer's +prejudices contradict all the facts of our common experience. Women +are so pre-eminently fitted for government, that the one fear in all +ages among men has been lest by some chance they should be governed by +women; and the smaller the man the greater the fear.</p> + +<p>Blackstone says "the elements of sovereignty are three: 'Wisdom, +Goodness, and Power.'" Admitting for the sake of argument that "Power" +in this connection means physical force, the distinctive point of male +superiority, and not moral power, which may be equal in both sexes, +all must concede the remaining necessary elements to woman as well as +man. Who so bold, or blind, as to deny wisdom and goodness, the chief +elements of beneficent government, to woman, with the long record of +illustrious and saintly characters gilding every page of history +before him?</p> + +<p>Whatever doubts the women known to the author of "Eumenes" might have +had as to their own capacities; the women of to-day do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> assume to know +that they are more capable of self-government than men are, and that +they understand the principles that underlie a republic far better +than the vast majority of foreigners now crowding our shores, the +Right Honorable James Charles Fox to the contrary notwithstanding. +Yea, without danger of contradiction, we may say there are women in +this nation even now, who understand the political issues of this hour +quite as well as those who stand at the head of our government.</p> + +<p>We are very apt to accept popular assertions ofttimes repeated as +truisms, and in this way man's superiority has passed into a proverb, +and the sex in general believe it. When Milton penned the line, "God, +thy will, thou mine," and made his Eve thus reverently submissive to +her Adam, he little thought of bright girls in the nineteenth century, +well versed in science, philosophy, and the languages, sitting in the +senior class of a college of the American republic, laughing his male +conceit to scorn.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> The <i>New York Tribune</i>, Feb. 19, 1881, gives the +following interesting facts: "William Franklin, the illegitimate son +of Benjamin, who was long a resident of New York and hereabout, +conducted in person his father's postal system. At Amboy, or Perth +Amboy, a little town of once high aristocratic standing, which dozes +on the edge of the Jersey hills and overlooks the oyster groves of +Prince's Bay, began the Post-Office of North America under John +Hamilton in 1694. It was a private patent, and he sold it to the +Government. Many years afterward William Franklin settled at the same +place, where once his father passed in Hamilton's day a footsore +vagrant pressing from Boston to Philadelphia to get bread. There the +younger Franklin reared a 'palace,' and lived in it as Governor of New +Jersey till his adherence to the Crown, that had done better for him +than his father—made him an exile and a captive. He was sent under +guard to East Windsor, Conn., and his jail was made in the house of +Captain Ebenezer Grant there, of the family of President Grant's +ancestors, and he was prohibited the use of pen, ink, and paper—a +needless punishment to a man who had delivered so many letters to +others."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> In the <i>New York Observer</i>, 1876.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> After a diligent search for Mr. James Ross and his +promised "interesting chapter of local history," we learned that the +author was in his grave, and that from his posthumous papers this +valuable document had not yet been exhumed by his literary executor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> The following letter contains the sentiments referred to +in the text: +</p> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Orange</span>, N. J., <i>Dec. 18, 1858</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mandeville, Tax Collector, Sir</span>:—Enclosed I return my tax bill, +without paying it. My reason for doing so is, that women suffer +taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to +one-half the adult population, but is contrary to our theory of +government. For years some women have been paying their taxes under +protest, but still taxes are imposed, and representation is not +granted. The only course now left us is to refuse to pay the tax. We +know well what the immediate result of this refusal must be. +</p><p> +But we believe that when the attention of men is called to the wide +difference between their theory of government and its practice, in +this particular, they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, +by imposing taxes on women, while they refuse them the right of +suffrage, and that the sense of justice which is in all good men, will +lead them to correct it. Then we shall cheerfully pay our taxes—not +till then. +</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc">Lucy Stone.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Respectfully,</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> See <i>Washington National Intelligencer</i> for Oct. 15, +1857, and <i>Historical Magazine</i>, Vol. I., page 360.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> <i>Frank Leslie's Magazine</i>, Feb., 1877.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>REMINISCENCES.<br /> +<small>BY E. C. S.</small></h3> + + +<p><span class="sc">The</span> reports of the Conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N. +Y., in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most +important part in the new movement—Susan B. Anthony, who for her +courage and executive ability was facetiously called by William Henry +Charming, the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching +in the Academy at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful +valley of the Mohawk.</p> + +<p>"The Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those +conventions, startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the +novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend +her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents +and sisters having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as +very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and +reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery and +temperance reforms, and was an active member of an organization called +"The Daughters of Temperance," and had spoken a few times in their +public meetings. But the new gospel of "Woman's Rights," found a ready +response in her mind, and from that time her best efforts have been +given to the enfranchisement of woman.</p> + +<p>It was in the month of May, of 1851, that I first met Miss Anthony. +That was to both of us an eventful meeting, that in a measure +henceforth shaped our lives. As our own estimate of ourselves and our +friendship may differ somewhat from that taken from an objective point +of view, I will give an extract from what a mutual friend wrote of us +some years ago:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Miss Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable and life-long +advocate of temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights, has +been, since 1851, Mrs. Stanton's intimate associate in +reformatory labors. These celebrated women are of about equal +ages, but of the most opposite characteristics, and illustrate +the theory of counterparts in affection by entertaining for each +other a friendship of extraordinary strength.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant; Miss Anthony +is a thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains +and great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> hearts; neither has any selfish ambition for +celebrity; but each vies with the other in a noble enthusiasm, +for the cause to which they are devoting their lives.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, to describe them critically, I ought to say that +opposites though they be, each does not so much supplement the +other's difficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus +they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and at the same +time diminish each other's discretion.</p> + +<p>But whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one, or the +impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are +evermore as white as the light. The good that they do is by +design; the harm by accident. These two women sitting together in +their parlors, have for the last thirty years been diligent +forgers of all manner of projectiles, from fire works to +thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into +the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious, +and political assemblies, sometimes to the pleasant surprise and +half welcome of the members, more often to the bewilderment and +prostration of numerous victims; and in a few signal instances, +to the gnashing of angry men's teeth. I know of no two more +pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country! Nor will they +themselves deny the charge. In fact this noise-making twain are +the two sticks of a drum for keeping up what Daniel Webster +called "the rub-a-dub of agitation."</p></blockquote> + + +<p>How well I remember the day I first met my life-long friend. George +Thompson and William Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery +meeting in Seneca Falls, Miss Anthony came to attend it. These +gentlemen were my guests. Walking home after the adjournment, we met +Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting to +greet us. There she stood with her good earnest face and genial smile, +dressed in gray silk, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale +blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her +thoroughly, and why I did not at once invite her home with me to +dinner, I do not know. She accuses me of that neglect and never has +forgiven me, as she wished to see and hear all she could of our noble +friends. I suppose my mind was full of what I had heard, or my coming +dinner, or the probable behavior of three mischievous boys who had +been busily exploring the premises while I was at the meeting. That I +had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical +experiments these young savages might try, the reader will admit when +informed of some of their performances.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is often said by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has +been my good angel, always pushing and guiding me to work, that but +for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I +have; and on the other hand, it has been said that I forged the +thunderbolts and she fired them. Perhaps all this is in a measure +true. With the cares of a large family, I might in time, like too many +women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had +not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary +labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform, complacently +deciding questions in which women had an equal interest, without an +equal voice, readily roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand +in the midst of their assembly.</p> + +<p>Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I +knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam were to be set by +the ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau +stuffed with facts was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John +Smith and the Hon. Richard Roe had said, false interpretations of +Bible texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut +out of some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some +disgraceful trial, injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from +stockings and puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write +articles for papers, or a petition to the Legislature, letters to the +faithful here and there, stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or +Massachusetts, call on <i>The Lily</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> <i>The Una</i>, <i>The Liberator</i>, and +<i>The Standard</i>, to remember our wrongs as well as those of the slave. +We never met without issuing a pronunciamento on some question.</p> + +<p>We were at once fast friends, in thought and sympathy we were one, and +in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In +writing we did better work together than either could alone. While she +is slow and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am +the better writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and +statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and together we have made +arguments that have stood unshaken by the storms of thirty long years: +arguments that no man has answered. Our speeches may be considered the +united product of our two brains.</p> + +<p>So entirely one are we, that in all our associations, ever side by +side on the same platform, not one feeling of jealousy or envy has +ever shadowed our lives. We have indulged freely in criticism of each +other when alone, and hotly contended whenever we have differed, but +in our friendship of thirty years there has never been a break of one +hour. To the world we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each +other. Like husband and wife, each has the feeling that we must have +no differences in public. Thus united, at an early day we began to +survey the State and nation, the future field of our labors. We read +with critical eyes the proceedings of Congress and Legislatures, of +General Assemblies and Synods, of Conferences and Conventions, and +discovered that in all alike the existence of woman was entirely +ignored.</p> + +<p>Night after night by an old-fashioned fireplace we plotted and planned +the coming agitation, how, when, and where each entering wedge could +be driven, by which woman might be recognized, and her rights secured. +Speedily the State was aflame with disturbances in temperance and +teachers' conventions, and the press heralded the news far and near +that women delegates had suddenly appeared demanding admission in +men's conventions; that their rights had been hotly contended session +after session, by liberal men on the one side; the clergy and learned +professors on the other; an overwhelming majority rejecting the women +with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought +over and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States, +until the bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was +thoroughly tested. Every right achieved: to enter a college; to study +a profession; to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform +measure, was contended for inch by inch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span></p> + +<p>Many of those enjoying all these blessings, now complacently say, "If +these pioneers in reform, had only pressed their measures more +judiciously; in a more ladylike manner; in more choice language; in a +more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so +rudely." We give in these pages enough of the characteristics of these +women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry, +and position, to show that no power could have met the prejudice and +bigotry of that period more successfully than they did, who so bravely +and persistently fought and conquered them.</p> + +<p>True, those gentlemen were all quite willing that women should join +their societies and churches, to do the drudgery, to work up the +enthusiasm in fairs and revivals, conventions and flag presentations, +to pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being +members of their various organizations, to beg money for the church, +circulate petitions from door to door, to visit saloons, to pray with +or defy rum-sellers, to teach school at half-price, and sit round the +outskirts of a hall like so many wall flowers in teachers' State +Conventions; but they would not allow them to sit on the platform, +address the assembly, nor vote for men and measures.</p> + +<p>Those who had learned the first lessons of human rights from the lips +of Beriah Green, Samuel J. May, and Gerrit Smith, would not accept any +such position. When women abandoned the temperance reform, all +interest in the question gradually died out in the State, and +practically nothing was done in New York for nearly twenty years. +Gerrit Smith made one or two attempts toward an "anti-dram-shop +party," but as women could not vote they felt no interest in the +measure, and failure was the result.</p> + +<p>I soon convinced my new friend that the ballot was the key to the +situation, that when we had a voice in the laws we should be welcomed +to any platform. In turning the intense earnestness and religious +enthusiasm of this great-souled woman into this one channel, I soon +felt the power of my convert in goading me forever forward to more +untiring work. Soon fastened heart to heart with hooks of steel in a +friendship that thirty years of confidence and affection have steadily +strengthened, we have labored faithfully together.</p> + +<p>After twelve added years of agitation, from the passage of the +property bill, New York conceded other civil rights to married women. +Pending the discussion of these various bills, Susan B. Anthony +circulated petitions both for the civil and political rights of woman +throughout the State, traveling in stage coaches and open wagons and +sleighs in all seasons, and on foot from door to door through towns +and cities, doing her uttermost to rouse women to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> some sense of their +natural rights as human beings, to their civil and political rights as +citizens of a republic; and while expending her time, strength, and +money to secure these blessings for the women of the State, they would +gruffly tell her they had all the rights they wanted, or rudely shut +the door in her face, leaving her to stand outside, petition in hand, +with as much contempt as if she were asking alms for herself. None but +those who did that petition work in the early days for the slaves and +the women, can ever know the hardships and humiliations that were +endured. But it was done because it was only through petitions, a +power seemingly so inefficient, that disfranchised classes could be +heard in the national councils, hence their importance.</p> + +<p>The frivolous objections some women made to our appeals were as +exasperating as ridiculous. To reply to them politely at all times, +required a divine patience. On one occasion, after addressing the +Legislature, some of the ladies in congratulating me, inquired in a +deprecating tone, "What do you do with your children?" "Ladies," I +said, "it takes me no longer to speak than you to listen; what have +you done with your children the two hours you have been sitting here? +But to answer your questions. I never leave my children to go to +Saratoga, Washington, Newport, or Europe, nor even to come here. They +are at this moment with a faithful nurse at the Delavan House, and +having accomplished my mission, we shall all return home together."</p> + +<p>Miss Anthony, who was a frequent guest at my home, sometimes stood +guard on such occasions.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> The children of our household say that +among their earliest recollections is the tableau of "Mother and +Susan," seated by a large table covered with books and papers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> always +writing and talking about the Constitution, interrupted with +occasional visits from others of the faithful. Hither came Elizabeth +Oakes Smith, Paulina Wright Davis, Frances Dana Gage, Dr. Harriot +Hunt, Antoinette Brown, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelly, by turn, until all +these names were as familiar as household words to the children.</p> + +<p>Martha C. Wright, of Auburn, was a frequent visitor at the center of +the rebellion, as my sequestered cottage on Locust Hill was +facetiously called. She brought to these councils of war not only her +own individual wisdom, but that of the wife and sister of William H. +Seward, and sometimes encouraging suggestions from the great statesman +himself, from whose writings we often gleaned grand and radical +sentiments. Lucretia Mott, too, being an occasional guest at her +sister's in Auburn, added the dignity of her presence at many of these +important consultations. She was uniformly in favor of toning down our +fiery pronunciamentoes. For Miss Anthony and myself, the English +language had no words strong enough to express the indignation we felt +in view of the prolonged injustice to woman. We found, however, that +after expressing ourselves in the most vehement manner, and thus in a +measure giving our feelings an outlet, we were reconciled to issue the +documents at last in milder terms. If the men of the State could have +known the stern rebukes, the denunciations, the wit, the irony, the +sarcasm that were garnered there, and then judiciously pigeon-holed, +and milder and more persuasive appeals substituted, they would have +been truly thankful that they fared no worse.</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward, in the brief intervals in his Washington life, made +frequent visits in our neighborhood at the house of Judge G. V. +Sackett, a man of wealth and some political influence. One of the +Senator's standing anecdotes at dinner to illustrate the purifying +influence of woman at the polls, which he always told with great zest +for my special benefit, was in regard to the manner his wife's sister +exercised the right of suffrage.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Worden having the supervision of a farm near Auburn, was obliged +to hire two or three men for its cultivation. It was her custom, +having examined them as to their capacity to perform the required +labor, their knowledge of tools, horses, cattle, gardening, and +horticulture, to inquire as to their politics. She informed them that +being a woman and a widow, and having no one to represent her, she +must have Republicans to do her voting, to represent her political +opinions, and it always so happened that the men who offered their +services belonged to the Republican party.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Some one remarked to her one day, 'Are you sure your men vote as they +promise?' 'Yes,' she replied, 'I trust nothing to their discretion. I +take them in my carriage within sight of the polls, put them in charge +of some Republican who can be trusted. I see they have the right +tickets, then I feel sure I am faithfully represented, and I know I am +right in so doing. I have neither husband, father, nor son; am +responsible for my own taxes; am amenable to all the laws of the +State; must pay the penalty of my own crimes if I commit any; hence I +have the right, according to the principles of our government, to +representation, and so long as I am not permitted to vote in person, I +have a right to do so by proxy, hence I hire men to vote my +principles.'" Thus she disposed of the statesman and his seriocomic +morality.</p> + +<p>These two sisters, daughters of Judge Miller, an influential man of +wealth and position, were women of culture and remarkable natural +intelligence, and interested in all progressive ideas. They had rare +common-sense and independence of character, great simplicity of +manner, and were wholly indifferent to the little arts of the toilet.</p> + +<p>I was often told by fashionable women that one great objection to the +woman's rights movement was the publicity of the conventions; the +immodesty of speaking from a platform; and the trial of seeing one's +name in the papers. Several ladies made such remarks to me one day as +a bevy of us were sitting together in one of the fashionable hotels in +Newport. We were holding a Convention there at that time, and some of +them had been present at one of the sessions. "Really," said I, +"ladies, you surprise me; our Conventions are not as public as the +ball-room where I saw you all dancing last night. As to modesty, it +may be a question in many minds whether it is less modest to speak +words of soberness and truth, plainly dressed with one's person +decently covered on a platform, than gorgeously arrayed with bare arms +and shoulders, to waltz in the arms of strange gentlemen.</p> + +<p>"And as to the press, I noticed you all reading with evident +satisfaction the personal compliments and full descriptions of your +dresses at the last ball, in this morning's papers. I presume that any +one of you would have felt slighted if your name had not been +mentioned in the general description. When my name is mentioned, it is +in connection with some great moral movement, as making a speech, or +reading a resolution. Thus we all suffer or enjoy the same publicity, +we are all alike ridiculed, wise men pity and ridicule you, fops and +fools pity and ridicule me, you as the victims of folly and fashion, +me as the representative of many of the disagreeable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> 'isms' of the +age, as they choose to distinguish liberal opinions. It is amusing in +analyzing prejudices to see on what slender foundations they rest," +and the ladies around me were so completely cornered that no one +attempted an answer.</p> + +<p>I remember being at a party at Gov. Seward's one evening, when Mr. +Burlingame and his Chinese delegation were among the guests. As soon +as the dancing commenced, and young ladies and gentlemen locked in +each other's arms, began to whirl in the giddy waltz, these Chinese +gentlemen were so shocked that they covered their faces with their +fans, occasionally peeping out each side and expressing their surprise +to each other. They thought us the most immodest women on the face of +the earth. Modesty and good taste are questions of latitude and +education; the more people know, the more their ideas are expanded, by +travel, experience, and observation; the less easily they are shocked. +The narrowness and bigotry of women, are the result of their +circumscribed sphere of thought and action.</p> + +<p>Soon after Judge Hurlbut had published his work on "Human Rights," and +I had addressed the Legislature the first time, we met at a dinner +party in Albany; Mr. and Mrs. Seward were there. The Senator was very +merry on that occasion, and made Judge Hurlbut and myself the target +for all his ridicule on the woman's rights question, in which most of +the company joined, so that we stood quite alone. Sure that we had the +right on our side, and the arguments clearly defined in our own minds, +and both being cool and self-possessed, and with wit and sarcasm quite +equal to any of them, we fought the Senator inch by inch until he had +a very narrow platform to stand on. Mrs. Seward maintained an unbroken +silence, while those ladies who did open their lips were with the +opposition, supposing, no doubt, that Mr. Seward represented his +wife's opinions.</p> + +<p>When the ladies withdrew from the table, my embarrassment may be +easily imagined. Separated from the Judge, I should now be an hour +with a bevy of ladies who evidently felt a repulsion to all my most +cherished opinions. It was the first time I had met Mrs. Seward, and I +did not then know the broad liberal tendencies of her mind. What a +tide of disagreeable thoughts rushed through me in that short passage +from the dining-room to the parlor; how gladly I would have glided out +the front door, but that was impossible, so I made up my mind to +stroll round as if self-absorbed and look at the books and paintings +until the Judge appeared, as I took it for granted that after all I +said at the table on the political,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> religious, and social equality of +woman, not a lady would have anything to say to me.</p> + +<p>Imagine then my surprise when the moment the parlor door was closed +upon us, Mrs. Seward, approaching me most affectionately said, "Let me +thank you for all the brave words you uttered at the dinner-table, and +for your speech before the Legislature, that thrilled my soul as I +read it over and over." I was filled with joy and astonishment. +Recovering myself, I said, "Is it possible, Mrs. Seward, that you +agree with me? Then why, when I was so hard pressed with foes on every +side, did you not come to the defence? I supposed that all you ladies +were hostile to every one of my ideas on this question!" "No, no!" +said she, "I am with you thoroughly, but I am a born coward; there is +nothing I dread more than Mr. Seward's ridicule. I would rather walk +up to the cannon's mouth than encounter it." "I too am with you," "And +I," said two or three others who had been silent at the table. I never +had a more serious, heartfelt conversation than with these ladies. +Mrs. Seward's spontaneity and earnestness had moved them all deeply, +and when the Senator appeared the first word he said was, "Before we +part I must confess that I was fairly vanquished by you and the Judge, +on my own principles (for we had quoted some of his most radical +utterances). You have the argument, but custom and prejudice are +against you, and they are stronger than truth and logic."</p> + +<p>We had quite a magnetic circle of reformers in Central New York, that +kept the missives flying. At Rochester, were William H. Ohanning, +Frederick Douglass, the Anthonys, the Posts, the Hallowells, the +Stebbins, some grand Quaker families in Farmington, and Waterloo; Mrs. +Bloomer and her sprightly weekly called <i>The Lily</i>, at Seneca Falls; +Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Worden, Mrs. Seward, at Auburn; Gerrit Smith's +family at Peterboro; Beriah Green's at Whitesboro, with the Sedgwicks +and Mays, and Matilda Joslyn Gage at Syracuse. Although Mrs. Gage was +surrounded with a family of small children for years, yet she was +always a student, an omnivorous reader and liberal thinker, and her +pen was ever at work answering the attacks on the woman movement in +the county and State journals. In the village of Manlius, where she +lived some time after her marriage, she was the sole representative of +this unpopular reform. When walking the street she would often hear +some boy, shielded by a dry-goods box or a fence, cry out "woman's +rights."</p> + +<p>On one occasion, at a large evening party at Mr. Van Schaick's, the +host read aloud a poem called Rufus Chubb, a burlesque on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> +"strong-minded" women, ridiculing careers and conventions, and the +many claims being made for larger freedom. Mrs. Gage, then quite +young, was surprised and embarrassed. Every eye was fixed on her, as +evidently the type of womanhood the author was portraying. As soon as +the reader's voice died away, Mrs. Gage, with marked coolness and +grace, approached him, and with an imaginary wreath crowned him the +poet-laureate of the occasion, and introduced him to the company as +"the immortal Rufus Chubb." The expressive gesture and the few brief +words conferring the honor, turned the laugh on Mr. Van Schaick so +completely, that he was the target for all the merriment of the +evening.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gage was the only daughter of Dr. Hezekiah Joslyn, a man of +learning and philanthropic tendencies. He gave much attention to the +direction of his daughter's thought and reading. She always had a +knack of rummaging through old libraries, bringing more startling +facts to light than any woman I ever knew.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p> + +<p>In the winter of 1861, just after the election of Lincoln, the +Abolitionists decided to hold a series of Conventions in the chief +cities of the North. All their available speakers were pledged for +active service. The Republican party, having absorbed the political +Abolitionists within its ranks by its declared hostility to the +extension of slavery, had come into power with overwhelming +majorities; hence the Garrisonian Abolitionists, opposed to all +compromises, felt this was the opportune moment to rouse the people to +the necessity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> of holding that party to its declared principles, and +pushing it, if possible, a step or two forward.</p> + +<p>I was invited to accompany Miss Anthony and Beriah Green to a few +points in Central New York. But we soon found, by the concerted action +of Republicans all over the country, the Conventions were broken up at +every point. This furnished one occasion on which Republicans and +Democrats could work harmoniously together, and they made common cause +against the Abolitionists. The John Brown raid the year before had +intimidated Northern politicians as much as Southern slaveholders, and +the general feeling was that the discussion of the question at the +North should be altogether suppressed.</p> + +<p>From Buffalo to Albany our experience was the same, varied only by the +fertile resources of the actors and their surroundings. Thirty years +of education had somewhat changed the character of Northern mobs. They +no longer dragged men through the streets with ropes round their +necks, nor broke up women's prayer-meetings; they no longer threw eggs +and brickbats at the apostles of reform, nor dipped them in barrels of +tar and feathers; they simply crowded the halls, and with laughing, +groaning, clapping, and cheering, effectually interrupted the +proceedings.</p> + +<p>Thus we passed the two days we had advertised for a Convention in St. +James' Hall, Buffalo. As we paid for the Hall, the mob enjoyed +themselves at our expense in more ways than one. At the appointed time +every session we took our places on the platform, making at various +intervals of silence renewed efforts to speak. Not succeeding, we sat +and conversed with each other and many friends who crowded the +platform and ante-rooms. Thus among ourselves we had a pleasant +reception and a discussion of many phases of the question that brought +us together. The mob not only vouchsafed to us the privilege of +talking to our friends without interruption, but delegations of their +own came behind the scenes from time to time, to discuss with us the +right of free speech and the constitutionality of slavery.</p> + +<p>These Buffalo rowdies were headed by ex-Justice Hinson, aided by +younger members of the Fillmore and Seymour families and the Chief of +Police and fifty subordinates, who were admitted to the hall free for +the express purpose of protecting our right of free speech, which in +defiance of the Mayor's orders, they did not make the slightest effort +to do. At Lockport there was a feeble attempt in the same direction. +At Albion neither hall, church, nor school-house could be obtained, so +we held small meetings in the dining-room of the hotel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span></p> + +<p>At Rochester, Corinthian Hall was packed long before the hour +advertised. This was a delicately appreciative jocose mob. At this +point Aaron Powell joined us. As he had just risen from a bed of +sickness, looking pale and emaciated, he slowly mounted the platform. +The mob at once took in his look of exhaustion, and as he seated +himself they gave an audible, simultaneous sigh, as if to say, What a +relief it is to be seated! So completely did the tender manifestation +reflect Mr. Powell's apparent condition, that the whole audience burst +into a roar of laughter. Here, too, all attempts to speak were futile.</p> + +<p>At Port Byron a generous sprinkling of cayenne pepper on the stove, +soon cut short all constitutional arguments and paeans to liberty. And +so it was all the way to Albany. The whole State was aflame with the +mob spirit, and from Boston and various points in other States, the +same news reached us. As the Legislature was in session, and we were +advertised in Albany, a radical member sarcastically moved "that as +Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony were about to move on Albany, the +militia be ordered out for the protection of the city."</p> + +<p>Happily, Albany could then boast a democratic Mayor, a man of courage +and conscience, who said the right of free speech should never be +trodden underfoot where he had the power to prevent it. And grandly +did that one determined man maintain order in his jurisdiction. +Through all the sessions of the Convention Mayor Thatcher sat on the +platform, his police stationed in different parts of the Hall and +outside the building, to disperse the crowd as fast as collected. If a +man or boy hissed or made the slightest interruption, he was +immediately ejected. And not only did the Mayor preserve order in the +meetings, but with a company of armed police, he escorted us every +time to and from the Delavan House. The last night Gerrit Smith +addressed the mob from the steps of the hotel, after which they gave +him three cheers, and dispersed in good order.</p> + +<p>When proposing for the Mayor a vote of thanks at the close of the +Convention, Mr. Smith expressed his fears that it had been a severe +ordeal for him to listen to these prolonged anti-slavery discussions, +he smiled, and said: "I have really been deeply interested and +instructed. I rather congratulate myself that a Convention of this +character has at last come in the line of my business, otherwise I +should have probably remained in ignorance of many important facts and +opinions I now understand and appreciate."</p> + +<p>Whilst all this was going on publicly, we had an equally trying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> +experience progressing day by day behind the scenes. Miss Anthony had +been instrumental in helping a fugitive mother with her child, escape +from a husband who had immured her in an insane asylum. The wife, +belonging to one of the first families of New York, her brother a +United States Senator, and the husband a man of position, a large +circle of friends and acquaintances were interested in the result. +Though she was incarcerated in an insane asylum for eighteen months, +yet members of her own family again and again testified that she was +not insane. Miss Anthony knowing that she was not, and believing fully +that the unhappy mother was the victim of a conspiracy, would not +reveal her hiding-place.</p> + +<p>Knowing the confidence Miss Anthony felt in the wisdom of Mr. Garrison +and Mr. Phillips, they were implored to use their influence with her +to give up the fugitives. Letters and telegrams, persuasions, +arguments, warnings, from Mr. Garrison, Mr. Phillips, the Senator, on +the one side, and from Lydia Mott, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet, Abby +Hopper Gibbons, on the other, poured in upon her day after day, but +Miss Anthony remained immovable, although she knew she was defying +authority and violating law, and that she might be arrested any moment +on the platform. We had known so many aggravated cases of this kind, +that in daily counsel we resolved that this woman should not be +recaptured if it was possible to prevent it. To us it looked as +imperative a duty to shield a sane mother who had been torn from a +family of little children and doomed to the companionship of lunatics, +and to aid her in fleeing to a place of safety, as to help a fugitive +from slavery to Canada. In both cases an unjust law was violated; in +both cases the supposed owners of the victims were defied, hence, in +point of law and morals, the act was the same in both cases. The +result proved the wisdom of Miss Anthony's decision, as all with whom +Mrs. P. came in contact for years afterward, expressed the opinion +that she was perfectly sane and always had been. Could the dark +secrets of these insane asylums be brought to light, we should be +shocked to know the countless number of rebellious wives, sisters, and +daughters that are thus annually sacrificed to false customs and +conventionalisms, and barbarous laws made by men for women.</p> + +<p>Quite an agitation occurred in 1852, on woman's costume. In demanding +a place in the world of work, the unfitness of her dress seemed to +some, an insurmountable obstacle. How can you, it was said, ever +compete with man for equal place and pay, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> garments of such frail +fabrics and so cumbrously fashioned, and how can you ever hope to +enjoy the same health and vigor with man, so long as the waist is +pressed into the smallest compass, pounds of clothing hung on the +hips, the limbs cramped with skirts, and with high heels the whole +woman thrown out of her true equilibrium. Wise men, physicians, and +sensible women, made their appeals, year after year; physiologists +lectured on the subject; the press commented, until it seemed as if +there were a serious demand for some decided steps, in the direction +of a rational costume for women. The most casual observer could see +how many pleasures young girls were continually sacrificing to their +dress: In walking, running, rowing, skating, dancing, going up and +down stairs, climbing trees and fences, the airy fabrics and flowing +skirts were a continual impediment and vexation. We can not estimate +how large a share of the ill-health and temper among women is the +result of the crippling, cribbing influence of her costume. Fathers, +husbands, and brothers, all joined in protest against the small waist, +and stiff distended petticoats, which were always themes for unbounded +ridicule. But no sooner did a few brave conscientious women adopt the +bifurcated costume, an imitation in part of the Turkish style, than +the press at once turned its guns on "The Bloomer," and the same +fathers, husbands, and brothers, with streaming eyes and pathetic +tones, conjured the women of their households to cling to the +prevailing fashions.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> The object of those who donned the new +attire, was primarily health and freedom; but as the daughter of +Gerrit Smith introduced it just at the time of the early conventions, +it was supposed to be an inherent element in the demand for political +equality. As some of those who advocated the right of suffrage wore +the dress, and had been identified with all the unpopular reforms, in +the reports of our conventions, the press rung the changes on +"strong-minded," "Bloomer," "free love," "easy divorce," +"amalgamation." I wore the dress two years and found it a great +blessing. What a sense of liberty I felt, in running up and down +stairs with my hands free to carry whatsoever I would, to trip through +the rain or snow with no skirts to hold or brush, ready at any moment +to climb a hill-top to see the sun go down, or the moon rise, with no +ruffles or trails to be limped by the dew, or soiled by the grass. +What an emancipation from little petty vexatious trammels and +annoyances every hour of the day. Yet such is the tyranny of custom, +that to escape constant observation, criticism, ridicule, +persecution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> mobs,<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> one after another gladly went back to the old +slavery and sacrificed freedom to repose. I have never wondered since +that the Chinese women allow their daughters' feet to be encased in +iron shoes, nor that the Hindoo widows walk calmly to the funeral +pyre. I suppose no act of my life ever gave my cousin, Gerrit Smith, +such deep sorrow, as my abandonment of the "Bloomer costume." He +published an open letter<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> to me on the subject, and when his +daughter, Mrs. Miller, three years after, followed my example, he felt +that women had so little courage and persistence, that for a time he +almost despaired of the success of the suffrage movement; of such +vital consequence in woman's mental and physical development did he +feel the dress to be.</p> + +<p>Gerrit Smith<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> Samuel J. May, J. C. Jackson, C. D. Miller and D. C. +Bloomer, sustained the women who lead in this reform, unflinchingly, +during the trying experiment. Let the names of those who made this +protest be remembered. We knew the Bloomer costume never could be +generally becoming, as it required a perfection of form, limbs, and +feet, such as few possessed, and we who wore it also knew that it was +not artistic. Though the martyrdom proved too much for us who had so +many other measures to press on the public conscience, yet no +experiment is lost, however evanescent, that rouses thought to the +injurious consequences of the present style of dress, sacrificing to +its absurdities so many of the most promising girls of this +generation.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> One imagined himself possessed of rare powers of +invention (an ancestral weakness for generations), and had just made a +life-preserver of corks, and tested its virtues on a brother about +eighteen months old. Accompanied by a troop of expectant boys, the +baby was drawn in his carriage to the banks of the Seneca, stripped, +the string of corks tied under his arms, and set afloat in the river, +the philosopher and his satellites in a row-boat, watching the +experiment. The child, accustomed to a morning bath in a large tub, +splashed about joyfully, keeping his head above water. He was as blue +as indigo, and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious mother. +The next day, the same victimized infant was seen by a passing friend, +seated on the chimney, on the highest peak of the house. Without +alarming any one, the friend hurried up to the house-top, and rescued +the child from the arms of the philosopher. Another time, three elder +brothers entered into a conspiracy, and locked up the fourth in the +smoke-house. Fortunately, he sounded the alarm loud and clear, and was +set free in safety, whereupon the three were imprisoned in a garret +with two barred windows. They summarily kicked out the bars, and +sliding down on the lightning-rod betook themselves to the barn for +liberty. The youngest boy, then only five years old, skinned his hands +in the descent. This is a fair sample of the quiet happiness I enjoyed +in the first years of motherhood. It was 'mid such exhilarating scenes +that Miss Anthony and I wrote addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, +educational and woman's rights conventions. Here we forged +resolutions, protests, appeals, petitions, agricultural reports, and +constitutional arguments, for we made it a matter of conscience to +accept every invitation to speak on every question, in order to +maintain woman's right to do so. To this end, we took turns on the +domestic watch-towers, directing amusements, settling disputes, +protecting the weak against the strong, and trying to secure equal +rights to all in the home as well as the nation. I can recall many a +stern encounter between my friend and the young experimenter. It is +pleasant to remember that he never seriously injured any of his +victims, and only once came near shooting himself with a pistol. The +ball went through his hand; happily a brass button prevented it from +penetrating his heart.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> When the flock reached the magic number of seven, my +good angel would sometimes take one or two to her own quiet home just +out of Rochester, where on a well-cultivated little farm, one could +enjoy uninterrupted rest and the choicest fruits of the season. That +was always a safe harbor for my friend, as her family sympathized +fully in the reforms to which she gave her life. I have many pleasant +memories of my own flying visits to that hospitable Quaker home and +the broad catholic spirit of Daniel and Lucy Anthony. Whatever +opposition and ridicule their daughter endured elsewhere, she enjoyed +the steadfast sympathy and confidence of her own home circle. Her +faithful sister Mary, a most successful principal in the public +schools of Rochester for a quarter of a century, and a good financier, +who with her patrimony and salary has laid by a competence, took on +her shoulders double duty at home in cheering the declining years of +her parents, that Susan might do the public work in these reforms, in +which the sisters were equally interested. At one time when Susan had +expended her last dollar in the publication of her paper, <i>The +Revolution</i>, and also $5,000 given her by a wealthy cousin, Anson +Lapham, Mary generously advanced another five thousand, and thus +bridged the last chasm. And now with life's earnest work nearly +accomplished, the sisters are living happily together, illustrating +another of the many charming homes of single women so rapidly +multiplying in later years.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Mrs. Gage received a somewhat remarkable early training. +Not only was her father a man of profound thought, a reformer +thoroughly studying all the new questions coming up, but his house was +a station on the underground railroad, the home of anti-slavery +speakers and advanced thinkers upon every subject, as well as that of +a large number of clergymen, who yearly held "protracted meetings" in +the place. Sitting up until midnight listening to the discussions of +those reverend gentlemen upon baptism, original sin, predestination, +and other doctrinal points, her thought was early turned to religious +questions. She read the Bible through before she was nine years old, +and became a church member at the early age of eleven, her parents, in +accordance with their habits, not attempting to influence her mind for +or against this step. +</p><p> +Dr. Joslyn paid great attention to his daughter's education. From her +earliest years it was a law of the household that her childish +questions should not be put off with an idle reply, but must be +reasonably answered; and when she was older, he himself instructed her +in mathematics, Greek, and physiology. But that for which she feels +most indebted to him, as she often says—the grandest training given +her—was to think for herself. She was taught to accept no opinion +because of its authority, but to question the truth of all things. +Thus was laid the foundation of Mrs. Gage's reform tendencies and of +her non-acceptance of masculine authority in matters of religion and +politics. Nor was she, in a certain way, less indebted to her mother, +a Scotch lady, belonging to the noble, old, and influential family of +Leslie, a woman of refined and elevated tastes, universally respected +and beloved. From this side Mrs. Gage inherited her antiquarian tastes +and habits of delving into old histories, from which she has unearthed +so many facts bearing upon woman's degradation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Gerrit Smith's home was ever a charming resort for +lovers of liberty as well as lovers of Eve's daughters. In his leisure +hours my cousin had a turn for match-making, and his chief delight in +this direction was to promote unions between good Abolitionists and +the sons and daughters of conservative families. Here James G. Birney, +among others, wooed and won his wife. Here one would meet the first +families in the State, with Indians, Africans, slaveholders, +religionists of all sects, and representatives of all shades of +humanity, each class alike welcomed and honored, feasting, feting, +dancing—joining in all kinds of amusements and religious worship +together (the Indians excepted, as they generally came for provisions, +which, having secured, they departed). His house was one of the depots +of the underground railroad. One day Mr. Smith summoned all the young +girls then visiting there, saying he had a great secret to tell them +if they would sacredly pledge themselves not to divulge it. Having +done so, he led the way to the third story, ushered us into a large +room, and there stood a beautiful quadroon girl to receive us. +"Harriet," said Mr. Smith, "I want you to make good Abolitionists of +these girls by describing to them all you have suffered in slavery." +He then left the room, locking us in. Her narrative held us +spell-bound until the lengthening shadows of the twilight hour made +her departure safe for Canada. One remark she made impressed me +deeply. I told her of the laws for women such as we then lived under, +and remarked on the parallel condition of slaves and women. "Yes," +said she, "but I am both. I am doubly damned in sex and color. Yea, in +class too, for I am poor and ignorant; none of you can ever touch the +depth of misery where I stand to-day." We had the satisfaction to see +Harriet dressed in Quaker costume, closely veiled, drive off in the +moonlight that evening, to find the liberty she could not enjoy in +this Republic, under the shadow of a monarch's throne.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3>NEW YORK.</h3> + + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>First Steps in New York—Woman's Temperance Convention, Albany, +January, 1852—New York Woman's State Temperance Society, +Rochester, April, 1852—Women before the Legislature pleading for +a Maine Law—Women rejected as Delegates to Men's State +Conventions at Albany and Syracuse, 1852; at the Brick Church +Meeting and World's Temperance Convention in New York, +1858—Horace Greeley defends the Rights of Women in <i>The York +Tribune</i>—The Teachers' State Conventions—The Syracuse National +Woman's Rights Convention, 1852—Mob in the Broadway Tabernacle +Woman's Rights Convention through two days, 1853—State Woman's +Rights Convention at Rochester, December, 1853—Albany +Convention, February, 1854, and Hearing before the Legislature +demanding the Right of Suffrage—A State Committee +Appointed—Susan B. Anthony General Agent—Conventions at +Saratoga Springs, 1854, '55, '59—Annual State Conventions with +Legislative Hearings and Reports of Committees, until the +War—Married Women's Property Law, 1860—Bill before the +Legislature Granting Divorce for Drunkenness—Horace Greeley and +Thurlow Weed oppose it—Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, and +Elizabeth Cady Stanton Address the Legislature in favor of the +Bill—Robert Dale Owen defends the Measure in <i>The New York +Tribune</i>—National Woman's Rights Conventions in New York City, +1856, '58, '59, '60—Status of the Woman's Rights Movement at the +Opening of the War, 1861.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">A full</span> report of the woman's rights agitation in the State of New +York, would in a measure be the history of the movement. In this +State, the preliminary battles in the anti-slavery, temperance, +educational, and religious societies were fought; the first +Governmental aid given to the higher education of woman, and her voice +first heard in teachers' associations. Here the first Woman's Rights +Convention was held, the first demand made for suffrage, the first +society formed for this purpose, and the first legislative efforts +made to secure the civil and political rights of women; commanding the +attention of leading members of the bar; of Savage, Spencer, Hertell, +and Hurlbut. Here too the pulpit made the first demand for the +political rights of woman. Here was the first temperance society +formed by women, the first medical college opened to them, and woman +first ordained for the ministry.</p> + +<p>In 1850, in the city of Buffalo, 1,500 women petitioned the Common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> +Council not to license the sale of intoxicating drinks; and the +following year, they sent a petition to the Legislature, signed by +2,200, asking for an act authorizing some official body to take into +custody, and provide for the swarms of vagrant children, growing up in +ignorance and vice. This may be considered the initiative step to a +Board of Charities. In the same year, a number of spirited women in +Fulton, Oswego Co., disgusted with the inefficient action of the +temperance men, entered complaint against the liquor dealers, for the +violation of the license laws, and some of them attended the trials in +person. In 1851, the ladies of Cardiff, Onondaga Co., appeared before +the Grand Jury, and made complaint against the liquor dealers and +overseers of the poor, the one for violating the law, the other for +neglecting to prosecute the violators on their complaint, and they +succeeded in getting both indicted. In 1851, a petition was sent from +Ontario County, praying the Legislature to exempt women from taxation.</p> + +<p>September 15, 1853, Antoinette L. Brown was ordained as pastor of a +church in South Butler, and November 15, performed the ceremony at the +marriage of a daughter of Rhoda de Garmo, of Rochester. In this year, +at a large Convention of liberal people, to promote Christian Union, +held in Syracuse, she made an address. All denominations took part on +the occasion and listened to her with respectful attention. In New +York, woman's voice was first heard on the Nation's great festal day. +In 1853, Mary Vaughan gave the fourth of July oration at Speedsville, +Emily Clarke at Watkins, Amelia Bloomer at Hartford, and Antoinette +Brown at South Butler. Everything on these occasions was conducted as +usual: the grand procession to the grove, or town hall, the military +escort, reading the Declaration, martial music, cannon, fire-crackers, +torpedoes, roast pig, and green peas; none of the usual accompaniments +were omitted. In the same year, Antoinette Brown and Lucy Stone +canvassed the twenty-second district, to secure the election of the +Hon. Gerrit Smith for Congress, and were successful in their efforts.</p> + +<p>In April, 1854, the Daughters of Temperance at Johnson's Creek, sent +thirty pieces of silver to Gov. Seymour, for vetoing a bill for a +prohibitory law, and thus betraying the friends of temperance. In New +York, the first anti-tax association, the first woman's club and Loyal +League were formed. Here, too, a woman, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, +was appointed State Commissioner of Charities, by Gov. Samuel J. +Tilden. Whether the Governor of any other State<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> had preceded him in a +more profitable or honorable appointment, has not yet been discovered. +Lest women should feel too deep a sense of gratitude, they should +understand that this office involves arduous labors, but no pecuniary +recompense. This may be a reason that such positions are being +gradually assigned to women.</p> + +<p>At the time of this general uprising, New York was thoroughly stirred +with temperance and anti-slavery excitement. George Thompson, the +great English reformer and orator, who had been mobbed in all the +chief cities of the North, accompanied by William Lloyd Garrison, was +holding a series of conventions through the State. And as these +conventions were held in the midst of the "Jerry rescue trials,"<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> +the apostles of freedom spoke with terrible vehemence and +denunciation. Popular orators, too, were rushing here and there in the +furor of a Presidential campaign, and as all these reforms were thrown +into the governmental cauldron for discussion, the whole people seemed +to be on the watch towers of politics and philanthropy. Women shared +in the general unrest, and began to take many steps before unknown. +Since 1840, they had generally attended political meetings, as with +the introduction of moral questions into legislation, they had +manifested an increasing interest in government.</p> + +<p>The repeal of the License Law of 1846, filled the temperance hosts +throughout the State with alarm, and roused many women to the +assertion of their rights. Impoverished, broken-hearted wives and +mothers, were for the first time looking to the State for some +protection against the cruelties and humiliations they endured at the +hands of liquor dealers, when suddenly the beneficent law was +repealed, and their reviving hopes crushed. The burning indignation of +women, who had witnessed the protracted outrages on helpless wives and +children in the drunkard's home, roused many to public speech, and +gave rise to the secret organizations called "Daughters of +Temperance." Others finding there was no law nor gospel in the land +for their protection, took the power in their own hands, visiting +saloons, breaking windows, glasses, bottles, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> emptying demijohns +and barrels into the streets. Coming like whirlwinds of vengeance, +drunkards and rum-sellers stood paralyzed before them. Though women +were sometimes arrested for these high-handed proceedings, a strong +public sentiment justified their acts, and forced the liquor dealers +to withdraw their complaints.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p>There is nothing more terrible than the reckless courage of despairing +women, who, though knowing they have eternal truth and justice on +their side, know also their helplessness against the tide of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> misery +engulphing the drunkard's home. Women were applauded for these acts of +heroism by the press and temperance leagues; they were welcomed too as +speakers sometimes on their platforms, just as slaves were in the +olden days, to move an audience with their tales of woe. But when they +organized themselves into associations, adopted constitutions, passed +resolutions, and sent their delegates to men's conventions, asking to +be recognized as equals, then began the battle in the temperance +ranks, vindictive and protracted for years. The clergy were the most +bitter opponents of the public action of women; but throughout the +conflict they were sustained by the purest men in the nation, such as +Horace Greeley, Joshua R. Giddings, Rev. E. H. Chapin, Rev. Samuel J. +May, Thomas W. Higginson, William H. Channing, Gerrit Smith, Wendell +Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and others. All this persecution on +the ground of sex, intensified the love of liberty in woman's soul, +and deepened the oft repeated lesson of individual rights.</p> + +<p>On January 28, 1852, "The Daughters of Temperance" assembled in Albany +to take part in a mass meeting of all the "Divisions" in the State. +Among the delegates present were Susan B. Anthony, Mary C. Vaughan, +and Lydia Fowler, who were received as members of the Convention. But +at the first attempt by Miss Anthony to speak, they were informed that +the ladies were invited to listen, and not to take part in the +proceedings. Those women present who were not satisfied with such a +position withdrew, announcing that they would hold a meeting that +evening in which men and women would stand on equal ground.</p> + +<p>At the appointed time they assembled in the vestry-room of the +Presbyterian church on Hudson Street. Samuel J. May, who was in Albany +attending one of the "Jerrey Rescue Trials," was present, and opened +the meeting with prayer. Mrs. Vaughan was chosen President,<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> and on +taking the chair, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>We have met to consider what we, as women, can do and may do, to +forward the temperance reform. We have met, because, as members +of the human family, we share in all the sufferings which error +and crime bring upon the race, and because we are learning that +our part in the drama of life is something beside inactive +suffering and passive endurance. We would act as well as endure; +and we meet here to-day because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> many of us have been trying to +act, and we would combine our individual experiences, and +together devise plans for the future, out of which shall arise +well-based hopes of good results to humanity. We are aware that +this proceeding of ours, this calling together of a body of women +to deliberate publicly upon plans to carry out a specified +reform, will rub rather harshly upon the mould of prejudice, +which has gathered thick upon the common mind.</p> + +<p>.... There are plenty of women, as well as men, who can labor for +reforms without neglecting business or duty. It is an error that +clings most tenaciously to the public mind, that because a part +of the sex are wives and mothers and have absorbing duties, that +all the sex should be denied any other sphere of effort. To +deprive every unmarried woman, spinster, or widow, or every +childless wife, of the power of exercising her warm sympathies +for the good of others, is to deprive her of the greatest +happiness of which she is capable; to rob her highest faculties +of their legitimate operation and reward; to belittle and narrow +her mind; to dwarf her affections; to turn the harmonies of her +nature to discord; and, as the human mind must be active, to +compel her to employ hers with low and grovelling thoughts, which +lead to contemptible actions.</p> + +<p>There is no reform in which woman can act better or more +appropriately than temperance. I know not how she can resist or +turn aside from the duty of acting in this; its effects fall so +crushingly upon her and those whose interests are identical with +her own; she has so often seen its slow, insidious, but not the +less surely fatal advances, gaining upon its victim; she has seen +the intellect which was her dearest pride, debased; the +affections which were her life-giving springs of action, +estranged; the children once loved, abused, disgraced and +impoverished; the home once an earthly paradise, rendered a fit +abode for lost spirits; has felt in her own person all the +misery, degradation, and woe of the drunkard's wife; has shrunk +from revilings and cowered beneath blows; has labored and toiled +to have her poor earnings transferred to the rum-seller's +ill-gotten hoard; while her children, ragged, fireless, poor, +starving, gathered shivering about her, and with hollow eyes, +from which all smiles had fled, begged vainly for the bread she +had not to bestow. Oh! the misery, the utter, hopeless misery of +the drunkard's wife!</p> + +<p>.... We account it no reason why we should desist, when +conscience, an awakened sense of duty, and aroused +heart-sympathies, would lead us to show ourselves something +different than an impersonation of the vague ideal which has been +named, Woman, and with which woman has long striven to identify +herself. A creature all softness and sensibility, who must +necessarily enjoy and suffer in the extreme, while sharing with +man the pleasures and the ills of life; bearing happiness meekly, +and sorrow with fortitude; gentle, mild, submissive, forbearing +under all circumstances; a softened reflex of the opinions and +ideas of the masculines who, by relationship, hold mastery over +her; without individualism, a mere adjunct of man, the chief +object of whose creation was to adorn and beautify his existence, +or to minister to some form of his selfishness. This is nearly +the masculine idea of womanhood, and poor womanhood strives to +personify it. But not all women.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span></p> + +<p>This is an age of iconoclasms; and daring hands are raised to +sweep from its pedestal, and dash to fragments, this false image +of woman. We care not how soon, if the true woman but take its +place. This is also, and most emphatically, an age of progress. +One old idea, one mouldering form of prejudice after another, is +rapidly swept away. Thought, written and spoken, acts upon the +mass of mind in this day of railroads and telegraphs, with a +thousandfold more celerity than in the days of pillions and slow +coaches. Scarce have the lips that uttered great thoughts ceased +to move, or the pen which wrote them dropped from the weary hand, +ere they vibrate through the inmost recesses of a thousand +hearts, and awaken deep and true responses in a thousand living, +truthful souls. Thence they grow, expand, fructify, and the +result is Progress.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler then gave several very touching recitals of the +evils of intemperance in family circles within her own observation. +Her lectures on Hygiene and Physiology through the State, illustrating +as she did the effect of alcohol on the system, and pointing out to +mothers what they could do to promote the health of their children, +and thus ensure temperance and morality, were most effective in their +bearings on this question. Letters were read from Elizabeth Cady +Stanton, Clarina Howard Nichols, and Amelia Bloomer.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. <span class="smcap">May</span>, on rising, said: The sudden and unjustifiable repeal of +the License Law of 1846, changed the face of the community, which +had everywhere brightened with new hope under the brief but +salutary operation of that law. That repeal, which it was +indecorous if not presumptuous in the representatives of the +people to make, seeing the law had been enacted directly by the +people in their primary assemblies; that repeal brought back all +the evils of intemperance aggravated by the successful efforts +which had been openly and covertly made to break down the +barriers which the law of 1846 had set up. The flood-gates of +this loathsome vice were slammed open, as if never to be shut +again. What I have seen and heard since I came to the capital, +has encouraged me not a little. I have met with gentlemen from +all parts of the State, who seem to be convinced that the people +are ready for the passage of a stringent law similar to that +which has recently gone into operation in Maine.</p> + +<p>But I am particularly encouraged that the women of the State have +made an especial and somewhat novel movement in this behalf. It +has in all ages of the world been ominous when the women of a +country have come out of the retirement they generally choose, to +take a public part in the affairs of the State. What if this +Convention be not a large one, it is significant nevertheless. I +could cite you to a reform in our own country which commenced +with less than twelve individuals twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> years ago, and now that +reform has drawn into its vortex all the living spirits in the +land, and has created an agitation of the public mind that will +never be quelled until Slavery is buried out of sight forever. If +the women of New York will act up to the noble sentiments that +have been expressed in the addresses and letters written by women +to this Convention, great and glorious results must follow. And +there are especial reasons why women should be earnest in this +cause. Their sex, though not so much addicted as ours to the use +of intoxicating drinks, suffers more from the effects of the +evil. To them it is the destruction of all domestic peace, the +wreck of all conjugal and maternal hopes; it is ignorance, +poverty, misery, for themselves and children. My own attention +was first called to this reform by the sufferings of women. (Mr. +May here related several touching anecdotes of most estimable +women he had known, devoted wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, +who had been utterly despoiled of all earthly comfort by the +intemperance of those they loved).</p> + +<p>At one time I thought this evil might be repressed by man alone; +but I have learned that humanity is dual. God made man male and +female. The sexes are equally concerned in the welfare of the +race. What God has joined together must not be put asunder. Women +are constituent parts of the State and the Church, as well as of +the home; and their influence is as indispensable to the +well-being of the former as the latter. A State or Church that +excludes woman from its councils, is like a family without a +mother, in a condition of half orphanage.</p> + +<p>In the days of our Revolution women made as many sacrifices and +endured as great sufferings for independence, as did the men. It +is most ungrateful when we are speaking of that event, and the +actors in it, not to make mention of our Revolutionary Mothers. +In the French Revolution women were conspicuous actors. If Madame +Roland and her coadjutors had been allowed to sway the public +councils, the results would have been far happier for France.</p> + +<p>In moral revolutions women have ever signalized themselves. It +was a woman, Elizabeth Fry, who in England commenced the reform +in the discipline of prisons, and prosecuted it in person for +years, until she had proven her plans feasible, and inspired +others with a faith like her own. It was Dorothea Dix (a very +delicately organized woman), who first in this country recognized +the claims and acknowledged the rights of the insane. She found +these poor victims of man's ignorance everywhere suffering +terrible hardships. They were dreaded by all, and abhorred by +many who had charge of them, and believed to be incapable of +suffering as sane people suffer, and to be beyond the reach of +those kindly influences which more than all others control those +who are in their right minds. Miss Dix penetrated their +cheerless, dark, damp abodes. She brought to light the wrongs +that were inflicted upon them. She exposed the folly of the fears +which were entertained of them. She showed by her own courageous +experiments that even furious maniacs could be controlled by the +spirit of Christian love. The asylums in many of our States +to-day are noble monuments to the inestimable value of her +services.</p> + +<p>When Miss Dix first visited the insane department of the jail in +Cambridge,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> to look after one miserable human being she had +chanced to hear was immured there, she little thought of the +career of benevolent effort and of high distinction as a +philanthropist that was opening before her. She went only to give +relief to a solitary sufferer. But the dejected, helpless and +wretched condition in which she found the insane there, raised +the inquiry in her mind whether it could be that the same class +of unfortunates were treated in this wise elsewhere. Such an +inquiry could not be suppressed in a heart like hers; it urged +her on to further investigation. It led to new developments of +the methods that philanthropists and scientists were advocating +in France. She came at last to feel that she had a mission to +that class of "the lost ones," and she has fulfilled it +gloriously. She has been the angel of the Lord to the insane in +almost all the States of the Union.</p> + +<p>The Anti-Slavery cause in both England and America, owes as much +to woman as to man. If in Great Britain the suppression of the +African slave trade was commenced by men, the abolition of West +India slavery was begun by women; and it is acknowledged that +they did more than the men to accomplish the overthrow of that +system of all imaginable wickedness, which, while it endured, +stimulated the cupidity of the slave-trader, so that he +prosecuted his accursed traffic as much as ever, notwithstanding +the acts of the American Congress and the British Parliament. In +our country the most efficient, untiring laborers in the +anti-slavery cause, have from the beginning been women. Lydia +Maria Child, a lady highly distinguished among the authors of +America, was the first to publish a sizable book upon slavery. +Its very title was a pregnant one, viz, "An Appeal in behalf of +that Class of Americans called Africans." Its contents were of +great and permanent value. The publication of that volume was to +her a costly sacrifice of popularity as an author. At a very +early period of the enterprise, Elizabeth M. Chandler published +many essays and poems that will live forever. The bravery and +persistence of Prudence Crandall in maintaining a school for +colored girls in Connecticut, in the face of terrible +persecution, is beyond praise. Maria Weston Chapman, since 1834, +has been among the leaders of the anti-slavery host, directing +their movements and stimulating them to effort. Lucretia Mott, +Sarah Pugh, Eliza Lee Follen, Abby Kelly, Mary Grew, are all +worthy of mention—there is no end to the names of excellent, +wise, courageous women who have contended nobly for the +anti-slavery faith and practice. They have been traduced, +reviled, persecuted, but nothing has deterred them from +advocating the rights of humanity.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE CONVENTION,<br /> +<small><span class="smcap">Rochester</span>, N. Y., <i>April 20 and 21, 1852</i>.</small></h3> + +<p>At ten o'clock a large audience assembled in Corinthian Hall. The +morning session was composed entirely of women; more than five hundred +being present. The meeting was called to order by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> Susan B. Anthony, +who read the following call that had been extensively circulated +throughout the State:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The women of the State of New York who desire to aid in advancing +the cause of Temperance, and are willing to labor earnestly and +truthfully for its success, are respectfully invited to meet at +Corinthian Hall in the city of Rochester on the 20th of April, +for the purpose of devising, maturing, and recommending such a +course of associated action as shall best subserve for the +protection of their interests and of society at large, too long +invaded and destroyed by legalized intemperance. Feeling that +woman has hitherto been greatly responsible for the continuance +of this vice by encouraging social drinking, and by not +sufficiently exerting her influence for its overthrow, and +realizing that upon her rest the heaviest burthens which follow +in its train, the Committee are convinced that they will be +sustained by all good men and women in urging upon the sex such +noble and energetic action as shall tend to the downfall of the +traffic in intoxicating drinks.</p> + +<p>Arrangements have been made to render the occasion one of +interest to all friends of the cause. Addresses and +communications from both ladies and gentlemen of known ability +will be presented, and a general and comprehensive plan of +operation proposed, whereby woman may aid in the promotion of a +cause which appeals to her sympathy through the avenue of every +relation which binds her to the race.</p> + +<p>It is earnestly hoped that this meeting will be numerously +attended.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony, H. Attilia Albro</span>, and <span class="sc">Mary C. Vaughan</span>,<br /> +<i>Central Committee</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The officers of the Convention were then chosen. Elizabeth Cady +Stanton, President,<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> who on rising said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I fully appreciate, ladies, the compliment intended, in choosing +me to fill this place on an occasion of such interest and +importance. If a sincere love for the principles of temperance, a +fervent zeal in the welfare of woman, and an unwavering faith in +the final triumph of truth, fits one for this post of honor, then +am I not unworthy, though I must confess myself, from the novelty +of the position, ignorant alike of the rights and duties of the +office of President. I shall deeply regret if in any omissions or +commissions of duty I fail to reflect back on this Convention a +full share of the honor now conferred upon me.</p> + +<p>How my heart throbs to see women assembling in convention to +inquire what part they have in the great moral struggles of +humanity!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> Verily a new era is dawning upon the world, when +woman, hitherto the mere dependent of man, the passive recipient +alike of truth and error, at length shakes off her lethargy, the +shackles of a false education, customs and habits, and stands +upright in the dignity of a moral being, and not only proclaims +her own freedom, but demands what she shall do to save man from +the slavery of his own low appetites. We have come together at +this time to consult each other as to what woman may do in +banishing the vice of intemperance from the land. We can do much +by years of preparation and education of ourselves, for a great +moral revolution will burst forth with the regeneration of woman. +We shall do much when the pulpit, the forum, the professor's +chair, and the ballot-box are ours; but the question is, what can +we do to-day, under existing circumstances, under all the adverse +influences that surround us? I will briefly mention several +points for your consideration that have suggested themselves to +my mind.</p> + +<p>1. Let no woman remain in the relation of wife with the confirmed +drunkard. Let no drunkard be the father of her children. Let no +woman form an alliance with any man who has been suspected even +of the vice of intemperance; for the taste once acquired can +never, never be eradicated. Be not misled by any pledges, +resolves, promises, prayers, or tears. You can not rely on the +word of a man who is, or has been, the victim of such an +overpowering appetite.</p> + +<p>2. Let us petition our State governments so to modify the laws +affecting marriage, and the custody of children, that the +drunkard shall have no claims on either wife or child.</p> + +<p>3. Let us touch not, taste not, handle not, the unclean thing in +any combination. Let us eschew it in all culinary purposes, and +refuse it in all its most tempting and refined forms.</p> + +<p>4. With an efficient organization, lectures, tracts, newspapers, +and discussion, we shall accomplish much. I would give more for +the agitation of any question on sound principles, thus +enlightening and convincing the public mind, than for all the +laws that could be written or passed in a century. By the +foolishness of preaching, must all moral revolutions be achieved; +but remember the truth, the whole truth must be faithfully +preached.</p> + +<p>5. We must raise the standard of temperance in all things. The +man who over-eats takes a little wine to aid digestion, and he +who exhausts himself by licentious indulgence takes a little as a +stimulus; thus one vice induces another, and all go hand in hand +together.</p> + +<p>6. Let us endeavor to make labor honorable in all. Work is +worship, says Emerson. Let us honor the hard hand and sun-burnt +brow. Remember idleness is the parent of vice; and there is no +surer way to banish vice from our land, than to see that the +young just coming on the stage of life are wisely and fully +employed.</p> + +<p>And lastly, inasmuch as charity begins at home, let us withdraw +our mite from all associations for sending the Gospel to the +heathen across the ocean, for the education of young men for the +ministry, for the building up of a theological aristocracy and +gorgeous temples, to the unknown God, and devote ourselves to the +poor and suffering about us. Let us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> feed and clothe the hungry +and naked, gather children into schools, and provide +reading-rooms and decent homes for young men and women thrown +alone upon the world. Good schools and homes where the young +could ever be surrounded by an atmosphere of purity and virtue, +would do much more to prevent immorality and crime in our cities +than all the churches in the land could ever possibly do toward +the regeneration of the multitude sunk in poverty, ignorance, and +vice.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Susan B. Anthony, Chairman of the Central Committee, addressed the +meeting in a clear, forcible manner, alluding to the indifference +manifested by many women on the subject of temperance, and stated the +object of calling the women of the State together at this time. She +read letters<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> from Frances Dana Gage, Clarina Howard Nichols, +Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Abby Kelly Foster, and Horace Greeley. In the +discussion of the resolutions<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> during the different sessions, Giles +B. Stebbins, Benjamin Fish, William Barnes, Amy Post, Mrs. Albro, Mrs. +Vaughan, William C. Bloss, George W. Clark, and the Rev. Mr. Goodwin, +all took part. One resolution denouncing Mr. Gale, a State Senator, +for his insulting epithets in regard to the women who had petitioned +for a Maine law, called down on that gentleman some well-deserved +reprimands. The Rev. Mr. Goodwin expressed his indignation and shame, +that any man of education and position should use such language in +speaking of women who were so faithfully laboring in all the great +reforms of the day. Mrs. Bloomer in the course of her remarks also +criticised Mr. Gale for saying in a sneering way "that representatives +were not accustomed to listen to the voice of woman in legislating +upon great public questions; that the constitution of the female mind +was such as to render woman incapable of correctly deciding upon the +points involved in the passage of the proposed bill." After rousing +the attention of the people of the State by large and enthusiastic +meetings in all the chief cities, and sending into the Legislature a +mammoth petition for a Maine law, this was woman's answer. On the +Divorce resolution,</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Bloomer</span> said: We believe the teachings which have been given +to the drunkard's wife touching her duty—the commendable +examples of angelic wives which she has been exhorted to follow, +have done much to continue and aggravate the vices and crimes of +society growing out of intemperance. Drunkenness is good ground +for divorce, and every woman who is tied to a confirmed drunkard +should sunder the ties; and if she do it not otherwise the law +should compel it—especially if she have children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span></p> + +<p>We are told that such sentiments are "exceptional," "abhorrent," +that the moral sense of society is shocked and outraged by their +promulgation. Can it be possible that the moral sense of a people +is more shocked at the idea of a pure-minded, gentle woman +sundering the ties which bind her to a loathsome mass of +corruption, than it is to see her dragging out her days in +misery, tied to his besotted and filthy carcass? Are the morals +of society less endangered by the drunkard's wife continuing to +live in companionship with him, giving birth to a large family of +children who inherit naught but poverty and disgrace, and who +will grow up criminal and vicious, filling our prisons and +penitentiaries and corrupting and endangering the purity and +peace of community, than they would be, should she separate from +him and strive to win for herself and the children she may have, +comfort and respectability? The statistics of our prisons, +poor-houses, and lunatic asylums, teach us a fearful lesson on +this subject of morals.</p> + +<p>The idea of living with a drunkard is so abhorrent, so revolting +to all the finer feelings of our nature, that a woman must fall +very low before she can endure such companionship. Every +pure-minded woman must look with loathing and disgust upon such a +union of virtue and vice; and he who would compel her to it, or +dissuade the drunkard's wife from separating herself from such +wretchedness and degradation, is doing much to perpetuate +drunkenness and crime, and is wanting in the noblest feelings of +human nature. Thanks to our Legislature, if they have not given +us the Maine law, they are deliberating upon the propriety of +giving to the wives of drunkards and tyrants a loop-hole of +escape from the brutal cruelty of their self-styled lords and +masters. A bill of this kind has passed the House, but may be +lost in the Senate. Should it not pass now, it will be brought up +again, and passed at no distant day. Then if women have any +spirit, they will free themselves from much of the oppression and +wrong which they have hitherto of necessity borne.</p></blockquote> + +<p>A brief address was read by Mrs. Robinson, of Darien. This woman had +been for many years the wife of a drunkard; she had overcome many +obstacles to attend this Convention for the purpose of relating her +experience, and offering words of encouragement. Her narration of the +trials and sufferings she had endured was very affecting. She fully +endorsed the tenth resolution, "That the woman who consents to live in +the relation of wife with a confirmed drunkard, is, in so doing, +recreant to the cause of humanity, and to the dignity of a true +womanhood."</p> + +<p>An organization was effected called "The Woman's New York State +Temperance Society"; large numbers of the members of the Convention +signed the Constitution, and elected Elizabeth Cady Stanton +President<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a>. A vote of thanks was passed to Horace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> Greeley for the +kind manner in which he had uniformly sustained the women in their +temperance efforts in <i>The New York Tribune</i>, and after six long +sessions, the Convention adjourned.</p> + +<p>As President of "The Woman's State Temperance Society," Mrs. Stanton +issued a plain, strong appeal to the women of the State in which it +was said woman's rights predominated over temperance. The strong point +she uniformly pressed on the temperance question was the right and +duty of divorce for drunkenness. A letter of hers to the Convention in +Albany on this point, was so radical, that the friends feared to read +it; however, after much discussion, Susan B. Anthony took the +responsibility. It was read to the Convention, and published in <i>The +Lily</i> and other papers, and called out many condemnatory notices by +the press. <i>The Troy Journal</i> was much excited at the idea of "a +virtuous woman severing the tie that bound her to a confirmed +drunkard," and spoke of such a union of virtue and vice as a "divine +institution," sacred in the eye of the "divine author," and declared +Mrs. Stanton's teachings "reviling Christianity."</p> + +<p>However, these bold utterances roused the consciences of many women to +the sinfulness of such relations, and encouraged them in sundering +such unholy ties.</p> + +<p>At the Rochester Convention, Gerrit Smith, Susan B. Anthony, and +Amelia Bloomer were appointed delegates to "The Men's State Temperance +Society," to be held in June, at Syracuse. The call for the meeting +contained these words, "Temperance associations of every name are +invited to send delegates." Hence the Woman's State Society being +earnestly enlisted in the good work, responded to this invitation. +Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer accepted the appointment, and on +arriving at Syracuse, found many of the delegates already there, and +everything indicating a large Convention. The next morning, while +preparing to go to the hall, a gentleman was announced, who wished to +see them in the parlor. On descending thither, they were happy to meet +Samuel J. May. He came to inform them that their arrival had created +great excitement among some of the clergy, who were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> shocked at the +idea of women delegates to the Convention, and threatened if they were +admitted, to withdraw. This had alarmed others who were not quite so +conservative, but who feared to have anything occur to create +disturbance. They had persuaded Mr. May to wait upon the ladies and +urge them quietly to withdraw. Mr. May performed his part well, merely +stating the facts of the case, and leaving them to act upon their own +judgment. But when they decided to present their credentials and +demand their rights as members of the Convention, his face beamed with +joy, as he said to them, "You are right." At the appointed time they +were seated with other ladies in attendance at the side of the +platform. Presently Rev. Dr. Mandeville, of Albany, arose, turned his +chair facing them, his back to the audience, and stared at them with +all the impudence of a boor, as if to wither them with his piercing +glance.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">William H. Burleigh</span>, says <i>The Lily</i>,<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> read the annual report, +which, among other things, "hailed the formation of the Woman's +State Society as a valuable auxiliary in the cause of +temperance." Rev. J. Marsh moved that the report be accepted and +adopted.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Mandeville</span> objected in a speech of some length, characterized +by more venom and vulgarity than it had ever before been our +fortune to hear; and such as the most foul-mouthed politician or +bar-room orator would have hesitated to utter before respectable +audiences. He denounced the Woman's State Temperance Society, and +all women who took an active public part in promoting the cause. +Spoke contemptuously of woman going from home to attend a +temperance convention, and characterized such as a sort of +"hybrid species, half man and half woman, belonging to neither +sex." The short dress and woman's rights questions were "handled +without gloves." These movements must be put down; cut up root +and branch, etc., etc., and finally his Reverence wound up with a +threat that if the report was adopted without striking out the +offensive sentence he would dissolve his connection with the +Society. Having thus discharged his venom, and issued his +commands, he took his hat and with a pompous air left the house +and did not again show himself at the meetings.</p> + +<p>A warm discussion followed the motion for striking out, which it +would be impossible to describe. Mr. Havens, of New York, offered +an amendment—substituting a sort of unmeaning compliment to the +ladies, and asking their influence in their proper sphere—the +domestic circle. The discussion was kept up, but amid the +confusion of "Mr. President!" "Mr. President!" "Order!" "Order!" +"I have the floor!" "I will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> speak, right or wrong!" from at +least half a dozen voices, until all lost sight of both motion +and amendment.</p> + +<p>Miss Anthony arose and addressed the Chair, but was at once +called to order by Rev. Fowler, of Utica. He denied woman's right +to speak in that meeting. Here the confusion again began. "Mr. +President!" "Mr. President!" "Order!" "Order!" "Hear the lady!" +"Hear the lady!" "Let her speak!" "Let her speak!" "Go on, go +on!" "Order! order!" in the midst of which the president left the +chair, and said if there was any gentleman present who could keep +order he would thank him to take the chair; he could hear nothing +when so many were talking at once, and if order was not preserved +he would not attempt to preside. A moment's quiet followed, and +then all was confusion again. The conservatives were determined +to have their way, and nearly every attempt on the part of the +liberals to make themselves heard was frustrated.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A. N. Cole</span>, of Belfast, succeeded in keeping the floor a few +moments, and spoke ably in defence of woman and of her right to +be heard. He declared that man had no more right to prescribe +woman's sphere and mark out a course of action for her, than she +had to prescribe man's sphere and dictate his course of action. +Woman had ever been untiring and earnest in her labors in this +cause, and he was ready at all times and everywhere to +acknowledge her aid, and hail her as a co-worker. He insisted +that woman had a right to be heard on that floor; that she was +there on the invitation of the Society, and they could not refuse +her a voice in the proceedings.</p> + +<p>But points of order were raised, and a determination manifested +not to permit a fair discussion of the subject. The Chair was at +length appealed to for a decision. He decided that the letter of +the Constitution of the State Society, and also the call for this +meeting would admit woman to an equal participation in the +proceedings, and allow her a vote; but as there were no female +societies in existence five years ago when this Society was +organized, such a thing was not contemplated at that time; he +therefore considered her inadmissible. "The letter of the +Constitution and call would admit her, but the spirit would not."</p> + +<p>Mr. Camp must have been very ignorant not to know that ten years +before there were efficient woman's temperance societies all over +the State. He was doubtless right in saying that such a thing as +a woman presuming to speak or vote in the meetings of that +Society was not contemplated by its founders, but he greatly +erred in giving a reason for their short-sightedness.</p> + +<p>The decision of the Chair was appealed from, and the excitement +continued. All tried to talk at the same time, but those +possessing more firmness than others succeeded in having their +say; while the opponents of woman were allowed to express their +sentiments freely, those in favor were called to order and forced +to yield the floor. The decision of the Chair was finally +sustained by two votes. As the delegates had not been required to +make themselves known, it was not ascertained how many were +present, or who they were; nor how many persons in the crowd +voted who had no right to do so. All men were permitted to vote, +without its even being known whether they were temperance men or +not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so, after spending the whole afternoon in hot discussion of +the woman's rights question, the disgraceful affair terminated by +refusing woman the right of uttering her sentiments on a subject +in which she was deeply interested, and of pleading in behalf of +the poor crushed victims of man's injustice and cruelty.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Rev. Luther Lee offered his church just before the adjournment, and +Mr. May announced that Miss Anthony and Mrs. Bloomer would speak there +in the evening. They had a crowded house, while the conservatives had +scarce fifty people. The general feeling was hostile to the action of +the Convention. This same battle on the temperance platform was fought +over and over in various parts of the State, and the most deadly +opposition uniformly came from the clergy, though a few noble men in +that profession ever remained true to principle through all the +conflicts of those days, in the anti-slavery, temperance, and woman's +rights movements.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">SUSAN B. ANTHONY'S LETTER, FROM THE "CARSON LEAGUE."</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Buffalo</span>, <i>July 28, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear League</span>:—Permit me to say a few words to your readers, +relative to the plan of action, recommended by the "Women's New +York State Temperance Society." We have now three agents +lecturing, who are endeavoring, by a novel application of woman's +"marvelous gift of tongue," to rouse their sisters of Western New +York, to render active service in aid of the Temperance cause. +Woman has so long been accustomed to "non-intervention" with the +business of law-making—so long considered it men's business to +regulate the Liquor Traffic, that it is with much cautiousness +that she receives the new doctrine which we preach; the doctrine +that it is her right and her duty to speak out against the liquor +traffic and all men and institutions that in any way sanction, +sustain, or countenance it; and since she can not vote, to duly +instruct her husband, father, or brother how she would have him +vote, and if he longer continue to misrepresent her, take the +right to march to the ballot-box, with firm, unwavering tread, +and deposit a vote indicative of her highest ideas of practical +temperance. For women longer to submit to be ruled by men and +legislators who sanction license laws, is to act the part of +slaves and cowards. Men are just beginning to see that they must +carry this temperance question into politics, but can see no +farther than to vote for a rum-drinking President, +Vice-President, and Congressmen. If they can place temperance men +in those offices which directly control the license system of our +own State, they seem to think they need look to, nor care for, +the habits and principles of the men who fill the National +offices. And it is for woman now, in the present Presidential +campaign, to say to her husband, father, or brother, if you vote +for any candidate for any office whatever, who is not pledged to +total abstinence and the Maine law, we shall hold you alike +guilty with the rum-seller. He who loves not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> humanity better +than his whig or loco partyism, is not worthy the name of man nor +the love and respect of woman. But to our Society.</p> + +<p>We recommend that women form temperance societies in their +respective cities, towns, and villages, which shall be auxiliary +to the State Association. The work which we propose to do is a +missionary one. We therefore suggest the name "Temperance Home +Missionary Society," whose object shall be to raise funds, by +means of an admission fee and donations, to be expended in +subscribing for temperance newspapers, for gratuitous +distribution among all families, both rich and poor, who do not +furnish themselves with such reading. During the last two weeks I +have visited several villages in Genesee and Erie Counties, have +found the women ready for work, and now and then a temperance man +who had taken in the whole idea of political action.</p> + +<p>Home Missionary Societies are formed in all of the places visited +except two, and will doubtless soon be in those. I recommend them +to take <i>The Lily</i> and <i>Carson League</i>. <i>The Lily</i>, because it is +particularly devoted to woman's interest in temperance and +kindred reforms, and because it is their duty to sustain the only +paper in the State owned and edited by a woman. <i>The Carson +League</i>, because it presents and advocates a definite plan for +temperance political action. It is to be hoped that the State +Alliance, at its session at Rochester, the 18th of August, will +make converts not only of all the professed temperance men of +Western New York, but of all the temperance newspapers. Alliances +must be formed in every county and town of the State. An +additional clause must be appended to the pledge, "that no member +of the Society shall vote for any officer who is not an open and +avowed total abstinence man, and pledged to use his influence to +secure the enactment of the Maine law." There must be concert of +action; every man must know exactly how and for whom all other +men of the State are going to vote. Let there be combined +political action and the Maine law is ours.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">S. B. A.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours for Temperance Politics,</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">During this year the Society was active, its agents visiting nearly +every county, forming auxiliary societies, circulating tracts and +petitions, and rolling up subscribers to <i>The Lily</i>.</p> + +<p>In January, 1853, a great mass-meeting of all the temperance +organizations of the State was held in Albany. Nearly every hall and +church in the city was occupied, with different associations of men +and women. "The Woman's Society" met in the Baptist church in State +Street, which was crowded at every session. Susan B. Anthony presided. +Emily Clark, Mrs. Bloomer, Mrs. Vaughan and Mrs. Albro were appointed +a committee to present to the Legislature a petition signed by 28,000 +women for a prohibitory law. On motion of S. M. Burroughs, of Orleans, +the rules of the House were suspended and the ladies invited to the +Speaker's desk. In a brief and dignified speech, Miss Clark presented +the petition, after which they returned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> to the Convention, and +reported the success of their mission, in full confidence that their +prayers would be answered. But alas! they forgot that women were a +disfranchised class, and that legislators give no heed to the claims +of such for protection.</p> + +<p>In the evening, the ladies had two immense meetings, one in the +church, and one in the Assembly Chamber of the Capitol. At the latter, +Susan B. Anthony read Mrs. Stanton's "Appeal to the Legislature," and +addresses were made by Mary C. Vaughan and Antoinette Brown; the +galleries as well as the floor of the house being literally packed; +while at the former, Mrs. Bloomer, Mrs. Fowler, Mrs. Albro, and Miss +Clark addressed an equally crowded audience.</p> + +<p>Following this Convention, Mrs. Bloomer, Miss Brown, and Miss Anthony +went to New York, on the invitation of S. P. Townsend, and addressed +3,000 people in Metropolitan Hall; Lydia F. Fowler presided; Mr. and +Mrs. Horace Greeley, Abby Hopper Gibbons, and other prominent +gentlemen and ladies sat on the platform. They also addressed large +audiences in the Broadway Tabernacle and Knickerbocker Hall, and in +Brooklyn. And during March and April made a most successful tour +through the State, speaking at Sing Sing, Poughkeepsie, Hudson, Troy, +Cohoes, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Lockport, Buffalo, and many of the +smaller cities, and were greeted everywhere with large audiences and +the most respectful attention from both press and people.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>The New York Tribune</i>, under the heading of <span class="smcap">Great Gathering of +the Women of New York</span>, said of their Metropolitan meeting: The +Women's Grand Temperance Demonstration at Metropolitan Hall last +evening, was a most brilliant and successful affair. The audience +which assembled on that occasion to welcome Mrs. Bloomer and her +assistants in the cause of Temperance, was almost as large and +fully as respectable as the audiences that nightly greeted Jenny +Lind and Catharine Hays during their engagement in that hall. +Good order was observed throughout the evening, and earnest and +hearty applause was frequent. The only hissing evidently intended +for the speakers was when Mrs. Bloomer reviewed the sentiments of +Hon. Horace Mann relative to woman; and then the plaudits came to +her rescue and triumphantly sustained the speaker. The audience +was a smiling one; some smiled at the novelty of the occasion; +others with admiration; the latter, judging from the twinkling of +eyes and clapping of hands, were in the majority. While some +evidently writhed under the application of the lash for their +disregard of the principles of temperance; others enjoyed the +rigor of the infliction and manifested their satisfaction by +applause.</p> + +<p>The <i>New York Evening Post</i> said: The first meeting of the +Women's Temperance Society was held last evening in Metropolitan +Hall. There were about three thousand persons present, a large +proportion of whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> were ladies. It was the first time that an +audience in this hall was to be addressed by women, and the +novelty of the occasion doubtless attracted a large number who +would otherwise have been absent. The proceedings, however, were +conducted in the most orderly manner, and the speakers apparently +felt themselves as much at home with their hearers, as if they +were merely a private company. They were listened to with much +attention and frequently applauded. Altogether, the meeting was +very successful and would compare most favorably with any that +has ever been held in the same building.</p> + +<p>The proceedings were commenced by Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler being +appointed President, and Miss Mary S. Rich Secretary. Prayer was +offered by Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, after which Mrs. Amelia +Bloomer was introduced amid warm applause. She was dressed in the +peculiar costume to which her name is given. Her speech, which +occupied more than an hour in its delivery, was an able +exposition of the reasons why women should be amongst the +foremost of the advocates of the temperance reformation. Her +remarks on the position of woman under the law, and the +subordinate part she was compelled to play in all the relations +of life, were listened to with much attention, and though +sometimes very caustic and severe upon the other sex, they were +received not only with forbearance, but were frequently +applauded. Rev. Antoinette L. Brown made a very effective and +eloquent address, urging the necessity for legislative action +against the evils of intemperance, and recommended the passage of +the Maine Law in our Legislature. Addresses were also made by +Susan B. Anthony, and Horace Greeley.</p> + +<p><i>The Tribune</i>, under the heading of "Grand Temperance Rally," +said: Last evening an exceedingly numerous and enthusiastic +meeting was convened in the Tabernacle, under the auspices of the +"Fifth Ward Temperance Alliance," it then gave a full report of +the addresses of the four ladies, and closed with:</p> + +<p>Horace Greeley then came forward in response to numerous and +repeated calls, and said that within his immediate recollection +the Temperance cause had been utterly ruined (as it was said) +three distinct times; first when the pledge of total abstinence +was introduced; again when the Washingtonian movement was set on +feet, and then when the Maine Liquor Law came out, every +rum-drinker in the country mourned the cause as irrevocably +ruined. But now, however, it was gone entirely, because some +women came forward to speak for temperance. He had spoken so +often on the subject that he had nothing new to say; but he +rejoiced to see that there was another army coming up who could +speak, as they had heard them that evening and on other +occasions. There was something of freshness in them; and if they +did not advance new truth, we, at least, heard truth from a new +point of view. He had often heard of the fascinating influence of +woman, and he was glad if she had such that it should be put +forth for temperance. He was happy to hear her explain the wants +of the poor mother, or sister, or wife of the unfortunate +drunkard; he would not object to her saying if her home had +become intolerable that she should be allowed a separation, and +permitted to earn a living for herself, seeing that her brute of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> +a husband was unwilling or unable to give her a support. The +great cause would be advanced, he thought, by the advocacy of it +by women. He considered that the people would be called upon to +vote for the Maine Liquor Law one way or the other within a year, +for the politicians were becoming tired of this mischievous +element. It was one on which they could not calculate, and would +be glad to get it out of the way by submitting it to the people +for their disposition. The friends of the cause should be +rejoiced if women who could speak on this subject did come +forward and speak until the law was passed. He would feel their +advocacy an additional assurance of success.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The women of New York brought to this work a religious earnestness and +intense enthusiasm, that seemed determined to override every obstacle +that blocked the way to family purity and peace. Every phase of the +question, without a thought of policy or conciliation, was freely +discussed. Seeing the evils in social life, in the destruction of all +domestic harmony, they demanded divorce for drunkenness. Seeing wine +on the tables of clergymen and bishops, liquor-dealers and +wine-bibbers dignified and honored as elders and deacons in churches, +they called on the women to leave all such unholy organizations. Thus +besieging legislators for a "Maine Law," demanding purity at the +family altar, denouncing the Church for its apathy, and the clergy for +their hostility to the public action of woman, this State Temperance +Society roused the enmity of many classes, and was the target for +varied criticism.</p> + +<p>Politicians said such radical measures as the women proposed would +destroy the Whig party, if carried into legislation. Churchmen said +such infidel measures would undermine the influence of the clergy and +the foundations of the Church. Conservatives said the divorce measures +proposed would upheave the whole social fabric. Thus a general +disintegration of society was threatened, if freedom was granted to +woman. Not being allowed to vote themselves, they used their influence +both in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, to strengthen many +men in their determination not to vote for any man who was in favor of +slavery and license; hence there had been a steadily increasing +defection in the Whig ranks, that cost Clay his election in 1844, and +Scott in 1852.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pierce's administration, beginning in 1853, was a period of great +political overturning. Innumerable small office-holders being thrown +out of employment, and feeling hostile to all "isms," as the +opposition designated the reforms of the day, they became a +troublesome element in our Conventions.</p> + +<p>To avoid this class in organizing "The Woman's Temperance Society," it +was decided to enroll men as members, but not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> allow them to vote +and hold office. They were permitted to attend the meetings, talk, and +contribute money, but they were to have no direct power. On this basis +the Society was formed, and maintained its integrity one year. +However, as the justice of such discrimination on the ground of sex +was questionable, and some women and many men refused to unite with a +Society thus prescriptive, the Constitution was amended, and men +admitted to full membership.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE WOMAN'S STATE TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.</p> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Rochester, June 1 and 2, 1853</span>.</p> + +<p><i>The Rochester Advertiser</i> gives the following report: In +Corinthian Hall yesterday, at ten o'clock, a large audience +assembled. The Society was called to order by Mrs. E. C. Stanton, +who said if any one present desired to offer vocal prayer, there +was now an opportunity. Prayer was then offered by a young man in +one of the side seats. The platform was occupied by Mrs. Stanton, +Emily Clark, Lucy Stone, Mrs. Vaughan, Dr. Harriot Hunt, Mrs. +Nichols, Mrs. Fish, Mrs. Albro, Mrs. Alling, Elizabeth C. Wright, +and Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler.</p> + +<p>The attendance at this opening session is much larger this year +than last, and a more hopeful spirit prevails. There are several +of the notabilities of the Woman's Rights cause present, and a +fair sprinkling of Bloomers is scattered through the audience. +There were many out, attracted by curiosity, though probably the +most are earnest friends of the Society. The proceedings were of +a deeply interesting character, both from their novelty and their +importance. After the prayer was concluded, Mrs. Stanton gave her +opening address, as follows:</p> + +<p class="heading">MRS. STANTON'S ADDRESS.</p> + +<p>A little more than one year ago, in this same hall, we formed the +first Woman's State Temperance Society. We believed that the time +had come for woman to speak on this question, and to insist on +her right to be heard in the councils of Church and State. It was +proposed at that time that we, instead of forming a society, +should go <i>en masse</i> into the Men's State Temperance Society. We +were assured that in becoming members by paying the sum of $1, we +should thereby secure the right to speak and vote in their +meetings.</p> + +<p>We who had watched the jealousy with which man had ever eyed the +slow aggressions of woman, warned you against the insidious +proposition made by agents from that Society. We told you they +would no doubt gladly receive the dollar, but that you would +never be allowed to speak or vote in their meetings. Many of you +thought us suspicious and unjust toward the temperance men of the +Empire State. The fact that Abby Kelly had been permitted to +speak in one of their public meetings, was brought up as an +argument by some agent of that Society to prove our fears +unfounded. We suggested that she spoke by favor and not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> right, +and our right there as equals to speak and vote, we well knew +would never be acknowledged. A long debate saved you from that +false step, and our predictions have been fully realized in the +treatment our delegates received at the annual meeting held at +Syracuse last July, and at the recent Brick Church meeting in New +York.</p> + +<p>In forming our Society, the mass of us being radical and liberal, +we left our platform free; we are no respecters of persons, all +are alike welcome here without regard to sect, sex, color, or +caste. There have been, however, many objections made to one +feature in our Constitution, and that is, that although we admit +men as members with equal right to speak in our meetings, we +claim the offices for women alone. We felt, in starting, the +necessity of throwing all the responsibility on woman, which we +knew she never would take, if there were any men at hand to +think, act, and plan for her. The result has shown the wisdom of +what seemed so objectionable to many. It was, however, a +temporary expedient, and as that seeming violation of man's +rights prevents some true friends of the cause from becoming +members of our Society, and as the officers are now well skilled +in the practical business of getting up meetings, raising funds, +etc., and have fairly learned how to stand and walk alone, it may +perhaps be safe to raise man to an entire equality with +ourselves, hoping, however, that he will modestly permit the +women to continue the work they have so successfully begun. I +would suggest, therefore, that after the business of the past +year be disposed of, this objectionable feature of our +Constitution be brought under consideration.</p> + +<p>Our experience thus far as a Society has been most encouraging. +We number over two thousand members. We have four agents who have +traveled in various parts of the State, and I need not say what +is well known to all present, that their labors thus far have +given entire satisfaction to the Society and the public. I was +surprised and rejoiced to find that women, without the least +preparation or experience, who had never raised their voices in +public one year ago, should with so much self-reliance, dignity, +and force, enter at once such a field of labor, and so ably +perform the work. In the metropolis of our country, in the +capital of our State, before our Legislature, and in the country +school-house, they have been alike earnest and faithful to the +truth. In behalf of our Society, I thank you for your unwearied +labors during the past year. In the name of humanity, I bid you +go on and devote yourselves humbly to the cause you have +espoused. The noble of your sex everywhere rejoice in your +success, and feel in themselves a new impulse to struggle upward +and onward; and the deep, though silent gratitude that ascends to +Heaven from the wretched outcast, the wives, the mothers, and the +daughters of brutal drunkards, is well known to all who have +listened to their tales of woe, their bitter experience, the +dark, sad passages of their tragic lives.</p> + +<p>I hope this, our first year, is prophetic of a happy future of +strong, united, and energetic action among the women of our +State. If we are sincere and earnest in our love of this cause, +in our devotion to truth, in our desire for the happiness of the +race, we shall ever lose sight of self; each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> soul will, in a +measure, forget its own individual interests in proclaiming great +principles of justice and right. It is only a true, a deep, and +abiding love of truth, that can swallow up all petty jealousies, +envies, discords, and dissensions, and make us truly magnanimous +and self-sacrificing. We have every reason to think, from reports +we hear on all sides, that our Society has given this cause a new +impulse, and if the condition of our treasury is a test, we have +abundant reason to believe that in the hearts of the people we +are approved, and that by their purses we shall be sustained.</p> + +<p>It has been objected to our Society that we do not confine +ourselves to the subject of temperance, but talk too much about +woman's rights, divorce, and the Church. It could be easily shown +how the consideration of this great question carries us +legitimately into the discussion of these various subjects. One +class of minds would deal with effects alone; another would +inquire into causes; the work of the former is easily perceived +and quickly done; that of the latter requires deep thought, great +patience, much time, and a wise self-denial. Our physicians of +the present day are a good type of the mass of our reformers. +They take out cancers, cut off tonsils, drive the poison which +nature has wisely thrown to the surface, back again, quiet +unsteady nerves with valerian, and by means of ether infuse an +artificial courage into a patient that he may bravely endure some +painful operation. It requires but little thought to feel that +the wise physician who shall trace out the true causes of +suffering; who shall teach us the great, immutable laws of life +and health; who shall show us how and where in our every-day +life, we are violating these laws, and the true point to begin +the reform, is doing a much higher, broader, and deeper work than +he who shall bend all his energies to the temporary relief of +suffering. Those temperance men or women whose whole work +consists in denouncing rum-sellers, appealing to legislatures, +eulogizing Neal Dow, and shouting Maine Law, are superficial +reformers, mere surface-workers. True, this outside work is well, +and must be done; let those who see no other do this, but let +them lay no hindrances in the way of that class of mind, who, +seeing in our present false social relations the causes of the +moral deformities of the race, would fain declare the immutable +laws that govern mind as well as matter, and point out the true +causes of the evils we see about us, whether lurking under the +shadow of the altar, the sacredness of the marriage institution, +or the assumed superiority of man.</p> + +<p>1. We have been obliged to preach woman's rights, because many, +instead of listening to what we had to say on temperance, have +questioned the right of a woman to speak on any subject. In +courts of justice and legislative assemblies, if the right of the +speaker to be there is questioned, all business waits until that +point is settled. Now, it is not settled in the mass of minds +that woman has any rights on this footstool, and much less a +right to stand on an even pedestal with man, look him in the face +as an equal, and rebuke the sins of her day and generation. Let +it be clearly understood, then, that we are a woman's rights +Society; that we believe it is woman's duty to speak whenever she +feels the impression to do so; that it is her right to be present +in all the councils of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> Church and State. The fact that our +agents are women, settles the question of our character on this +point.</p> + +<p>Again, in discussing the question of temperance, all lecturers, +from the beginning, have made mention of the drunkards' wives and +children, of widows' groans and orphans' tears; shall these +classes of sufferers be introduced but as themes for rhetorical +flourish, as pathetic touches of the speaker's eloquence; shall +we passively shed tears over their condition, or by giving them +their rights, bravely open to them the doors of escape from a +wretched and degraded life? Is it not legitimate in this to +discuss the social degradation, the legal disabilities of the +drunkard's wife? If in showing her wrongs, we prove the right of +all womankind to the elective franchise; to a fair representation +in the government; to the right in criminal cases to be tried by +peers of her own choosing, shall it be said that we transcend the +bounds of our subject? If in pointing out her social degradation, +we show you how the present laws outrage the sacredness of the +marriage institution; if in proving to you that justice and mercy +demand a legal separation from drunkards, we grasp the higher +idea that a unity of soul alone constitutes and sanctifies true +marriage, and that any law or public sentiment that forces two +immortal, high-born souls to live together as husband and wife, +unless held there by love, is false to God and humanity; who +shall say that the discussion of this question does not lead us +legitimately into the consideration of the important subject of +divorce?</p> + +<p>But why attack the Church? We do not attack the Church; we defend +ourselves merely against its attacks. It is true that the Church +and reformers have always been in an antagonistic position from +the time of Luther down to our own day, and will continue to be +until the devotional and practical types of Christianity shall be +united in one harmonious whole. To those who see the philosophy +of this position, there seems to be no cause for fearful +forebodings or helpless regret. By the light of reason and truth, +in good time, all these seeming differences will pass away. I +have no special fault to find with that part of humanity that +gathers into our churches; to me, human nature seems to manifest +itself in very much the same way in the Church and out of it. Go +through any community you please—into the nursery, kitchen, the +parlor, the places of merchandise, the market-place, and +exchange, and who can tell the church member from the outsider? I +see no reason why we should expect more of them than other men. +Why, say you, they lay claim to greater holiness; to more rigid +creeds; to a belief in a sterner God; to a closer observance of +forms. The Bible, with them, is the rule of life, the foundation +of faith, and why should we not look to them for patterns of +purity, goodness, and truth above all other men? I deny the +assumption. Reformers on all sides claim for themselves a higher, +position than the Church. Our God is a God of justice, mercy, and +truth. Their God sanctions violence, oppression, and +wine-bibbing, and winks at gross moral delinquencies. Our Bible +commands us to love our enemies; to resist not evil; to break +every yoke and let the oppressed go free; and makes a noble life +of more importance than a stern faith. Their Bible permits war, +slavery, capital punishment, and makes salvation depend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> on faith +and ordinances. In their creed it is a sin to dance, to pick up +sticks on the Sabbath day, to go to the theater, or large parties +during Lent, to read a notice of any reform meeting from the +altar, or permit a woman to speak in the church. In our creed it +is a sin to hold a slave; to hang a man on the gallows; to make +war on defenseless nations, or to sell rum to a weak brother, and +rob the widow and the orphan of a protector and a home. Thus may +we write out some of our differences, but from the similarity in +the conduct of the human family, it is fair to infer that our +differences are more intellectual than spiritual, and the great +truths we hear so clearly uttered on all sides, have been +incorporated as vital principles into the inner life of but few +indeed.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 361px;"> +<a name="v1_1497" id="v1_1497"> +<img src="images/v1_1497.png" width="361" height="500" +alt="Amelia Bloomer (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>We must not expect the Church to leap <i>en masse</i> to a higher +position. She sends forth her missionaries of truth one by one. +All of our reformers have, in a measure, been developed in the +Church, and all our reforms have started there. The advocates and +opposers of the reforms of our day, have grown up side by side, +partaking of the same ordinances and officiating at the same +altars; but one, by applying more fully his Christian principles +to life, and pursuing an admitted truth to its legitimate +results, has unwittingly found himself in antagonism with his +brother.</p> + +<p>Belief is not voluntary, and change is the natural result of +growth and development. We would fain have all church members +sons and daughters of temperance; but if the Church, in her +wisdom, has made her platform so broad that wine-bibbers and +rum-sellers may repose in ease thereon, we who are always +preaching liberality ought to be the last to complain. Having +thus briefly noticed some of the objections to our movement, I +will not detain the audience longer at this time.</p></blockquote> + +<p>An able report of the Executive Committee was then read by Mrs. +Vaughan.</p> + +<p>The President, on motion, appointed the various Committees,<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> and +read a letter from Gerrit Smith to Susan B. Anthony:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Peterboro</span>, <i>May 7, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:—I thank you for your letter. So constantly am I +employed in my extensive private concerns, that I can attend none +of the anniversaries this spring. I should be especially happy to +attend yours; and to testify by my presence, if not by my words, +that woman is in her place when she is laboring to redeem the +world from the curse of drunkenness.</p> + +<p>I know not why it is not as much the duty of your sex, as it is +of mine, to establish newspapers, write books, and hold public +meetings for the promotion of the cause of temperance. The +current idea, that modesty should hold women back from such +services, is all resolvable into nonsense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> and wickedness. Female +modesty! female delicacy! I would that I might never again hear +such phrases. There is but one standard of modesty and delicacy +for both men and women; and so long as different standards are +tolerated, both sexes will be perverse and corrupt. It is my duty +to be as modest and delicate as you are; and if your modesty and +delicacy may excuse you from making a public speech, then may +mine excuse me from making one.</p> + +<p>The Quakers are the best people I have ever known—the most +serious and chaste, and yet the most brave and resisting. But +there is no other people who are so little concerned, lest man +get out of his sphere, or lest woman get out of hers. No people +make so little difference as they do, between man and woman. +Others appear to think that the happiness and safety of the world +consist in magnifying the difference. But when reason and +religion shall rule the world, there will be felt to be no other +difference between man and woman, than that of their physical +constitutions. None will then be acknowledged in respect to the +intellect, the heart, or the manners.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Gerrit Smith.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Very respectfully, your friend,</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">The attendance at this Convention was larger than the year previous, +and the debates more interesting, as Mrs. Nichols, William Henry +Channing, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown, and Frederick Douglass all +took an active part in the proceedings. During one of the sessions +quite a heated discussion took place on the subject of Divorce, Mrs. +Stanton and Lucy Stone taking the ground that it was not only woman's +right, but her duty, to withdraw from all such unholy relations, Mrs. +Nichols and Miss Brown taking the opposite position.</p> + +<p>As it was decided at this second convention to admit gentlemen, a +schism was the immediate result. By their party tactics, in which they +were well versed, they took the initiative steps to scatter the forces +so successfully gathered. The Society, with its guns silenced on the +popular foes, lingered a year or two, and was heard of no more. It was +the policy of these worldly wise men to restrict the debate on +temperance within such narrow limits as to disturb none of the +existing conditions of society. They said, treat it as a purely moral +and religious question; "pray over it," it being too knotty a problem +to be solved on earth, they proposed to have the whole case adjusted +in the courts of Heaven: very much as the wise men to-day think best +to dispose of the temperance reform.</p> + +<p>Thus these politic gentlemen manipulated the association, eliminated +the woman's rights element <i>per se</i>, which, having been educated in +the anti-slavery school of morals, could not be blinded with any male +sophistries or considerations of policy. It was the universal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> plea +then as now, in advocating reforms, "Sacrifice principle to numbers, +if you would secure victory," forgetting that one company of brave men +could clear their path to the enemy quicker than a battalion of +cowards. A multitude of timid, undeveloped men and women, afraid of +priests and politicians, are a hindrance rather than help in any +reform. When Garrison's forces had been thoroughly sifted, and only +the picked men and women remained, he soon made political parties and +church organizations feel the power of his burning words. The +temperance cause has had no organized body of fearless leaders. Psalm +singing and prayer it was supposed would accomplish what only could be +done by just laws, enlightened public sentiment, and pure religion, +applied to the practical interests of mankind. When abolitionists left +parties and churches, because of their pro-slavery codes and creeds, +they began alike to purify their organizations in order to win back +that noble army of patriots. Women were urged to enroll themselves as +members of men's associations, pay their initiation fee of one dollar, +gather petitions, do all in their power to rouse enthusiasm; but they +must not presume to sit on the platform, nor speak, nor vote in the +meetings. Those women who had no proper self-respect accepted the +conditions; those who had, tested their status on the platform, and +not being received as equals, abandoned all temperance organizations, +as the same proper pride that forbade them to accept the conditions of +a proscribed class in men's conventions, also prevented their +affiliation with women who would tolerate such insults to the sex. The +long, persistent struggle at last culminated in the World's Temperance +Convention, which may be called our Waterloo in that reform.</p> + + +<h3>BRICK CHURCH MEETING.</h3> + +<p>May 12th, 1853, the friends of temperance assembled in New York to +make arrangements for a World's Temperance Convention. The meeting was +held in Dr. Spring's old Brick Church, on Franklin Square, where the +<i>New York Times</i> building now stands. It was organized by nominating +the Hon. A. C. Barstow, of Rhode Island, chairman; the Rev. R. C. +Crampton, of New York, and the Rev. George Duffield, of Pennsylvania, +secretaries. The meeting opened with prayer, "asking God's blessing on +the proceedings."<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> A motion was made that all gentlemen present be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> +admitted as delegates. Dr. Trall, of New York, moved an amendment that +the word "ladies" be inserted, as there were delegates present from +the Woman's State Temperance Society. The motion was carried, and +credentials received, and every man and woman became members of the +convention. A business committee of one from each State was appointed. +A motion was made that Susan B. Anthony, Secretary of the Woman's +State Temperance Society, be added to the business committee. Then the +war commenced in earnest. D.D.'s, M.D.'s, and Honorables were +horrified. Speech followed speech in rapid succession, with angry +vehemence. As the committee was already full, the motion was ruled out +of order. Thomas Wentworth Higginson asked that he be excused from +serving on the committee, and moved that Lucy Stone be added in his +place. Then the confusion was increased. Abby Kelly Foster arose and +tried to explain, but shouts of "order" drowned her voice, and after +persisting in her attempt to speak for ten minutes the uproar was +frightful, and she was compelled to sit down. Emily Clark made a +similar attempt, with the same result.</p> + +<p>Hon. Bradford R. Wood, of Albany, then moved, that as there was a +party present determined to introduce the question of woman's rights, +and to run it into the ground, that this convention adjourn <i>sine +die</i>; but on request he withdrew it, and moved that a committee on +credentials be appointed to decide who were members of the convention. +This committee, consisting of Rev. John Chambers, of Philadelphia, +Hon. B. R. Wood, of Albany, and Dr. Condit, of New Jersey, were absent +fifteen minutes, and then reported that, as in their opinion, the call +for this meeting was not intended to include female delegates, and +custom had not sanctioned the public action of women in similar +situations, the credentials of the ladies should be rejected. The +report was received, and after a disgraceful contest on the part of +those from whom we look for honor, truth, and nobleness, and every +Christian virtue, on account of their sacred calling and high +position, it was adopted by a vote of 34 to 32, ten of those voting in +the negative being women. During the progress of the discussion—if +discussion it could be called, where all the women who attempted to +speak were silenced, and the men who attempted to speak for them were +almost as rudely treated—Mayor Barstow twice requested the +appointment of another chairman in his stead, stating that he would +not preside over a meeting where woman's rights were introduced, or +women allowed to speak. Having finally silenced them, he was +henceforward content to wear the honors of his temporary office.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Higginson protested against the action of the meeting as +disgraceful to the leaders, and tendered his resignation as one of the +business committee. He then stated that all persons favorable to +calling a <i>whole</i> world's temperance convention were invited to meet +at Dr. Trall's office at 2 o'clock. The ladies present, and the +gentlemen who had contended for their admission as delegates, then +withdrew. Another disgraceful scene occurred on a protest from Dr. +Townsend against the action of the convention, and a motion to pay the +expenses of the ladies who had come some distance as delegates and +been excluded. The motion was seconded. Again shouts of "order," +"order," arose, and the confusion was worse than ever. Dr. T. finally +withdrew his motion, on being told that the ladies would accept no +such favor at the hands of a convention of rowdies.</p> + +<p>Several speeches then followed, mostly from, clergymen; all condemning +the public action of women in any reforms, and defending the position +of the convention, quoting Scripture and the Divine Will to sanction +their injustice. One Rev. gentleman stated that he would have nothing +to do with the women. Rev. John Chambers said, for one, he rejoiced +that the women were gone; they were now rid of the scum of the +convention!! Other clergymen spoke in the same strain. A motion was +made by Dr. Snodgrass that the committee assign some part of the work +of the World's Convention to women, which called out from Mr. Barstow +some remarks too indecent for repetition. The motion was withdrawn. +The gall and bitterness, the ridicule and vulgarity of the Rev. D.D.'s +being expended on some of the grandest women our nation could boast, +they adjourned, after deciding to hold a four days' convention, +beginning the 6th of September. The other wing of the temperance army +decided to do the same, and held a meeting of protest a few days after +in the Tabernacle.</p> + +<blockquote><p>The <i>New York Tribune</i> says of the meeting of protest, Saturday +evening, May 14, 1852: A grand Temperance demonstration was held +in the Broadway Tabernacle Saturday evening. There could not have +been less than 3,000 persons present. The floor of the house, the +aisles, the galleries, every inch of sitting and standing room +was literally packed. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed +throughout. The officers of the meeting were:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">President</span>—Susan B. Anthony.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>, in a letter to <i>The Una</i>, says: Last week, at New +York,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> we had a foretaste of what woman is to expect when she +attempts to exercise her equal rights as a human being. In +conformity with a resolution adopted by the Mass Convention +recently held in Boston, a call was issued, inviting "the +<i>friends of temperance</i>" to meet in New York, May 11th, and +prepare for a "World's Convention." Under that call, the Woman's +State Society of New York, an active and efficient body, sent +delegates; but though regularly elected, their credentials were +rejected with scorn. The chairman of the committee reported that +those who called the meeting never intended to include women. +Think of it, a <i>World's</i> Convention, in which woman is voted not +of the world!!</p> + +<p>Rev. Dr. Hewitt affirmed it a burning shame for women to be +there; and though it was entirely out of order, he discussed the +question of "Woman's Rights," taking the ground that women should +be nowhere but at home. Rev. E. M. Jackson, gave it as his +opinion, that "the women came there expressly to disturb." The +Rev. Mr. Fowler, of Utica, showed the same contempt for woman +that he did last year, at the N. Y. State Temperance Society, at +Syracuse. Rev. Mr. Chambers was particularly bitter.</p> + +<p>It would have been well for those women who accept the foolish +flattery of men, to have been present to see the real estimate in +which woman is held by these men who surely represent a large +class. The President of the meeting, Mayor Barstow, of your city, +indignantly refused to put the motion made—that Susan B. Anthony +should be on a committee, declaring "that he would resign rather +than do it." He said it "was not fit that a woman should be in +such places." After we left, if the papers reported him +correctly, he used language which proved that he was not fit to +be where decent people are. It was next to impossible for us or +our friends to get a hearing. The "previous question" was called, +or we were voted out of order, or half a dozen of the opposing +party talked at once to keep us silent. Rev. T. W. Higginson +declined serving on a committee from which women were excluded, +and when it became apparent that only half of the world could be +represented, he entered his protest, and invited those who were +in favor of a <i>Whole</i> World's Temperance Convention to meet that +afternoon at Dr. Trall's. A large minority withdrew, including +several ministers, and arranged for a Convention that shall know +"neither male nor female," to be held in New York sometime during +The World's Fair.</p> + +<p>A large and enthusiastic meeting was held at the Broadway +Tabernacle, to protest against the above proceedings, and +although twelve and a half cents were charged at the door, every +seat was occupied, and much of the "standing room" also.</p> + +<p>The same gentlemen who excluded us, held a meeting subsequently +in Metropolitan Hall. There your Major Barstow said: "God has +placed woman in the moral world where he has the sun in the +physical, to regulate, enlighten, and cheer." C. C. Burleigh, +alluding to this remark, in our meeting at the Tabernacle, said: +"Thus he calls his Convention, in which Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, +Mercury, and Neptune are appointed a committee of arrangements, +and says the Sun shall be excluded."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span></p> + +<p>At this meeting, <i>ladies</i> were especially invited to vote, as +though they had a heart in it, and were urged also to give their +money to aid these very men by whom every soul of us had been +insulted. I am sorry to say some gave. But taught such lessons, +by such masters, woman will one day be wiser. Yours, for +humanity, without distinction of sex,</p> + +<p class="author">Lucy Stone.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>After the Brick Church meeting was over, some of the actors being +ashamed of themselves, the Rev. John Marsh tried to defend himself and +his coadjutors, but Mr. Greeley very summarily brushed his sophistry +aside, and placed all the actors in that disgraceful farce in their +true colors.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>The New York Daily Tribune, Wednesday, May 18, 1853.</i></p> + +<p class="heading">THE WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.</p> + +<p><i>To the Editor of the New York Tribune:</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>:—Your "Inquirer," it appears to me, is bent on throwing +firebrands into the temperance ranks, and the worst kind of +firebrands, those of vile sectarianism. Will you permit me to +answer and remark upon a few of his inquiries?</p> + +<p>1. "Are there to be <i>two</i> World's Conventions?"</p> + +<p><i>Answer</i>. That will be, I suppose, as people please. There may be +a dozen; and I know not that any harm will be done.</p> + +<p>2. "Did Mayor Barstow occasion the schism in the temperance +ranks, by refusing to recognize the feminine element in the +movement?"</p> + +<p><i>Ans</i>. No. The schism, such as there was, was caused by a +proposal of Rev. Mr. Higginson, and a persistence in it, that a +representative of the Women's State Society should be added to +the Business Committee of one from each State; and this after the +Committee was full. With as good reason, it was said, might one +be pressed from the <i>Men's</i> State Society or State Alliance. Mr. +Higginson pertinaciously pressed the matter; and because he could +not have his own way and rule the Convention, he refused to serve +on the Committee; and hence arose all the disturbance and the +schism.</p> + +<p>3. "Did Dr. Hewitt rule out from office Mr. Barnum on the ground +that he (Mr. Barnum) was an infidel?"</p> + +<p><i>Ans</i>. No. I am confident he used no such phraseology; and +"Inquirer" has no more right to ask such a question, than he has +to ask if Dr. Hewitt did not rule him out on the ground that Mr. +Barnum was a horse thief. The very question amounts to an +assertion (as is announced in the next inquiry) that he <i>did</i> say +it; which, if he did not, is calumny. Dr. H. <i>did</i> object to Mr. +Barnum, as he had a perfect right to do, as one of the Appointing +Committee. It was desirable to find the best men to get up to the +World's Convention. I proposed Mr. Barnum as one, knowing his +amazing efficiency. Dr. H. objected, on the ground that he +(Barnum) was a very exceptionable man in his part of Connecticut, +and would do injury to the Convention; and, as harmony was +desirable, and unexceptionable men should be put upon the +Committee, his name was withdrawn. It was agreed that what was +said in Committee should not go abroad.</p> + +<p>4. "Does Mr. Barnum's infidelity consist in his attending another +church in Bridgeport from Dr. Hewitt's?"</p> + +<p>Here appears the cloven foot of sectarianism. One sect is to be +held up as persecuted. Here the writer assumes that Dr. Hewitt +did say that Mr. B. was an infidel; and, assuming it and knowing +it, why does he hypocritically ask whether Dr. H. <i>did</i> say it?</p> + +<p>5. "Is it true that Dr. H. refused his pulpit for a temperance +lecture by Rev. E. H. Chapin, on the ground that he was a +Universalist?"</p> + +<p>Sectarianism again! What has all this to do with the meeting at +the Brick Chapel? Why is it brought here but to kindle up +sectarian fires? A pastor of a church has everywhere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> conceded to +him the control of his pulpit, and no one may contend with him in +this matter. Whether that was so or not, I know not, nor is it +any concern of mine, nor of the public. Such a rule the world +knows does not govern us in selecting temperance speakers. We +will not invite speakers to speak at temperance meetings who have +something else more at heart than temperance, which they will +most offensively thrust in their speech upon the meeting. But we, +without hesitation, invite men of all sorts to speak at +temperance meetings, who will speak to the point, and do us good +and not hurt. Rev. Mr. Chapin, we all know, is of this character, +and, without hesitation, I invited him to speak at the late +Anniversary of the American Temperance Union (as I did Rev. Mr. +Higginson, who differs from me perhaps as much in religious +belief), and he (Mr. C.) would have spoken, but was to be out of +the city.</p> + +<p>6. "How can the proposed Convention be a <i>World's</i> Convention, if +women and all who do not belong to a particular Church are to be +excluded?"</p> + +<p>Sectarianism again! Who has said a word about Church but this +writer, and about excluding women from the Convention and all its +entertainments? No one. The basis of the Convention has not been +settled. It probably will be as broad as the world. The last +query I think unworthy an answer. And I must be permitted to say +the whole inquiry manifests a very bad spirit, and is calculated +to promote evils which the public press should suppress rather +than foster.</p> + +<p>As I sent you an anonymous communication explaining some of these +matters last Saturday, which you declined publishing, because, I +suppose, it was anonymous, I feel constrained, though +reluctantly, to give this my name.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">John Marsh,</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, etc.,</p> +<p class="ltr-title ltr-clear close"><i>Office of Am. Temp. Union, No. 149 Nassau St.</i></p> +</blockquote> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading ltr-clear">HORACE GREELEY'S REPLY.</p> + +<p>Rev. John! we have allowed you to be heard at full length; now +you and your set will be silent and hear us.</p> + +<p>Very palpably your palaver about Mr. Higginson's motion is a +dodge, a quirk, a most contemptible quibble, reluctant as we are +to speak thus irreverently of the solemn utterances of a Doctor +of Divinity. Right well do you know, reverend sir, that the +particular form, or time, or fashion in which the question came +up is utterly immaterial, and you interpose it only to throw dust +in the eyes of the public. Suppose a woman had been nominated at +the right time, and in the right way, according to your +understanding of punctilios, wouldn't the same resistance have +been made and the same row got up? You know right well that there +would. Then what is all your pettifogging about technicalities +worth? The only question that anybody cares a button about is +this, Shall woman be allowed to participate in your World's +Temperance Convention on a footing of perfect equality with man? +If yea, the whole dispute turns on nothing, and isn't worth six +lines in <i>The Tribune</i>. But if it was and is the purpose of those +for whom you pettifog to keep woman off the platform of that +Convention, and deny her any part in its proceedings except as a +spectator, what does all your talk about Higginson's untimeliness +and the Committees being full amount to? Why not treat the +subject with some show of honesty?</p> + +<p>Now as to Barnum and Hewitt: it is eminently proper that the +public should know exactly on what ground H. ruled B. off the +Business Committee, and it is self-criminating to plead that a +mantle of secrecy was spread over the doings in Committee. If +Hewitt protested against Barnum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span> on the assumption that the +latter is a sinner, while this is to be a Convention of saints, +let that fact be known, so that sinners may keep away from the +Convention. If on the assumption that Mr. Barnum is an infidel or +a heretic, let that fact come squarely out, so that we may know +that infidels or heretics, either or both, are to be proscribed +at the Hewitt-Marsh Convention. For if there is to be really and +truly a World's Temperance Convention, according to any fair +meaning of the phrase, then we say women, as well as men, youth, +as well as adults, colored, as well as white, heretic, as well as +orthodox, sinners, as well as saints—so that they be earnest and +undoubted upholders of total abstinence—should be invited to +send delegates, who should be equally welcome to its platform and +eligible to its offices. An Orthodox White Male Adult Saints' +Convention may be very proper and very useful, but it should be +called distinctly as such, and not unqualifiedly as a World's +Convention.</p> + +<p>Dr. Marsh thinks it nobody's business whether Dr. Hewitt did or +did not refuse the use of his church for a temperance-meeting at +which Mr. Chapin was to speak, because he (Mr. C.) was a +Universalist. Yes, reverend sir, it is a good many people's +business if the public are purposely left in doubt as to the +character of the World's Convention that is to issue from the +Brick Church meeting. For if Dr. Hewitt shut his pulpit against +so unexceptionable, assiduous, effective an advocate of +temperance as Mr. Chapin confessedly is (see Marsh, above), then +we have a cue to his objection to Barnum and to the general +bearings of the "World's Convention" to be incubated under his +auspices. That single incident of the pulpit-shutting will have a +great deal of significance to many other people; wherefore the +fact that it has none to Marsh is overruled.</p> + +<p>Whenever a real "World's Temperance Convention" shall assemble, +an inquiry may be found necessary as to what Dr. Hewitt has done +and sacrificed for temperance these five years that should +authorize him to rule P. T. Barnum off a temperance committee; +also, whether men who live by Temperance, like Dr. Marsh, are in +the right position to judge those, like Barnum, who labor and +spend money for it. For the present, however, we will leave these +inquiries on the General Orders.</p> + +<p>One word as to Sectarianism. If "Inquirer," or Mr. Barnum, or Mr. +Chapin has proposed or intrigued to keep any one out of office, +or otherwise overslaughed in the Brick Church Meeting, or any of +its meetings, because of said body's religious opinions or +associations, then said intriguer has been guilty of a very +faulty and culpable sectarian dodge, which can not be too +severely reproached. But if it be in fact t'other fellow's bull +that has gored this one's ox, then the facts should come out, and +the culprit can not escape censure by raising the stop-thief cry +of "Sectarianism." "<i>Thou</i> art the man!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Let the women of this nation ponder Horace Greeley's arraignment of +the reverend gentlemen who were the chief actors in this farce, and +remember that in all ages of the world the priesthood have found their +pliant tools and most degraded victims in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span> women of their +respective sects. In all of these meetings there were intelligent, +sincere women, so blinded by the sophistry and hypocrisy of Marsh, +Chambers, Hewitt, <i>et al.</i>, that they gave them their countenance and +support throughout this disgraceful mob, so-shocking and revolting to +the best men of that day and generation.</p> + +<p>In consequence of the action in the Brick Church two temperance +conventions were called, to meet in New York the first week in +September. One designated "The Whole World's Convention," including +men and women, black and white, orthodox and heretic; the other the +"Half World's Convention," restricted to the "simon pure, white (male) +orthodox saints"; which for ribaldry of speech and rudeness of action +surpassed in its proceedings the outside mob, that raged and raved +through an entire week, making pandemonium of our metropolis.</p> + + +<h3>A GRAND GATHERING—ANTI-SLAVERY—WOMAN'S RIGHTS—TEMPERANCE—THE +WORLD'S FAIR, SEPTEMBER, 1853.</h3> + +<p>The opening days of the autumn of this year were days of intense +excitement in the city of New York. Added to the numbers attracted by +the World's Fair was the announcement of the Anti-Slavery, Woman's +Rights, and two Temperance Conventions. The reformers from every part +of the country assembled in force, each to hold their separate +meetings, though the leaders were to take a conspicuous part in all. +The anti-slavery meetings began on Sunday, and every day two or three +of these conventions were in session, all drawing crowds to listen or +to disturb. William Henry Channing. William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell +Phillips and Thomas Wentworth. Higginson eloquently pleading for the +black man's freedom on the anti-slavery platform, and for the equality +of their mothers, wives, and daughters on the woman's rights platform, +and for both the woman and the black man on the temperance platform; +now face to face with Rynders and his mob, and then with the Rev. John +Chambers, Marsh and Hewitt and their mob, the viler of the two.</p> + + +<h3>THE HALF WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION,</h3> + +<p>led by Chambers, Hewitt, and Marsh, was in session in Metropolitan +Hall several days. As it was simply an organized mob, we find in the +journals of the day no speeches or resolutions on the great question +on which they nominally assembled.</p> + +<p>In trying to get rid of Antoinette L. Brown, who had been sent as a +delegate from two respectable and influential societies, and of James +McCune Smith, a colored delegate, they quarrelled through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span> most of the +allotted time for the convention over what class of persons could be +admitted. In summing up the proceedings of these meetings</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Horace Greeley</span> says, in the <i>Tribune</i>, September 7, 1853: "This +convention has completed three of its four business sessions, and +the results may be summed up as follows:</p> + +<p>"<i>First Day</i>—Crowding a woman off the platform.</p> + +<p>"<i>Second Day</i>—Gagging her.</p> + +<p>"<i>Third Day</i>—Voting that she shall stay gagged. Having thus +disposed of the main question, we presume the incidentals will be +finished this morning."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Antoinette Brown was asked why she went to that Convention, knowing, +as she must, that she would be rejected.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"I went there," she said, "to assert a principle—a principle +relevant to the circumstances of that convention, and one which +would promote <i>all</i> good causes and retard <i>all</i> bad ones. I went +there, as an item of the world, to contend that the sons and +daughters of the race, without distinction of sex, sect, class or +color, should be recognized as belonging to the world, and I +planted my feet upon the simple <i>rights of a delegate</i>. I asked +no favor as a woman, or in behalf of woman; no favor as a woman +advocating temperance; no recognition of the cause of woman above +the cause of humanity; the indorsement of no 'ism' and of no +measure; but I claimed, in the name of the world, the rights of a +delegate in a world's convention.</p> + +<p>"Is it asked. Why did you make that issue at that time? I answer, +I have made it at all times and in all places, whenever and +wherever Providence has given me the opportunity, and in whatever +way it could be made to appear most prominent. Last spring, when +woman claimed the supremacy—the right to hold all the offices in +the Woman's State Temperance Society—I contended, from this +platform, for the equality of man; the equal rights of all the +members of this society. I have claimed everywhere the equality +of humanity in Church and in State; God helping me, I here pledge +myself anew to Him, and to you all, to be true everywhere to the +central principle—the soul of the Divine commandment, 'Thou +shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' The temperance cause was not +injured by our course at that Convention. We went there with +thoughtful hearts. Said Wendell Phillips: 'Take courage, and +remember that whether you are received or rejected, you are going +to make the most effectual speech for temperance, for woman, and +humanity that you have ever made in your life.' 'God bless you,' +were the fervent words of Mr. Channing, in a moment when there +was most need of Divine assistance; and when I stood on the +platform for an hour and a half, waiting to be heard, I could +read in the faces of men such as these, and in the faces, too, of +our opposers, the calm assurance, 'You are making the most +effectual speech for temperance, for woman, and humanity, that +you have ever made in your life.' I believed it then; I believe +it now."<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a></p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span></p> + +<p>Rev. William Henry Channing, in giving his report of the World's +Temperance Convention to the Toronto Division of Sons of Temperance of +the City of Rochester, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>And now it becomes my disagreeable duty, as one of your +delegates, to report to the Toronto Division how my highly +honored fellow-delegate was treated. Her credentials were +received without dissent; she was, of course, then entitled, +<i>equally</i> with every other delegate, to take part in all the +proceedings of the Conventions. At a suitable time and in a +perfectly orderly manner she rose to speak; the floor was +adjudged to her by Hon. Neal Dow, the President, but her right to +the platform was questioned. Again and again the President +declared your delegate to be in order; again and again appeal was +made to the Convention and the decision of the President +sustained; but a factious minority succeeded in silencing her +voice, and so ended the first session in storm.</p> + +<p>On the second morning your delegate wisely waited until the +resolutions offered to the convention by the Business Committee +were opened for discussion. When the first resolution, declaring +the <i>religious character</i> of the Temperance Movement, was +submitted to the meeting, Miss Brown rose to speak. She rose +calmly in the body of the house; she was a minister of religion, +an advocate of temperance; she had it in her heart to press this +reformation onward in a religious spirit; she had avoided all +disputes on petty points of order, and now wished to address +herself earnestly to the momentous theme. Had she not a perfect +right to do so? And what fitter occasion could occur? The very +topic was of a kind to banish personalities and hush low +passions. Your delegate was invited by the President to take the +platform; she did so with quiet dignity, but scarcely had she +reached the stand when all around her on the platform itself, and +among the officers of the Convention, began that disgraceful row, +which led an onlooker in the gallery to cry out, "Are those men +drunk?" I have no wish to dwell upon that cowardly transaction, +but this remark I am bound in honor to make: If any man says that +Antoinette Brown forced the subject of "Woman's Rights" on that +Temperance Convention in plain Saxon speech, <i>He Lies</i>. She never +dreamed of asking any <i>privilege</i> as a woman; she stood there in +her <i>right</i> as a delegate; her aim was to urge forward the +Temperance Reform. No! the whole uproar on "Woman's Rights" came +from the professed friends of Temperance, and began with the +insulting cry—from a man on the platform—of, "Shame on the +woman!" That man I need hardly tell you was the notorious John +Chambers, of Philadelphia—the so-called Rev. John Chambers!—he +it was who, with brazen face and clanging tongue, stood stamping +until he raised a cloud of dust around him, pointing with coarse +finger and rudely shouting "shame on the woman," until he even +stood abashed before the indignant cry from the Convention of +"shame on John Chambers."</p> + +<p>The Reverend John Chambers! <i>Reverend</i> for what? For his piety; +manifested in the fact that he, a professed minister of the +gospel, could by rowdy tumult drown the voice of another minister +of the gospel while she was asserting the religious character of +the Temperance Reform! <i>Reverend</i> for what? For his charity; +manifested by low cries and insulting gestures, to a gentlewoman +who stood there firm yet meek, before him! Strange that he, of +all, should thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> seek a bad eminence in outraging the decencies +of social life; for unless report is false, John Chambers owes +whatever position he may have to woman. It is said—I believe on +good authority—that he was educated for the ministry by the +contributions of women; that he preaches in a church built and +endowed by a woman; that his salary is chiefly paid by +hard-working needle-women; finally, that he married a rich wife! +Now what a sight was there! A man, whose brain had been fed with +books by woman, whose body had been fattened with bread by woman, +every fragment and stitch of whose ministerial garb, from his +collar to his boot-heels, had been paid for by woman, whose very +traveling ticket to that convention had been bought by woman, +could find no better way to discharge his mission as minister of +the gospel than to point his finger and shout, "Shame on the +woman!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Channing then bore his testimony to the admirable combination of +energy and mildness, by which Miss Brown's whole air and manner were +distinguished amid these hours of tumult. He said: "Such serene +strength comes only from religious principle and life. I know not how +it may have been with nerves and pulses—there was no apparent tremor. +But of this I am assured, whatever disturbance there was in the outer +court of the Temple, in the Holy of Holies was the heart of peace, and +the dove of the Spirit brooded in light on the tabernacle of +conscience."</p> + +<p>In an editorial of <i>The Una</i>, headed "Rev. John Chambers Recommended +to Mercy," Mrs. Davis says: "We publish the letter of Rev. Wm. Henry +Channing because it is a noble defence of woman and a part of the +history of the movement. We do not give Mr. Chambers' reply, 1st, +Because we find in it no evidence of penitence nor any testimony as to +who was the guilty party—if he was not; and 2d, Because the tone and +language of the letter is of a character we trust will never sully the +pages of <i>The Una</i>. Mr. Channing's rebuke is severe, but we believe it +to have been richly deserved and given in true Christian love."</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Rochester</span>, N. Y., Oct. 18, 1853.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Editors Sunday Mercury</span>:—You ask for proof that Rev. John +Chambers took part in the brutal insult offered to a Christian +gentlewoman at the late "World's Temperance Convention." I was +<i>witness</i> of the conduct of that man and his abettors during that +<i>cowardly transaction</i>, and I hereby charge him with being a +ringleader in that platform row.</p> + +<p>When my honored friend and fellow-delegate, the Rev. Antoinette +L. Brown, was standing calm, yet firm, amidst those rude +scoffers, the words of the Psalmist kept sounding in my ear: +"Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me roundabout, gaping upon me +with their mouths." I marked the <i>biggest</i> of the herd with the +purpose, at the first suitable season, of laying on one blow of +the lash with such a will that it should cut through any hide, +however callous. That season came when, as a delegate, I was +called upon to report to the "Toronto Division of the Sons of +Temperance" how my fellow-delegate had been treated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span></p> + +<p>But having thus <i>indicted the bully</i> and put him on trial in open +court, I merely record my testimony and leave him to go to +judgment; the public will render a verdict, pass sentence, and +inflict the <i>penalty</i> in the pillory where he has placed himself; +may their justice be tempered with mercy. It was necessary, in +order to <i>protect women</i> in future from the <i>insolence of +tyrants</i>, to make this example; yet let him be cordially pardoned +as soon as he gives sincere proof of penitence.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">William Henry Channing.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Another letter of Mr. Channing's of same date to the editor of <i>The +Daily Register</i>:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>:—Respect for yourself, your readers, and your paper, prompts +me to reply at once to your article headed, "Answer," etc., by +Rev. John Chambers, which, through the courtesy of some friend, +reached me last evening. I must be frank, but will aim to be +brief.</p> + +<p>And first, Mr. Birney, a word to yourself. You knew me in "former +days as mild," etc., and were not prepared for such a speech; you +charitably suggest that its "vindictiveness" may be owing to a +substitution of the reporter's language for my own, and "are not +without hope of seeing a disclaimer." Now, far from wishing to +disclaim the <i>one real accusation</i> made in my remarks, I am +ready, anywhere and everywhere, to reiterate that charge. Yet +there is no "vindictiveness" in my heart toward the criminal whom +I thus arraign, and no emotion which I should not honor any man +for feeling toward myself, if I was consciously guilty of having +played so base a part. You were not wrong in thinking me "mild in +former days"; I trust I am milder now than then. But my mildness +never was, and never will be, of that mean quality, which can +tamely see a sister insulted, whether by a pugilist from the +ring, or by a <i>rowdy from the pulpit</i>. My principle is peace, but +I remember the saying, "You can not become an angel till you are +first a man.".... Womanhood, as such, claims honorable courtesy +of every manly heart; and he is unmanly who does not rejoice to +testify this respect. The man who can be rude to even a poor +prostitute in the street, will be rude to wife or daughter at his +own fireside; while he who is a <i>gentle</i> man to any woman, will +be a <i>gentle</i> man to all women. <i>His spirit is brutal</i>, who could +ever dream of applying the slang phrase "creature" to any woman +under any conceivable conditions. What shall be thought then of +the moral grade of him who chose as the mark for his missiles of +"contempt," a young lady of rare refinement in her whole presence +and manner, of spotless delicacy and gentlest dignity, of +commanding talent and philanthropic earnestness, and who stood +there before him, serene amid the tumult, clad, even then, in the +bright robe of heavenly peace?</p> + +<p>And now one word in closing. Let Mr. Chambers, and all of like +spirit, be assured, that I am but a representative of a large, +rapidly growing, and influential body in every community +throughout our land, who are resolved, that women shall no longer +be insulted in public assemblies with impunity.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Wm. Henry Channing.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Through this fierce conflict Horace Greeley, with his personal +presence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> on the platform, and his brave editorials in the <i>New York +Tribune</i>, fought a great battle for free speech and human equality. +Speaking of the <i>Whole</i> World's Convention, he said:</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>New York Tribune, September 3, 1853.</i></p> + +<p>This has been the most spirited and able Convention on behalf of +temperance that was ever held. It has already done good, and can +not fail to do more. The scarcity of white neck-ties on the +platform so fully atoned for by the presence of such champions of +reform and humanity as Antoinette L. Brown, Lucy Stone, and Mrs. +Jackson, of England, Mrs. C I. H. Nichols, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, +etc., that like the absence of wine from our festive board when +it is graced by women, it was the theme of no general or very +pointed regret. It was a great occasion, and we know truth was +there uttered which will bear fruit through coming years.</p> + + +<p class="heading"><i>Tribune, September 7, 1853.</i></p> + +<p>When the call of the World's Temperance Convention was issued, we +were appealed to by valued friends, whom we know as devoted to +the temperance cause, to discountenance all efforts to get up a +rival Convention. "The call is unexceptionably broad," we were +reminded, "it invites all and excludes nobody, then why not +accept it and hold but one Convention?" The question was fair and +forcible, and had there been no antecedents we should have +acceded to its object. But we could not forget the preliminary +meeting at the Brick Church Chapel, and we could not take the +hazard of having many whom we knew as among the most efficient +and faithful laborers in the Temperance cause shut out of a +World's Convention of its advocates; so we cast our lot with them +about whose catholicity of sentiment and action there could be no +dispute, and yesterday's doings at the Metropolitan Convention +maintained the conviction created by the whole World's Convention +that our decision was right.</p> + +<p>We ask especial attention to the proceedings of the World's +Convention yesterday morning, particularly with reference to +Antoinette Brown, who had been chosen by two separate temperance +organizations of men to represent them at this Convention. How +she was received, how treated, and how virtually crowded off the +platform, our report most faithfully exhibits. They who are sure +that the Age of Chivalry is not gone, are urged to ponder this +treatment of a pure and high-souled woman, a teacher of Christian +truth, an ornament of her sex, and an example to all, by a +Convention of Reformers and Gentlemen, many of them from that +section of the Union where the defence of woman from insult has +been deemed a manly grace, if not a manly duty. We presume the +matter will be further considered to-day.</p> + +<p>Of the <i>Whole</i> World's Temperance Convention a correspondent of +<i>The Una</i> says: "Throughout, the meeting has been one of intense +interest; not a moment's flagging, not a poor or unworthy speech +made by either man or woman. Again and again, as we passed into +the large hall, filled with eager listeners, we felt it to be one +of the most sublime scenes we had ever looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span> upon. There the +audience remained, hour after hour, patient, earnest, full of +enthusiasm, and yet hundreds could scarcely hear a single +connected sentence. The majority were women, but the larger +number of the speakers were men. The right and equality being +recognized, there was no longer a necessity for controversy to +maintain principle, hence no woman attempted to speak except she +had something to say. Mrs. Jackson, of England, Mrs. Nichols, +Mrs. Vaughan, Miss Stone, Rev. A. L. Brown, Lucretia Mott, and +Mrs. F. D. Gage addressed the Convention during the different +sessions."</p> + +<p>The same correspondent says of the <i>World's</i> Temperance +Convention: "There was one feature more anomalous than the +rejection and gagging of Miss Brown, darker and far more cruel, +for it has not the excuse of custom, nor can the Bible be +tortured into any justification of it. This was the exclusion of +Dr. James McCune Smith, a gentleman, a graduate of the Edinburgh +University, a member of a long-established temperance society, +and a regularly appointed delegate. And wherefore? simply for the +reason that nature had bestowed on his complexion a darker, +richer tint than upon some of the sycophants who gathered there; +it appears to have been simply to pander to a bigoted priesthood +and a corrupt populace."</p></blockquote> + +<p>In deciding the action of the Convention to be worse in its treatment +toward Mr. Smith than toward Miss Brown, we think <i>The Una</i> +correspondent makes a grave mistake.</p> + +<p>In point of courtesy the treatment of a lady of culture and +refinement, the peer of any man in that assembly, with the +unpardonable rudeness they did, was infinitely worse than to have done +the same thing to any man, white or black, because by every code of +honor or chivalry all men are bound to defend woman. Again, as a +question of morals, custom, and prejudice, they occupied the same +position in the State and the Church. The "white male" in the +Constitutions placed women and black men on the same platform as +citizens. The popular interpretation of Scripture sanctioned the same +injustice in both cases. In the mouths of the false prophets, +"Servants, obey your masters," was used for the same purpose, and with +equal effect, as "Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands." +"Servant of servants shall he be" has been used with the same +prophetic force as the more cruel curse pronounced on woman. The white +man's Bible has been uniformly used to show that the degradation of +the woman and the black man was in harmony with God's will. On what +principle is proscription on account of color more cruel than on +account of sex?</p> + +<p>Most of the liberal men and women now withdrew from all temperance +organizations, leaving the movement in the hands of time-serving +priests and politicians, who, being in the majority, effectually +blocked the progress of the reform for the time—destroying, as they +did, the enthusiasm of the women in trying to press it as a moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[Pg 513]</a></span> +principle, and the hope of the men, who intended to carry it as a +political measure. Henceforward women took no active part in +temperance until the Ohio crusade revived them again all over the +nation, and gathered the scattered forces into "The Woman's National +Christian Temperance Union," of which Miss Frances E. Willard is +president. As now, so in 1853, intelligent women saw that the most +direct way to effect any reform was to have a voice in the laws and +lawmakers. Hence they turned their attention to rolling up petitions +for the civil and political rights of women, to hearings before +legislatures and constitutional conventions, giving their most +persistent efforts to the reform technically called "Woman's Rights."</p> + +<p>Susan B. Anthony had a similar battle to fight in the educational +conventions. Having been a successful teacher in the State of New York +fifteen years of her life, she had seen the need of many improvements +in the mode of teaching and in the sanitary arrangements of school +buildings; and more than all, the injustice to women in their half-pay +as teachers. Her interest in educational conventions was first roused +by listening to a tedious discussion at Elmira on the "Divine +ordinance" of flogging children, in which Charles Anthony, principal +of the Albany Academy, quoted Solomon's injunction, "Spare the rod, +and spoil the child."</p> + +<p>In 1853, the annual convention being held in Rochester, her place of +residence, Miss Anthony conscientiously attended all the sessions +through three entire days. After having listened for hours to a +discussion as to the reason why the profession of teacher was not as +much respected as that of the lawyer, minister, or doctor, without +once, as she thought, touching the kernel of the question, she arose +to untie for them the Gordian knot, and said, "Mr. President." If all +the witches that had been drowned, burned, and hung in the Old World +and the New had suddenly appeared on the platform, threatening +vengeance for their wrongs, the officers of that convention could not +have been thrown into greater consternation.</p> + +<p>There stood that Quaker girl, calm and self-possessed, while with +hasty consultations, running to and fro, those frightened men could +not decide what to do; how to receive this audacious invader of their +sphere of action. At length President Davies, of West Point, in fall +dress, buff vest, blue coat, gilt buttons, stepped to the front, and +said, in a tremulous, mocking tone, "What will the lady have?" "I +wish, sir, to speak to the question under discussion," Miss Anthony +replied. The Professor, more perplexed than before, said: "What is the +pleasure of the Convention?" A gentleman moved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[Pg 514]</a></span> that she should be +heard; another seconded the motion; whereupon a discussion pro and con +followed, lasting full half an hour, when a vote of the men only was +taken, and permission granted by a small majority; and lucky for her, +too, was it, that the thousand women crowding that hall could not vote +on the question, for they would have given a solid "no." The president +then announced the vote, and said: "The lady can speak."</p> + +<p>We can easily imagine the embarrassment under which Miss Anthony arose +after that half hour of suspense, and the bitter hostility she noted +on every side. However, with a clear, distinct voice, which filled the +hall, she said: "It seems to me, gentlemen, that none of you quite +comprehend the cause of the disrespect of which you complain. Do you +not see that so long as society says a woman is incompetent to be a +lawyer, minister, or doctor, but has ample ability to be a teacher, +that every man of you who chooses this profession tacitly acknowledges +that he has no more brains than a woman? And this, too, is the reason +that teaching is a less lucrative profession, as here men must compete +with the cheap labor of woman. Would you exalt your profession, exalt +those who labor with you. Would you make it more lucrative, increase +the salaries of the women engaged in the noble work of educating our +future Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen."</p> + +<p>This said, Miss Anthony took her seat, amid the profoundest silence, +broken at last by three gentlemen, Messrs. Cruttenden, Coburn, and +Fanning, walking down the broad aisle to congratulate the speaker on +her pluck and perseverance, and the pertinency of her remarks. The +editor of <i>The Rochester Democrat</i> said the next morning, that +"whatever the schoolmasters might think of Miss Anthony, it was +evident that she hit the nail on the head."</p> + +<p>To give the women of to-day some idea of what it cost those who first +thrust themselves into these conventions, at the close of the session +Miss A. heard women remarking: "Did you ever see anything like this +performance?" "I was actually ashamed of my sex." "I felt so mortified +I really wished the floor would open and swallow me up." "Who can that +creature be?" "She must be a dreadful woman to get up that way and +speak in public." "I was so mad at those three men making such a +parade to shake hands with her; that will just encourage her to speak +again." These ladies had probably all been to theatres, concerts, +operas, and gone into ecstasies over Fanny Kemble, Rachel, and Jenny +Lind; and Fanny Elsler, balanced on one toe, the other foot in the +air, without having their delicacy shocked in the least. But a simple +Quaker<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[Pg 515]</a></span> girl rising in a teachers' convention to make a common-sense +remark modestly, dressed, making no display of her neck, or arms, or +legs, so tried their delicate sensibilities that they were almost +afraid to attend the next session.</p> + +<p>At the opening of the next morning's session, after Miss Anthony's +début, Professor Davies, in all his majesty and pomposity, with his +thumbs in the arm-holes of his regulation buff vest, called the +Convention to order, and said: "I have been asked by several persons, +why no provisions have been made for women to speak, and vote, and act +on committees, in these assemblies?" My answer is, "Be hold yonder +beautiful pilaster of this superb hall! contemplate its pedestal, its +shaft, its rich entablature, the crowning glory of the whole. Each and +all the parts in their appropriate place contribute to the strength, +symmetry, and beauty of the whole. Could I aid in taking down that +magnificent entablature from its proud elevation, and placing it in +the dust and dirt that surround the pedestal? Neither could I drag +down the mother, wife, and daughter, whom we worship as beings of a +higher order, on the common plane of life with ourselves."</p> + +<p>If all men were pedestals and shafts capable of holding the women of +their households above the dirt and dust of common life, in a serene +atmosphere of peace and plenty, the good professor's remarks would +have had some significance; but as the burdens of existence rest +equally on the shoulders of men and women, and we must ever struggle +together on a common plane for bread, his metaphor has no foundation. +Miss Anthony attended these teachers' conventions from year to year, +at Oswego, Utica, Poughkeepsie, Lockport, Syracuse, making the same +demands for equal place and pay, until she had the satisfaction to see +every right conceded. Women speaking and voting on all questions; +appointed on committees, and to prepare reports and addresses, elected +officers of the Association, and seated on the platforms. In 1856, she +was chairman of a committee herself, to report on the question of +co-education; and at Troy, before a magnificent audience of the most +intelligent men and women of the State, she read her report, which the +press pronounced able and conclusive. The President, Mr. Hazeltine, of +New York, congratulating Miss Anthony on her address, said: "As much +as I am compelled to admire your rhetoric and logic, the matter and +manner of your address and its delivery, I would rather follow a +daughter of mine to her grave, than to have her deliver such an +address before such an assembly." Superintendent Randall, overhearing +the President, added: "I should be proud, Madam, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[Pg 516]</a></span> I had a daughter +capable of making such an eloquent and finished argument, before this +or any assembly of men and women. I congratulate you on your +triumphant success."</p> + +<p>In 1857, at Binghamton, Professor Fowler, of Rochester, took up the +gauntlet thrown down by Miss Anthony, and presented the other side of +the question, taking the ground that boys and girls should not be +educated together, and that women should not be paid equal wages even +for equally good work. The gentlemen who sustained the side demanding +equal rights for women in these conventions, were Randall, Rice, +Cruttenden, Cavert, Fanning, Johonett, Coburn, Wilder, and Farnham. +The opposition was led by Davies, Valentine, Buckley, Anthony (not S. +B. A.), Ross, an old bachelor, the butt of ridicule, the clown of the +Convention; and McElligott, the latter hardly ranking with the rest, +for though opposed, he was always a gentleman, the others being +ofttimes so coarse in their sneers and innuendoes, that they disgraced +the positions they occupied, as the educators of the youth of the +State. In the discussion at Binghamton, where Miss Anthony introduced +a resolution in favor of co-education, Mr. McElligott said "he was in +favor of allowing her full and equal opportunity with any other member +to present resolutions, or to call them up for discussion. Standing up +as she does before large audiences, to advocate what she +conscientiously considers the rights and privileges of her sex, gives +a touch of moral sublimity to our proceedings worthy the admiration of +all."</p> + +<p>Professor Davies denounced the resolutions in the strongest terms. "He +had for four years been trying to escape this discussion; but if the +question must come, let it be boldly met and disposed of. These +resolutions involve a great social rather than an educational +question, calculated to introduce a vast social evil; they are the +first step in that school which seeks to abolish marriage, and behind +the picture presented by them, I see a monster of deformity."<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> + +<p>In view of the grand experiment of co-education, so successful in +every part of our country, the fears of those timid men thirty years +ago provoke nothing now but a passing smile. How few of them with a +sober face could at this time defend their old positions. It is +creditable to the stronger sex that so many men in all those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[Pg 517]</a></span> +encounters, took no counsel with their fears nor prejudices, but +seeing the principle steadfastly maintained it.</p> + +<p>But the temperance and educational conventions, the clergy and the +pedagogues, were alike abandoned now for the legislators. All this +escapading of Miss Anthony's was mere child's play, compared with the +steady bombardment kept up until the war on the legislators of the +Empire State. Calls, appeals, petitions to rouse the women, fell like +snow-flakes in every county, asking for the civil and political rights +of woman; they were carried into the Legislature, frequent hearings +secured, the members debating the question as hotly there as it had +already been discussed in popular conventions. As New York could boast +a larger number of strong-minded women than any other State, whose +continuity of purpose knew no variableness nor shadow of turning, the +agitation was persistently continued in all directions.</p> + + +<h3>THE SYRACUSE NATIONAL CONVENTION,<br /> +<small><i>September 8, 9, and 10, 1852.</i></small></h3> + +<p>This Convention, lasting three days, was in many respects remarkable, +even for that "City of Conventions." It called out immense audiences, +attracted many eminent persons from different points of the State, and +was most favorably noticed by the press; the debates were unusually +earnest and brilliant, and the proceedings orderly and harmonious +throughout. Notwithstanding an admission fee of one shilling, the City +Hall was densely packed at every session, and at the hour of +adjournment it was with difficulty that the audience could gain the +street. The preliminary<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> editorials of the city papers reflected +their own conservative or progressive tendencies.</p> + +<p>In no one respect were the participants in these early Conventions +more unsparingly ridiculed, and more maliciously falsified, than in +their personal appearance; it may therefore be wise to say that in +dignity and grace of manner and style of dress, the majority of these +ladies were superior to the mass of women; while the neat and +unadorned Quaker costume was worn by some, many others were elegantly +and fashionably attired; two of them in such extreme style<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[Pg 518]</a></span> as to call +forth much criticism from the majority, to whom a happy medium seemed +desirable.</p> + +<p>The Convention was called to order by Paulina Wright Davis, chairman +of the Central Committee, and prayer offered by the Rev. Samuel J. +May, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Syracuse.</p> + +<p>Although this was the first Woman's Rights Convention at which Mr. May +was ever present, he had been represented in nearly all by letter, and +as early as 1845 had preached an able sermon advocating the social, +civil, and political rights of woman. He had been an early convert to +this doctrine, and enjoyed telling the manner of his conversion. +Speaking once in Providence on the question of slavery, he was +attracted by the earnest attention he received from an +intelligent-looking woman. At the close of the meeting, she said to +him: "I have listened to you with an interest that only a woman can +feel. I doubt whether you see how much of your description of the +helpless dependence of slaves applies equally to all women." She ran +the parallel rapidly, quoting law and custom, maintaining her +assertion so perfectly that Mr. May's eyes were opened at once, and he +promised the lady to give the subject his immediate consideration.</p> + +<p>Lucy Stone read the call<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> and expressed the wish that every one +present, even if averse to the new demands by women, would take part +in the debates, as it was the truth on this question its advocates +were seeking. Among the most noticeable features of these early +Conventions was the welcome given to opposing arguments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[Pg 519]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Nominating Committee reported the list of officers,<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> with +Lucretia Mott as permanent President. She asked that the vote be taken +separately, as there might be objections to her appointment. The +entire audience (except her husband, who gave an emphatic "No!") voted +in her favor. The very fact that Mrs. Mott consented, under any +circumstances, to preside over a promiscuous assemblage, was proof of +the progress of liberal ideas, as four years previously she had +strenuously opposed placing a woman in that position, and as a member +of the Society of Friends, by presiding over a meeting to which there +was an admission fee, she rendered herself liable to expulsion. The +vote being taken, Mrs. Mott, who sat far back in the audience, walked +forward to the platform, her sweet face and placid manners at once +winning the confidence of the audience. This impression was further +deepened by her opening remarks. She said she was unpracticed in +parliamentary proceedings, and felt herself incompetent to fulfill the +duties of the position now pressed upon her, and was quite unprepared +to make a suitable speech. She asked the serious and respectful +attention of the Convention to the business before them, referred to +the success that had thus far attended the movement, the respect shown +by the press, and the favor with which the public generally had +received these new demands, and closed by inviting the cordial +co-operation of all present.</p> + +<p>In commenting upon Mrs. Mott's opening address, the press of the city +declared it to have been "better expressed and far more appropriate +than those heard on similar occasions in political and legislative +assemblages." The choice of Mrs. Mott as President was pre-eminently +wise; of mature years, a member of the Society of Friends, in which +woman was held as an equal, with undoubted right to speak in public, +and the still broader experience of the Anti-Slavery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[Pg 520]</a></span> platform, she +was well fitted to guide the proceedings and encourage the expression +of opinions from those to whom public speaking was an untried +experiment. "It was a singular spectacle," said the <i>Syracuse +Standard</i>, "to see this gray-haired matron presiding over a Convention +with an ease, dignity, and grace that might be envied by the most +experienced legislator in the country."</p> + +<p>Delegates were present from Canada and eight different States. Letters +were received from Mrs. Marion Reid, of England, author of an able +work upon woman; from John Neal, of Maine, the veteran temperance +reformer; from William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. William Henry Channing, +Rev. A. D. Mayo, Margaret H. Andrews, Sarah D. Fish, Angelina Grimké +Weld, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, from G. W. Johnson, chairman of the +State Committee of the Liberty party, and Horace Greeley, the +world-renowned editor of the <i>Tribune</i>. Mr. Johnson's letter enclosed +ten dollars and the following sentiments: 1. Woman has, equally with +man, the inalienable right to education, suffrage, office, property, +professions, titles, and honors—to life, liberty, and the pursuit of +happiness. 2. False to our sex, as well as her own, and false to +herself and to God, is the woman who approves, or who submits without +resistance or protest, to the social and political wrongs imposed upon +her in common with the rest of her sex throughout the world.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton's letter<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> presented three suggestions for the +consideration of the Convention, viz.: That all women owning property +should refuse to pay taxes as long as unrepresented; that man and +woman should be educated together, and the abuse of the religious +element in woman. This letter created much discussion, accompanied as +it was by a series of resolutions of the most radical character, which +were finally, with one exception, adopted. Thus at that early day was +the action of those women, who have since refused to pay taxes, +prefigured and suggested. One of the remarkable aspects of this +reform, is the fact that from the first its full significance was seen +by many of the women who inaugurated it.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">HORACE GREELEY'S LETTER.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>Sept. 1, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Friend</span>:—I have once or twice been urged to attend a +Convention of the advocates of woman's rights; and though +compliance has never been within my power, I have a right to +infer that some friends of the cause desire suggestions from me +with regard to the best means of advancing it. I therefore +venture to submit some thoughts on that subject.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[Pg 521]</a></span> To my mind the +<span class="smcap">Bread</span> problem lies at the base of all the desirable and practical +reforms which our age meditates. Not that bread is intrinsically +more important to man than Temperance, Intelligence, Morality, +and Religion, but that it is essential to the just appreciation +of all these. Vainly do we preach the blessings of temperance to +human beings cradled in hunger, and suffering at intervals the +agonies of famine; idly do we commend intellectual culture to +those whose minds are daily racked with the dark problem, "How +shall we procure food for the morrow?" Morality, religion, are +but words to him who fishes in the gutters for the means of +sustaining life, and crouches behind barrels in the street for +shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter's night.</p> + +<p>Before all questions of intellectual training or political +franchises for women, not to speak of such a trifle as costume, +do I place the question of enlarged opportunities for work; of a +more extended and diversified field of employment. The silk +culture and manufacture firmly established and thriftily +prosecuted to the extent of our home demand for silk, would be +worth everything to American women. Our now feeble and infantile +schools of design should be encouraged with the same view. A +wider and more prosperous development of our Manufacturing +Industry will increase the demand for female labor, thus +enhancing its average reward and elevating the social position of +woman. I trust the future has, therefore, much good in store for +the less muscular half of the human race.</p> + +<p>But the reform here anticipated should be inaugurated in our own +households. I know how idle is the expectation of any general and +permanent enhancement of the wages of any class or condition +above the level of equation of Supply and Demand; yet it seems to +me that the friends of woman's rights may wisely and worthily set +the example of paying juster prices for female assistance in +their households than those now current. If they would but +resolve never to pay a capable, efficient woman less than +two-thirds the wages paid to a vigorous, effective man employed +in some corresponding vocation, they would very essentially aid +the movement now in progress for the general recognition and +conception of Equal Rights to Woman.</p> + +<p>Society is clearly unjust to woman in according her but four to +eight dollars per month for labor equally repugnant with, and +more protracted than that of men of equal intelligence and +relative efficiency, whose services command from ten to twenty +dollars per month. If, then, the friends of Woman's Rights could +set the world an example of paying for female service, not the +lowest pittance which stern Necessity may compel the defenceless +to accept, but as approximately fair and liberal compensation for +the work actually done, as determined by a careful comparison +with the recompense of other labor, I believe they would give +their cause an impulse which could not be permanently resisted.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Horace Greeley.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">With profound esteem, yours,</p> +<p class="ltr-to ltr-clear close"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Paulina W. Davis</span>, Providence, R. I.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Greeley's letter bore two remarkable aspects. First, he recognized +the poverty of woman as closely connected with her degradation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[Pg 522]</a></span> One +of the brightest anti-slavery orators was at that time in the habit of +saying, "It is not the press, nor the pulpit, which rules the country, +but the counting-room"; proving his assertion by showing the greater +power of commerce and money, than of intellect and morality. So Mr. +Greeley saw the purse to be woman's first need; that she must control +money in order to help herself to freedom.</p> + +<p>Second, ignoring woman's pauperized condition just admitted, he +suggested that women engaged in this reform should pay those employed +in the household larger wages than was customary, although these very +women were dependent upon others for their shelter, food, and clothes; +so impossible is it for a governing class to understand the +helplessness of dependents, and to fully comprehend the disabilities +of a subject class.</p> + +<p>The declaration of sentiments<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> adopted at the Westchester +Convention was read by Martha C. Wright, and commented upon as follows +by</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Clarina Howard Nichols</span>: There <i>is</i> no limit to personal +responsibility. Our duties are as wide as the world, and as +far-reaching as the bounds of human endeavor. Woman and man must +act together; she, <i>his</i> helper. She has no sphere peculiar to +herself, because she could not then be his helper. It is only +since I have met the varied responsibilities of life, that I have +comprehended woman's sphere; and I have come to regard it as +lying within the whole circumference of humanity. If, as is +claimed by the most ultra opponents of the wife's legal +individuality, the <i>interests of the parties are identical</i>, then +I claim as a legitimate conclusion that their spheres are also +identical. For interests determine duties, and duties are the +land-marks of spheres. The dependence of the sexes is mutual.</p> + +<p>It is in behalf of our sons, the future men of the Republic, as +well as of our daughters, its future mothers, that we claim the +full development of our energies by education, and legal +protection in the control of all the issues and profits of our +lives called <i>property</i>. Woman must seek influence, independence, +representation, that she may have power to aid in the elevation +of the human race. When men kindly set aside woman from the +National Councils, they say the moral field belongs to her; and +the strongest reason why woman should seek a more elevated +position, is because her moral susceptibilities are greater than +those of man.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span> thought differently from Mrs. Nichols; she did not +believe that woman's moral feelings were more elevated than +man's; but that with the same opportunities for development, with +the same restrictions and penalties, there would probably be +about an equal manifestation of virtue.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Oakes Smith</span>: My friends, do we realize for what purpose +we are convened? Do we fully understand that we aim at nothing +less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[Pg 523]</a></span> than an entire subversion of the present order of society, +a dissolution of the whole existing social compact? Do we see +that it is not an error of to-day, nor of yesterday, against +which we are lifting up the voice of dissent, but that it is +against the hoary-headed error of all times—error borne onward +from the foot-prints of the first pair ejected from Paradise, +down to our own time? In view of all this, it does seem to me +that we should each and all feel as if anointed, sanctified, set +apart as to a great mission. It seems to me that we who struggle +to restore the divine order to the world, should feel as if under +the very eye of the Eternal Searcher of all hearts, who will +reject any sacrifice other than a pure offering.</p> + +<p>We are said to be a "few disaffected, embittered women, met for +the purpose of giving vent to petty personal spleen and domestic +discontent." I repel the charge; and I call upon every woman here +to repel the charge. If we have personal wrongs, here is not the +place for redress. If we have private griefs (and what human +heart, in a large sense, is without them?), we do not come here +to recount them. The grave will lay its cold honors over the +hearts of all here present, before the good we ask for our kind +will be realized to the world. We shall pass onward to other +spheres of existence, but I trust the seed we shall here plant +will ripen to a glorious harvest. We "see the end from the +beginning," and rejoice in spirit. We care not that we shall not +reach the fruits of our toil, for we know in times to come it +will be seen to be a glorious work.</p> + +<p>Bitterness is the child of wrong; if any one of our number has +become embittered (which, God forbid!), it is because social +wrong has so penetrated to the inner life that we are crucified +thereby, and taste the gall and vinegar with the Divine Master. +All who take their stand against false institutions, are in some +sense embittered. The conviction of wrong has wrought mightily in +them. Their large hearts took in the whole sense of human woe, +and bled for those who had become brutalized by its weight, and +they spoke as never man spoke in his own individualism, but as +the embodied race will speak, when the full time shall come. Thus +Huss and Wickliffe and Luther spoke, and the men of '76.</p> + +<p>No woman has come here to talk over private griefs, and detail +the small coin of personal anecdote; and yet did woman speak of +the wrongs, which unjust legislation; the wrongs which corrupt +public opinion; the wrongs which false social aspects have +fastened upon us; wrongs which she hides beneath smiles, and +conceals with womanly endurance; did she give voice to all this, +her smiles would seem hollow and her endurance pitiable.</p> + +<p>I hope this Convention will be an acting Convention. Let us +pledge ourselves to the support of a paper in which our views +shall be fairly presented to the world. At our last Convention in +Worcester, I presented a prospectus for such a paper, which I +will request hereafter to be read here. We can do little or +nothing without such an organ. We have no opportunity now to +repel slander, and are restricted in disseminating truth, from +the want of such an organ. <i>The Tribune</i>, and some other papers +in the country, have treated us generously; but a paper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[Pg 524]</a></span> to +represent us must be sustained by ourselves. We must look to our +own resources. We must work out our own salvation, and God grant +it be not in fear and trembling! Woman must henceforth be the +redeemer, the regenerator of the world. We plead not for +ourselves alone, but for Humanity. We must place woman on a +higher platform, and she will raise the race to her side. We +should have a literature of our own, a printing-press and a +publishing-house, and tract writers and distributors, as well as +lectures and conventions; and yet I say this to a race of +beggars, for women have no pecuniary resources.</p> + +<p>Well, then, we must work, we must hold property, and claim the +consequent right to representation, or refuse to be taxed. Our +aim is nothing less than an overthrow of our present partial +legislation, that every American citizen, whether man or woman, +may have a voice in the laws by which we are governed. We do not +aim at idle distinction, but while we would pull down our present +worn-out and imperfect human institutions, we would help to +reconstruct them upon a new and broader foundation.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>: It seems to me that the claims we make at these +Conventions are self-evident truths. The second resolution +affirms the right of human beings to their persons and earnings. +Is not that self-evident? Yet the common law which regulates the +relation of husband and wife, and which is modified only in a +very few instances where there are statutes to the contrary, +gives the "custody" of the wife's person to her husband, so that +he has a right to her even against herself. It gives him her +earnings, no matter with what weariness they have been acquired, +or how greatly she may need them for herself or her children. It +gives him a right to her personal property, which he may will +entirely from her, also the use of her real estate; and in some +of the States, married women, insane persons, and idiots are +ranked together as not fit to make a will. So that she is left +with only one right, which she enjoys in common with the pauper, +viz.: the right of maintenance. Indeed when she has taken the +sacred marriage vow, her legal existence ceases.</p> + +<p>And what is our position politically? Why, the foreigner who +can't speak his mother tongue correctly; the negro, who to our +own shame, we regard as fit only for a boot-black (whose dead +even we bury by themselves), and the drunkard, all are entrusted +with the ballot, all placed by men politically higher than their +own mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. The woman who, seeing +and feeling this, dare not maintain her rights, is the woman to +hang her head and blush. We ask only for justice and equal +rights—the right to vote, the right to our own earnings, +equality before the law—these are the Gibraltar of our cause.</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Antoinette L. Brown</span>: Man can not represent woman. They +differ in their nature and relations. The law is wholly +masculine; it is created and executed by man. The framers of all +legal compacts are restricted to the masculine stand-point of +observation, to the thought, feelings, and biases of man. The law +then could give us no representation as woman, and therefore no +impartial justice even if the present lawmakers were honestly +intent upon this; for we can be represented only by our peers. It +is expected then under the present administration, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[Pg 525]</a></span> woman +should be the legal subject of man, legally reduced to pecuniary +dependence upon him; that the mother should have lower legal +claims upon the children than the father, and that, in short, +woman should be in all respects the legal inferior of man, though +entitled to full equality.</p> + +<p>Here is the fact and its cause. When woman is tried for crime, +her jury, her judges, her advocates, are all men; and yet there +may have been temptations and various palliating circumstances +connected with her peculiar nature as woman, such as man can not +appreciate. Common justice demands that a part of the law-makers +and law executors should be of her own sex. In questions of +marriage and divorce, affecting interests dearer than life, both +parties in the compact are entitled to an equal voice. Then the +influences which arise from the relations of the sexes, when left +to be exerted in our halls of justice, would at least cause +decency and propriety of conduct to be maintained there; but now +low-minded men are encouraged to jest openly in court over the +most sacred and most delicate subjects. From the nature of +things, the guilty woman can not now have justice done her before +the professed tribunals of justice; and the innocent but wronged +woman is constrained to suffer on in silence rather than ask for +redress.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Clarina Howard Nichols</span> said: There is one peculiarity in the laws +affecting woman's property rights, which as it has not to my +knowledge been presented for the consideration of the public, +except by myself to a limited extent in private conversation and +otherwise, I wish to speak of here. It is the unconstitutionality +of laws cutting off the wife's right of dower. It is a provision +of our National and State Constitutions, that property rights +shall not be confiscated for political or other offences against +the laws. Yet in all the States, if I am rightly informed, the +wife forfeits her right of dower in case of divorce for +infidelity to the marriage vow. In Massachusetts and several +other States, if the wife desert her husband for any cause, and +he procure a divorce on the ground of her desertion, she forfeits +her right of dower. But it is worthy of remark that in no case is +the right of the husband to possess and control the estate which +is their joint accumulation, set aside; no, not even when the +wife procures a divorce for the most aggravated abuse and +infidelity combined. She, the innocent party, goes out childless +and portionless, by decree of law; and he, the criminal, retains +the home and the children, by the favor of the same law. I claim, +friends, that the laws which cut off the wife's right of dower, +in any case do confiscate property rights, and hence are +<i>unconstitutional</i>. The property laws compel the wife to seek +divorce in order to protect her earnings for the support of her +children. A rum-drinker took his wife's clothing to pay his rum +bill, and the justice decided that the clothing could be held, +because the wife belonged to him.</p> + +<p>Only under the Common Law of England has woman been deprived of +her natural rights. Instances are frequent where the husband's +aged parents are supported by the wife's earnings, and the wife's +parents left paupers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nichols here offered the following resolution:</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That equally involved as they are in all the Natural +Relations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[Pg 526]</a></span> which lie at the base of society, the sexes are +equally entitled to all the rights necessary to the discharge of +the duties of those relations.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Oakes Smith</span> presented the following resolution offered +by Lucretia Mott:</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That as the imbruted slave, who is content with his +own lot, and would not be free if he could, if any such there be, +only gives evidence of the depth of his degradation; so the woman +who is satisfied with her inferior condition, avering that she +has all the rights she wants, does but exhibit the enervating +effects of the wrongs to which she is subjected.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Susan B. Anthony read the resolutions.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> The audience called upon +Hon. Gerrit Smith for a speech. His rising was received with cheers. +This was Mr. Smith's first appearance upon our platform, although in +letters to different Conventions he had already expressed his +sympathy. His commanding presence, his benevolent countenance, and +deep rich voice, made a profound impression, and intensified the power +of his glowing words. Being well known in Syracuse for his +philanthropy, his presence added dignity and influence to the +assembly.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Smith</span> said: The women who are engaged in this movement are +ridiculed for aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, clergymen, sea +captains, generals, presidents. For the sake of argument +admitting this to be true, what then? Shall we block the way to +any individual aspiration? But women are totally unfit for these +places. Let them try, and their failure will settle the matter to +their own satisfaction. There is not the slightest danger of a +human being holding any position that he is incapable of +attaining. We can not lay down a rule for all women. Because all +women are not born with a genius for navigation, shall we say +that one who is by skill and education able to take observations, +who understands the chart and compass, the dangerous shores, +currents, and latitudes, shall not, if she chooses, be a sea +captain? Suppose we apply that rule to man. Because I can not +stand on my head, shall we deny that right to all acrobats in our +circuses? Because I can not make a steam engine, shall all other +men be denied that right? Because all men can not stand on a +platform and make a speech, shall I be denied the exercise of +that right? Each individual has a sphere, and that sphere is the +largest place that he or she can fill.</p> + +<p>These women complain that they have been robbed of great and +essential rights. They do not ask favors; they demand rights, the +right to do whatever they have the capacity to accomplish, the +right to dictate their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[Pg 527]</a></span> own sphere of action, and to have a voice +in the laws and rulers under which they live. Suppose I should go +to vote, and some man should push me back and say, "You want to +be Governor, don't you?" "No," I reply, "I want to exercise my +God-given right to vote." Such a taunt as this would be no more +insulting than those now cast at women, when they demand rights +so unjustly denied.</p> + +<p>I make no claim that woman is fit to be a member of Congress or +President; all I ask for her is what I ask for the negro, a fair +field. All will admit that woman has a right to herself, to her +own powers of locomotion, to her own earnings, but how few are +prepared to admit her right to the ballot. But all rights are +held by a precarious tenure, if this one be denied. When women +are the constituents of men who make and administer the laws, +they will pay due consideration to their interests and not +before. The right of suffrage is the great right that guarantees +all others.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Smith set forth the education, the dignity, the power of +self-government, and took his seat amid great applause.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said: It is the duty of woman to resist taxation as +long as she is not represented. It may involve the loss of +friends as it surely will the loss of property. But let them all +go; friends, house, garden spot, and all. The principle at issue +requires the sacrifice. Resist, let the case be tried in the +courts; be your own lawyers; base your cause on the admitted +self-evident truth, that taxation and representation are +inseparable. One such resistance, by the agitation that will grow +out of it, will do more to set this question right than all the +conventions in the world. There are $15,000,000 of taxable +property owned by women of Boston who have no voice either in the +use or imposition of the tax.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">J. B. Brigham</span>, a school teacher, said: That the natures of men +and women showed that their spheres were not the same, and woman +was only truly lovely and happy when in her own element. He +wished woman to recognize the feminine element in her being, for +if she understood this, it would guide her in everything. In the +domestic animals even this difference was manifest. Women should +be keepers at home, and mind domestic concerns. The true object +of this Convention is, I fear, not so much to acquire any real or +supposed rights, as to make the speakers and actors conspicuous. +I urge those engaged in this movement to claim nothing masculine +for woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Nichols</span> said: Mr. Brigham's allusion to the animal world is +not a happy one, as no animal has been discovered which +legislated away the rights of the female.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Gerrit Smith</span> said: He would hand his esteemed friend over to +Lucretia Mott, that he might be slain like Abimelech of old, by +the hand of a woman; as evidently from his estimate of the sex, +that would be the most humiliating death he could suffer. I trust +no gentleman on this platform will consent to play the part of +the armor-bearer in his behalf, and rescue him from his impending +fate.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span> said: It was impossible for one man to have +arbitrary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[Pg 528]</a></span> power over another without becoming despotic. She did +not expect man to see how woman is robbed. Slaveholders did not +see that they were oppressors, but slaves did. Gerrit Smith +alluded to one woman that he intends me to personify, whom our +friend would consider far out of her sphere. Yet if he believes +his Bible, he must acknowledge that Deborah, a mother in Israel, +arose by divine command, and led the armies of Israel,—the wife +of Heber the Kenite, who drove the nail into the head of the +Canaanite General, and her praises were chanted in the songs of +Israel. The preaching of women, too, is approved in the Bible. +Paul gives special directions to women how to preach, and he +exhorts them to qualify themselves for this function and not to +pin their faith on the sleeves of the clergy. I would advise Mr. +Bingham not to set up his wisdom against the plain decrees of the +Almighty. As to woman's voice being too weak to be heard as a +public speaker, did Mr. Brigham send a protest to England against +Victoria's proroguing Parliament?</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">May</span> moved that Mrs. Stephen Smith be placed on a Committee in +his stead.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">President</span> quickly replied: Woman's Rights' women do not like +to be called by their husbands' names, but by their own.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">May</span> corrected himself and said—<i>Rosa Smith</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Matilda Joslyn Gage made her first public appearance in an address to +this Convention. She pressed the adoption of some settled plan for the +future—brought up many notable examples of woman's intellectual +ability, and urged that girls be trained to self-reliance. Although +Mrs. Gage, whose residence was Onondaga County, had not before taken +part in a Convention, yet from the moment she read of an organized +effort for the rights of woman, she had united in it heart and soul, +merely waiting a convenient opportunity to publicly identify herself +with this reform; an opportunity given by the Syracuse Convention. +Personally acquainted with none of the leaders except Mr. May, it was +quite a test of moral courage for Mrs. Gage, then quite a young woman, +in fact the youngest person who took part in that Convention, to speak +upon this occasion. She consulted no one as to time or opportunity, +but when her courage had reached a sufficiently high point, with +palpitating heart she ascended the platform, where she was cordially +given place by Mrs. Mott, whose kindness to her at this supreme moment +of her life was never forgotten.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Gage</span> said: This Convention has assembled to discuss the +subject of Woman's Rights, and form some settled plan of action +for the future. While so much is said of the inferior intellect +of woman, it is by a strange absurdity conceded that very many +eminent men owe their station in life to their mothers. Women are +now in the situation of the mass of mankind a few years since, +when science and learning were in the hands of the priests, and +property was held by vassalage. The Pope and the priests claimed +to be not only the teachers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[Pg 529]</a></span> but the guides of the people; the +laity were not permitted to examine for themselves; education was +held to be unfit for the masses, while the tenure of their landed +property was such as kept them in a continual state of dependence +on their feudal lords.</p> + +<p>It was but a short time since the most common rudiments of +education were deemed sufficient for any woman; could she but +read tolerably and write her own name it was enough. Trammeled as +women have been by might and custom, there are still many shining +examples, which serve as beacon lights to show what may be +attained by genius, labor, energy, and perseverance combined. +"The longer I live in the world," says Göethe, "the more I am +certain that the difference between the great and the +insignificant, is energy, invincible determination, an honest +purpose once fixed, and then victory."</p> + +<p>Although so much has been said of woman's unfitness for public +life, it can be seen, from Semiramis to Victoria, that she has a +peculiar fitness for governing. In poetry, Sappho was honored +with the title of the Tenth Muse. Helena Lucretia Corano, in the +seventeenth century, was of such rare scientific attainments, +that the most illustrious persons in passing through Venice, were +more anxious to see her than all the curiosities of the city; she +was made a doctor, receiving the title of Unalterable. Mary +Cunity, of Silesia, in the sixteenth century, was one of the most +able astronomers of her time, forming astronomical tables that +acquired for her a great reputation, Anna Maria Schureman was a +sculptor, engraver, musician, and painter; she especially +excelled in miniature painting. Constantina Grierson, an Irish +girl, of humble parentage, was celebrated for her literary +acquirements, though dying at the early age of twenty-seven.</p> + +<p>With the learning, energy, and perseverance of Lady Jane Grey, +Mary and Elizabeth, all are familiar. Mrs. Cowper was spoken of +by Montague as standing at the head of all that is called +learned, and that every critic veiled his bonnet at her superior +judgment. Joanna Baillie has been termed the woman Shakespeare. +Caroline Herschell shares the fame of her brother as an +astronomer. The greatest triumphs of the present age in the +drama, music, and literature have been achieved by women, among +whom may be mentioned, Charlotte Cushman, Jenny Lind, the Misses +Carey, Mrs. Stowe, and Margaret Fuller. Mrs. Somerville's renown +has long been spread over both continents as one of the first +mathematicians of the present age.</p> + +<p>Self-reliance is one of the first lessons to be taught our +daughters; they should be educated with our sons, and equally +with them, taught to look forward to some independent means of +support, either to one of the professions or the business best +fitted to exercise their talents. Being placed in a position +compelling them to act, has caused many persons to discover +talents in themselves they were before unaware of possessing. +Great emergencies produce great leaders, by arousing hitherto +dormant energies.</p> + +<p>Let us look at the rights it is boasted women now possess. After +marriage the husband and wife are considered as one person in +law, which I hold to be false from the very laws applicable to +married parties. Were it so, the act of one would be as binding +as the act of the other, and wise legislators would not need to +enact statutes defining the peculiar rights of each; were it so, +a woman could not legally be a man's inferior. Such a thing would +be a veritable impossibility. One-half of a person can not be +made the protection or direction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[Pg 530]</a></span> of the other half. Blackstone +says "a woman may indeed be attorney for her husband, for that +implies no separation from, but rather a representation of, her +lord. And a husband may also bequeath anything to his wife by +will; for it can not take effect till the coverture is determined +by his death." After stating at considerable length, the reasons +showing their unity, the learned commentator proceeds to cut the +knot, and show they are not one, but are considered as two +persons, one superior, the one inferior, and not only so, but the +inferior in the eye of the law as acting from compulsion.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">J. Elizabeth Jones</span>, of Ohio: This is a time of progress; and man +may sooner arrest the progress of the lightning, or the clouds, +or stay the waves of the sea, than the onward march of Truth with +her hand on her sword and her banner unfurled. I am not in the +habit of talking much about rights; I am one of those who take +them. I have occupied pulpits all over the country five days out +of seven, in lecturing on science, and have found no objection.</p> + +<p>I do not know what all the women want, but I do know what I want +myself, and that is, what men are most unwilling to grant; the +right to vote. That includes all other rights. I want to go into +the Legislative Hall, sit on the Judicial Bench, and fill the +Executive Chair. Now do you understand me? This I claim on the +ground of humanity; and on the ground that taxation and +representation go together. The whole question resolves itself +into this; there has been no attempt to dispute this. No man will +venture to deny the right of woman to vote. He may urge many +objections against the expediency of her exercising it, but the +right is hers.</p> + +<p>But though women are deprived of political rights, there are +other rights which no law prevents. We can take our rights as +merchants and in other avocations, by investing our capital in +them; but we stand back and wait till it is popular for us to +become merchants, doctors, lecturers, or practitioners of the +mechanic arts. I know girls who have mechanical genius sufficient +to become Arkwrights and Fultons, but their mothers would not +apprentice them. Which of the women of this Convention have sent +their daughters as apprentices to a watchmaker? There is no law +against this!!</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span>: The Church and public opinion are stronger than law.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lydia Jenkins</span>: Is there any law to prevent women voting in this +State? The Constitution says "white male citizens" may vote, but +does not say that white female citizens may not.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Jones</span> said: I do not understand that point sufficiently well +to explain, but whether the statute book is in favor or opposed, +every citizen in a republic (and a woman is a citizen) has a +natural right to vote which no human laws can abrogate; the right +to vote is the right of self-government.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Antoinette Brown</span> said: I know instances of colored persons voting +under the same circumstances, and their votes being allowed by +the legal authorities; but John A. Dix declared the proceedings +of a school meeting void because two women voted at it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Benjamin S. Jones</span> said, in Ohio where there is much splitting of +hairs between white and black blood, the judges decided in favor +of a certain colored man's right to vote, because there was 50 +per cent. of white blood in the person in question.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Davis</span>: The first draft of the Rhode Island Constitution said +"all citizens," but as soon as some one suggested that the door +was thus left open for women to vote, the word "male" was +promptly inserted.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[Pg 531]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Davis read an interesting letter from the Rev. A. D. Mayo.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> +Samuel J. May read letters from William Lloyd Garrison, of Boston, and +Margaret H. Andrews, of Newburyport, Massachusetts.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Newburyport</span>, Mass., <i>September 4, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rev. Samuel J. May</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>—I wish to express my deep sympathy with those brave +women who are struggling against ancient prejudices and modern +folly, and who will eventually elevate our sex to a position +which will command the respect of those who now regard them with +derision and contempt, and my gratitude to the noble-minded men +who are extending a helping hand to those who have hitherto been +considered the weak and dependent portion of society, and are +endeavoring to raise them to <i>their</i> level, instead of trying to +establish their superiority over them. Such conduct shows true +greatness and dignity of character. I wish to bear my share of +the reproach and contumely which will be liberally bestowed upon +this movement by many who ought to know and to do better; this is +indeed the actuating motive which impels me to write.</p> + +<p>With regard to the counsel which has been requested, I have +little to say. If there be any one subject which has not been +sufficiently insisted on, it is the aimless life which young +women generally lead after they have left school. A large portion +are occupied in forming matrimonial plans when they are wholly +unfit to enter into that sacred state. Dr. Johnson makes his +Nekayah say of young ladies with whom she associated, "Some +imagined they were in love, when they were only idle." If young +ladies directed their attention to some definite employment, this +evil would be remedied.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">I am, dear sir,<br /> +Very truly yours,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">Margaret H. Andrews.</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said: Mrs. Jones' idea of taking our rights is +inspiring, but it can not be done. In Massachusetts some women +apprenticed themselves as printers, but were expelled because men +would not set type beside them. Dr. Harriot K. Hunt asked +permission to attend medical lectures at Harvard, but the +students declared that if she were admitted they would leave, and +so she was sacrificed.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Harriet K. Hunt</span>: No; I am here.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>: Mrs. Mott says she was only suspended. So, too, when +the Grimké sisters and Abby Kelley began publicly to plead the +cause of the slave, they were assailed both by pulpit and press, +and every species of abuse was heaped upon them; but they +persevered and proved their capacity to do it, and now we meet in +quietness, and our right to speak in public is not questioned. +The woman who first departs from the routine in which society +allows her to move must suffer. Let us bravely bear ridicule and +persecution for the sake of the good that will result, and when +the world sees that we can accomplish what we undertake, it will +acknowledge our right. We must be true to each other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[Pg 532]</a></span> We must +stand by the woman whose work of hand or brain removes her from +the customary sphere. Employ the woman physician, dentist, and +artist rather than a man of the same calling, and in time all +professions and trades will be as free to us as to our brothers.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Abby Price</span>, of Hopedale, said: I shall briefly consider woman's +religious position, her relation to the Church, and show that by +its restrictions she has suffered great injustice; that alike +under all forms of religion she has been degraded and oppressed, +the Church has proscribed her, and denied the exercise of her +inalienable rights, and in this the Church is false to the +plainest principles of Christianity. "There is neither Jew nor +Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor +female; for ye all are one in Christ Jesus." Gal., chap, iii., v. +28. "So God created man in His <i>own</i> image; in the image of God +created He him; male and <i>female</i> created He <i>them</i>, and said +unto <i>them</i>: have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the +fowl of the air; over every living thing that moveth upon the +earth." Genesis i., v. 27, 28. Notwithstanding these explicit +declarations of equality, even in the Godhead, the Church +claiming to be "Christian" denies woman's right of free speech. +The priesthood, from Paul down, say gravely: "It is not permitted +for woman to speak in the churches." Some denominations have +gravely debated whether she should be allowed in the service, or +chants, to respond Amen!</p> + +<p>The whole arrangement of Nature in her beautiful and wise +manifestations to us evinces that the Divine order is for the +sexes to mingle their different and peculiar characteristics in +every relation of life. In Jesus the masculine and feminine +elements of humanity were blended harmoniously. These different +characteristics in His own person were distinctly and plainly +seen. The masculine, when He fixed His eye in stern rebuke, and +made the hypocrite and the Pharisee tremble; and the feminine +gleamed often through His tears of affection and pity, and shone +ever a glorious halo of patience and love around Him in the midst +of suffering the most wasting and intense. The Church, as His +Representative, should also exhibit these peculiarities in as +full and glorious harmony.</p> + +<p>Yet very few of the sects allow woman to assume the +responsibility as religious teacher. However great she may feel +the duty to be upon her, and however well qualified she may be, +all ecclesiastical authorities, with one accord, begin to make +excuses whenever a woman presents herself to be properly +authorized, according to the popular usage of that Church, to +preach the Gospel to a people, one-half of whom are her own sex.</p> + +<p>Again, <i>woman is denied</i> a representation in all <i>Ecclesiastical +Assemblies</i>.</p> + +<p>The male portion of the Church assemble in delegation from the +different bodies with which they are connected to legislate in +behalf of the churches, but woman has no representation in these +councils. Her opinion of what is best to promote the interests of +religion is not respected; her right to representation being +denied, her claim to just recognition is solemnly mocked. The +Church places its hands on woman's lips, and says to her, "You +shall not <i>speak</i>; you shall not be represented; you are not +eligible to office because <i>you are a woman</i>!" Is not this +crucifying with a strange presumption the soul of Christ?—treating +with contempt the purity of the Christian +character?—trampling upon <i>Human Rights?</i> And yet woman +patiently bears this contumely and scorn. The poor young men that +she often educates by toil early and late,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[Pg 533]</a></span> labor, arduous and +half paid, teach her, when properly prepared, that this absurd +tyranny is supported by the word of God!</p> + +<p>Woman may speak when the thoughtless crowd the halls of fashion, +with no aim but amusement, in the theatre, opera, or concert +hall; she may meet with ministers in revivals, camp meetings, and +sociables, and reply with smile and bow to the hollow compliments +addressed to her vanity, but she must keep silence in the +churches and all religious meetings; if there are only six +persons present woman may not ask God's blessing to rest there, +nor presume, should one man be present, to give utterance to her +religious aspiration.</p> + +<p>Every class of society, and especially each sex, need religious +teachers of their own class and sex with themselves, having the +same experience, the same hopes, aims, and relations. Human minds +are so constituted as to need not merely intellectual +instruction, but the strength imparted by an earnest sympathy +born of a like experience. In order rightly to appreciate the +wants of others, we must know and realize the trials of their +situation, the struggles they may encounter, the burthens, the +toils, the temptations that beset their different relations. +These should be apprehended to some extent, and the more the +better by the person qualified to speak to the spiritual wants of +all. Each relation, therefore, needs its teacher—its peculiar +ministry. No one can demonstrate by college lore the weight of a +mother's responsibility.</p> + +<p>No man—not even the kindest father—can fully apprehend the +wearisome cares and anxious solicitude for children of her who +bore them. The tremblings of a mother's soul none save a mother +can feel. Man may prepare sound and logical discourses; he may +clearly define a mother's duty; he may talk eloquently about her +responsibility; he may urge upon her strong motives to +faithfulness in the discharge of her maternal duties; he may tell +her what her children should be in all life's varied aspects. She +hears the good instruction and advice with more or less of the +feeling, "<i>You</i> cannot <i>know</i> of what you are talking."....</p> + +<p>The Church needs a varied ministry. Not alone is the power of +mind needed, but the zeal and the inspiration of the inner life; +the unction of love and faith and courage produced by a struggle +amid life's realities. Not the dreamer, but the toiler can best +affect the lives of others through their hearts. In this ministry +the sexes must blend harmoniously their ministrations to others +from their own lives and experiences. This must be the Divine +order. Reason teaches it to the calm observer. Our souls respond +to this truth from their deepest chambers.</p> + +<p>... Doom woman no longer to banishment from the hallowed ground +of Church and State. She has too long been but as the Pariah of +the desert. Welcome her ministrations reverently to her human +nature, kindly to her present weakness, encouragingly to her +hopes; receive her counsels with respect and confidence, so far +as they are worthy, and be assured that a better day will begin +to dawn. The birth of a new spiritual life will be given in this +new marriage, and melody as from the harps of angels will be +breathed from the circles of earth.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Paulina Wright Davis</span>: ... We commence life where our fathers left +it. We have their mistakes and their achievements. We attempt to +walk in the paths they trod, and wear the garments left by them; +but they are all too short and narrow for us; they deform and +cramp our energies; for they demand the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[Pg 534]</a></span> Procrustean process to +conform the enlarged natures of the present to the past. While +the human soul, like the infinite in wisdom and love, is ever +governed by the eternal law of progress, creeds and codes are +always changing. All things founded in immutable truth grow only +the stronger by every trial.</p> + +<p>... The sacred traditions of both Jew and Gentile agree in +ascribing to woman a primary agency in the introduction of human +evils. In the Greek Mythology, she is indeed not the first +offender; but she is the bearer of the box that contained all the +crimes and diseases which have punished our world for the abuse +of liberty. It is worthy of remark that Pandora, who is the Eve +of the Grecian system, being like her Hebrew correspondent, +created for special purposes, was the joint work of all the gods. +Venus gave her beauty, Minerva wisdom, Apollo the art of music, +Mercury eloquence, and the rest the perfection and completeness +of all her divine accomplishments. Her name signifies gifts from +all.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A combination and a form Indeed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where every god did seem to set his seal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To give the world assurance of a paragon."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Prometheus made the first man of clay and animated him with fire +stolen from Heaven. Jupiter is represented as attaching the +terrible consequences of a rational and responsible vitality, +thus conferred upon a creation of earth, by sending this +wonderfully gifted Pandora into the world loaded with all the +evils which it was fated to endure. It was her destiny to be the +occasion of the fall, the instrument of doom; but her fortunes +are linked to the resurrection and life, as well as the suffering +and death of the race. Among the gifts of Pandora which had +otherwise been fatal, she brought hope which lay concealed after +all the others had flown abroad on their missions of mischief. In +our Sacred Story this point in the parable has a clear +explanation: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's +head." If she brought death into the world, she brought forth a +Son who "taketh away the sins of the world.".... These myths, +whether received as simple facts, or poetic fiction, whose +oracles always reveal the deepest signification of facts, alike +indicate the eminent agency of woman in the fall and rising again +of the human image of the divine upon earth.</p> + +<p>... From the marriage hour woman is presented only in a series of +dissolving views. First. She stands beside her husband radiant in +girlish beauty. She worships. One side of the lesson is well +learned, that of entire dependence. Not once has she dreamed that +there must be mutual dependence and separate fountains of +reciprocal life.... In the next scene the child wife appears +withering away from life as from the heart she is not large or +noble enough to fill—pining in the darkness of her home-life, +made only the deeper by her inactivity, ignorance, and +despair.... In another view she has passed the season of despair, +and appears as the heartless votary of fashion, a flirt, or that +most to be dreaded, most to be despised being, a married +coquette; at once seductive, heartless, and basely unprincipled; +or as beauty of person has faded away, she may be found turning +from these lighter styles of toys to a quiet kind of hand-maiden +piety and philanthropy.</p> + +<p>... Marriage as it now exists is only a name, a form without a +soul, a bondage, legal and therefore honorable. Only equals can +make this relation. True marriage is a union of soul with soul, a +blending of two in one, without mastership<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[Pg 535]</a></span> or helpless +dependence. The true family is the central and supreme +institution among human societies. All other organizations, +whether of Church or State, depend upon it for their character +and action. Its evils are the source of all evils; its good the +fountain of all good. The correction of its abuses is the +starting-point of all the reforms which the world needs.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Dr. Harriot K. Hunt attracted much attention from the fact of her +yearly protest against taxation. In the course of her remarks she +said, "Unseen spirits have been with us in this Convention; the +spirits of our Shaker sisters whom untold sorrows have driven into +those communal societies, the convents of our civilization."</p> + +<p>After quite a brilliant discussion, in which Mr. Brigham made himself +a target for Lucy Stone, Martha C. Wright, Eliza Aldrich, Clarina +Howard Nichols, Harriot K. Hunt, and Mrs. Palmer to shoot at, +Antoinette L. Brown offered the following resolution, and made a few +good points on the Bible argument:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the Bible recognizes the rights, duties, and +privileges of woman as a public teacher, as every way equal with +those of man; that it enjoins upon her no subjection that is not +enjoined upon him; and that it truly and practically recognizes +neither male nor female in Christ Jesus.</p> + +<p>God created the first human pair equal in rights, possessions, +and authority. He bequeathed the earth to them as a joint +inheritance; gave them joint dominion over the irrational +creation; but none over each other. (Gen. i. 28). They sinned. +God announced to them the results of sin. One of these results +was the rule which man would exercise over woman. (Gen. iii. 16). +This rule was no more approved, endorsed, or sanctioned by God, +than was the twin-born prophecy, "thou (Satan) shalt bruise his +(Christ's) heel." God could not, from His nature, command Satan +to injure Christ, or any other of the seed of woman. What +particle of evidence is there then for supposing that in the +parallel announcement He commanded man to rule over woman? Both +passages should have been translated will, instead of shall. +Either auxiliary is used indifferently according to the sense, in +rendering that form of the Hebrew verb into English.</p> + +<p>Because thou hast done this, is God's preface to the +announcement. The results are the effects of sin. Can woman then +receive evil from this rule, and man receive good? Man should be +blessed in exercising this power, if he is divinely appointed to +do so; but the two who are one flesh have an identity of +interests, therefore if it is a curse or evil to woman, it must +be so to man also. We mock God, when we make Him approve of man's +thus cursing himself and woman.</p> + +<p>The submission enjoined upon the wife in the New Testament, is +not the unrighteous rule predicted in the Old. It is a Christian +submission due from man towards man, and from man towards woman: +"Yea, all of you be subject one to another" (1 Pet. v. 5; Eph. v. +21; Rom. xii. 10, etc.) In I Cor. xvi. 16, the disciples are +besought to submit themselves "to every one that helpeth with us +and laboreth." The same apostle says, "help those women which +labored with me in the Gospel, with Clement also, and with other +of my fellow-laborers."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[Pg 536]</a></span></p> + +<p>Man is the head of the woman. True, but only in the sense in +which Christ is represented as head of His body, the Church. In a +different sense He is head of all things—of wicked men and +devils. If man is woman's head in this sense, he may exercise +over her all the prerogatives of God Himself. This would be +blasphemous. The mystical Head and Body, or Christ and His +Church, symbolize oneness, union. Christ so loved the Church He +gave Himself for it, made it His own body, part and parcel of +Himself. So ought men to love their wives. Then the rule which +grew out of sin, will cease with the sin.</p> + +<p>It is said woman is commanded not to teach in the Church. There +is no such command in the Bible. It is said (1 Cor. xiv. 34), +"Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not +permitted unto them to speak." This injunction, taken out of its +connection, forbids singing also; interpreted by its context, +woman is merely told not to talk unless she does teach. On the +same principle, one who has the gift of tongues is told not to +use it in the Church, unless there is an interpreter. The rule +enforced from the beginning to the end of the chapter is, "Let +all things be done unto edifying." Their women, who had not been +previously instructed like the men, were very naturally guilty of +asking questions which did not edify the assembly. It was better +that they should wait till they got home for the desired +information, rather than put an individual good before the good +of the Church. Nothing else is forbidden. There is not a word +here against woman's teaching. The apostle says to the whole +Church, woman included, "Ye may all prophesy, one by one."</p> + +<p>In 1 Tim. ii. 12, the writer forbids woman's teaching over man, +or usurping authority over him; that is, he prohibits +dogmatizing, tutoring, teaching in a dictatorial spirit. This is +prohibited both in public and private; but a proper kind of +teaching is not prohibited. Verse 14—a reference to Eve, who, +though created last, sinned first, is merely such a suggestion as +we would make to a daughter whose mother had been in fault. The +daughters are not blamed for the mother's sin, merely warned by +it; and cautioned against self-confidence, which could make them +presume to teach over man. The Bible tells us of many +prophetesses approved of God. The Bible is truly democratic. Do +as you would be done by, is its golden commandment, recognizing +neither male nor female in Christ Jesus.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span>: If the able theologian who has just spoken had +been in Indiana when the Constitution was revised, she might have +had a chance to give her definitions on the Bible argument to +some effect. At that Convention Robert Dale Owen introduced a +clause to give a married woman the right to her property. The +clause had passed, but by the influence of a minister was +recalled; and by his appealing to the superstition of the +members, and bringing the whole force of Bible argument to bear +against the right of woman to her property, it was lost. Had Miss +Brown been there, she might have beaten him with his own weapons. +For my part, I see no need to appeal to any written authority, +particularly when it is so obscure and indefinite as to admit of +different interpretations. When the inhabitants of Boston +converted their harbor into a teapot rather than submit to unjust +taxes, they did not go to the Bible for their authority; for if +they had, they would have been told from the same authority to +"give unto Cæsar what belonged to Cæsar." Had the people, when +they rose in the might of their right to throw off the British +yoke,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[Pg 537]</a></span> appealed to the Bible for authority, it would have +answered them, "Submit to the powers that be, for they are from +God." No! on Human Rights and Freedom, on a subject that is as +self-evident as that two and two make four, there is no need of +any written authority. But this is not what I intended to speak +upon. I wish to introduce a resolution, and leave it to the +action of the Convention:</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we ask not for our rights as a gift of charity, +but as an act of justice. For it is in accordance with the +principles of republicanism that, as woman has to pay taxes to +maintain government, she has a right to participate in the +formation and administration of it. That as she is amenable to +the laws of her country, she is entitled to a voice in their +enactment, and to all the protective advantages they can bestow; +and as she is as liable as man to all the vicissitudes of life, +she ought to enjoy the same social rights and privileges. And any +difference, therefore, in political, civil, and social rights, on +account of sex, is in direct violation of the principles of +justice and humanity, and as such ought to be held up to the +contempt and derision of every lover of human freedom.</p> + +<p>... But we call upon the law-makers and law-breakers of the +nation, to defend themselves for violating the fundamental +principles of the Republic, or disprove their validity. Yes! they +stand arrayed before the bar, not only of injured womanhood, but +before the bar of moral consistency; for this question is +awakening an interest abroad, as well as at home. Whatever human +rights are claimed for man, moral consistency points to the equal +rights of woman; but statesmen dare not openly face the subject; +knowing well they can not confute it, and they have not moral +courage enough to admit it; and hence, all they can do is to +shelter themselves under a subterfuge which, though solidified by +age, ignorance, and prejudice, is transparent enough for the most +benighted vision to penetrate. A strong evidence of this, is +given in a reply of Mr. Roebuck, member of Parliament, at a +meeting of electors in Sheffield, England. Mr. R., who advocated +the extension of the franchise to the occupants of five-pound +tenements, was asked whether he would favor the extension of the +same to women who pay an equal amount of rent? That was a simple, +straight-forward question of justice; one worthy to be asked even +in our republican legislative halls. But what was the honorable +gentleman's reply? Did he meet it openly and fairly? Oh, no! but +hear him, and I hope the ladies will pay particular attention, +for the greater part of the reply contains the draught poor, +deluded woman has been accustomed to swallow—Flattery:</p> + +<p>"There is no man who owes more than I do to woman. My education +was formed by one whose very recollections at this moment make me +tremble. There is nothing which, for the honor of the sex, I +would not do; the happiness of my life is bound up with it; +mother, wife, daughter, woman, to me have been the oasis of the +desert of life, and, I have to ask myself, would it conduce to +the happiness of society to bring woman more distinctly than she +now is brought, into the arena of politics? Honestly I confess to +you I believe not. I will tell you why. All their influences, if +I may so term it, are gentle influences. In the rude battle and +business of life, we come home to find a nook and shelter of +quiet comfort after the hard and severe, and, I may say, the +sharp ire and the disputes of the House of Commons. I hie me +home, knowing that I shall there find personal solicitude and +anxiety. My head rests upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[Pg 538]</a></span> a bosom throbbing with emotion for +me and our child; and I feel a more hearty man in the cause of my +country, the next day, because of the perfect, soothing, gentle +peace which a mind sullied by politics is unable to feel. Oh! I +can not rob myself of that inexpressible benefit, and therefore I +say, No."</p> + +<p>Well, this is certainly a nice little romantic bit of +parliamentary declamation. What a pity that he should give up all +these enjoyments to give woman a vote! Poor man! his happiness +must be balanced on the very verge of a precipice, when the +simple act of depositing a vote by the hand of woman, would +overthrow and destroy it forever. I don't doubt the honorable +gentleman meant what he said, particularly the last part of it, +for such are the views of the unthinking, unreflecting mass of +the public, here as well as there. But like a true politician, he +commenced very patriotically, for the happiness of society, and +finished by describing his own individual interests. His reply is +a curious mixture of truth, political sophistry, false +assumption, and blind selfishness. But he was placed in a +dilemma, and got himself out as he could. In advocating the +franchise to five-pound tenement-holders, it did not occur to him +that woman may possess the same qualification that man has, and +in justice, therefore, ought to have the same rights; and when +the simple question was put to him (simple questions are very +troublesome to statesmen), having too much sense not to see the +justness of it, and too little moral courage to admit it, he +entered into quite an interesting account of what a delightful +little creature woman is, provided only she is kept quietly at +home, waiting for the arrival of her lord and master, ready to +administer a dose of purification, "which his politically sullied +mind is unable to feel." Well! I have no desire to dispute the +necessity of it, nor that he owes to woman all that makes life +desirable—comforts, happiness, aye, and common sense too, for +it's a well-known fact that smart mothers always have smart sons, +unless they take after their father. But what of that? Are the +benefits woman is capable of bestowing on man, reasons why she +must pay the same amount of rent and taxes, without enjoying the +same rights that man does?</p> + +<p>But the justice of the case was not considered. The honorable +gentleman was only concerned about the "happiness of society." +Society! what does the term mean? As a foreigner, I understand by +it a collection or union of human beings—men, women, and +children, under one general government, and for mutual interest. +But Mr. Roebuck, being a native Briton and a member of +Parliament, gave us a parliamentary definition, namely; society +means the male sex only; for in his solicitude to consult "the +happiness of society," he enumerated the benefits man enjoys from +keeping woman from her rights, without even dreaming that woman +was at all considered in it; and this is the true parliamentary +definition, for statesmen never include woman in their solicitude +for the happiness of society. Oh, no! she is not yet recognized +as belonging to the honorable body, unless taxes are required for +its benefit, or the penalties of the law have to be enforced for +its security.</p> + +<p>Thus, being either unwilling or afraid to do woman justice, he +first flattered her, then, in his ignorance of her true nature, +he assumed that if she has her rights equal with man, she would +cease to be woman—forsake the partner of her existence, the +child of her bosom, dry up her sympathies, stifle her affections, +turn recreant to her own nature. Then his blind selfishness took +the alarm, lest, if woman were more independent, she might not be +willing to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[Pg 539]</a></span> the obedient, servile tool, implicitly to obey and +minister to the passions and follies of man; "and as he could not +rob himself of these inexpressible benefits, therefore he said, +No."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The speech of Antoinette Brown, and the resolution she presented +opened the question of authority as against individual judgment, and +roused a prolonged and somewhat bitter discussion, to which Mrs. +Stanton's letter,<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> read in a most emphatic manner by Susan B. +Anthony, added intensity. It continued at intervals for two days, +calling out great diversity of sentiment. Rev. Junius Hatch, a +Congregational minister from Massachusetts, questioned the officers of +the Convention as to their belief in the paramount authority of the +Bible, saying the impression had gone abroad that the Convention was +infidel in character. The President ruled that question not before the +Convention.</p> + +<p>Thomas McClintock<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> said, to go back to a particular era for a +standard of religion and morality, is to adopt an imperfect standard +and impede the progress of truth. The best minds of to-day surely +understand the vital issues of this hour better than those possibly +could who have slumbered in their graves for centuries. Mrs. Nichols, +whom the city press spoke of as wielding a trenchant blade, announced +herself as having been a member of a Baptist church since the age of +eight years, thus sufficiently proving her orthodoxy. Mrs. Rose, +expressing the conviction that belief does not depend upon voluntary +inclination, deemed it right to interpret the Bible as he or she +thought best, but objected to any such interpretation going forth as +the doctrine of the Convention, as, at best, it was but mere opinion +and not authority.</p> + +<p>The debate upon Miss Brown's resolution was renewed in the afternoon, +during which the Rev. Junius Hatch made so coarse a speech that the +President was obliged to call him to order.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> Paying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[Pg 540]</a></span> no heed to +this reprimand he continued in a strain so derogatory to his own +dignity and so insulting to the Convention, that the audience called +out, "Sit down! Sit down! Shut up!" forcing the Reverend gentleman to +his seat. The discussion still continued between the members of the +Convention; Miss Brown sustaining her resolution, Mrs. Rose opposing +it.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span>, vacating the chair, spoke in opposition to the +resolution, and related her anti-slavery experience upon the +Bible question; one party taking great pains to show that the +Bible was opposed to slavery, while the other side quoted texts +to prove it of divine origin, thus wasting their time by bandying +Scripture texts, and interfering with the business of their +meetings. The advocates of emancipation soon learned to adhere to +their own great work—that of declaring the inherent right of man +to himself and his earnings—and that self-evident truths needed +no argument or outward authority. We already see the disadvantage +of such discussions here. It is not to be supposed that all the +advice given by the apostles to the women of their day is +applicable to our more intelligent age; nor is there any passage +of Scripture making those texts binding upon us.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Gentleman</span> said: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, +and profitable, etc." Does not this apply to the latest period?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span>: If the speaker will turn to the passage he will +find that the word "<i>is</i>," being in italics, was inserted by the +translators. She accepted it as in the original, "All Scriptures +<i>given</i> by inspiration of God, is profitable, etc." She was +somewhat familiar with the Scriptures, and at a suitable time +would have no objection to discuss the question. She concluded by +moving that the resolution be laid on the table, which was +unanimously carried.</p></blockquote> + +<p>On the morning of the last day the President stated that the subject +of organizing a National Society was to be discussed, and at her +suggestion Mr. May read a long and interesting letter from Angelina +Grimké Weld, from which we give the salient points:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Organization is two-fold—natural and artificial, divine and +human. Natural organizations are based on the principle of +progression; the eternal law of change. But human or artificial +organizations are built upon the principle of crystallization; +they <i>fix</i> the conditions of society; they seek to daguerreotype +themselves, not on the present age only, but on future +generations; hence, they fetter and distort the expanding mind. +Organizations do not protect the sacredness of the individual; +their tendency is to sink the individual in the mass, to +sacrifice his rights, and immolate him on the altar of some +fancied good.</p> + +<p>It is not to organization that I object, but to an <i>artificial +society</i> that must prove a burden, a clog, an incumbrance, rather +than a help. Such an organization as now actually exists among +the women of America I hail with heartfelt joy. We are bound +together by the natural ties of spiritual affinity; we are drawn +to each other because we are attracted toward one common +center—the good of humanity. We need no external bonds to bind +us together, no cumbrous machinery to keep our minds and hearts +in unity of purpose and effort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[Pg 541]</a></span> we are not the lifeless staves of +a barrel which can be held together only by the iron hoops of an +artificial organization.</p> + +<p>The present aspect of organizations, whether in Church, or State, +or society at large, foretokens dissolution. The wrinkles and +totterings of age are on them. The power of organization has been +deemed necessary only because the power of Truth has not been +appreciated, and just in proportion as we reverence the +individual, and trust the unaided potency of Truth, we shall find +it useless. What organization in the world's history has not +encumbered the unfettered action of those who created it? Indeed, +has not been used as an engine of oppression.</p> + +<p>The importance of this question can hardly be duly magnified. How +few organizations have ever had the power which this is destined +to wield! The prayers and sympathies of the ripest and richest +minds will be ours. Vast is the influence which true-hearted +women will exert in the coming age. It is a beautiful +coincidence, that just as the old epochs of despotism and +slavery, Priestcraft and Political intrigue are dying out, just +as the spiritual part of man is rising into the ascendency, +Woman's Rights are being canvassed and conceded, so that when she +becomes his partner in office, higher and holier principles of +action will form the basis of Governmental administration.</p> + +<p class="author">Angelina Grimké Weld.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The reading of Mrs. Weld's letter was followed by a spirited +discussion, resulting in the continuance of the Central Committee, +composed of representative men and women of the several States, which +was the only form of National Organization until after the war.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Mary Springstead</span> moved that the Convention proceed to organize a +National Woman's Rights Society.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Smith</span> and Mrs. <span class="smcap">Davis</span> did not like to be bound by a +Constitution longer than during the sessions of the Convention. +Both recommended the formation of State Societies.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Harriot K. Hunt</span> spoke as a physician in deeming spontaneity +as a law of nature.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span> declared organizations to be like Chinese +bandages. In political, moral, and religious bodies they hindered +the growth of men; they were incubi; she herself had cut loose +from an organization into which she had been born<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a>; she knew +what it had cost her, and having bought that little freedom for +what was dearer to her than life itself, she prized it too highly +to ever put herself in the same shackles again.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said, that like a burnt child that dreads the fire, +they had all been in permanent organizations, and therefore dread +them. She herself had had enough of thumb-screws and soul screws +ever to wish to be placed under them again. The present duty is +agitation.</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Samuel J. May</span> deemed a system of action and co-operation all +that was needed. There is probably not one woman in a thousand, +not one in ten thousand who has well considered the disabilities, +literary, pecuniary, social, political,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[Pg 542]</a></span> under which she labors. +Ample provision must be made for woman's education, as liberal +and thorough as that provided for the other sex.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">C. I. H. Nichols</span> favored organization as a means to collect +and render operative the fragmentary elements now favoring the +cause.</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Abram Pryne</span>, in an able speech, favored National and State +organization.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The discussion was closed by the adoption of the following resolution, +introduced by Paulina Wright Davis:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That this National Convention earnestly recommends to +those who are members of it from several States, and to those +persons in any or all of our States, who are interested in this +great reform, that they call meetings of the States or the +counties in which they live, certainly as often as once a year, +to consider the principles of this reform, and devise measures +for their promulgation, and thus co-operate with all throughout +the nation and the world, for the elevation of woman to a proper +place in the mental, moral, social, religious, and political +world.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is impossible to more than give the spirit of the Convention, +though glimpses of it and its participants may be caught in the brief +sketch of its proceedings. In accordance with the call, woman's +social, civil, and religious rights were all discussed. Lucy Stone +made a brilliant closing address, the doxology was sung to "Old +Hundred," and the Convention adjourned.</p> + +<p>The character and influence of this Convention can best be shown by +the reports of the city press.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>The Standard, September 13, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Woman's Rights Convention</span> was in session during three days of +last week in this city, and was attended by a large number of +persons, not less, probably, than 2,000. Such a Convention, even +in this city of conventions, was something new under the sun.... +The discussions were characterized by a degree of ability that +would do credit to any deliberative body in the country.... Some +able letters were read to the Convention. Among the most +noteworthy was that of Mrs. Stanton.... Mrs. Mott presided over +the Convention with much dignity and ability.... If any of the +natural rights belonging to women are withheld from them by the +laws and customs of society, it is due to them that a remedy +should be applied;.... those among them who are aggrieved should +have an opportunity to give free expression to their opinions. +This will hurt nobody, and those who profess to be alarmed at the +result, should dismiss their fears.</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>The Daily Journal</i> (<i>Whig</i>), <i>September 13, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The National Woman's Rights Convention</span>—After a duration of three +mortal days this August Convention came to a "happy and peaceful +end" Friday evening.... All who attended any portion of the +Convention, or the whole, will unite with us in pronouncing it +the most dignified, orderly, and interesting deliberative body +ever convened in this city. The officers, and most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[Pg 543]</a></span> especially +the distinguished woman who occupied the president's chair, +evinced a thorough acquaintance with the duties of their station, +and performed them in an admirable manner.... No person +acquainted with the doings of the assembly and capable of passing +judgment in the matter, will deny there was a greater amount of +talent in the Woman's Rights Convention than has characterized +any public gathering in this State during ten years past, and +probably a longer period, if ever.... For compact logic, eloquent +and correct expression, and the making of plain and frequent +points, we have never met the equal of two or three of the +number. The appearance of all before the audience was modest and +unassuming, though prompt, energetic, and confident.</p> + +<p>Business was brought forward, calmly deliberated upon, and +discussed with unanimity, and in a spirit becoming true woman, +and which would add an unknown dignity and consequent influence +to the transactions of public associations of the "lords.".... +The appearance of the platform was pleasing and really imposing +in the extreme. The galaxy of bold women—for they were really +bold, indeed they are daring women—presented a spectacle the +like of which we never before witnessed. A glance at the "good +old lady" who presided with so much dignity and propriety, and +through the list to the youngest engaged in the cause, was enough +to impress the unprejudiced beholder with the idea that there +must be something in the movement.... The audience was large and +more impressive than has marked any convention ever held here.... +We feel in a mood to dip lightly into a discussion of the Woman's +Rights question.... Our sober second thought dictates that a +three days' enlightenment at the intellectual feast spread by +Beauty and Genius, may have turned our brains, and consequently +we desist.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The discussions of this Convention did not end with its adjournment; +its <i>sine die</i> had effect only upon the assembled body; for months +afterward controversies and discussions, both public and private, took +place. Clergymen of Syracuse and adjoining cities kept the interest +glowing by their efforts to destroy the influence of the Convention by +the cry of "infidel." A clergyman of Auburn not only preached against +the Convention as "infidel," but as one holding authority over the +consciences of his flock, boldly asserted that "no member of his +congregation was tainted with the unholy doctrine of woman's rights."</p> + +<p>Rev. Byron Sunderland, pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church of +Syracuse (since Chaplain of the United States Senate), characterized +it in his sermon<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> as a "Bloomer Convention," taking for his text +Deut. xxii. 5:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto man; neither +shall a man put on a woman's garment; for all that do so are an +abomination to the Lord thy God.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[Pg 544]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Gage's reply, in the absence of the editor, appeared in <i>The +Star</i>, in whose columns Rev. Mr. Sunderland's sermon had been given +the public, calling forth the following letter:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Washington</span>, <i>Nov. 20, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p>The readers of <i>The Star</i> are aware that the editor does not +sanction the ridiculous stuff which appeared in the issues of the +17th and 18th insts. over the signature of "M" upon the subject +of "Woman's Rights," nor does he approve of its admission in the +columns of the paper, and hereby disclaims having authorized the +publication of any such emanations from the pit during his +absence from home. When at his post he sometimes gives publicity +to such communications for the purpose of showing up the fallacy +of the positions taken, but never does he intend, so long as he +has control of its columns, to allow <i>The Star</i> to become the +medium of disseminating corrupt and unwholesome doctrines. Such +doctrines have found and will continue to find means enough with +which to do their duty in Syracuse without the aid of a +<i>reputable</i> newspaper in their behalf; and the editor indeed is +greatly surprised that those who temporarily fill his place, +should lend <i>The Star</i> to so base purposes. We trust that these +words (if discretion does not) will prevent further encroachment +upon our good nature.</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>The Carson League</i>, quoting the above editorial, says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>It is the first paragraph of the above letter that is noticeable. +<i>The Star</i> is the organ of a certain class of ministers. Messrs. +Sunderland and Ashley and <i>The Star</i> nestle in a common sympathy. +It is significant of the character of their published sermons, +that <i>The Star</i> stands alone in their defence. More significant +still that <i>The Star</i> negates all replies to them, even by a +lady. "<i>Put out the light</i>," says the thief. "<i>Put out the +light</i>," says the assassin. "<i>Put out the light</i>," says <i>The +Star</i>; and verily if these gentlemen had their way, the light +would go out in Egyptian darkness. It is wholesome doctrine, in +the opinion of <i>The Star</i>, to deny woman's rights and negro's +rights and the right of free discussion, to maintain them is to +countenance "corrupt and unwholesome doctrines."</p> + +<p>The subject of woman's rights somehow is attracting general +attention. Rev. Mr. Sunderland, of this city, in a published +sermon, sought to bring the whole matter into contempt under +cover of the ridicule of the Bloomer dress. His position is, that +if God made man a little lower than the angels, He made woman a +little lower still. His sermon we gave last week. This week we +give a woman's reply to it. Nobly has she shown him up. We like +her review. She treats his argument gravely, and answers it +logically. She has touched the tender in him. He will begin to +think women are somebody after all. We think he should have +measured his <i>calibre</i> before making such a tilt.... Regarding +his condition as rather awkward, and finding it difficult to be +quiet, he appears in the Friday <i>Star</i> with the following +equivocal communication:</p> + +<p><i>The Woman's Rights Question.</i>—Mr. Editor: The last two numbers +of <i>The Star</i> contain an article purporting to review my Sermon +from Deut. xxii. 5, but the author does not appear. The article +in question contains inaccuracies which should be noticed for the +author's future benefit. If the author should turn out to be a +man, I should have no objection to point out those inaccuracies +through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[Pg 545]</a></span> your columns. But if the writer is a lady, why, I really +don't know yet what I shall do. If I thought she would consent to +a personal interview, I should like to see her.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Very truly,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc close">B. Sunderland.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0 close"><i>Syracuse, Nov. 18</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">Some other person, under the head of "A Reader," addressed the +following to <i>The Star</i>, which, in the editor's absence, was +published:</p> + +<blockquote><p>How is this, Mr. Editor? A few days since I read in your papers a +sermon, on woman's rights by Rev. Byron Sunderland. In your +numbers of Wednesday and Thursday I found an able and respectful +Review of that discourse—a Review which, in some points, is +unanswerable, especially in the matter of Scripture and female +dress. The dominie appealed to Scripture, and the reviewer "has +him fast." I have heard it more than once intimated that the +writer of this able, and in some instances most eloquent, review, +is a lady of this city. Are we to understand that it is an +article in the code of anti-progressive ethics, that the same +article written by a man, will be answered by Mr. Sunderland, but +if written by a woman, will not be answered? I may have +misunderstood Mr. Sunderland's note in this morning's <i>Star</i>, but +I so understood it. If correctly understood no comment is +necessary.</p> + +<p class="author">A Reader.</p> +<p><i>November 19, 1852.</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Upon the expression of Mr. Sunderland's desire to meet the reviewer of +his sermon, if a lady, and his willingness to continue the +controversy, <i>The Star</i> finally opened its columns to Mrs. Gage, +although delaying the publication of her articles, sometimes for +weeks, to suit the dominie's convenience, and allowing his reply to +appear in the same issue of the paper with her answer to his preceding +article. Mr. Sunderland's reply to "A Reader" was characteristic of +the spirit of the clergy, not only of their intolerance, but of their +patronizing and insulting manner toward all persons who presumed to +question either their authority or learning.</p> + +<blockquote><p>The impertinence of "A Reader" is quite characteristic. That +individual probably knows as much about the Bible as a wild ass' +colt, and is requested at this time to keep a proper distance. +When a body is trying to find out and pay attention to a lady, it +is not good manners for "A Reader" to be thrust in between us.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Rev. Mr. Ashley, rector of St. Paul's, the first Episcopal Church of +Syracuse, also preached a sermon against woman, which was published in +pamphlet form, and scattered over the State. This sermon was reviewed +by a committee of ladies appointed by the Ladies' Lyceum. It was an +able and lengthy document from the pen of the chairman of the +committee, a member of the Episcopal Church, and was a significant +sign of woman's growing independence of clerical authority. This +sermon and its reply was also published by the city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[Pg 546]</a></span> press; the +Church, the press, and the fireside all aiding in the continued +dissemination of the woman's rights discussion.</p> + +<p>The publication of the proceedings of the Convention in pamphlet form +gave <i>The Star</i> occasion for a new fulmination which not only farther +showed the base character of this sheet, but which shocked all devout +minds by its patronizing tone toward the Deity. Both in the Convention +and its following debate, Syracuse well maintained its character for +radicalism.</p> + + +<h3>MOB CONVENTION IN NEW YORK.</h3> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Broadway Tabernacle</span>, <i>Sept. 6 and 7, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p>This week as already stated was one of unusual excitement in the city +of New York, as representatives of all the unpopular reforms were +holding their several conventions. The fact that the Anti-Slavery +Society held a meeting on Sunday morning, and Antoinette Brown +preached to five thousand people the same evening, called out the +denunciations of the religious press, which intensified the mob +spirit, culminating at last in the Woman's Rights Convention. That +portion of the secular press which had shown the most bitter +opposition to the anti-slavery cause, now manifested the same spirit +toward the enfranchisement of woman.</p> + +<p>The leading papers in the United States were <i>The Tribune</i>, <i>The +Herald</i>, <i>The Times</i>, <i>The Evening Post</i>, and <i>The Express</i>, which +gave tone to the entire press of the country. All these journals were +edited by men of marked ability, each representing a different class +of thought in the community. <i>The Tribune</i> was independent, and +fearless in the expression of opinions on unpopular reforms; its +editor, Horace Greeley, ever ready for the consideration of new ideas, +was on many points the leader of liberal thought.</p> + +<p><i>The Herald</i> was recognized by reformers as at the head of the +opposition, and its diatribes were considered "Satanic." Its editor, +James Gordon Bennett, pandered to the lowest tastes in the community, +not merely deriding reforms, but holding their advocates up to the +ridicule of a class too degraded to understand the meaning of reform.</p> + +<p><i>The Times</i> held a middle position; established at a much later date, +its influence was not so great nor extended as either <i>The Tribune</i> or +<i>The Herald</i>. It represented that large conservative class that fears +all change, and accepts the conditions of its own day and generation, +knowing that in all upheavals the wealthy class is the first and +greatest loser. From this source the mob spirit draws its +inspiration.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[Pg 547]</a></span> Violence being the outgrowth of superstition and +despotism; the false morality and philosophy taught by the press and +the pulpit are illustrated by the lower orders in hisses, groans, and +brick-bats. Although far below Horace Greeley in sagacity, +intelligence, and conscience, Henry J. Raymond claimed for his paper a +position superior in respectability. Having originated the present +system of reporting, and thereby acquired his first reputation, Mr. +Raymond prided himself upon reportorial sharpness, even at the expense +of veracity and common self-respect. That woman so long degraded +should dare to speak of injustice, so long defrauded of her social, +civil, and political rights, should dare to demand some restitution, +was to Mr. Raymond so fit a subject for ridicule that he could not +refrain from making even such women as Lucretia Mott and Ernestine L. +Rose targets for his irony.</p> + +<p><i>The Empress</i>, an organ of the Democratic party, was in its debasement +on a par with <i>The Herald</i> and <i>Times</i>, though each had different +styles, more or less refined, of doing the same thing. Encouraged by +these three papers, the mob element held high carnival through that +eventful week. Starting in the anti-slavery and temperance meetings, +they assembled at every session in the Woman's Rights Convention. +Gentlemen and ladies alike who attempted to speak were interrupted by +shouts, hisses, stamping, and cheers, rude remarks, and all manner of +noisy demonstrations. The clergy, the press, and the rowdies combined +to make those September days a disgrace to the metropolis, days never +to be forgotten by those who endured the ridicule and persecution.</p> + +<p>Although the Mayor with a large police force at his command made no +show even of protecting the right of free speech, the editor of <i>The +Tribune</i> sent forth his grand fulminations against bigotry, hypocrisy, +and vulgarity in every issue of his journal. William Cullen Bryant, +editor of <i>The Post</i>, one of the purest men that ever stood at the +head of a daily paper, also spoke out grandly against mob law, and for +the rights of woman. We have made this brief episode on the press, +that our readers may see how characteristic are the comments of each +paper that we give here and there in this chapter.</p> + +<p>This Convention, interrupted throughout by the mob, has an unique and +historic value of its own. It was the first overt exhibition of that +public sentiment woman was then combating. The mob represented more +than itself; it evidenced that general masculine opinion of woman, +which condensed into law, forges the chains which enslave her. Owing +to the turmoil we have no fair report of the proceedings; it was +impossible for the representatives of the press<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[Pg 548]</a></span> to catch what was +said, hence their reports, as well as the one issued by our Central +Committee, are alike fragmentary. And yet with such a brilliant array +of speakers of both men and women, it should have been one of our most +interesting and successful Conventions. The Tabernacle, holding three +thousand persons, was packed long before the hour announced. At ten +o'clock Lucy Stone called the Convention to order, and presented a +list of officers<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> nominated at a preliminary meeting, which was +adopted. In this list we find England, Germany, and eleven States +represented. The Rev. William Henry Channing opened the meeting with +prayer. After which Mrs. Mott made a few appropriate remarks. Lucy +Stone read a series of resolutions<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> which were accepted and laid +on the table for discussion.</p> + +<p>Charles Burleigh and Lydia A. Jenkins spoke briefly on the many +grounds of opposition to this movement, which in all respects commends +itself as one of the greatest reforms of the age.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Garrison</span> said: The first pertinent question is, what has +brought us together? Why have we come from the East and from the +West, and from the North? I was about to add, and from the South; +but the South, alas! is so cursed by the spirit of slavery, that +there seems to be no vitality left there in regard to any +enterprise, however good; hence the South is not represented on +an occasion like this. It is because justice is outraged. We have +met to protest against proud, rapacious, inexorable usurpation. +What is this usurpation? What is this oppression of which we +complain? Is it local? Does it pertain to the city of New York, +or to the Empire State? No! It is universal—broader than the +Empire State—broader than our national domains—wide as the +whole world, weighing on the entire human race. How old is the +oppression which we have met to look in the face? Is it of +to-day? Is it young in years, or is it as old as the world +itself? In all ages men have regarded women as inferior to +themselves, and have robbed them of their co-equal rights. We +are, therefore, contesting hoary tyranny—universal tyranny. And +what follows, as a natural result?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[Pg 549]</a></span></p> + +<p>That the land is beginning to be convulsed. The opposition to the +movement is assuming a malignant, desperate, and satanic +character; every missile of wickedness that can be hurled against +it is used. The pulpit is excited, the press is aroused; Church +and State are in arms to put down a movement on behalf of justice +to one-half of the whole human race. (Laughter and cheers). The +Bible, revered in our land as the inspired Word of God, is, by +pulpit interpreters, made directly hostile to what we are +endeavoring to obtain as a measure of right and justice; and the +cry of infidelity is heard on the right hand and on the left, in +order to combine public opinion so as to extinguish the movement.</p> + +<p>Now, beloved, let us not imagine that any strange thing has +happened to us. We are but passing through one of the world's +great crises; we, too, in our day, are permitted to contend with +spiritual wickedness in high places—with principalities and +powers. What reform was ever yet begun and carried on with any +reputation in the day thereof? What reform, however glorious and +divine, was ever advocated at the outset with rejoicing? And if +they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more +them of his household? (Cheers and stamping).</p> + +<p>I have been derisively called a "<i>Woman's Rights Man</i>." I know no +such distinction. I claim to be a <span class="smcap">Human Rights Man</span>, and wherever +there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that +being whatever may be the sex or complexion.</p> + +<p>To the excellence of the movement God has given witnesses in +abundance, on the right hand and on the left. Show me a cause +anathematized by the chief priests, the scribes, and the +pharisees; which politicians and demagogues endeavor to crush, +which reptiles and serpents in human flesh try to spread their +slime over, and hiss down, and I will show you a cause which God +loves, and angels contemplate with admiration. Such is our +movement. Do you want the compliments of the satanic press, <i>The +New York Times</i>, <i>Express</i>, and <i>Herald</i>? (Roars of laughter). If +you want the compliments of such journals, you will be bad enough +to take a place among the very vilest and lowest of the human +race. They are animated by a brutal, cowardly, and devilish +spirit. Let us rejoice at the manifestation! Not for the +wickedness, but at the evidence thus afforded by God, that our +cause is of Heaven, and therefore has on its side all the power +and might of God, and in due season is destined to have a +glorious triumph!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Charles C. Burleigh</span> said: There is a feeling to-day that woman +has some rights, that she has some reason to complain of the +present relation in which she is placed. In this country we +congratulate ourselves that woman occupies a higher position than +elsewhere, although some think it would be a calamity to improve +her condition still further, and mere fanaticism to raise her +still higher.</p> + +<p>The cry is—"unnatural!" The aspiration of woman for a better +lot, say her oppressors, is not natural, it is abnormal! So they +say; but why not hear her on the matter? Is she, the most +interested party, to have no voice in the solution of a question +which is to her of such overwhelming interest? I ask, did God +give woman aspirations which it is a sin for her to gratify? +Abnormal! No, it is to be found everywhere. The man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[Pg 550]</a></span> whose soul +is so callous that he can hold his fellow-man as a slave, cries +out (as in excuse) that the slave is contented. The autocrat +exclaims that it is only a turbulent Kossuth or a factious +Mazzini who feels that uneasy discontent which preys not on the +hearts of his millions of legal slaves. Will that be, to us, an +argument that the tyrant is in the right? No! the aspirations to +liberty and justice are universal, and ever though the volcanic +blaze breaks into the air only through the loftiest mountain +peaks, the volcano is in itself an index to the ocean of molten +fire that boils inaudibly beneath it. And so the deep discontent +of humble millions breaks through the mountain-minds of their +great leaders. Woman is a part of the human commonwealth; why +deprive her of a voice in its government? Woman herself, a +component part of the community, must be called into the councils +which direct it, else a wrong is done her, the responsibility of +which lies heavily on those who do it. We ask rights for woman, +because she has a human nature, and it is not only ungenerous and +unmanly, but in the highest degree unjust to banish her from the +discussion of questions which so nearly and dearly concern her, +and in which nature, reason, and God have announced that she +should have a voice.</p> + +<p>Either there is a distinction between the sphere of man and that +of woman, or there is not. If there is, it is unfair to have one +determine both; if there is not, why does tyrannous custom +separate her? The dilemma is clear, and can not be escaped. Both +should be called into counsel, every note in the scale of harmony +should be sounded; and to say that hers, because an octave +higher, should not be heard, is downright nonsense. (Rousing +cheers and laughter). We claim for woman simply the right to +decide her own sphere, or, in conjunction with man, to determine +what should be the relative position of both.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">W. H. Channing</span> said: When I was returning from the first Woman's +Rights Meeting at Worcester, a friend said to me, "I intend +getting up a Man's Rights Society; you misunderstand the matter; +all the efforts of society are for the elevation of woman, and +man has to perform the drudgery. The consequence is, the women +are far better educated than the men." The answer was obvious. +"If women are, according to your admission, fitted for the higher +plane, why keep them on the lower?" My friend then went on to +say, that the whole of this scheme was considered to be of the +most morally visionary character, and the proof of this feeling +was the slight opposition it met, "for," said he "if it were +looked on by society as serious, it would be at once, and +forcibly, opposed in the church, by the press, in all public +assemblies and private circles." Now, the object of this, and all +such conventions, is to prove that we have made up our minds as +regards operation and method; that we have looked clearly into +the future; and that we have at heart this movement, as we have +no other of the day, believing that out of this central agitation +of society will come healthful issues of life. The inhabitants of +Eastern India speak of a process for gaining immortality, namely, +churning together the sea and the earth. They say the gods had +the serpent by the head, and the devils had it by the tail, and +out of the churning of the foam came the waters of immortality. +The movement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[Pg 551]</a></span> we are engaged in, may be typified by the Indian +allegory; and out of the commotion we make shall be drawn a new +principle which shall be one of immortal growth to all society. +(Stamping, cheers, and laughter).</p> + +<p>As regards the differences between men and women, we say that out +of them grows union, not separation. Every organ of the body is +double; in the pulsations of the heart a double machinery is +used, there is a double auricle and a double ventricle. It is so +in the inspirations which flow from God to society; they must +pass twice, once through the heart of man, once through the heart +of woman; they must stream through the reforming and through the +conservative organ; and thus, out of the very difference which +exists between man and woman, arises the necessity for their +co-operation. It has never been asserted that man and woman are +alike; if they were, where would be the necessity for urging the +claims of the one? No; they differ, and for that very reason it +is, that only through the action of both, can the fullness of +their being find development and expression. We know that woman +exerts an influence on man, as man does on woman, to call forth +his latent resources. In the difference, we find a call for +union. And to this union we perceive no limit; on the contrary, +whatever necessity there is for the combination in the private, +there is the same necessity for it in the public sphere. (Long +continued stamping and cheers).</p> + +<p>And now I will meet the two great objections made. It is not +objectionable, it is said, that woman, in some spheres of life, +should give an expression of her intellect; but, on the platform, +she loses her character of woman, and becomes incidentally +masculine. Just observe the practical absurdities of which +society is guilty. The largest assemblies greet with clamors +Jenny Lind, when she enchains the ear and exalts the soul with +the sublime strain, "I know that my Redeemer liveth"; but when +Mrs. Mott or Miss Brown stands with a simple voice, and in the +spirit of truth, to make manifest the honor due to our Redeemer, +rowdies hiss, and respectable Christians veil their faces! So, +woman can sing, but not speak, that "our Redeemer liveth." Again, +the great men of our land do not consider it unworthy of their +character to take from Fanny Ellsler what she makes by the +movement of her limbs, by a mere mechanical action,<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> to aid +in erecting a column to commemorate our struggles for liberty. +The dollars are received and built into the column; but when Mrs. +Rose or Mrs. Foster, who feels the spirit of justice within her, +and who has felt the injustice of the laws, stands up to show +truth and justice, and build a spiritual column, she is out of +her sphere! and the honorable men turn aside, and leave her to be +the victim of rowdyism, disorder, and lawlessness! It is not out +of character that Fanny Kemble should read Shakespeare on the +stage, to large circles. The exercise of the voice on the stage +is womanly, while she gives out the thoughts of another; but +suppose (and it is not unsupposable) a living female Shakespeare +to appear on a platform, and utter her inspirations, delicacy is +shocked, decency is outraged, and society turns away in disgust! +Such are the consistencies of the nineteenth century! (Great +uproar).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[Pg 552]</a></span></p> + +<p>This is simply and merely prejudice, and it reminds me of the +proverb, "If you would behold the stars aright, blow out your own +taper." I say there is a special reason why woman should come +forward as a speaker; because she has a power of eloquence which +man has not, arising from the fineness of her organization and +the intuitive power of her soul; and I charge any man with +arrogance, if he pretend to match himself in this respect with +many women here, and thousands throughout our country. (Hissing). +I take it, the hissing comes from men who never had a mother to +love and honor, a sister to protect, and who never knew the worth +of a wife. Woman's power to cut to the quick and touch the +conscience, is beautifully accompanied by her unmatched +adaptation to pour balm into the wound; and though the flame she +applies may burn into the soul, it also affords a light to the +conscience which never can be dimmed.</p> + +<p>There is an exquisite picture by Retsch, which represents angels +showering roses on devils; to the angels they are roses, but the +devils writhe under them as under fire. On sinful souls the words +of women fall as coals from the altar of God. And here let me +offer my humble gratitude to the women who have borne the brunt +of the test with the calm courage which women alone can exhibit; +to the women who have taught us that, as daughters of God, they +are the equals of His children everywhere on earth. (Cheers and +stamping).</p> + +<p>Let me add another word upon this interference, or, rather, +entrance of woman into the sphere of politics. As a spiritual +being, her duties are like those of man; but, inasmuch as she is +different from man, man can not discharge them; and if there be +any truth in holding (as our institutions do), that the voice of +the whole is the nearest approach we can make to eternal truth, +we, of course, can not arrive at it till woman, as well as man, +is heard in the search for it. God, not man, nor herself, made +her woman; there is nothing arbitrary in the distinction; and let +the true woman go where she may, she will retain her womanhood. +We wish to see her enter into politics, not to degrade herself, +but to bring them up to her own level of simple-heartedness and +purity of soul. Can man ever raise them to that lofty height? +Never! woman alone can do it; it is a work reserved for her, and +by her and her alone will it be done. (Roars of laughter).</p> + +<p>Whose exploits leave the brightest lines of moral courage on the +historic page? Those of woman! When the French had broken through +the barriers, the maid of Saragossa rushed to the breach. The +demand of the invader came to Palafox, and he trembled; but what +the heart of man was unequal to, the courage of woman could +perform, and the answer of the heroic maiden was, "War to the +knife!" And so, always when man has faltered, woman, earnest and +simple-hearted, has answered, War to the knife with evil! (A +frightful yell from the gallery.) I perceive my friend is anxious +to hear a woman speak to him as only a woman can. I will soon +give way and let him be gratified; but, first, I will tell him an +anecdote. A woman once told me she never saw a horse so wild that +she could not tame him. I asked her how, and she answered, +"Simply by whispering in his ear." Our wild friend in the +gallery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[Pg 553]</a></span> will probably receive some benefit listening to the +voice of a woman, if his ears be only long enough to hear her. +(Prolonged cheers).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Antoinette Brown</span> said: Our cause is progressing triumphantly; and +yet it is not without some to oppose it. Who are they? Persons +utterly ignorant of the claims which its advocates advance, +ignorant alike of the wrongs existing and of the remedy proposed. +They suppose that a few mad-cap reformers are endeavoring to +overthrow dame Nature, to invert society, to play the part of +merciless innovators to imperil religion, to place all civil and +religious freedom in jeopardy; that if our ends were accomplished +all the public and private virtues would be melted as in a +crucible and thrown upon the ground, thence to cry aloud to +heaven like the blood of righteous Abel. Were it not that +curiosity is largely developed in this class, they would go down +to their graves wholly uninformed of our true principles, +motives, and aims. They look upon us as black beetles or +death's-heads, to be turned away from with horror; but their +curiosity overcomes their repugnance, and they would investigate +some of our properties, as a naturalist does those of a noxious +animal. (Cheers and laughter).</p> + +<p>There is another class, that of genuine bigots, with hearts so +ossified that no room can be found for one noble and expansive +principle within those little stony cells. Many of this class may +be persons of excellent intentions; they would do us good if they +could, but they approach us with somewhat of the feeling with +which Miss Ophelia regarded Topsy, the abhorrence that is +experienced on drawing near a large black spider. They try to +show us our errors, but if we attempt to justify by argument the +ground we have taken, they cry aloud that we are obstinate and +unreasonable, especially when we quote text for text, as Christ +did when talking with a certain person of old.</p> + +<p>But the most hopeless and spiteful of our opponents is that large +class of women whose merits are not their own; who have acquired +some influence in society, not by any noble thoughts they have +framed and uttered, not by any great deed they have done, but by +the accident of having fathers, brothers, or husbands whose +wealth elevates them to the highest wave of fashion, and there +enables them to roll in luxurious and indolent pomp, like Venus +newly risen from the ocean. They feel how much easier it is to +receive the incense of honor and respect (however insincerely +paid to them) without any effort of their own, than to undergo +the patient toil after excellence which wrings from the heart of +all that homage of true honor which can not be denied to it. +They, unused to any noble labor (as all labor is), either +physical or mental, will be careful, to a degree of splenetic +antagonism, how they will allow the introduction, into the +acknowledged rights and duties of their sex, of a new element +which may establish the necessity of their being themselves +energetic and efficient. We need never hope to find any of this +class change, until compelled to do so by public sentiment. The +opposition here is really rabid. Intellectual women! oh, they are +monsters! As soon allow wild beasts to roam at large as these to +be let loose on society. Like lions and tigers, keep them in +their menagerie; perhaps they needn't be actually chained, but +see that they are well secured in their cages! (Stamping, groans, +and laughter).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[Pg 554]</a></span></p> + +<p>These are far more bitterly hostile than the men of small +proportions, who are willing to have a great woman tower above +them from time to time—as a Madame de Stael. Such a case, +however, they would rank as an exception, not admit as a rule. To +allow women to stand every day in the foremost lines of intellect +and ability, is a thought altogether too expansive to be +entertained by them.</p> + +<p>Such are the oppositions we meet; but they are all melting down +like frost-work before the morning sun. The day is dawning when +the intellect of woman shall be recognized as well as that of +man, and when her rights shall meet an equal and cordial +acknowledgment. The greatest wrong and injustice ever done to +woman is that done to her intellectual nature. This, like Goliath +among the Philistines, overtops all the rest. Drones are but the +robbers of the hive; ladies educated to no purpose are but +surfeited to a dronish condition on the sweets of literature. +Such minds are not developed, but molded in a fashionable +pattern.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said: It has been stated that we women were not fit +for anything but to stay in the house! I look over the events of +the last five years, and almost smile at the confutation of this +statement which they supply. Let it not be supposed that I wish +to depreciate the value of house-duties, or the worth of the +woman who fitly discharges them. No! I think that any woman who +stands on the throne of her own house, dispensing there the +virtues of love, charity, and peace, and sends out of it into the +world good men, who may help to make the world better, occupies a +higher position than any crowned head. However, we said women +could do more; they could enter the professions, and there serve +society and do themselves honor. We said that women could be +doctors of medicine. Well, we can now prove the statement by +fact. Harriot K. Hunt is among us to-day, who, by recognized +attainment and successful practice, has shown that women can be +physicians, and good ones. You have in your city two women who +are good physicians; there are female medical colleges, with +their classes, as well ordered, and showing as good a proficiency +as any classes of men. Thus that point is gained. It was said +women could not be merchants. We thought they could; we saw +nothing to prevent women from using the power of calculation, the +knowledge of goods, and the industry necessary to make a +successful trader. Here, again, we have abundant examples. Many +women could be pointed to whose energy and ability for business +have repaired the losses of their less competent husbands, I will +mention a particular case. Mrs. Tyndal, of Lowell, Mass., has for +years carried on business in a quiet way; she has made herself +rich by conducting a ladies' shoe store in Lowell. She said to +herself: "What is to hinder me from going into this business? I +should know ladies' shoes, whether they were good or bad, and +what price they can bring. The ladies should support me." And so +they did, and that woman has given a proof that her sex does not +incapacitate for successful mercantile operations.</p> + +<p>It is said women could not be ministers of religion. Last Sunday, +at Metropolitan Hall, Antoinette L. Brown conducted divine +service, and was joined in it by the largest congregation +assembled within the walls of any building in this city. +(Hisses). Some men hiss who had no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[Pg 555]</a></span> mothers to teach them better. +But I tell you that some men in New York, knowing that they can +hear the word of God from a woman, as well as from a man, have +called her to be their pastor, and she is to be ordained in this +month. Some of you reporters said she was a Unitarian, but it is +not so; she is among the most orthodox, and so is her church.</p> + +<p>We have caused woman's right to address an audience to be more +fully recognized than before. I once addressed an assemblage of +men, and did so without giving previous notice, because I feared +the opposition of prejudice. A lady who was among the audience +said to me afterward, "How could you do it? My blood ran cold +when I saw you up there among those men!" "Why," I asked, "are +they bad men?" "Oh, no! my own husband is one of them; but to see +a woman mixing among men in promiscuous meetings, it was +horrible!" That was six or seven years ago last fall; and that +self-same woman, in Columbus, Ohio, was chosen to preside over a +temperance meeting of men and women; yes, and she took the chair +without the least objection! In Chicago, a woman is cashier of a +bank; and the men gave her a majority of three hundred votes over +her man-competitor. In another State, a woman is register of +deeds. Women can be editors; two sit behind me, Paulina W. Davis +and Mrs. Nichols. Thus we have an accumulation of <i>facts</i> to +support our claims and our arguments.</p> + + +<p class="heading"><i>Daily Tribune, Sept. 7, 1853.</i></p> + +<p>The Woman's Rights Convention was somewhat disturbed last evening +by persons whose ideas of the rights of free speech are these: +two thousand people assemble to hear a given public question +discussed under distinct announcement that certain persons whose +general views are well known, are to speak throughout the +evening. At least nineteen-twentieths come to hear those +announced speakers, and will be bitterly disappointed if the +opportunity be not afforded them. But one-twentieth have bought +tickets and taken seats on purpose to prevent the hearing of +those speakers, by hissing, yelling, and stamping, and all manner +of unseemly interruptions. Under such circumstances, which should +prevail; the right of the speakers to be heard and the great body +of the audience to hear them according to the announcement, or +the will of the disturbers who choose to say that nineteen out of +twenty shall not have what they have paid for, and what the +promised speakers are most willing to give them?</p> + +<p>To state the case exactly as it is, precludes the necessity of +arguing it. We rejoice to say that the will of the great majority +prevailed, and that the discussion which was marked in its +earlier days by occasional tumult was closed in good order, and +amid hushed and gratified attention. We ought, perhaps, to return +thanks to the disturbers for so stirring the souls of the +speakers that their words came gushing forth from their lips with +exceeding fluency and power. We certainly never before heard +Antoinette Brown, Mrs. Rose, and Lucy Stone speak with such power +and unction as <i>last night</i>. It was never before so transparent +that a hiss or a blackguard yell was the only answer that the +case admitted of, and when Lucy Stone closed the discussion with +some pungent, yet pathetic remarks on the sort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[Pg 556]</a></span> of opposition +that had been manifest, it was evident that if any of the rowdies +had an ant-hole in the bottom of his boot, he would inevitably +have sunk through it and disappeared forever.</p> + + +<p class="heading"><i>Herald, Sept. 7, 1853.</i></p> + +<p class="heading">THE LAST VAGARY OF THE GREELEY CLIQUE—THE WOMEN, THEIR RIGHTS, +AND THEIR CHAMPIONS.</p> + +<p>The assemblage of rampant women which convened at the Tabernacle +yesterday was an interesting phase in the comic history of the +nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>We saw, in broad daylight, in a public hall in the city of New +York, a gathering of unsexed women—unsexed in mind all of them, +and many in habiliments—publicly propounding the doctrine that +they should be allowed to step out of their appropriate sphere, +and mingle in the busy walks of every-day life, to the neglect of +those duties which both human and divine law have assigned to +them. We do not stop to argue against so ridiculous a set of +ideas. We will only inquire who are to perform those duties which +we and our fathers before us have imagined belonged solely to +women. Is the world to be depopulated? Are there to be no more +children? Or are we to adopt the French mode, which is too well +known to need explanation?</p> + +<p>Another reason why we will not answer the logic which is poured +out from the lips of such persons as Lucy Stone, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. +Amelia Bloomer, and their male coadjutors, Greeley, Garrison, +Oliver, Johnson, Burleigh, and others, is because they themselves +do not believe in the truth or feasibility of the doctrines they +utter. In some cases eccentricity is a harmless disease; but the +idiosyncrasies of these people spring from another source. They +admit the principle that fame and infamy are synonymous terms. +Disappointed in their struggle for the first, they grasp the +last, and at the same time pocket all the money they can wring +from the "barren fools" who can be found in any community eager +to grasp at any doctrine which is novel, no matter how outrageous +it may be. They are continually advertising from their platforms +some "Thrilling Narrative," or "Account of the Adventures of a +Fugitive," which may be had at the low price of one shilling +each, or eight dollars per hundred. Recently they have discovered +that the great body of their audiences came only to be amused, +and they have therefore imposed an admission fee. Lucy Stone, who +is a shrewd Yankee, has gone a step further, and in her +management of the business of the "Woman's Rights Convention," +has provided for season tickets, to be had at "the extremely low +price of two shillings."</p> + +<p>It is almost needless for us to say that these women are entirely +devoid of personal attractions. They are generally thin maiden +ladies, or women who perhaps have been disappointed in their +endeavors to appropriate the breeches and the rights of their +unlucky lords; the first class having found it utterly impossible +to induce any young or old man into the matrimonial noose, have +turned out upon the world, and are now endeavoring to revenge +themselves upon the sex who have slighted them. The second, +having been dethroned from their empire over the hearts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[Pg 557]</a></span> their +husbands, for reasons which may easily be imagined, go +vagabondizing over the country, boring unfortunate audiences with +long essays lacking point or meaning, and amusing only from the +impudence displayed by the speakers in putting them forth in a +civilized country. They violate the rules of decency and taste by +attiring themselves in eccentric habiliments, which hang loosely +and inelegantly upon their forms, making that which we have been +educated to respect, to love, and to admire, only an object of +aversion and disgust. A few of these unfortunate women have awoke +from their momentary trance, and quickly returned to the dress of +decent society; but we saw yesterday many disciples of the +Bloomer school at the Tabernacle. There was yesterday, and there +will be to-day, a wide field for all such at the Tabernacle.</p> + +<p>The "compliments" showered upon <i>The Herald</i> by the wretched +Garrison yesterday afternoon, at the Woman's Wrong Convention, +fully show that he and his coadjutors, Greeley and the rest, are +beginning to feel the truth of our remarks during the time they +have been amusing our citizens. His insane attack shows that our +course has been the true one.</p></blockquote> + +<p>To the credit of Mr. Greeley, he made an effort to suppress the +disturbance. Raymond, of <i>The Times</i>, gave the following report:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>Times, September 8, 1853.</i></p> + +<p class="heading">(Evening of the first day, Mrs. Rose speaking).</p> + +<p>Mr. Greeley was among the audience, and in passing through the +gallery, it was supposed he remonstrated with the sibillating +gentlemen, and a great rumpus was raised. Some cheered the +peace-maker, others hissed, the rush collected about the scene of +the disturbance, and all proceedings were interrupted. Mrs. Rose +suspended her remarks for a few moments, but presently said: +"Friends, be seated, and I will continue." The audience would not +listen, however. The uproar still continued. Cries of "Order," +"Mrs. President," "Put him out," "Hurrah!" hisses, groans, and +cheers. Mr. Greeley and a policeman presently succeeded in +stilling the tumult, the officer collaring several men and +compelling them to keep quiet. Mrs. Rose resumed and continued +her remarks.</p> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Second Day, Morning Session</span>, Opened at 10 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span>: The uproar and confusion which attended the close of +our proceedings of last night, although much to be regretted, as +indicating an unreasonable and unreasoning disposition on the +part of some, to close their ears against the truth, or rather, +to drown its voice by vulgar clamor, yet, when viewed aright, and +in some phases, present to us matter of congratulation. I do +suppose that never, at any meeting, was public propriety more +outraged, than at ours of last evening. I suppose no transactions +of a body assembled to deliberate, were ever more outrageously +invaded by an attempt to turn them into a mere tumult; yet, +though voices were loud and angry, and the evil passions +exhibited themselves with much of that quality to affright, which +usually, if not always, attends their exhibition, not a scream +was heard from any woman, nor did any of the "weaker sex" exhibit +the slightest terror, or even alarm at the violent manifestations +which invaded the peace of our assemblage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[Pg 558]</a></span></p> + +<p>I felicitate the women on this exhibition of fortitude; of calm +moral courage. Should not our opponents, if they have any reason +among them, reflect that these exhibitions are, in reality, some +of the strongest arguments that can be offered to support the +claims which we stand here to advocate? Do they not show, on the +one hand, that men, by whom such an overpowering superiority is +arrogated, can betimes demean themselves in such a way as to show +that they are wholly unfit for the lofty functions which they +demand as their exclusive right? And, on the other hand, do they +not conclusively show, that women are possessed of, at least, +some of those qualities which assist in calmness of deliberation +during times of excitement and even danger? I think it was really +a beautiful sight to see how calm the women remained during last +evening's excitement; their self-possession I consider something +truly admirable. I know that in the tumult and noise it would +have been vain for any woman to raise her voice in an attempt to +check it. Indeed, I am satisfied the outrage was predetermined, +and I regret that the aid of the police had to be called in to +quell it. Had there been here a company of women who were taught +to rely upon others, they would, doubtless, have felt bound to +scream for "their protectors"; but the self-reliance displayed, +which must have its basis in a consciousness of the truth and +justice of our cause, and which kept the members of the +Convention unmoved, amid all the prevailing confusion, gives us +matter of real congratulation. Let us rejoice in this, my +friends; and let us remember, that when we have a true +cause—while our cause rests on the basis of right—we have +nothing to fear, but may go on unmoved by all these petty +circumstances, by which we may be surrounded.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Burleigh</span> said: A request was made last night by some person, +I don't know who, or rather a challenge was offered, that three +good reasons should be given why women should vote. Perhaps, had +the person making this demand had this question put to him, +namely: "What reasons are there why men should vote?" he would +have considered them so self-evident as to make any answer +superfluous. Yet it would be found difficult, I apprehend, to +assign any reason why men should vote, which would not be found +to be an equally good one for extending the elective franchise to +women. He asked, however, why women should be allowed to take a +part in the civil government of the country. This question will, +I doubt not, be answered to-day by some one more able than +myself; and if the person who asked it be present, and open to +conviction, he will hear reasons sufficient to convince him.</p> + +<p>Why should women vote? She should vote, first, because she has to +bear her portion of the burdens imposed by the government which +the voting makes. Is not this one reason amply sufficient for any +honest-minded man? Taxation and representation go hand in hand, +says a principle of our body politic. Is woman represented? No. +Is woman taxed? Yes. How is that? Is it consistent with the +profession; and, if there were no profession, is it right, is it +just? The burden falls equally on woman and her brother; but he +has all the power of applying it; she must bear it to the end of +the journey, and then know nothing, say nothing, as to how it is +to be disposed of. What kind of justice is that? Were woman +exempted from those burdens, why, then, the exemption would so +far be an argument on the other side; although even that would +fail on investigation, because other equally immutable principles +show that neither exemption nor representation is the condition +in which any portion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[Pg 559]</a></span> of the political body should be allowed to +remain. But where there is no exemption, but a full apportionment +of the burden, and, at the same time, no representation, the +absurdity of injustice has reached its climax. (Laughter and +cheers).</p> + +<p>In the second place, woman should vote, because she ought to be a +sharer in those benefits which government is formed to confer +upon the governed. She has property which the government must +protect, a person which it must defend, and rights which it is +bound to secure. Were the millennium arrived, were there no such +thing as selfishness on earth; were simple truth and justice the +prominent elements in all men's minds, and the guiding spirit of +all men's actions, then indeed might woman confide herself to +man; then might she rely on him to secure those governmental +benefits which are her due, as a portion of the general +community. But is this the state of things? Alas! not yet; and, +until it is, the horrible injustice of the laws which exclude +woman from a share in making them, while they are her only +security for the advantages she ought to enjoy, will never cease +crying aloud to all men for purification. One of the great aims +of all government, one of the strong considerations which alone +makes its restrictions endurable, is the assurance which it gives +the governed, that the sum of their happiness, and even of their +liberty, shall, by individual restraints, become greater on the +whole. It holds out a bonus to society, or rather, to its +individual members, "Give me this little, and I will give you in +exchange this much." Thus each individual puts a stake into the +common fund, has an interest in the common weal, which demands +careful watching. Can woman watch the large, the all-absorbing +interest she has at stake? She, above all, the most tender, the +most sensitive of beings, the most keenly alive to wrong, to +insult, to oppression, to aught that bruises her womanly nature, +can she give a careful eye to the disposal of those important +questions which touch the very core of her heart? Why, when +reduced to these, its naked dimensions, the injustice seems so +horrible, as not to be credible, and did we not know the facts, +we would find it hard to believe that man, made in the image of +his Maker, could violate justice so barbarously. Surely woman +lies under no moral obligation to any laws which, wanting her +assent, yet assume to control her every action, word, and even +thought. Her property, her person, all her rights, her most +sacred affections, come within the province of those enactments; +yet she can have no voice, no weight in determining what those +enactments shall be. (Stamping and groans).</p> + +<p>In the third place, woman is entitled to vote, because she is +liable to all the penalties imposed by government. Not only is it +that she confides, or rather, that government compels her to +confide to it, the custody of person, property, rights, and all +dearest interests, but it goes a step further, and thus adds +another link (though quite a superfluous one) to the adamantine +chain of argument which it supplies to bind down its own +injustice. It stands not merely in a passive or receiving +relation to woman, it becomes the active arbiter of her doom; it +declares itself competent to lay hands on her, to shut her up in +prison, to take away her life, the life of one who has made with +it no compact—giving such awful power—the life of one who never +consented to the laws which assert over her so terrible a +supremacy! All the principles already applied come in here with +perhaps renewed force, as being the arbiters of a question which +may be regarded by some as of a still more absorbing interest, +although to woman it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[Pg 560]</a></span> may not be so, for when did she value life +more highly than tenderness, domestic confidence, and affection? +(Prolonged laughter).</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">H. K. Root</span>, of New York, rose in his place among the audience +and declared his intention of arguing against the principles and +demands of the Convention. Being requested to take the rostrum, +he did so, and spoke thus:</p> + +<p>Mrs. President and Ladies: I do not come here with the slightest +intention of offering to the ladies any opposition for mere +opposition's sake. If they are proved to have more knowledge and +intelligence than men, let them govern! My purpose, ladies, is to +try and attain truth, which, I think, will not be found favorable +to the views you express. I come, rather, as a matter of +intelligence than opposition. I do not come here for the purpose +of opposing the ladies too much; but as the question was not only +open yesterday, but still is for discussion, I maintain that if +the ladies have more intelligence, and more energy, and science +than the male sex, they should rule. I think I can give three +reasons why men should vote, and one why woman should not vote. +(Cheers).</p> + +<p>My first reason is, because there was an original command from +God that man should rule. It may be supposed that we are in the +garden of Eden now, as in the days of Adam and Eve. Now, it will +be remembered, when Adam and Eve fell, Adam, because Eve tempted +him, was placed in the garden as its keeper, and it was necessary +in those days, as it is now, that woman should be a helpmeet for +him; but you recollect that by the eating of the forbidden fruit, +original sin came into the world. What was the expression of God +to Adam? He says in the third chapter of Genesis, 17th verse: +"Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast +eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt +not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt +thou eat of it all the days of thy life." Now, permit us to be in +the relation that Adam and Eve were originally. It behooves the +male sex to answer the objections of the female sex—not that we +wish to combat them in public; but it behooves us, as a matter of +justice, to put the question on a right foundation. It may be +necessary, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that the ladies +should be here, but in the hundredth it may be necessary that man +should say, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." You see the +original cause of sin was because man, being placed in the +garden, gave way to woman, and the curse fell upon him; the +original cause of sin was because man gave up his judgment to +woman; and it may be, if we now give up our rights to woman, some +great calamity may fall upon us. Had woman only sinned, perhaps +we might still have been in Eden. (Great applause).</p> + +<p>My second reason why man should vote is the law of physical force +over the woman—because man's strength is greater than woman's.</p> + +<p>The third reason is, because if women enter the field of +competition with men, it may lead not only to domestic +unhappiness, but a great many other ill feelings. And I will give +another reason why men should be dictators. If woman says she +shall vote, and man says she sha'n't, he is in duty bound to +maintain what he says. If he says she sha'n't, that is reason +enough why she should not." (Cheers and laughter).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Alexander Parker</span>, of Philadelphia, rose in his place, and on +being invited to the platform, spoke thus:</p> + +<p>Adam was the first gardener in the world; he belonged to my +business, for I am a gardener—a business I took up myself, so I +should have something to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[Pg 561]</a></span> about the garden of Eden. Well, I +have often thought about the fall, and I have often pictured it +in this manner: the very moment the charge was given not to do +such a thing, that was just the time they wanted to do it. +(Prolonged cheers).</p> + +<p>It is often said that woman has a great deal of curiosity, and no +doubt it was whispered into her ear, that the moment she ate of +the forbidden fruit she should become a god. Now, I have seen +more reason this morning why women should vote than I have ever +seen before. In Pennsylvania a man has got but one vote, while a +woman has three—her husband's and her two sons'. Eve tried to +get over the temptation, but she could not; and so, after many +efforts, she clutched the apple she looked at so, and so, and she +reached out to it; afraid at first, but at last she laid hold of +it, and, seeing that her fear was over, she kissed its lovely +cheek. Then she ran to Adam, and said it was good, and he ate of +it. Then his eyes were opened and he saw he was naked, and ran +and hid himself. He tried to hide himself among the bushes, but +he could not deny the eating of it, because the core was sticking +in his throat, and it is sticking there still; but woman has not +got the core sticking in her throat. Well, Adam pretended to be +innocent, like all the rest of mankind, and said it was not he, +but the woman that did it. No, no; it was not his fault, it was +the woman who gave it to him. Oh, yes! he was not to blame, no +more than any lord of creation. Well, then, there was a curse +upon him; but there was a promise to woman that her seed should +bruise the head of the serpent with her heel. (Shouts of +laughter).</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Nichols</span>: As to the text which says that woman must obey her +husband, surely that is no reason why she should obey all the +bachelors and other women's husbands in the community. My husband +would have me advocate the claims I do, therefore by the logic of +our cause my husband wishes me to vote, and, according to the +Scripture, the gentleman must, even in his own reasoning, allow +me the right to vote. In one place the gentleman said that woman +had already turned the world over; and that man must be cautious +not to allow her to do so again. Perhaps, if he reconsidered +these statements he might be willing to retract the latter; +because, if she turned the world over once and put the wrong side +up, he ought now to allow her to turn it back, that she may bring +the right side up again.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> said: As to the personal property, after all debts and +liabilities are discharged, the widow receives one-half of it; +and, in addition, the law kindly allows her her own wearing +apparel, her own ornaments, proper to her station, one bed, with +appurtenances for the same; a stove, the Bible, family pictures, +and all the school-books; also, all spinning-wheels and +weaving-looms, one table, six chairs, tea cups and saucers, one +tea-pot, one sugar dish, and six spoons. (Much laughter). But the +law does not inform us whether they are to be tea or table +spoons; nor does the law make any provision for kettles, +sauce-pans, and all such necessary things. But the presumption +seems to be that the spoons meant are teaspoons; for, as ladies +are generally considered very delicate, the law presumed that a +widow might live on tea only; but spinning-wheels and +weaving-looms are very necessary articles for ladies nowadays. +(Hissing and great confusion). Why, you need not hiss, for I am +expounding the law. These wise law-makers, who seem to have lived +somewhere about the time of the flood, did not dream of spinning +and weaving by steam-power. When our great-great-grandmothers had +to weave every article of apparel worn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[Pg 562]</a></span> by the family, it was, no +doubt, considered a very good law to allow the widow the +possession of the spinning-wheels and the weaving-looms. But, +unfortunately for some laws, man is a progressive being; his +belief, opinions, habits, manners, and customs change, and so do +spinning-wheels and weaving-looms; and, with men and things, law +must change too, for what is the value of a law when man has +outgrown it? As well might you bring him to the use of his baby +clothes, because they once fitted him, as to keep him to such a +law. No. Laws, when man has outgrown them, are fit only to be +cast aside among the things that were.</p> + +<p>But I must not forget, the law allows the widow something more. +She is allowed one cow, all sheep to the number of ten, with the +fleeces and the cloth from the same, two swine, and the pork +therefrom. (Great laughter). My friends, do not say that I stand +here to make these laws ridiculous. No; if you laugh, it is at +their own inherent ludicrousness; for I state them simply and +truly as they are; for they are so ridiculous in themselves, that +it is impossible to make them more so.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Nichols</span> said: As widow, too, the law bears heavily on woman. +If her children have property, she is adjudged unworthy of their +guardianship; and although the decree of God has made her the +true and natural guardian of her children, she is obliged to pay +from her scanty means to be constituted so by law.</p> + +<p>I have conversed with judges and legislators, and tried to learn +a reason for these things, but failed to find it. A noble man +once gave me what he probably thought was a good one. "Women," he +said to me, "can not earn as much as men!" We say they should be +allowed to earn as much. They have the ability, and the means +should not be shut out from them. I have heard of another man who +held woman's industrial ability at a low rate. "His wife," he +said, "had never been able to do anything but attend to her +children." "How many have you?" he was asked; and the answer was, +"Nine." Nine children to attend to! nine children cared for! and +she could do nothing more, the wife of this most reasonable man. +Now, which is of more importance to the community, the property +which that reasonable husband made, or the nine children whom +that mother brought, with affectionate and tender toil, through +the perils of infancy and youth, until they were men and women? +Which was of more importance to this land, the property which the +father of George Washington amassed, or the George Washington +whom a noble mother gave to his country? The name of Washington, +his glorious deeds, and the enduring benefits he secured for us, +still remain, and will long after the estates of Washington have +passed from his name forever!</p> + +<p>In the State of Vermont, a wife sought a divorce from her husband +on the ground of his intemperance. They were persons moving among +our highest circles—wealthy people; and the wife knew that she +could, through the aid of her friends and relations, with the +influence and sympathy of the community, obtain a divorce and a +support for her children. That father carried away into Canada +one child, a little girl, and paid three hundred dollars to a +low, vile Frenchman, that he might keep her from her mother and +friends. Three times her almost heart-broken mother went in +search of her; twice in vain, but the third time she was found. +So badly had the poor child been treated in the vile hands in +which her father had placed her, that, when recovered, she was +almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[Pg 563]</a></span> insensible; and when, by her mother's nursing care, her +intelligence was at length restored, her joy at seeing her mother +was so violent, that it was feared its excess might prove fatal. +The case came into court, and the judge decided that the two +daughters should be given to their mother, but that the custody +of the son should be given to the father. She was acquitted of +the least impropriety or indiscretion; yet, though the obscenity +and profanity of her husband in his own family was shocking, and +it was in the last degree painful to that high-minded woman to +see her son brought up under the charge of such a man, the law +decided that the unworthy father was the more proper guardian for +the boy!</p> + +<p>In the Green Mountain State a great many sermons have lately been +preached on the text, "Wives, submit yourselves to your +husbands." The remaining words, "in the Lord," are generally +omitted; so that the text is made to appear like an injunction +that the wives should submit to their husbands, whether they were +in the Lord or in the devil. And the best of all is, that we are +told that if we would be submissive, we could change our husbands +from devils into angels.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Mott</span>: I now introduce to the Convention Frances Dana Gage, +of St. Louis, Mo., better known as "Aunt Fanny," the poet.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Gage</span> said: This morning, when I was leaving my +boarding-house, some one said to me, "So you are ready armed and +equipped to go and fight the men." I was sorry, truly sorry, to +hear the words—they fell heavily on my heart. I have no fight +with men. I am a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mother, and in +all these relations I live in harmony with man. Neither I, nor +any of the sisters with whom I am united in this movement, have +any quarrel with men. What is it that we oppose? What do we seek +to overturn? The bad laws and customs of society. These are our +only enemies, and against these alone is our hostility directed; +although they be "hallowed by time," we seek to eradicate them, +because the day for which they were suited, if such ever existed, +is long since gone by. The men, we may suppose, are above and +beyond the laws, and we assail the laws only.</p> + +<p>There is one law which I do not remember having heard any of my +sisters touch upon, that is the Law of Wills, as far as it +relates to married women, and as far as it allows a husband +(which it fully does), along with his power to determine the lot +of his wife while he is alive, also to control her when he is +dead. Would any gentleman like to have that law reversed? Let me +read to you a will after that odd fashion. It will fall on your +ears, gentlemen, with as loud a tone of injustice as it does on +mine:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Will Of Bridget Smith</span>.—In the name of God, amen. I, Bridget +Smith, being weak in body, though sound in mind, blessed be God +for the same, do make and declare this my last will and +testament. Item first: I give my soul to God, and my body to the +earth, from which it came. Item second: I give to my beloved +husband, John Smith, Sen., my Bible, and forty acres of wild land +which I own in Bear Marsh, Ill, for the term of his natural life, +when it shall descend to our son, John Smith, Jr. Item third: I +give and bequeath to my daughter, Tabitha, my farm, house, +outhouse, barns, and all the stock on said farm, situated in +Pleasant Valley, and which said farm consists of 160 acres. I +also give to my said daughter Tabitha, the wagons, carriages, +harnesses,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[Pg 564]</a></span> carts, plows, and all other property that shall be on +said farm at the time of my death. Item fourth: I give to my son, +John Smith, Jr., my family horse, my buggy, harness, and saddle, +and also eighty acres of wild land which I own in the State of +Iowa, for which I have a patent. Item fifth: I give to my beloved +husband, John Smith, Sen., the use of the house in which we live, +together with my bed, so long as he shall live, or remain my +widower; but in case he shall die, or get married, then it is my +will that my house and bed shall descend to my said daughter, +Tabitha. Recommending my said husband to her care, whom I make +the sole executrix of this my last will and testament, hereby +revoking all others.</p> + +<p>Signed, sealed, and proclaimed this —— day of ——, 1853, in +the presence of John Doe and Richard Roe.</p> + +<p class="author">Bridget Smith.</p> + + +<p>Would any of you like such power as that to be placed in our +hands? Yet, is it not as fair that married women should dispose +of their property, as that married men should dispose of theirs? +It is true, the power thus given to husbands is not always used +to the detriment of women, and this is frequently urged in +support of the law. But I reply, that law is made for extreme +cases; and while any such statutes remain on the books, no good +man will cease to exert himself for their removal. I ask the +right to vote, not because it would create antagonism, but +because it would create harmony. I want to do away with +antagonism by removing oppression, for where oppression exists, +there antagonism must exist also.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span>: In allusion to the law respecting wills, I +wish to say that, according to the Revised Statutes of our State, +a married woman has not a right to make a will. The law says that +wills may be made by all persons, except idiots, persons of +unsound mind, married women, and infants. Mark well, all but +idiots, lunatics, married women, and infants. Male infants ought +to consider it quite an insult to be placed in the same category +with married women. No, a married woman has no right to bequeath +a dollar of the property, no matter how much she may have brought +into the marriage, or accumulated in it. Not a dollar to a +friend, a relative, or even to her own child, to keep him from +starving. And this is the law in the nineteenth century, in the +enlightened United States, under a Republic that declares all men +to be free and equal.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>: Just one word. I think Mrs. Rose is a little +mistaken; I wish to correct her by saying that of some States +in—</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: I did not say this was the universal law; I said it +was the law in the State of New York.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>: I was not paying close attention, and must have been +mistaken. In Massachusetts the law makes a married woman's will +valid in two cases: the first is, where the consent of her +husband is written on the will; the second, where she wills all +she has to her husband, in which case his written consent is not +deemed requisite.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Harriot K. Hunt</span> spoke on the fruitful theme of taxation +without representation! and read her annual protest<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> to the +authorities of Boston<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[Pg 565]</a></span> against being compelled to submit to that +injustice. She said: I wish to vote, that women may have, by law, +an equal right with men in property. In October, 1851, I went to +pay my taxes in Boston. Going into the Assessor's office, I saw a +tall, thin, weak, stupid-looking Irish boy. It was near election +time, and I looked at him scrutinizingly. He held in his hand a +document, which, I found on inquiry, was one of naturalization; +and this hopeful son of Erin was made a citizen of the United +States, and he could have a voice in determining the destinies of +this mighty nation, while thousands of intellectual women, +daughters of the soil, no matter how intelligent, how +respectable, or what amount of taxes they paid, were forced to be +dumb!</p> + +<p>Now, I am glad to pay my taxes, am glad that my profession +enables me to pay them; but I would like very much to have a +voice in directing what is to be done with the money I pay. I +meditated on what I had seen, and, in 1852, when paying my taxes, +I took to the Treasurer's office my protest.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The case of the Hon. Mrs. Norton before the English courts, then +attracting much attention, was a fair exemplification of the injustice +of the law to married women.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said: I have before me, in a newspaper, a case which +shows strongly the necessity for woman's legislating for herself. +I mean the case of the Hon. Mrs. Norton, which lately transpired +in a court in London, and which fully proves that it is never +right for one class to legislate for another. There are, +probably, few here who have not been made better and wiser by the +beautiful things which have fallen from the pen of that lady. In +1836 her husband obtained a separation from her on the charge of +infidelity. Eighteen years of a blameless life since, and the +conviction every pure mind must feel, that nothing impure could +ever dwell in a mind such as her productions show hers to be, +will fully relieve her of any suspicion that she ever was guilty +of acts justifying that charge. She was a woman of transcendent +abilities; and her works brought her in £1,000 a year—sometimes +more, sometimes less. This her husband procured to be paid over +to himself, by securing the profits of her copyrights; and this +husband allowed her only £400 a year! and, at last, refused to +pay her even this sum; so that, for her necessary expenses, she +was obliged to go into debt, and her debtors brought a suit +against her husband, which was taken into court. In the court she +stood before her husband's lawyer, and said to him: "If you are +afraid of what I may say, beware how you ask me questions!" +Wealth and power were against her, and the lawyer <i>did</i> ask +questions which wrung from her what she had concealed for +seventeen long years, and the world at last knew how her husband +had kept the money she earned by her pen. She stood in court, and +said: "I do not ask for rights; I have no rights, I have only +wrongs. I will go abroad, and live with my son." Her husband had +proposed to take her children from her, but she said: "I would +rather starve than give them up." And for a time she did starve. +I will read for you her poem of "Twilight," and you will all see +what kind of woman has been so wronged, and has so suffered.</p> + +<p>That woman, gifted, noble, and wealthy, with such great yearnings +in her soul, whose heart was so bound up in her children, was +thus robbed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[Pg 566]</a></span> not only of her own rights, but also of theirs. Men! +we can not trust you! You have deceived us too long! Since this +movement began, <i>some</i> laws have been passed, securing to woman +her personal property, but they are as nothing in the great +reform that is needed. I can tell you a case. A woman married a +man, whom she did not love, because he had a fortune. He died, +and she married the man whom she loved before her first marriage. +He died, too, and the fortune which was hers through her first +husband was seized on by the relatives of the second, and she was +left penniless in the wide world. Here, as in England, women earn +large sums by their literary fame and talents; and I know a <i>man</i> +who watches the post-office, and, because the Law gives him the +power, secures the letters which contain the wages of his wife's +intellectual toil, and pockets them for his own use.</p> + +<p>I will conclude by reading a letter from an esteemed friend, Mr. +Higginson. It proposes certain questions which I should wish to +hear our enemies answer.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Worcester</span>, <i>Sept. 4, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—You are aware that domestic duties alone prevent my +prolonging my stay in New York during the session of the Woman's +Rights Convention. But you know, also, that all my sympathies are +there. I hope you will have a large representation of the friends +of the great movement—the most important of the century; and +that you will also assemble a good many of the opposition during +the discussion. Perhaps from such opponents I might obtain +answers to certain questions which have harassed my mind, and are +the following:</p> + +<p>If there be a woman's sphere, as a man's sphere, why has not +woman an equal voice in fixing the limits? If it be unwomanly for +a girl to have a whole education, why is it not unwomanly for her +to have even a half one? Should she not be left where the Turkish +women are left? If women have sufficient political influence +through their husbands and brothers, how is it that the worst +laws are confessedly those relating to female property? If +politics are necessarily corrupting, ought not good men, as well +as good women, to be exhorted to quit voting?</p> + +<p>If, however, man's theory be correct—that none should be +appointed jurors but those whose occupations fit them to +understand the matters in dispute—where is the propriety of +empanneling a jury of men to decide on the right of a divorced +mother to her child? If it be proper for a woman to open her lips +in jubilee to sing nonsense, how can it be improper for her to +open them and speak sense? These afford a sample of the questions +to which I have been trying in vain to find an answer. If the +reasonings of men on this subject are a fair specimen of the +masculine intellect of the nineteenth century, I think it is +certainly quite time to call in women to do the thinking.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">T. W. Higginson.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, respectfully and cordially,</p> + +<p class="ltr-to ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">Miss Lucy Stone</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Matilda Joslyn Gage</span> cited the Convention to a case recently tried +before the Court of Common Pleas of New York, as illustrating the +husband's ownership of the wife, the Court deciding that the +friends of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[Pg 567]</a></span> woman who had "harbored" and detained her from her +husband, though with her own consent and desire, should pay him +$10,000. He recovered this sum on the principle of ownership; the +wife's services were due him, and he recovered their value.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gage also commented on the divorce laws, which she declared +were less just in Christian than in Mohammedan countries. In +those countries if the husband sues for a divorce he is obliged +to restore the dower, but in Christian America the husband not +only retains all the property in case he sues for a divorce, but +where the wife, being the innocent party, sues, she even then +receives neither property nor children, unless by an express +decree of the court. She is alike punished, whether innocent or +guilty. Mrs. Gage also discussed the question so often put, "What +has woman to do with politics?" She said the country must look to +women for its salvation.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Sojourner Truth, a tall colored woman, well known in anti-slavery +circles, and called the Lybian Sybil, made her appearance on the +platform. This was the signal for a fresh outburst from the mob; for +at every session every man of them was promptly in his place, at +twenty-five cents a head. And this was the one redeeming feature of +this mob—it paid all expenses, and left a surplus in the treasury. +Sojourner combined in herself, as an individual, the two most hated +elements of humanity. She was black, and she was a woman, and all the +insults that could be cast upon color and sex were together hurled at +her; but there she stood, calm and dignified, a grand, wise woman, who +could neither read nor write, and yet with deep insight could +penetrate the very soul of the universe about her. As soon as the +terrible turmoil was in a measure quelled</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">She said</span>: Is it not good for me to come and draw forth a spirit, +to see what kind of spirit people are of? I see that some of you +have got the spirit of a goose, and some have got the spirit of a +snake. I feel at home here. I come to you, citizens of New York, +as I suppose you ought to be. I am a citizen of the State of New +York; I was born in it, and I was a slave in the State of New +York; and now I am a good citizen of this State. I was born here, +and I can tell you I feel at home here. I've been lookin' round +and watchin' things, and I know a little mite 'bout Woman's +Rights, too. I come forth to speak 'bout Woman's Rights, and want +to throw in my little mite, to keep the scales a-movin'. I know +that it feels a kind o' hissin' and ticklin' like to see a +colored woman get up and tell you about things, and Woman's +Rights. We have all been thrown down so low that nobody thought +we'd ever get up again; but we have been long enough trodden now; +we will come up again, and now I am here.</p> + +<p>I was a-thinkin', when I see women contendin' for their rights, I +was a-thinkin' what a difference there is now, and what there was +in old times. I have only a few minutes to speak; but in the old +times the kings of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[Pg 568]</a></span> the earth would hear a woman. There was a +king in the Scriptures; and then it was the kings of the earth +would kill a woman if she come into their presence; but Queen +Esther come forth, for she was oppressed, and felt there was a +great wrong, and she said I will die or I will bring my complaint +before the king. Should the king of the United States be greater, +or more crueler, or more harder? But the king, he raised up his +sceptre and said: "Thy request shall be granted unto thee—to the +half of my kingdom will I grant it to thee!" Then he said he +would hang Haman on the gallows he had made up high. But that is +not what women come forward to contend. The women want their +rights as Esther. She only wanted to explain her rights. And he +was so liberal that he said, "the half of my kingdom shall be +granted to thee," and he did not wait for her to ask, he was so +liberal with her.</p> + +<p>Now, women do not ask half of a kingdom, but their rights, and +they don't get 'em. When she comes to demand 'em, don't you hear +how sons hiss their mothers like snakes, because they ask for +their rights; and can they ask for anything less? The king +ordered Haman to be hung on the gallows which he prepared to hang +others; but I do not want any man to be killed, but I am sorry to +see them so short-minded. But we'll have our rights; see if we +don't; and you can't stop us from them; see if you can. You may +hiss as much as you like, but it is comin'. Women don't get half +as much rights as they ought to; we want more, and we will have +it. Jesus says: "What I say to one, I say to all—watch!" I'm +a-watehin'. God says: "Honor your father and your mother." Sons +and daughters ought to behave themselves before their mothers, +but they do not. I can see them a-laughin', and pointin' at their +mothers up here on the stage. They hiss when an aged woman comes +forth. If they'd been brought up proper they'd have known better +than hissing like snakes and geese. I'm 'round watchin' these +things, and I wanted to come up and say these few things to you, +and I'm glad of the hearin' you give me. I wanted to tell you a +mite about Woman's Rights, and so I came out and said so. I am +sittin' among you to watch; and every once and awhile I will come +out and tell you what time of night it is.</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>The Times</i> next day commented as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>The New York Times, Sept. 9, 1853.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Row of Yesterday</span>.—Row No. 3 was a very jolly affair, a +regular break-down, at the Woman's Convention. The women had +their rights, and more beside. The cause was simply that the +rowdyish diathesis is just now prevalent. True, a colored woman +made a speech, but there was nothing in that to excite a +multitude; she did not speak too low to be heard; she did not +insult them with improper language; nor did the audience respond +at all insultingly. They did not curse, they only called for +"half a dozen on the shell." They did not swear, they only +"hurried up that stew." They did wrong, however.</p> + +<p>If we had our own way every rascally rowdy among them should have +Bloomers of all colors preaching at them by the year—a year for +every naughty word they uttered, a score of them for every hiss. +Out upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[Pg 569]</a></span> villains who go to any meeting to disturb it. Let +anybody who can hire a house and pay for it have his way, and let +none be disturbed; the opposers can stay away. But for us, let us +be thankful that in such hot weather there is something to amuse +us, something to season our insipid dishes, something to spice +our dull days with. <i>Mem.</i> It was cooler in the evening.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Caroline M. Severance</span>, of Ohio, presented an argument and appeal +based upon the following propositions: That as the manifest +dissimilarities which cause the <i>nations</i> of the earth to differ, +physically, and in degree of mental and moral development and +cultivation, are not found justly to invalidate their claim to a +place in the vast brotherhood of man—to fullness of family +communion and rights; so there are no radical differences of <i>the +sexes</i> in these respects, which can at all impair the integrity +of an equal humanity—no sufficient basis for a distinction in so +comprehensive a classification.</p> + +<p>The fundamental facts and faculties—the higher and more +essential attributes which make up the accepted definition of +humanity in our day, are identical in both—are no more confined +or unduly allotted to one sex than to one nation.</p> + +<p>On the broad basis of this philosophy, on the ground of woman's +undeniable and equal humanity, proven by the possession of +identical human faculties, and equal human needs, we claim for +her the recognition of that humanity and its rights—for the +freedom, protection, development, and use of those faculties, and +the supply of those needs. And we maintain that no accident of +sex, no prejudged or proven dissimilarity <i>in degree</i> of +physical, mental, or moral endowment, or development, can at all +stand in the way of the admission of such just claim; and no +denial of such claim but must necessarily be fraught with evil, +as subversive of the Creator's economy and design. [Shouts and +laughter.]</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">John Pierpont</span>, who, for the first time, took part in a +Woman's Rights Convention, said: Ladies and gentlemen, a woman, +at this hour, occupies the throne of the mightiest kingdom of the +globe. Under her sway there are some hundred and fifty millions +of the human race. Has she a right to sit there? [Several voices, +"No!"] The vote here is—no; but a hundred and fifty millions +vote the contrary. If a woman can thus have the highest right +conceded to her, why should not woman have a lower? Therefore, +some women have some rights. Is not the question a fair one,—how +many women have any rights? And, also, how many rights has any +woman? Are not these fair subjects for discussion? I do not come +here to advocate any specific right for women; I come merely for +the consideration of the question, what right she has. What are +the rights which can not rightfully be denied her? Surely, some +belong to the sex at large, as part of the great family of man. +We lay it, down as the foundation of our civil theory, that man, +as man, has, and by nature is endowed with certain natural, +inviolable, indefeasible rights; not that men who have attained +the age of majority alone possess those rights; not that the +older, the young, the fair, or the dark, are alone endowed with +them; but that they belong to <i>all</i>. The rights are not of man's +giving;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[Pg 570]</a></span> God gave them; and if you deny or withhold them, you +place yourself in antagonism with your Creator. The more humble +and despised is the human being claiming those rights, the more +prompt should be the feeling of every manly bosom to stand by +that humble creature of God, and see that its right is not +withheld from it! Is it a new thing in this country to allow +civil rights to a woman?</p></blockquote> + +<p>Susan B. Anthony, who had been a teacher for fifteen years, gave an +amusing description of her recent experience in attempting to speak at +a teachers' convention. Paulina Wright Davis offered the following +resolution:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That inasmuch as this great movement is intended to +meet the wants, not of America only, but of the whole world, a +committee be appointed to prepare an address from this Convention +to the women of Great Britain and the continent of Europe, +setting forth our objects, and inviting their co-operation in the +same.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wm. Lloyd Garrison</span>: I second the resolution, because it shows the +universality of our enterprise. I second it heartily, for it +manifests the grandeur of the object we are pursuing. There never +yet was a struggle for liberty which was not universal, though, +for the time, it might have appeared to be no more than local. If +the women of this country have to obtain rights which have been +denied them, the women of England, of France, of the world, have +to obtain the same; and I regard this as a struggle for the race, +sublime as the world itself. It is right that this Convention +should address the women of the whole world, in order that they +should announce precisely how they regard their own position in +the universe of God. What rights they claim are God-given; what +rights they possess, and what rights they have still to achieve. +It is time that the women of America should ask the women beyond +the Atlantic to consider their own condition, and to co-operate +with them in the same glorious struggle. There is not an argument +that God ever permitted a human being to frame, that can be +brought against this cause. This is a free Convention, and we are +willing that any man or woman who has aught against its +principles, should come here and freely urge it. And yet, with a +free platform, where is the human being who cares to argue the +question? Where is the man who presents himself decently, and +proffers a word of reasonable argument against our cause? I have +yet to see that man. Instead, we have blackguardism, defamation, +rowdyism, profanity; we have all the indications that hell from +beneath is stirred up against this divine Convention, for it is +divine—it takes hold of heaven and the throne of God! (Hisses). +Hiss, ye serpents! ye have nothing else to offer. There is not +one of you to whom God has given a brain to fashion an argument. +But it goes on record, and all the journals of this city will +themselves bear testimony, that no one takes the platform, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[Pg 571]</a></span> +an honest and honorable man, to argue this cause down. Therefore, +the whole ground is won, and we stand, as we have stood from the +beginning, on the rock of victory.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was rather singular that in this Convention, so entirely under the +control of a mob, that there should be found one man who dared to +stand upon the platform and announce that he had been an opponent for +ten years, and was connected with a journal which had initiated this +mob; and now he desired to give in his adhesion, and to confess his +conversion. This was one of the remarkable incidents of the occasion.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Isaac C. Pray</span> said: Until within two years I have been an +incessant opponent of the persons on this platform, in a leading +journal in this city, which gives the cue to the hisses in that +gallery. I have myself given—(applause). Pray spare your +plaudits; I do not wish for them. In November, 1851, I retired +from that journal, and I have since applied myself to study. This +movement, among others, has come under my notice, and I have +given it much attention. The result is, that I have entirely +changed my opinion with regard to it. I know, not only that my +former opinion was wrong, but that this movement is one which you +can not stop; it emanates from the Deity himself, whose influence +urges man forward on the path of progress. I say to the clergy, +if they ignore this movement, they ignore that accountability to +the Almighty which they preach. I do not mean to enter into any +argument on this subject, but merely wish to say, as each one is +accountable for his energies to God, you must go on in this good +and holy cause; also, I wish to show that there is such a thing +as a man's changing his opinion. This cause has been the butt of +all the ridicule I could command. I scoffed at it, in season and +out of season. There is not a lady on this platform whom my pen +has not assailed; and now I come to make all the reparation in my +power, by thus raising my voice on behalf of them and the cause +committed to their hands. (Cheers and stamping).</p></blockquote> + +<p>As it was inconsistent with Mrs. Mott's Quaker principles to call upon +the police for the forcible suppression of the mob, she vacated the +chair, inviting Ernestine L. Rose to take her place. The last evening +session opened with a song by G. W. Clark; but the music did not +soothe the mob soul; he was greeted with screeches, which his voice +only at brief intervals could drown.</p> + +<p>The President then introduced a German lady, Madame Mathilde Francesca +Anneké, editor of a liberal woman's rights newspaper which had been +suppressed in Germany. She had but recently landed in our country, and +hastened to the Convention to enjoy the blessings of free speech in a +republic. She had heard so much of freedom in America, that she could +hardly express her astonishment at what she witnessed. After many +attempts, and with great difficulty,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[Pg 572]</a></span> owing to the tumult and +interruption by impertinent noises, she spoke as follows, in German, +Mrs. Rose translating her remarks into English:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I wish to say only a few words. On the other side of the Atlantic +there is no freedom of any kind, and we have not even the right +to claim freedom of speech. But can it be that here, too, there +are tyrants who violate the individual right to express opinions +on any subject? And do you call yourselves republicans? No; there +is no republic without freedom of speech. (The tumult showing no +signs of abatement),</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span> came forward, and said: Allow me to say one +word, purely as a matter of the self-respect which you owe to +yourselves. We are citizens of a great country, which, from Maine +to Georgia, has ex tended a welcome to Kossuth, and this New York +audience is now looking upon a noble woman who stood by his side +in the battle-fields of Hungary; one who has faced the cannon of +Francis Joseph of Austria, for the rights of the people. Is this +the welcome you give her to the shores of republican America? A +woman who has proved her gallantry and attachment to principles, +wishes to say five words to you of the feelings with which she is +impressed toward this cause. I know, fellow-citizens, that you +will hear her.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The audience showing a better disposition to hear Madame Anneké, she +proceeded thus:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I saw this morning, in a paper, that the women of America have +met in convention to claim their rights. I rejoiced when I saw +that they recognized their equality; and I rejoiced when I saw +that they have not forgotten their sisters in Germany. I wished +to be here with my American sisters, to tell them that I +sympathize in their efforts; but I was too sick to come, and +would probably not have been here but that another German woman, +a friend of this movement, came to Newark and took me out of my +sick bed. But it was the want of a knowledge of the English +language which kept me away, more than sickness.</p> + +<p>Before I came here, I knew the tyranny and oppression of kings; I +felt it in my own person, and friends, and country; and when I +came here I expected to find that freedom which is denied us at +home. Our sisters in Germany have long desired freedom, but there +the desire is repressed as well in man as in woman. There is no +freedom there, even to claim human rights. Here they expect to +find freedom of speech; here, for if we can not claim it here, +where should we go for it? Here, at least, we ought to be able to +express our opinions on all subjects; and yet, it would appear, +there is no freedom even here to claim human rights, although the +only hope in our country for freedom of speech and action, is +directed to this country for illustration and example. That +freedom I claim. The women of my country look to this for +encouragement and sympathy; and they, also, sympathize with this +cause. We hope it will go on and prosper; and many hearts across +the ocean in Germany are beating in unison with those here.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[Pg 573]</a></span></p> + +<p>Madame Anneké retired amid a great uproar, which increased when Mr. +Phillips presented himself again. He persisted against frequent +clamorous interruptions in his purpose to speak, and addressed the +meeting as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Phillips</span>: I am not surprised at the reception I meet. +(Interruption).</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: As presiding officer for this evening, I call upon the +police. The mayor, too, promised to see that our meetings should +not be disturbed, and I now call upon him to preserve order. As +citizens of New York, we have a right to this protection, for we +pay our money for it. My friends, keep order, and then we shall +know who the disturbers are.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Phillips</span>: You are making a better speech than I can, by your +conduct. This is proof positive of the necessity of this +Convention. The time has been when other Conventions have been +met like this—with hisses. (Renewed hisses). Go on with your +hisses; geese have hissed before now. If it be your pleasure to +argue the question for us, by proving that the men here, at +least, are not fit for exercising political rights. (Great +uproar).</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: I regret that I have again to call upon the police to +keep order; and if they are not able to do it, I call upon the +meeting to help them.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Phillips</span>: You prove one thing to-night, that the men of New +York do not understand the meaning of civil liberty and free +discussion.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Antoinette Brown made an attempt to speak, but soon ceased amidst the +most indescribable uproar. Mr. Elliott then jumped upon the platform, +and harangued the audience as a representative of the rowdies, though +he claimed for himself great fairness and respectability. He said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>If taxation without representation be robbery, then robbery is +right, and I am willing to be robbed. For twelve years I have +paid taxes; and here and in other countries I have, in return, +got protection. Robbery is, to take away property forcibly +without giving an equivalent for it; but a good equivalent is +given for taxation. In this and other countries, the property of +individuals is taken from them, as when an owner of land is +deprived of it by the State to make a railroad through it; that +is no robbery; an equivalent is given, and the owner is fairly +dealt by. We have heard many instances of the tyranny inflicted +on women; but is that a reason that they should vote? If it be, +minors, who are under a double tyranny, that of father and mother—</p></blockquote> + +<p>Here the audience seemed to have lost all patience, and Mr. Elliott's +voice was completely drowned in the uproar. He retired, repeating that +he had proved the rowdies were not all on one side. The confusion now +reached its climax. A terrific uproar, shouting, yelling, screaming, +bellowing, laughing, stamping, cries of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[Pg 574]</a></span> "Burleigh," "Root," "Truth," +"Shut up," "Take a drink," "Greedey," etc., prevented anything orderly +being heard, and the Convention, on the motion of Mrs. Rose, was +adjourned <i>sine die</i>; the following resolution having first been read +by Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, and passed without dissent:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the members of this Convention, and the audience +assembled, tender their thanks to Lucretia Mott for the grace, +firmness, ability, and courtesy with which she has discharged her +important and often arduous duties.</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>Daily Tribune, Sept. 8, 1853.</i></p> + +<p class="heading">WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION:—<span class="smcap">Meeting At The Tabernacle</span>.</p> + +<p><i>Evening Session</i>.—Tremendous uproar—close of the Convention. +Yesterday evening being the last sitting of this Convention, the +approach to the Tabernacle was thronged long before the hour for +opening the doors, and considerable excitement seemed to prevail. +At about seven o'clock the Tabernacle doors were thrown open, and +the rush for tickets and admission to the anxious throng could +only be equalled by that of a Jenny Lind night. The building, +capable of holding some 2,000 persons, was immediately filled to +excess, and the principal promoters of the movement took their +places on the platform.... Mr. George W. Clark, who had been +requested to sing a song on "Freedom of Thought," did so in a +style apparently not much approved by the audience, who at a very +early stage began to give vent to all kinds of groans and +ironical cheers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Martin</span>, of this State, was then introduced, and with +considerable difficulty began her address.</p> + +<p>(Cries—"No! no!" and tremendous yells and laughter). "Time's +up," "That'll do." (Loud hisses, groans, laughter, tigers, and +demoniac sounds from the galleries). Cries of "Phillips! +Phillips." (Hisses and yells).</p> + + +<p class="heading"><i>Tribune, Sept. 9, 1853.</i></p> + +<p>We do not know whether any of the <i>gentlemen</i> who have succeeded +in breaking up the Woman's Rights Convention, or of the other +<i>gentlemen</i> who have succeeded in three sessions at Metropolitan +Hall in silencing a regularly appointed and admitted delegate, +will ever be ashamed of their passion and hostility, but we have +little doubt that some of them will live to understand their own +folly. At any rate, they have accomplished a very different thing +from what they now suppose. For if it had been their earnest +desire to strengthen the cause of Woman's Rights, they could not +have done the work half so effectively. Nothing is so good for a +weak and unpopular movement as this sort of opposition. Had +Antoinette Brown been allowed to speak at Metropolitan Hall, her +observations would certainly have occupied but a fraction of the +time now wasted, and would have had just the weight proper to +their sense and appropriateness, and no more. But instead of this +the World's Convention was disturbed and its orators silenced. +The consequences will be the mass of people throughout the +country who might otherwise not know of its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[Pg 575]</a></span> existence, will have +their attention called and their sympathies enlisted in its +behalf. So, too, when Antoinette Brown is put down by Rev. John +Chambers and his colleagues, and denied what is her clear right +as a member of the Temperance Convention by a vociferous mob, +composed, we are sorry to say, very largely of clergymen, every +impartial person sees that she is surrounded with a prestige and +importance which, whatever her talents as a speaker, she could +hardly hope to have attained. Many who question the propriety of +woman's appearing in public, will revolt at the gagging of one +who had a right to speak and claimed simply to use it on a proper +occasion. There is in the public mind of this country an +intuitive love of fair play and free speech, and those who +outrage it for any purpose of their own merely reinforce their +opponents, and bestow a mighty power on the ideas they hate and +fain would suppress.</p> + + +<p class="heading"><i>Tribune, Sept. 12, 1853.</i></p> + +<p>Arguments <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>. The meetings at the Tabernacle Tuesday +and Wednesday last, exhibited some features not often paralleled +in the progress of any public agitation for the redress of +grievances, or the vindication of rights. The advocates of an +enlargement of the allotted sphere of woman, had hired the house, +paid the advertising and other expenses, gathered at their own +expense from their distant homes, and taken all the +responsibilities of the outlay, yet they offered and desired +throughout to surrender their own platform for one-half of the +time, to any respectable and capable antagonists who should see +fit to appear and attempt to show why their demands were not just +and their grievances real. Consequently, though they are engaged +in a struggle, not only against numbers and power, and fashion +and immemorial custom, but with the Pulpit and the Press actively +and bitterly leading and spurring on their antagonists, and with +no access to the public ear but from the public platform, we +consider this proposition more than liberal—it was chivalric and +generous. We listened with interest to some of the arguments +<i>pro</i> and <i>con</i>, and propose here to recapitulate their +substance, that our readers may see at a glance the present +position and bearing of the controversy. We will begin with the +first speech we heard, that of</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Wm. H. Channing</span>: They say the public platform is not in +woman's sphere; but let us understand why. Jenny Lind stands on +that platform before thousands of men and women, and sings, "I +know that my Redeemer liveth," with all hearts approving, all +voices applauding, and nobody lisps a word that she is out of her +sphere. Well, Antoinette Brown believes the sentiment so sang to +be the hope of a lost world, and feels herself called to bear +witness in behalf of that religion, and to commend His salvation +to the understanding and hearts of all who will hear her. Why may +she not obey this impulse, and bear the tidings of a world's +salvation to those perishing in darkness and sin? What is there +unfeminine or revolting in her preaching the truth which Jenny +Lind may sing without objection and amid universal applause?</p> + +<p>Answer by things "in male costumes." Hiss-s-s.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span>: The law declares husband and wife one; +and such we all feel that they should be, and must be when the +marriage is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[Pg 576]</a></span> true one. Now, why should that same law base their +union or oneness on inequality or subjugation? The wife dies and +the husband inherits all her property, as is right; but let the +husband die, and the greater part of the property is taken from +the wife and given to others, even though all that property was +earned or inherited by the wife. She may be turned out of the +house she was born in and which was hers until marriage, and see +it given to her husband's brothers or other kindred who are +strangers to her. I insist that the wife should own and inherit +the property of the husband just to the same extent that the +husband inherits that of the wife—why not?</p> + +<p>Answer to the aforesaid—Hiss-s-s-s! Bow-ow-ow!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Harriot K. Hunt</span>: I plant myself on the basis of the Declaration +of Independence and insist, with our Revolutionary sires, that +taxation without representation is tyranny. Well; here am I, an +independent American woman, educated for and living by the +practice of medicine. I own property, and pay taxes on that +property. I demand of the Government that taxes me that it should +allow me an equal voice with the other tax-payers in the disposal +of the public money. I am certainly not less intelligent than +thousands who, though scarcely able to read their ballots, are +entitled to vote. I am allowed to vote in any bank or insurance +company when I choose to be a stockholder; why ought I not to +vote in the disposition of public money raised by tax, as well as +those men who do not pay taxes, or those who do either?</p> + +<p>Answer of the aforesaid—Yah! wow! Hiss-s-s-s!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>: I plead for the right of woman to the control of her +own person as a moral, intelligent, accountable being. I know a +wife who has not set foot outside of her husband's house for +three years, because her husband forbids her doing so when he is +present, and locks her up when he is absent. That wife is gray +with sorrow and despair though now in middle life, but there is +no redress for her wrongs because the law makes her husband her +master, and there is no proof that he beats or bruises her; there +is nothing in his treatment of her that the law does not allow. I +protest against such a law and demand its overthrow; and I +protest against any law which limits the sphere of woman, as a +bar to her intellectual development. You say she <i>can not</i> do +this and that, but if so, what need of a law to prevent her? You +say her intellectual achievements have not equaled those of man; +but I answer, that she has had no motive, no opportunity for such +achievement. Close all the avenues, take away all the incitement +for man's ambition, and he would do no more than woman does. +Grant her freedom, education, and opportunity, and she will do +what God intended she should do, no less, no more. Men! you +dwarf, you wrong yourselves in restraining and fettering the +intellectual development of woman! I ask for her liberty to do +whatever moral and useful deed she proves able to do—why should +I ask in vain?</p> + +<p>Answer by time-serving Press: Men, Women, and Bloomers! Faugh! +Bah!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Antoinette Brown</span>: I plead that the mother may not be legally +robbed of her children. I know a mother who was left a widow +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[Pg 577]</a></span> three young children. She was able, and most willing to +support them in humble independence; but her husband before he +died, had secretly given two of them to his relatives, and the +law tore them from the mother's bosom, and left her but the +youngest, who was soon taken from her by death. That, mother +lived to see her two surviving children, grow up, the one to be a +drunkard and the other a felon, all through neglect and the want +of that care and guardianship which none so well as a parent can +be relied on to afford. I plead for woman as a mother, that her +right to her children be recognized as at least equal to that of +the father, and that he, being dead, no other can have a right to +their guardianship paramount or even equal to hers.</p> + +<p>Pantalooned mob as aforesaid: Oh, dry up! Bow-ow! Waugh! +Hiss-s-s! Get out!</p> + +<p>The case is still on.</p></blockquote> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 363px;"> +<a name="v1_1577" id="v1_1577"> +<img src="images/v1_1577.png" width="363" height="500" +alt="Susan B. Anthony (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<h3>WOMAN'S RIGHTS STATE CONVENTION,<br /> +<small>ROCHESTER, N. Y., NOVEMBER 30 AND DECEMBER 1, 1853.</small></h3> + +<p>As William Henry Channing resided at Rochester, and felt that the time +had come for some more active measures, he was invited to prepare the +call and resolutions for the Convention. The following was issued and +extensively circulated, and signed by many of the leading men and +women of the State:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THE JUST AND EQUAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN.</p> + +<p><i>To the Men and Women of New York:</i></p> + +<p>The "Woman's Rights" Movement is a practical one, demanding +prompt and efficient action for the relief of oppressive wrongs; +and, as the Conventions held for several years past in different +States, have answered their end of arousing earnest public +attention, the time has come for calling upon the people to +reform the evils from which women suffer, by their +Representatives in Legislative Assemblies.</p> + +<p>The wise and humane of all classes in society, however much they +may differ upon speculative points as to woman's nature and +function, agree that there are actual abuses of women, tolerated +by custom and authorized by law, which are condemned alike by the +genius of republican institutions and the spirit of the Christian +religion. Conscience and common sense, then, unite to sanction +their immediate redress. Thousands of the best men and women, in +all our communities, are asking such questions as these:</p> + +<p>1. Why should not woman's work be paid for according to the +quality of the work done, and not the sex of the worker?</p> + +<p>2. How shall we open for woman's energies new spheres of well +remunerated industry?</p> + +<p>3. Why should not wives, equally with husbands, be entitled to +their own earnings?</p> + +<p>4. Why should not widows, equally with widowers, become by law +the legal guardians, as they certainly are by nature the natural +guardians, of their own children?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[Pg 578]</a></span></p> + +<p>5. On what just ground do the laws make a distinction between men +and women, in regard to the ownership of property, inheritance, +and the administration of estates?</p> + +<p>6. Why should women, any more than men, be taxed without +representation?</p> + +<p>7. Why may not women claim to be tried by a jury of their peers, +with exactly the same right as men claim to be and actually are?</p> + +<p>8. If women need the protection of the laws, and are subject to +the penalties of the laws equally with men, why should they not +have an equal influence in making the laws, and appointing +Legislatures, the Judiciary, and Executive?</p> + +<p>And, finally, if governments—according to our National +Declaration of Independence—"derive their just powers from the +consent of the governed," why should women, any more than men, be +governed without their own consent; and why, therefore, is not +woman's right to suffrage precisely equal to man's?</p> + +<p>For the end of finding out practical answers to these and similar +questions, and making suitable arrangements to bring the existing +wrongs of women, in the State of New York, before the Legislature +at its next session, we, the undersigned, do urgently request the +men and women of the Commonwealth to assemble in Convention, in +the city of Rochester, on Wednesday, November 30th, and Thursday, +December 1, 1853.<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The Convention assembled at Corinthian Hall at 10 o'clock. Rev. Samuel +J. May, of Syracuse, in the chair.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> After thanking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[Pg 579]</a></span> the Convention +for the honor conferred, he ran the parallel between the laws for +married women and the slaves on the Southern plantation, and then +introduced Ernestine L. Rose, to paint in more vivid colors the +picture he had outlined.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> said: The remarks of the president have impressed us to +do our duty with all the earnestness in our power. This is termed +a woman's rights movement. Alas! that the painful necessity +should exist, for woman's calling a Convention to claim her +rights from those who have been created to go hand in hand, and +heart in heart with her; whose interests can not be divided from +hers. Why does she claim them? Because every human being has a +right to all the advantages society has to bestow, if his having +them does not injure the rights of others. Life is valueless +without liberty, and shall we not claim that which is dearer than +life? In savage life, liberty is synonymous with aggression. In +civilized countries it is founded on equality of rights. +Oppression always produces suffering through the whole of the +society where it exists; this movement ought, therefore, to be +called a human rights movement. The wrongs of woman are so many +(indeed there is scarcely anything else but wrongs) that there is +not time to mention them all in one convention. She would speak +at present of legal wrongs, and leave it to her hearers, if all +are not—men, perhaps, more than women—sufferers by these +wrongs. How can woman have a right to her children when the right +to herself is taken away? At the marriage altar the husband says +in effect, "All this is mine, all mine is my own." She ceases to +exist legally, except when she violates the laws; then she +assumes her identity just long enough to receive the penalty. +When the husband dies poor, leaving the widow with small children +(here the speaker pictured thrillingly the suffering of a poor, +weak-minded, helpless woman, with small children dependent on +her), she is then acknowledged the guardian of her children. But +any property left them takes away her right of control. If there +is property the law steps in as guardian of it and therefore of +the children. The widowed mother is their guardian, only on +condition that the husband has made her so by will. Can any human +being be benefited by such gross violations of humanity?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Matilda Joslyn Gage</span> said: The legal disabilities of woman are +many, as not only known to those who bear them, but they are +acknowledged by Kent, Story, and many other legal authorities. A +wife has no management in the joint earnings of herself and her +husband; they are entirely under control of the husband, who is +obliged to furnish the wife merely the common necessaries of +life; all that she receives beyond these is looked upon by the +law as a favor, and not held as her right. A mother is denied the +custody of her own child; a most barbarous and unjust law, which +robs her of the child placed in her care by the great Creator +himself. A widow is allowed the use merely of one-third of the +real estate left at the husband's death; and when her minor +children have grown up she must surrender the personal property, +even to the family Bible, and the pictures of her dear children. +In view of such laws the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[Pg 580]</a></span> women engaged in this movement ask that +the wife shall be made heir to the husband to the same extent +that he is now her heir.</p> + +<p>Taxation without representation is another of the wrongs that +woman endures. In this she is held below the negro in the +political scale; for the black man, when not possessing property +to the extent of two hundred and fifty dollars, is not allowed to +vote, but neither is he taxed. The present law of divorce is very +unjust; the husband, whether the innocent or the guilty party, +retaining all the wife's property, as also the control of the +children unless by special decree of the court they are assigned +to the mother.</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Antoinette Brown</span> said: The wife owes service and labor to +her husband as much and as absolutely as the slave does to his +master. This grates harshly upon the ears of Christendom; but it +is made palpably and practically true all through our statute +books, despite the poetic fancy which views woman as elevated in +the social estate; but a little lower than the angels.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Letters were read from Paulina Wright Davis, Dr. Trail, Mary C. +Vaughan, and Hon. William Hay. A series of fourteen resolutions were +presented by Mr. Channing, and discussed, which suggested the +appointment of various committees. One to prepare an address to the +Legislature, and to ask a special hearing before a joint committee to +consider the whole subject of the just and equal rights of woman; +another to prepare an address to the capitalists and industrialists of +New York on the best modes of employing and remunerating women.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the movement, now in progress throughout the +United States, for securing the just and equal rights of women, +in education, industry, law, politics, religion, and social life, +is timely, wise, and practical; that it is authorized by all the +essential principles of Republican institutions, and sanctioned +by the spirit of the Christian religion; and finally that it is +but a carrying on to completeness of a reform, already begun, by +legal provisions, in the most advanced States of the Union.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the design of all true legislation should be the +elevation of every member of the community—and that the +violation of this legitimate design, in depriving woman of her +just and equal rights, is not only highly injurious to her, but +by reason of the equilibrium which pervades all existence, that +man, too, is impeded in his progress by the very chains which +bind woman to the lifeless skeleton of feudal civilization.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we do not ask for woman's political, civil, +industrial, and social equality with man, in the spirit of +antagonism, or with a wish to produce separate and conflicting +interests between the sexes, but because the onward progress of +society and the highest aspirations of the human race, demand +that woman should everywhere be recognized as the co-equal and +co-sovereign of man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[Pg 581]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That women justly claim an equally free access with +men, to the highest means of mental, moral, and physical culture, +provided in seminaries, colleges, professional and industrial +schools; and that we call upon all friends of progress and upon +the Legislature of New York, in establishing and endowing +institutions, to favor pre-eminently those which seek to place +males and females on a level of equal advantages in their system +of education.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That, inasmuch as universal experience proves the +inseparable connection between dependence and degradation—while +it is plain to every candid observer of society that women are +kept poor, by being crowded together, to compete with and +undersell one another in a few branches of labor, and that from +this very poverty of women, spring many of the most terrible +wrongs and evils, which corrupt and endanger society: therefore +do we invite the earnest attention of capitalists, merchants, +traders, manufacturers, and mechanics, to the urgent need, which +everywhere exists, of opening to women new avenues of honest and +honorable employment, and we do hereby call upon all manly men to +make room for their sisters to earn an independent livelihood.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That, whereas, the custom of making small +remuneration for woman's work, in all departments of industry, +has sprung from her dependence, which dependence is prolonged and +increased by this most irrational and unjust habit of half pay; +therefore do we demand, in the name of common sense and common +conscience, that women equally with men, should be paid for their +services according to the quality and quantity of the work done, +and not the sex of the worker.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That, whereas, the State of New York, in the acts of +1848 and 1849, has honorably and justly placed married women on +the footing of equality with unmarried women, in regard to the +receiving, holding, conveying, and devising of all property, real +and personal, we call upon the Legislature of the State to take +the next step—so plainly justified by its own precedents—of +providing that husbands and wives shall be joint owners of their +joint earnings—the community estate passing to the survivor at +the death of either party.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That, whereas, the evident intent of the Legislature +of the State of New York has for many years been progressively to +do away with the legal disabilities of women, which existed under +the savage usages of the old common law, therefore we do urgently +call upon the Legislature of this State, at its next session, to +appoint a joint committee to examine and revise the statutes, and +to propose remedies for the redress of all legal grievances from +which women now suffer, and suitable measures for the full +establishment of women's legal equality with men.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That, whereas, under the common law, the father is +regarded as the guardian, by nature, of his children, having the +entire control of their persons and education, while only upon +the death of the father, does the mother become the guardian by +nature; and, whereas, by the revised statutes of New York, it is +provided, that where an estate in lands shall become vested in an +infant, the guardianship of such infant, with the rights, powers, +and duties of a guardian in soccage, shall belong to the father, +and only in case of the father's death, to the mother;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[Pg 582]</a></span> and, +whereas, finally and chiefly, by the revised statutes of New +York, it is provided, that every father may, by his deed or last +will, duly executed, dispose of the custody and tuition of his +children, during their minority, "to any person or persons in +possession or remainder"; therefore, do we solemnly protest +against the utter violation of every mother's rights, authorized +by existing laws, in regard to the guardianship of infants, and +demand, in the name of common humanity, that the Legislature of +New York so amend the statutes, as to place fathers and mothers +on equal footing in regard to the guardianship of their children. +Especially do we invite the Legislature instantly to pass laws, +entitling mothers to become their children's guardians, in all +cases where, by habitual drunkenness, immorality, or +improvidence, fathers are incompetent to the sacred trust.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That, whereas, according to the amendments of the +Constitution of the United States, it is provided that "in all +criminal cases, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and +public trial, by an impartial jury," and that "in suits at common +law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, +the right of trial by jury shall be preserved"; and, whereas, +according to the revised statutes of New York, it is provided, +that "no member of this State can be disfranchised or deprived of +any of the rights or privileges, secured to any citizen thereof, +unless by the law of the land, or the judgment of his peers"; +therefore, do we demand, that women, as "members" and "citizens" +of this State, equally with men, should be entitled to claim a +trial by "an impartial jury of their peers." And especially do we +remonstrate against the partial, mean, and utterly inequitable +custom, everywhere prevalent, that in questions of divorce, men, +and men alone, should be regarded as "an impartial jury."</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That, whereas, in the Declaration of Independence of +the United States, one of the "injuries and usurpation" +complained of is Taxation without the consent of the persons +taxed; and, whereas, it is provided in the revised statutes of +New York, that "no tax, duty, aid or imposition whatever—except +such as may be laid by a law of the United States—can be taken +or levied within this State, without the grant and assent of the +people of this State; by their representatives in Senate and +Assembly"; and that "no citizen of this State can be compelled to +contribute to any gift, loan, tax, or other like charge, not laid +or imposed by a law of the United States, or by the Legislature +of the State"; therefore do we proclaim, that it is a gross act +of tyranny and usurpation, to tax women without their consent, +and we demand, either that women be represented by their own +appointed representatives, or that they be freed from the +imposition of taxes.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That inasmuch as it is the fundamental principle of +the Nation and of every State in this Union, that all +"governments derive their just powers from the consent of the +governed"—it is a manifest violation of the Supreme Law of the +land for males to govern females without their consent; and +therefore do we demand, of the people of New York, such a change +in the Constitution of the State, as will secure to women the +right of suffrage which is now so unjustly monopolized by men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[Pg 583]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Samuel J. May, Ernestine +L. Rose, William Hay, Susan B. Anthony, Burroughs Phillips, +Antoinette L. Brown, W. H. Channing, and Lydia A. Jenkins, be a +committee to prepare and to present an address to the Legislature +of New York, at its next session, stating, as specifically as +they shall see fit, the legal disabilities of women, and to ask a +hearing before a joint committee, specially appointed to consider +the whole subject of the just and equal rights of women.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That Horace Greeley, Mary C. Vaughan, Abram Pryne, +Sarah Pellet, and Matilda Joslyn Gage be a committee to prepare +an address to capitalists and industrialists of New York, on the +best modes of employing and remunerating the industry of women.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The President invited any one who saw errors or fallacies in the +arguments brought forward, to make them apparent.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Pryne</span>, of Cazenovia, editor of the <i>Progressive Christian</i>, +said: If women desire to enter the ordinary avocations of men, +they must be brave enough to become shopkeepers and mechanics. +There is no law to prevent it, neither is there to woman's +voting. The men have made an arrangement by which their votes are +not counted, but still they might provide ballot-boxes, and +decide upon whom they would prefer as magistrates and +legislators. A man who was thus voted to stay at home, by an +overwhelming majority of women, even if elected by the men, would +find himself in an uncomfortable position.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Channing</span> said he understood that in a town in Ohio the women +did so, and cast sixty votes.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Pryne</span> was glad to hear that there were practical women in +Ohio. Man is where he is because he is what he is, and when woman +gets the same elements of moral and physical power she will have +no more wrongs to complain of.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> said it was a true maxim that he who would be free, +himself must strike the blow. But woman could not, as things +were, help herself. As well might the slaveholder say that the +slave was fit for no other condition while he consents to occupy +that position. To a certain extent this is true, and the same +principles apply to both classes. But all human beings are not +martyrs; the majority accept the conditions in which they find +themselves, rather than make their lives one long struggle for +freedom. Woman must be educated to take the stand which Mr. Pryne +invites her to assume. The only object for which woman is now +reared is to be married; and is she fitted even for that; to +become a companion, an assistant, an aid, a comforter to man; and +above all, a mother? That alone; to fit a woman for that sphere; +she must possess all the extended education which would fit her +to take any position in life to which man aspires.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary F. Love</span> said there might be hindrances in the way of woman +too great for her to surmount. Men in their straggles for liberty +have sometimes met insuperable obstacles; there have been +unsuccessful revolutions at all stages of human development.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[Pg 584]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Frederick Douglass</span>, in discussing the injustice to woman in the +world of work, said: Some one whispers in my ear that as teachers +women get one-fourth the pay men do, while a girl's tuition is +the same as a boy's.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">President</span> observed, that the girl gets twice as much +education, being uniformly more studious and attentive.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">E. A. Hopkins</span>, a lawyer of Rochester, spoke to the eighth +resolution, which asks fora committee to examine the whole +subject; he said: I believe if this question was properly +presented to the Legislature, we might have well grounded hope +for the relief of women from their legal disabilities, and +indicated the amendments which ought to be made in the present +laws regulating the relations of the married state. He argued +against making the man and wife joint owners of property, execpt +in certain specific cases.</p> + +<p>Rev. Mr. <span class="smcap">Channing</span> said that in Louisiana and California this +joint ownership was recognized by the laws.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Hopkins</span> was not aware of that; and he did not see why labor, +worth in the market no more than one or two dollars per week, +should be paid for at the rate of, it may be, $200 per week. He +thought the law should be altered so that the widow may have +control of property while her children are minors. The right to +vote, which was claimed under the idea that representation should +go before taxation, he discussed with ability, taking ground +against women voting. The arguments used by the other side were +shown to be fallacious, or at least partaking of the aristocratic +element. Women are already tried by "their peers," though not by +those of their own sex. As to women holding office, this movement +had proved the position of Dr. Channing, in his discussion with +Miss Martineau, that "influence was good, and office bad." Women +should be content to exercise influence, without seeking for the +spoils and risking the temptations of office. He argued upon the +maxim that "governments derive their just powers from the consent +of the governed," contending that it was not true; those powers +are derived from the majority who are brave enough to set up and +sustain the government.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[Pg 585]</a></span></p> + +<p>Frederick Douglass, in the course of his remarks, said he had seen two +young women assistants in the County Clerk's office, also young women +going into printing-offices to set type; and he might have added the +following, which we clip from the <i>The Una</i> of the same date:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Female compositors have been employed in the offices of the three +Cincinnati daily papers which stood out against the demands of +the Printer's Union. The Pittsburg <i>Daily Dispatch</i> is also set +up entirely by females. The experiment was commenced on that +paper two months ago, and the proprietors now announce its entire +success. The Louisville <i>Courier</i> announces its intentions to try +the experiment in the spring.</p> + +<p>Wherever the change has been made it seems to be completely +successful.—<i>Courier and Enquirer</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">May</span> said: If a woman should not leave her family to go to the +Legislature, neither should a man. The obligation is mutual: and +while children require the care of both parents, both should +share the duty, and not leave them from ambitious motives. It is +only those who have well discharged their duties to their +families who are fit to become legislators. We are now giving the +nation into the hands of boys and half-grown men. Had we such +women as Lucretia Mott and Angelina Grimké in the Legislature, +there would be more wisdom there than we have to-day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[Pg 586]</a></span> When I +look through the nation and see the shameful mismanagement, I am +convinced that it is the result, in part, of the absence of the +feminine element in high stations; it is because the maternal +influence is wanting that we run riot as we do. The State is in a +condition of half orphanage, and needs the care and guidance of a +mother.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">E. A. Hopkins</span>, Esq.: Thought the movement was not entirely +timely, wise, and practicable, though parts of it might be. He +took Up and answered each of the questions appended to the call +for the Convention. His speech was characteristic of the lawyer, +and the frequent recurrence of the idea, <i>it is right because it +is customary</i>, will illustrate its moral character. He stated +three several points where he thought woman was aggrieved and +should have legislative redress. Office was a temptation, and he +thought woman was better off without it.</p> + +<p>Miss <span class="smcap">Brown</span> proposed that the men, for a while, be relieved from +this great evil, and excused from the burdens of office. If this +necessary duty was so burdensome, woman should be a helper and +share its burdens with him. We are taught to be grateful for +small favors. Our friend has been giving you milk, but to me it +seems, even at that, diluted with water. There is one law, "All +things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even +so to them." When our brothers are ready to be paid a dollar a +week for keeping house and nursing the children, let them dictate +this also to us. We women now offer to take the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[Pg 587]</a></span> burden and +responsibility of government upon ourselves. We would be willing +to save our friends for a time from temptation and care, as they +have so generously done by us; if we are to be satisfied with +things as they are, so should the slave be. He should be grateful +for the care of his master, for according to the established +price paid for labor, he does not earn enough to take care of +himself. We should be satisfied with our present license laws; +they are right, just, and good, judged by our friend's reasoning. +If our offer to rule alone is not liked, we are ready, then, to +co-operate with man in this according to the original design and +arrangement of the Creator.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Hopkins</span> opposed with several objections, one of which was, +that private stations demand as high qualifications, and more +surely command a just recompense, than public offices; woman has +yet taken few lucrative private employments; why, then, till +these are taken, should she seek for public office?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Frederick Douglass</span> again raised the inquiry, in the investment of +money or the use of property, where there is joint ownership, and +in regard to which there may be disagreement between husband and +wife, how shall the matter be settled between them? Law is not a +necessity of human nature; if love ruled, statutes would be +obsolete; genuine marriages and harmonious co-operations would +prevent any such necessity.</p> + +<p>Miss <span class="smcap">Brown</span> proposed to reply in a word: Law must regulate +differences where there is not true union, and as a business +copartnership, if the matter could not be adjusted between +themselves to mutual satisfaction, let it be referred to a third +person; where it is a property transaction, let the usual +business custom be observed; but if there be a difficulty of a +different nature, so serious that the parties, bound to each +other for life, can not enjoy existence together if they can not +make each other happy, but are to each other a mutual source of +discomfort, why, let them separate; let them not be divorced, but +let them each be content to live alone for the good of society.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Love</span>, of Randolph, read an address, flowery in style, but +full of truth, upon the discord that pervades social life. Homes +should be reformed; from domestic uncongeniality spring the chief +evils of society. She advised men and women to beware of +inharmonious alliances, and made a touching appeal in behalf of +the fallen of her sex.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Channing</span> said: Whenever he heard a woman, in face of existing +prejudices, speak the simple truth in regard to the social wrongs +of her sisters, as Mrs. Love had done, asking no leave of the +Convention, and making no apology for her sincere words, however +they might startle false delicacy, he felt bound as a man, and in +the name of man, to offer her the tribute of his hearty respect.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Channing presented two forms of petitions—one for property +rights, the other for suffrage—which were adopted. Rev. Lydia A. +Jenkins read a carefully prepared address. Emma R. Coe made a full +review of the laws, which, at that early day, was the burden of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[Pg 588]</a></span> +almost every speech. At the close of the sixth session, the audiences +having grown larger and larger, until the spacious and beautiful +Corinthian Hall was packed to its utmost, the Convention adjourned, to +begin its real work in canvassing the State with lectures and +petitions, preparing an address to the Legislature, securing a +hearing, and holding a Convention at Albany during the coming session +of that body.</p> + +<p>An appeal<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> to the women of the State was at once issued, and all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[Pg 589]</a></span> +editors requested to publish it with the forms of petitions. The +responses came back in the form of 13,000 signatures in two months, +gathered in thirty out of the sixty counties of the Empire State. The +lecturers were: Susan B. Anthony, Mary F. Love, Sarah Pellet, Lydia A. +Jenkins, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Over sixty women were engaged in the +work of circulating the petitions.</p> + +<p>Horace Greeley, chairman of the Committee on Industry, published in +<i>The New York Tribune</i> the following report:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">WOMAN AND WORK.</p> + +<p>Whether women should or should not be permitted to vote, to hold +office, to serve on juries, and to officiate as lawyers, doctors, +or divines, are questions about which a diversity of opinions is +likely long to exist. But that the current rates of remuneration +for woman's work are entirely, unjustly inadequate, is a +proposition which needs only to be considered to insure its +hearty acceptance by every intelligent, justice-loving human +being. Consider a few facts:</p> + +<p>Every able-bodied man inured to labor, though of the rudest sort, +who steps on shore in America from Europe, is worth a dollar per +day, and can readily command it. Though he only knows how to +wield such rude, clumsy implements as the pick and spade, there +are dozens of places where his services are in request at a +dollar per day the year through, and he can even be transported +hence to the place where his services are wanted, on the strength +of his contract to work and the credit of his future earnings. We +do not say this is the case every day in the year, for it may not +be at this most inclement and forbidding season; but it is the +general fact, as every one knows. And any careful, intelligent, +resolute male laborer is morally certain to rise out of the +condition of a mere shoveler, into a position where the work is +lighter and the pay better after a year or two of faithful +service.</p> + +<p>But the sister of this same faithful worker, equally careful, +intelligent, and willing to do anything honest and reputable for +a living, finds no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[Pg 590]</a></span> such chances proffered her. No agent meets +her on the dock to persuade her to accept a passage to Illinois +or Upper Canada, there to be employed on fair work at a dollar +per day and expectations. On the contrary, she may think herself +fortunate if a week's search opens to her a place where by the +devotion of all her waking hours she can earn five to six dollars +per month, with a chance of its increase, after several years' +faithful service, to seven or eight dollars at most.</p> + +<p>The brother is in many respects the equal of his employer; may +sit down beside him at the hotel where they both stop for dinner; +their votes may balance each other at any election; the laborer +lives with those whose company suits him, and needs no character +from his last place to secure him employment or a new job when he +gets tired of the old one. But the sister never passes out of the +atmosphere of caste—of conscious and galling inferiority to +those with whom her days must be spent. There is no election day +in her year, and but the ghost of a Fourth of July. She must live +not with those she likes, but with those who want her; she is not +always safe from libertine insult in what serves her for a home; +she knows no ten-hour rule, and would not dare to claim its +protection if one were enacted. Though not a slave by law, she is +too often as near it in practice as one legally free can be.</p> + +<p>Now this disparity between the rewards of man's and woman's labor +at the base of the social edifice, is carried up to its very +pinnacle. Of a brother and sister equally qualified and effective +as teachers, the brother will receive twice as much compensation +as the sister. The mistress who conducts the rural district +school in summer, usually receives less than half the monthly +stipend that her brother does for teaching that same school in +winter, when time and work are far less valuable; and here there +can be no pretence of a disparity in capacity justifying that in +wages. Between male and female workers in the factories and +mills, the same difference is enforced.</p> + +<p>Who does not feel that this is intrinsically wrong? that the +sister ought to have equal (not necessarily identical) +opportunities with the brother—should be as well taught, +industrially as well as intellectually, and her compensation made +to correspond with her capacity, upon a clear understanding of +the fact that, though her muscular power is less than his, yet +her dexterity and celerity of manipulation are greater?</p> + +<p>Where does the wrong originate? Suppose that, by some inexorable +law in the spirit of Hindoo caste, it were settled that negroes, +regardless of personal capacity, could do nothing for a living +but black boots, and that red-haired men were allowed to engage +in no avocation except horse-currying; who does not perceive +that, though boot-blacking and horse-currying might be well and +cheaply done, black-skinned and also red-haired men would have +but a sorry chance for making a living? Who does not see that +their wages, social standing, and means of securing independence, +would be far inferior to those they now enjoy?</p> + +<p>The one great cause, therefore, of the inadequate compensation +and inferior position of woman, is the unjust apportionment of +avocation. Man has taken the lion's share to himself, and +allotted the residue to woman, telling her to take that and be +content with it, if she don't want<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[Pg 591]</a></span> to be regarded as a forward, +indelicate, presuming, unwomanly creature, who is evidently no +better than she should be. And woman has come for the most part +to accept the lot thus assigned her, with thankfulness, or, +rather, without thought, just as the Mussulman's wife rejoices in +her sense of propriety which will not permit her to show her face +in the street, and the Brahmin widow immolates herself on the +funeral pyre of her husband.</p> + +<p>What is the appropriate remedy?</p> + +<p>Primarily and mainly, a more rational and healthful public +sentiment with regard to woman's work; a sentiment which shall +welcome her to every employment wherein she may be useful and +efficient without necessarily compromising her purity or +overtasking her strength. Let her be encouraged to open a store, +to work a garden, plant and tend an orchard, to learn any of the +lighter mechanical trades, to study for a profession, whenever +her circumstances and her tastes shall render any of these +desirable. Let woman, and the advocates of justice to women, +encourage and patronize her in whatever laudable pursuits she may +thus undertake; let them give a preference to dry-goods stores +wherein the clerks are mainly women; and so as to hotels where +they wait at table, mechanics' shops in which they are +extensively employed and fairly paid. Let the ablest of the sex +be called to the lecture-room, to the temperance rostrum, etc.; +and whenever a post-office falls vacant and a deserving woman is +competent to fill and willing to take it, let her be appointed, +as a very few have already been. There will always be some widow +of a poor clergyman, doctor, lawyer, or other citizens +prematurely cut off, who will be found qualified for and glad to +accept such a post if others will suggest her name and procure +her appointment. Thus abstracting more and more of the competent +and energetic from the restricted sphere wherein they now +struggle with their sister for a meager and precarious +subsistence, the greater mass of self-subsisting women will find +the demand for their labor gradually increasing and its +recompense proportionally enhancing. With a larger field and more +decided usefulness will come a truer and deeper respect; and +woman, no longer constrained to marry for a position, may always +wait to marry worthily and in obedience to the dictates of +sincere affection. Hence constancy, purity, mutual respect, a +just independence and a little of happiness, may be reasonably +anticipated.</p> + +<p class="author"> +Horace Greeley, Mary Vaughan, Abraham Pryne,<br /> +Sarah Pellet, Matilda Joslyn Gage.</p> +</blockquote> + + +<h3>ALBANY CONVENTION.<br /> +<small>FEBRUARY 14 AND 15, 1854.</small></h3> + +<p>Although the weather was inclement, a large audience assembled in +Association Hall on the morning of the 14th, representing the +different portions of the State. Susan B. Anthony called the +Convention to order and read the call, which had been written by Rev. +Wm. Henry Channing, and published in all the leading papers of the +State.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_592" id="Page_592">[Pg 592]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">JUSTICE TO WOMEN—CONVENTION AT ALBANY, FEB. 14 AND 15, 1854.</p> + +<p>The petition asking for such amendments in the Statutes and +Constitution of New York as will secure to the women of the State +legal equality with the men, and to females equally with the +males a right to suffrage, will be presented to the Legislature +about the middle of February. We, the Committee appointed at the +Convention held at Rochester in December—by whose authority +these petitions were issued—do hereby invite all +fellow-citizens, of either sex, who are in favor of these +measures, to assemble in Convention, at Albany, on Tuesday and +Wednesday, February 14th and 15th.</p> + +<p>The so-called "Woman's Rights Movement" has been so much +misrepresented, that it is desirable to make the appeal for +justice earnest, imposing, and effective, by showing how +eminently equitable are its principles, how wise and practical +are its measures. Let the serious-minded, generous, hopeful men +and women of New York then gather in council, to determine +whether there is anything irrational or revolutionary in the +proposal that fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, should treat +their daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers as their peers. This +reform is designed, by its originators, to make woman womanly in +the highest sense of that term—to exalt, not to degrade—to +perfect, not to impair her refining influence in every sphere. +The demand is made only to take off burdens, to remove +hindrances, to leave women free as men are free, to follow +conscience and judgment in all scenes of duty. On what +ground—except the right of might—do men, claiming to be +Republicans and Christians, deny to woman privileges which they +would die to gain and keep for themselves? What evil—what but +good can come from enlarging woman's power of usefulness? How can +society be otherwise than a gainer by the increased moral and +mental influence of one-half of its members? Let these and +similar questions be fairly, candidly, thoroughly discussed in +the hearing of the Legislature of New York.</p> + +<p>Come then, fellow-citizens, to this Convention prepared to speak, +to hear, to act. Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, Mrs. C. I. H. +Nichols, and other earnest friends of the cause from New England +and the West, as well as from our own State, are to be with us. +And may the spirit of Truth preside over all.</p> + +<p class="author"> +<span class="smcap">Elizabeth C. Stanton, Samuel J. May, Ernestine L. Rose,<br /> +Antoinette L. Brown, William Henry Channing, Wm. Hay,<br /> +Burroughs Phillips, Lydia Ann Jenkins, Susan B. Anthony</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<p>Those having petitions in their hands will please send them to +Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, until the first of February, after +which they should be forwarded to Lydia Mott, Albany.</p> + +<p>N. B.—Editors please copy.</p> + +<p><i>January 23, 1854.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>The officers<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> of the Convention being reported, Mrs. Elizabeth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_593" id="Page_593">[Pg 593]</a></span> +Cady Stanton (President) took the chair, and after returning her +acknowledgments for the honor conferred, introduced Rev. Antoinette L. +Brown, who read a series of resolutions:</p> + +<blockquote><p>1. <i>Resolved</i>, That the men who claim to be Christian +Republicans, and yet class their mothers, sisters, wives, and +daughters among aliens, criminals, idiots, and minors, unfit to +be their coequal citizens, are guilty of absurd inconsistency and +presumption; that for males to govern females, without consent +asked or granted, is to perpetuate an aristocracy, utterly +hostile to the principles and spirit of free institutions; and +that it is time for the people of the United States and every +State in the Union to put away forever that remnant of despotism +and feudal oligarchy, the caste of sex.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Resolved</i>, That women are human beings whose rights +correspond with their duties; that they are endowed with +conscience, reason, affection, and energy, for the use of which +they are individually responsible; that like men they are bound +to advance the cause of truth, justice, and universal good in the +society and nation of which they are members; that in these +United States women constitute one-half the people; men +constitute the other half; that women are no more free in honor +than men are to withhold their influence and example from +patriotic and philanthropic movements, and that men who deny +women to be their peers, and who shut them out from exercising a +fair share of power in the body politic, are arrogant usurpers, +whose only apology is to be found in prejudices transmitted from +half-civilized and half-christianized ages.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The family is the nursery of the State and the +Church—the God-appointed seminary of the human race. Therefore</p> + +<p>3. <i>Resolved</i>, That the family, by men as well as women, should +be held more sacred than all other institutions; that it may not, +without sin, be abandoned or neglected by fathers any more than +by mothers, for the sake of any of the institutions devised by +men—for the government of the State or the Nation any more than +for the voluntary association of social reformers.</p> + +<p>4. <i>Resolved</i>, That women's duties and rights as daughters, +sisters, wives, and mothers, are not bounded within the circle of +home; that in view of the sacredness of their relations, they are +not free to desert their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons +amidst scenes of business, politics, and pleasure, and to leave +them alone in their struggles and temptations, but that as +members of the human family, for the sake of human advancement, +women are bound as widely as possible to give to men the +influence of their aid and presence; and finally, that universal +experience attests that those nations and societies are most +orderly, high-toned, and rich in varied prosperity, where women +most freely intermingle with men in all spheres of active life.</p> + +<p>5. <i>Resolved</i>, That the fundamental error of the whole structure +of legislation and custom, whereby women are practically +sustained, even in this republic, is the preposterous fiction of +law, that in the eye of the law the husband and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_594" id="Page_594">[Pg 594]</a></span> wife are one +person, that person being the husband; that this falsehood +itself, the deposit of barbarism, tends perpetually to brutalize +the marriage relation by subjecting wives as irresponsible tools +to the capricious authority of husbands; that this degradation of +married women re-acts inevitably to depress the condition of +single women, by impairing their own self-respect and man's +respect for them; and that the final result is that system of +tutelage miscalled protection, by which the industry of women is +kept on half-pay, their affections trifled with, their energies +crippled, and even their noblest aspirations wasted away in vain +efforts, ennui, and regret.</p> + +<p>6. <i>Resolved</i>, That in consistency with the spirit and intent of +the Statutes of New York, enacted in 1848 and 1849, the design of +which was to secure to married women the entire control of their +property, it is the duty of the Legislature to make such +amendments in the laws of the State as will enable married women +to conduct business, to form contracts, to sue and be sued in +their own names—to receive and hold the gains of their industry, +and be liable for their own debts so far as their interests are +separate from those of their husbands—to become joint owners in +the joint earnings of the partnership, so far as these interests +are identified—to bear witness for or against their husbands, +and generally to be held responsible for their own deeds.</p> + +<p>7. <i>Resolved</i>, That as acquiring property by all just and +laudable means, and the holding and devising of the same is a +human right, women married and single are entitled to this right, +and all the usages or laws which withhold it from them are +manifestly unjust.</p> + +<p>8. <i>Resolved</i>, That every argument in favor of universal suffrage +for males is equally in favor of universal suffrage for females, +and therefore if men may claim the right of suffrage as necessary +to the protection of all their rights in any Government, so may +women for the same reason.</p> + +<p>9. <i>Resolved</i>, That if man as man, has any peculiar claim to a +representation in the government, for himself, woman as woman, +has a paramount claim to an equal representation for herself.</p> + +<p>10. <i>Resolved</i>, Therefore, that whether you regard woman as like +or unlike man, she is in either case entitled to an equal joint +participation with him in all civil rights and duties.</p> + +<p>11. <i>Resolved</i>, That although men should grant us every specific +claim, we should hold them all by favor rather than right, unless +they also concede, and we exercise, the right of protecting +ourselves by the elective franchise.</p> + +<p>12. <i>Resolved</i>, That if the essence of a trial by an "impartial +jury" be a trial by one's own equals, then has never a woman +enjoyed that privilege in the hour of her need as a culprit. We, +therefore, respectfully demand of our Legislature that, at least, +the right of such trial by jury be accorded to women equally with +men—that women be eligible to the jury-box, whenever one of +their own sex is arraigned at the bar.</p> + +<p>13. <i>Resolved</i>, That could the women of the State be heard on +this question, we should find the mass with us; as the mother's +reluctance to give up the guardianship of her children; the +wife's unwillingness to submit to the abuse of a drunken husband, +the general sentiment in favor of equal property rights, and the +thousands of names in favor of our petition, raised with so +little effort, conclusively prove.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The right of petition is guaranteed to every member of +this republic; therefore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_595" id="Page_595">[Pg 595]</a></span></p> + +<p>14. <i>Resolved</i>, That it is the highest duty of legislators +impartially to investigate all claims for the redress of wrong, +and alter and amend such laws as prevent the administration of +justice and equal rights to all.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That all true-hearted men and women pledge themselves +never to relinquish their unceasing efforts in behalf of the full +and equal rights of women, until we have effaced the stigma +resting on this republic, that while it theoretically proclaims +that all men are created equal, deprives one-half of its members +of the enjoyment of the rights and privileges possessed by the +other.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The salient points of the question as embodied in the resolutions and +the address were ably presented by William Henry Channing, Samuel J. +May, Mrs. Nichols, Mrs. Rose, Mrs. Love, Miss Brown, Miss Anthony, +Mrs. Jenkins, Hon. William Hay, and Giles B. Stebbins. At the evening +session Mrs. Stanton read her address prepared for the Legislature, +which Miss Anthony had stereotyped and published. A copy was laid on +the desk of every legislator, and twenty thousand scattered like +snow-flakes over the State.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">MRS. STANTON'S ADDRESS.</p> + +<p><i>To the Legislature of the State of New York</i>:</p> + +<p>"The thinking minds of all nations call for change. There is a +deep-lying struggle in the whole fabric of society; a boundless, +grinding collision of the New with the Old."</p> + +<p>The tyrant, Custom, has been summoned before the bar of +Common-Sense. His majesty no longer awes the multitude—his +sceptre is broken—his crown is trampled in the dust—the +sentence of death is pronounced upon him. All nations, ranks, and +classes have, in turn, questioned and repudiated his authority; +and now, that the monster is chained and caged, timid woman, on +tiptoe, comes to look him in the face, and to demand of her brave +sires and sons, who have struck stout blows for liberty, if, in +this change of dynasty, she, too, shall find relief. Yes, +gentlemen, in republican America, in the nineteenth century, we, +the daughters of the revolutionary heroes of '76, demand at your +hands the redress of our grievances—a revision of your State +Constitution—a new code of laws. Permit us then, as briefly as +possible, to call your attention to the legal disabilities under +which we labor.</p> + +<p>1st. Look at the position of woman as woman. It is not enough for +us that, by your laws we are permitted to live and breathe, to +claim the necessaries of life from our legal protectors—to pay +the penalty of our crimes; we demand the full recognition of all +our rights as citizens of the Empire State. We are persons; +native, free-born citizens; property-holders, tax-payers; yet are +we denied the exercise of our right to the elective franchise. We +support ourselves, and, in part, your schools, colleges, +churches, your poor-houses, jails, prisons, the army, the navy, +the whole machinery of government, and yet we have no voice in +your councils. We have every qualification required by the +Constitution, necessary to the legal voter, but the one of sex. +We are moral, virtuous, and intelligent, and in all respects +quite equal to the proud white man himself, and yet by your laws +we are classed with idiots, lunatics, and negroes; and though we +do not feel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_596" id="Page_596">[Pg 596]</a></span> honored by the place assigned us, yet, in fact, our +legal position is lower than that of either; for the negro can be +raised to the dignity of a voter if he possess himself of $250; +the lunatic can vote in his moments of sanity, and the idiot, +too, if he be a male one, and not more than nine-tenths a fool; +but we, who have guided great movements of charity, established +missions, edited journals, published works on history, economy, +and statistics; who have governed nations, led armies, filled the +professor's chair, taught philosophy and mathematics to the +savants of our age, discovered planets, piloted ships across the +sea, are denied the most sacred rights of citizens, because, +forsooth, we came not into this republic crowned with the dignity +of manhood! Woman is theoretically absolved from all allegiance +to the laws of the State. Sec. 1, Bill of Rights, 2 R. S., 301, +says that no authority can, on any pretence whatever, be +exercised over the citizens of this State but such as is or shall +be derived from, and granted by the people of this State.</p> + +<p>Now, gentlemen, we would fain know by what authority you have +disfranchised one-half the people of this State? You who have so +boldly taken possession of the bulwarks of this republic, show us +your credentials, and thus prove your exclusive right to govern, +not only yourselves, but us. Judge Hurlburt, who has long +occupied a high place at the bar in this State, and who recently +retired with honor from the bench of the Supreme Court, in his +profound work on Human Rights, has pronounced your present +position rank usurpation. Can it be that here, where we +acknowledge no royal blood, no apostolic descent, that you, who +have declared that all men were created equal—that governments +derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, would +willingly build up an aristocracy that places the ignorant and +vulgar above the educated and refined—the alien and the +ditch-digger above the authors and poets of the day—an +aristocracy that would raise the sons above the mothers that bore +them? Would that the men who can sanction a Constitution so +opposed to the genius of this government, who can enact and +execute laws so degrading to womankind, had sprung, Minerva-like, +from the brains of their fathers, that the matrons of this +republic need not blush to own their sons!</p> + +<p>Woman's position, under our free institutions, is much lower than +under the monarchy of England. "In England the idea of woman +holding official station is not so strange as in the United +States. The Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery held the +office of hereditary sheriff of Westmoreland, and exercised it in +person. At the assizes at Appleby, she sat with the judges on the +bench. In a reported case, it is stated by counsel, and +substantially assented to by the court, that a woman is capable +of serving in almost all the offices of the kingdom, such as +those of queen, marshal, great chamberlain and constable of +England, the champion of England, commissioner of sewers, +governor of work-house, sexton, keeper of the prison, of the +gate-house of the dean and chapter of Westminster, returning +officer for members of Parliament, and constable, the latter of +which is in some respects judicial. The office of jailor is +frequently exercised by a woman.</p> + +<p>"In the United States a woman may administer on the effects of +her deceased husband, and she has occasionally held a subordinate +place in the post-office department. She has therefore a sort of +post mortem, post-mistress notoriety; but with the exception of +handling letters of administration and letters mailed, she is the +submissive creature of the old common law." True, the unmarried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_597" id="Page_597">[Pg 597]</a></span> +woman has a right to the property she inherits and the money she +earns, but she is taxed without representation. And here again +you place the negro, so unjustly degraded by you, in a superior +position to your own wives and mothers; for colored males, if +possessed of a certain amount of property and certain other +qualifications, can vote, but if they do not have these +qualifications they are not subject to direct taxation; wherein +they have the advantage of woman, she being subject to taxation +for whatever amount she may possess. (Constitution of New York, +Article 2, Sec. 2). But, say you, are not all women sufficiently +represented by their fathers, husbands, and brothers? Let your +statute books answer the question.</p> + +<p>Again we demand in criminal cases that most sacred of all rights, +trial by a jury of our own peers. The establishment of trial by +jury is of so early a date that its beginning is lost in +antiquity; but the right of trial by a jury of one's own peers is +a great progressive step of advanced civilization. No rank of men +have ever been satisfied with being tried by jurors higher or +lower in the civil or political scale than themselves; for +jealousy on the one hand, and contempt on the other, has ever +effectually blinded the eyes of justice. Hence, all along the +pages of history, we find the king, the noble, the peasant, the +cardinal, the priest, the layman, each in turn protesting against +the authority of the tribunal before which they were summoned to +appear. Charles the First refused to recognize the competency of +the tribunal which condemned him: For how, said he, can subjects +judge a king? The stern descendants of our Pilgrim Fathers +refused to answer for their crimes before an English Parliament. +For how, said they, can a king judge rebels? And shall woman here +consent to be tried by her liege lord, who has dubbed himself +law-maker, judge, juror, and sheriff too?—whose power, though +sanctioned by Church and State, has no foundation in justice and +equity, and is a bold assumption of our inalienable rights. In +England a Parliament-lord could challenge a jury where a knight +was not empanneled; an alien could demand a jury composed half of +his own countrymen; or, in some special cases, juries were even +constituted entirely of women. Having seen that man fails to do +justice to woman in her best estate, to the virtuous, the noble, +the true of our sex, should we trust to his tender mercies the +weak, the ignorant, the morally insane? It is not to be denied +that the interests of man and woman in the present undeveloped +state of the race, and under the existing social arrangements, +are and must be antagonistic. The nobleman can not make just laws +for the peasant; the slaveholder for the slave; neither can man +make and execute just laws for woman, because in each case, the +one in power fails to apply the immutable principles of right to +any grade but his own.</p> + +<p>Shall an erring woman be dragged before a bar of grim-visaged +judges, lawyers, and jurors, there to be grossly questioned in +public on subjects which women scarce breathe in secret to one +another? Shall the most sacred relations of life be called up and +rudely scanned by men who, by their own admission, are so coarse +that women could not meet them even at the polls without +contamination? and yet shall she find there no woman's face or +voice to pity and defend? Shall the frenzied mother, who, to save +herself and child from exposure and disgrace, ended the life +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_598" id="Page_598">[Pg 598]</a></span> had but just begun, be dragged before such a tribunal to +answer for her crime? How can man enter into the feelings of that +mother? How can he judge of the agonies of soul that impelled her +to such an outrage of maternal instincts? How can he weigh the +mountain of sorrow that crushed that mother's heart when she +wildly tossed her helpless babe into the cold waters of the +midnight sea? Where is he who by false vows thus blasted this +trusting woman? Had that helpless child no claims on his +protection? Ah, he is freely abroad in the dignity of manhood, in +the pulpit, on the bench, in the professor's chair. The +imprisonment of his victim and the death of his child, detract +not a tithe from his standing and complacency. His peers made the +law, and shall law-makers lay nets for those of their own rank? +Shall laws which come from the logical brain of man take +cognizance of violence done to the moral and affectional nature +which predominates, as is said, in woman?</p> + +<p>Statesmen of New York, whose daughters, guarded by your +affection, and lapped amidst luxuries which your indulgence +spreads, care more for their nodding plumes and velvet trains +than for the statute laws by which their persons and properties +are held—who, blinded by custom and prejudice to the degraded +position which they and their sisters occupy in the civil scale, +haughtily claim that they already have all the rights they want, +how, think ye, you would feel to see a daughter summoned for such +a crime—and remember these daughters are but human—before such +a tribunal? Would it not, in that hour, be some consolation to +see that she was surrounded by the wise and virtuous of her own +sex; by those who had known the depth of a mother's love and the +misery of a lover's falsehood; to know that to these she could +make her confession, and from them receive her sentence? If so, +then listen to our just demands and make such a change in your +laws as will secure to every woman tried in your courts, an +impartial jury. At this moment among the hundreds of women who +are shut up in prisons in this State, not one has enjoyed that +most sacred of all rights—that right which you would die to +defend for yourselves—trial by a jury of one's peers.</p> + +<p>2d. Look at the position of woman as wife. Your laws relating to +marriage—founded as they are on the old common law of England, a +compound of barbarous usages, but partially modified by +progressive civilization—are in open violation of our +enlightened ideas of justice, and of the holiest feelings of our +nature. If you take the highest view of marriage, as a Divine +relation, which love alone can constitute and sanctify, then of +course human legislation can only recognize it. Men can neither +bind nor loose its ties, for that prerogative belongs to God +alone, who makes man and woman, and the laws of attraction by +which they are united. But if you regard marriage as a civil +contract, then let it be subject to the same laws which control +all other contracts. Do not make it a kind of half-human, +half-divine institution, which you may build up, but can not +regulate. Do not, by your special legislation for this one kind +of contract, involve yourselves in the grossest absurdities and +contradictions.</p> + +<p>So long as by your laws no man can make a contract for a horse or +piece of land until he is twenty-one years of age, and by which +contract<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_599" id="Page_599">[Pg 599]</a></span> he is not bound if any deception has been practiced, or +if the party contracting has not fulfilled his part of the +agreement—so long as the parties in all mere civil contracts +retain their identity and all the power and independence they had +before contracting, with the full right to dissolve all +partnerships and contracts for any reason, at the will and option +of the parties themselves, upon what principle of civil +jurisprudence do you permit the boy of fourteen and the girl of +twelve, in violation of every natural law, to make a contract +more momentous in importance than any other, and then hold them +to it, come what may, the whole of their natural lives, in spite +of disappointment, deception, and misery? Then, too, the signing +of this contract is instant civil death to one of the parties. +The woman who but yesterday was sued on bended knee, who stood so +high in the scale of being as to make an agreement on equal terms +with a proud Saxon man, to-day has no civil existence, no social +freedom. The wife who inherits no property holds about the same +legal position that does the slave on the Southern plantation. +She can own nothing, sell nothing. She has no right even to the +wages she earns; her person, her time, her services are the +property of another. She can not testify, in many cases, against +her husband. She can get no redress for wrongs in her own name in +any court of justice. She can neither sue nor be sued. She is not +held morally responsible for any crime committed in the presence +of her husband, so completely is her very existence supposed by +the law to be merged in that of another. Think of it; your wives +may be thieves, libelers, burglars, incendiaries, and for crimes +like these they are not held amenable to the laws of the land, if +they but commit them in your dread presence. For them, alas! +there is no higher law than the will of man. Herein behold the +bloated conceit of these Petruchios of the law, who seem to say:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will be master of what is mine own;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My household stuff, my field, my barn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here she stands, touch her whoever dare;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll bring my action on the proudest he,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That stops my way, in Padua."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>How could man ever look thus on woman? She, at whose feet +Socrates learned wisdom—she, who gave to the world a Saviour, +and witnessed alike the adoration of the Magi and the agonies of +the cross. How could such a being, so blessed and honored, ever +become the ignoble, servile, cringing slave, with whom the fear +of man could be paramount to the sacred dictates of conscience +and the holy love of Heaven? By the common law of England, the +spirit of which has been but too faithfully incorporated into our +statute law, a husband has a right to whip his wife with a rod +not larger than his thumb, to shut her up in a room, and +administer whatever moderate chastisement he may deem necessary +to insure obedience to his wishes, and for her healthful moral +development! He can forbid all persons harboring or trusting her +on his account. He can deprive her of all social intercourse with +her nearest and dearest friends. If by great economy she +accumulates a small sum, which for future<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_600" id="Page_600">[Pg 600]</a></span> need she deposit, +little by little, in a savings bank, the husband has a right to +draw it out, at his option, to use it as he may see fit.</p> + +<p>"Husband is entitled to wife's credit or business talents +(whenever their inter-marriage may have occurred); and goods +purchased by her on her own credit, with his consent, while +cohabiting with him, can be seized and sold in execution against +him for his own debts, and this, though she carry on business in +her own name."—7 <i>Howard's Practice Reports, 105, Lovett agt. +Robinson and Whitbeck, sheriff, etc</i>.</p> + +<p>"No letters of administration shall be granted to a person +convicted of infamous crime; nor to any one incapable by law of +making a contract; nor to a person not a citizen of the United +States, unless such person reside within this State; nor to any +one who is under twenty-one years of age; nor to any person who +shall be adjudged incompetent by the surrogate to execute duties +of such trust, by reason of drunkenness, improvidence, or want of +understanding, nor to any married woman; but where a married +woman is entitled to administration, the same may be granted to +her husband in her right and behalf."</p> + +<p>There is nothing that an unruly wife might do against which the +husband has not sufficient protection in the law. But not so with +the wife. If she have a worthless husband, a confirmed drunkard, +a villain, or a vagrant, he has still all the rights of a man, a +husband, and a father. Though the whole support of the family be +thrown upon the wife, if the wages she earns be paid to her by +her employer, the husband can receive them again. If, by +unwearied industry and perseverance, she can earn for herself and +children a patch of ground and a shed to cover them, the husband +can strip her of all her hard earnings, turn her and her little +ones out in the cold northern blast, take the clothes from their +backs, the bread from their mouths; all this by your laws may he +do, and has he done, oft and again, to satisfy the rapacity of +that monster in human form, the rum-seller.</p> + +<p>But the wife who is so fortunate as to have inherited property, +has, by the new law in this State, been redeemed from her lost +condition. She is no longer a legal nonentity. This property law, +if fairly construed, will overturn the whole code relating to +woman and property. The right to property implies the right to +buy and sell, to will and bequeath, and herein is the dawning of +a civil existence for woman, for now the "femme covert" must have +the right to make contracts. So, get ready, gentlemen; the +"little justice" will be coming to you one day, deed in hand, for +your acknowledgment. When he asks you "if you sign without fear +or compulsion," say yes, boldly, as we do. Then, too, the right +to will is ours. Now what becomes of the "tenant for life"? Shall +he, the happy husband of a millionaire, who has lived in yonder +princely mansion in the midst of plenty and elegance, be cut down +in a day to the use of one-third of this estate and a few hundred +a year, as long he remains her widower? And should he, in spite +of this bounty on celibacy, impelled by his affections, marry +again, choosing for a wife a woman as poor as himself, shall he +be thrown penniless on the cold world—this child of fortune, +enervated by ease and luxury, henceforth to be dependent wholly +on his own resources? Poor man! He would be rich, though, in the +sympathies of many women who have passed through just such an +ordeal. But what is property without the right to protect that +property by law? It is mockery to say a certain estate is mine, +if, without my consent, you have the right to tax me when and how +you please, while I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_601" id="Page_601">[Pg 601]</a></span> have no voice in making the tax-gatherer, +the legislator, or the law. The right to property will, of +necessity, compel us in due time to the exercise of our right to +the elective franchise, and then naturally follows the right to +hold office.</p> + +<p>3d. Look at the position of woman as widow. Whenever we attempt +to point out the wrongs of the wife, those who would have us +believe that the laws can not be improved, point us to the +privileges, powers, and claims of the widow. Let us look into +these a little. Behold in yonder humble house a married pair, +who, for long years, have lived together, childless and alone. +Those few acres of well-tilled land, with the small, white house +that looks so cheerful through its vines and flowers, attest the +honest thrift and simple taste of its owners. This man and woman, +by their hard days' labor, have made this home their own. Here +they live in peace and plenty, happy in the hope that they may +dwell together securely under their own vine and fig-tree for the +few years that remain to them, and that under the shadow of these +trees, planted by their own hands, and in the midst of their +household gods, so loved and familiar, they may take their last +farewell of earth. But, alas for human hopes! the husband dies, +and without a will, and the stricken widow, at one fell blow, +loses the companion of her youth, her house and home, and half +the little sum she had in bank. For the law, which takes no +cognizance of widows left with twelve children and not one cent, +instantly spies out this widow, takes account of her effects, and +announces to her the startling intelligence that but one-third of +the house and lot, and one-half the personal property, are hers. +The law has other favorites with whom she must share the +hard-earned savings of years. In this dark hour of grief, the +coarse minions of the law gather round the widow's hearth-stone, +and, in the name of justice, outrage all natural sense of right; +mock at the sacredness of human love, and with cold familiarity +proceed to place a moneyed value on the old arm-chair, in which, +but a few brief hours since, she closed the eyes that had ever +beamed on her with kindness and affection; on the solemn clock in +the corner, that told the hour he passed away; on every garment +with which his form and presence were associated, and on every +article of comfort and convenience that the house contained, even +down to the knives and forks and spoons—and the widow saw it +all—and when the work was done, she gathered up what the law +allowed her and went forth to seek another home! This is the +much-talked-of widow's dower. Behold the magnanimity of the law +in allowing the widow to retain a life interest in one-third the +landed estate, and one-half the personal property of her husband, +and taking the lion's share to itself! Had she died first, the +house and land would all have been the husband's still. No one +would have dared to intrude upon the privacy of his home, or to +molest him in his sacred retreat of sorrow. How, I ask you, can +that be called justice, which makes such a distinction as this +between man and woman?</p> + +<p>By management, economy, and industry, our widow is able, in a few +years, to redeem her house and home. But the law never loses +sight of the purse, no matter how low in the scale of being its +owner may be. It sends its officers round every year to gather in +the harvest for the public crib, and no widow who owns a piece of +land two feet square ever escapes this reckoning. Our widow, too, +who has now twice earned her home, has her annual tax to pay +also—a tribute of gratitude that she is permitted to breathe the +free air of this republic, where "taxation without +representation," by such worthies as John Hancock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_602" id="Page_602">[Pg 602]</a></span> and Samuel +Adams, has been declared "intolerable tyranny." Having glanced at +the magnanimity of the law in its dealings with the widow, let us +see how the individual man, under the influence of such laws, +doles out justice to his helpmate. The husband has the absolute +right to will away his property as he may see fit. If he has +children, he can divide his property among them, leaving his wife +her third only of the landed estate, thus making her a dependent +on the bounty of her own children. A man with thirty thousand +dollars in personal property, may leave his wife but a few +hundred a year, as long as she remains his widow.</p> + +<p>The cases are without number where women, who have lived in ease +and elegance, at the death of their husbands have, by will, been +reduced to the bare necessaries of life. The man who leaves his +wife the sole guardian of his property and children is an +exception to the general rule. Man has ever manifested a wish +that the world should indeed be a blank to the companion whom he +leaves behind him. The Hindoo makes that wish a law, and burns +the widow on the funeral pyre of her husband; but the civilized +man, impressed with a different view of the sacredness of life, +takes a less summary mode of drawing his beloved partner after +him; he does it by the deprivation and starvation of the flesh, +and the humiliation and mortification of the spirit. In +bequeathing to the wife just enough to keep soul and body +together, man seems to lose sight of the fact that woman, like +himself, takes great pleasure in acts of benevolence and charity. +It is but just, therefore, that she should have it in her power +to give during her life, and to will away at her death, as her +benevolence or obligations might prompt her to do.</p> + +<p>4th. Look at the position of woman as mother. There is no human +love so strong and steadfast as that of the mother for her child; +yet behold how ruthless are your laws touching this most sacred +relation. Nature has clearly made the mother the guardian of the +child; but man, in his inordinate love of power, does continually +set nature and nature's laws at open defiance. The father may +apprentice his child, bind him out to a trade, without the +mother's consent—yea, in direct opposition to her most earnest +entreaties, prayers and tears.</p> + +<p>He may apprentice his son to a gamester or rum-seller, and thus +cancel his debts of <i>honor</i>. By the abuse of this absolute power, +he may bind his daughter to the owner of a brothel, and, by the +degradation of his child, supply his daily wants: and such +things, gentlemen, have been done in our very midst. Moreover, +the father, about to die, may bind out all his children wherever +and to whomsoever he may see fit, and thus, in fact, will away +the guardianship of all his children from the mother. The Revised +Statutes of New York provide that "every father, whether of full +age or a minor, of a child to be born, or of any living child +under the age of twenty-one years, and unmarried, may by his deed +or last will, duly executed, dispose of the custody and tuition +of such child during its minority, or for any less time, to any +person or persons, in possession or remainder." 2 R. S., page +150, sec. 1. Thus, by your laws, the child is the absolute +property of the father, wholly at his disposal in life or at +death.</p> + +<p>In case of separation, the law gives the children to the father; +no matter what his character or condition. At this very time we +can point you to noble, virtuous, well-educated mothers in this +State, who have abandoned their husbands for their profligacy and +confirmed drunkenness. All these have been robbed of their +children, who are in the custody of the husband, under the care +of his relatives,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_603" id="Page_603">[Pg 603]</a></span> whilst the mothers are permitted to see them +but at stated intervals. But, said one of these mothers, with a +grandeur of attitude and manner worthy the noble Roman matron in +the palmiest days of that republic, I would rather never see my +child again, than be the medium to hand down the low animal +nature of its father, to stamp degradation on the brow of another +innocent being. It is enough that one child of his shall call me +mother.</p> + +<p>If you are far-sighted statesmen, and do wisely judge of the +interests of this commonwealth, you will so shape your future +laws as to encourage woman to take the high moral ground that the +father of her children must be great and good. Instead of your +present laws, which make the mother and her children the victims +of vice and license, you might rather pass laws prohibiting to +all drunkards, libertines, and fools, the rights of husbands and +fathers. Do not the hundreds of laughing idiots that are crowding +into our asylums, appeal to the wisdom of our statesmen for some +new laws on marriage—to the mothers of this day for a higher, +purer morality?</p> + +<p>Again, as the condition of the child always follows that of the +mother, and as by the sanction of your laws the father may beat +the mother, so may he the child. What mother can not bear me +witness to untold sufferings which cruel, vindictive fathers have +visited upon their helpless children? Who ever saw a human being +that would not abuse unlimited power? Base and ignoble must that +man be who, let the provocation be what it may, would strike a +woman; but he who would lacerate a trembling child is unworthy +the name of man. A mother's love can be no protection to a child; +she can not appeal to you to save it from a father's cruelty, for +the laws take no cognizance of the mother's most grievous wrongs. +Neither at home nor abroad can a mother protect her son. Look at +the temptations that surround the paths of our youth at every +step; look at the gambling and drinking saloons, the club rooms, +the dens of infamy and abomination that infest all our villages +and cities—slowly but surely sapping the very foundations of all +virtue and strength.</p> + +<p>By your laws, all these abominable resorts are permitted. It is +folly to talk of a mother moulding the character of her son, when +all mankind, backed up by law and public sentiment, conspire to +destroy her influence. But when woman's moral power shall speak +through the ballot-box, then shall her influence be seen and +felt; then, in our legislative debates, such questions as the +canal tolls on salt, the improvement of rivers and harbors, and +the claims of Mr. Smith for damages against the State, would be +secondary to the consideration of the legal existence of all +these public resorts, which lure our youth on to excessive +indulgence and destruction.</p> + +<p>Many times and oft it has been asked us, with, unaffected +seriousness, "What do you women want? What are you aiming at?" +Many have manifested a laudable curiosity to know what the wives +and daughters could complain of in republican America, where +their sires and sons have so bravely fought for freedom and +gloriously secured their independence, trampling all tyranny, +bigotry, and caste in the dust, and declaring to a waiting world +the divine truth that all men are created equal. What can woman +want under such a government? Admit a radical difference in sex, +and you demand different spheres—water for fish, and air for +birds.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to make the Southern planter believe that his +slave feels and reasons just as he does—that injustice and +subjection are as galling as to him—that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_604" id="Page_604">[Pg 604]</a></span> the degradation of +living by the will of another, the mere dependent on his caprice, +at the mercy of his passions, is as keenly felt by him as his +master. If you can force on his unwilling vision a vivid picture +of the negro's wrongs, and for a moment touch his soul, his logic +brings him instant consolation. He says, the slave does not feel +this as I would. Here, gentlemen, is our difficulty: When we +plead our cause before the law-makers and savants of the +republic, they can not take in the idea that men and women are +alike; and so long as the mass rest in this delusion, the public +mind will not be so much startled by the revelations made of the +injustice and degradation of woman's position as by the fact that +she should at length wake up to a sense of it.</p> + +<p>If you, too, are thus deluded, what avails it that we show by +your statute books that your laws are unjust—that woman is the +victim of avarice and power? What avails it that we point out the +wrongs of woman in social life; the victim of passion and lust? +You scorn the thought that she has any natural love of freedom +burning in her breast, any clear perception of justice urging her +on to demand her rights.</p> + +<p>Would to God you could know the burning indignation that fills +woman's soul when she turns over the pages of your statute books, +and sees there how like feudal barons you freemen hold your +women. Would that you could know the humiliation she feels for +sex, when she thinks of all the beardless boys in your law +offices, learning these ideas of one-sided justice—taking their +first lessons in contempt for all womankind—being indoctrinated +into the incapacities of their mothers, and the lordly, absolute +rights of man over all women, children, and property, and to know +that these are to be our future presidents, judges, husbands, and +fathers; in sorrow we exclaim, alas! for that nation whose sons +bow not in loyalty to woman. The mother is the first object of +the child's veneration and love, and they who root out this holy +sentiment, dream not of the blighting effect it has on the boy +and the man. The impression left on law students, fresh from your +statute books, is most unfavorable to woman's influence; hence +you see but few lawyers chivalrous and high-toned in their +sentiments toward woman. They can not escape the legal view +which, by constant reading, has become familiarized to their +minds: "<i>Femme covert</i>," "dower," "widow's claims," "protection," +"incapacities," "incumbrance," is written on the brow of every +woman they meet.</p> + +<p>But if, gentlemen, you take the ground that the sexes are alike, +and, therefore, you are our faithful representatives—then why +all these special laws for woman? Would not one code answer for +all of like needs and wants? Christ's golden rule is better than +all the special legislation that the ingenuity of man can devise: +"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." This, men +and brethren, is all we ask at your hands. We ask no better laws +than those you have made for yourselves. We need no other +protection than that which your present laws secure to you.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, then, let us say, in behalf of the women of this +State, we ask for all that you have asked for yourselves in the +progress of your development, since the <i>Mayflower</i> cast anchor +beside Plymouth rock; and simply on the ground that the rights of +every human being are the same and identical. You may say that +the mass of the women of this State do not make the demand; it +comes from a few sour, disappointed old maids and childless +women.</p> + +<p>You are mistaken; the mass speak through us. A very large +majority of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_605" id="Page_605">[Pg 605]</a></span> women of this State support themselves and their +children, and many their husbands too. Go into any village you +please, of three or four thousand inhabitants, and you will find +as many as fifty men or more, whose only business is to discuss +religion and politics, as they watch the trains come and go at +the depot, or the passage of a canal boat through a lock; to +laugh at the vagaries of some drunken brother, or the capers of a +monkey dancing to the music of his master's organ. All these are +supported by their mothers, wives, or sisters.</p> + +<p>Now, do you candidly think these wives do not wish to control the +wages they earn—to own the land they buy—the houses they build? +to have at their disposal their own children, without being +subject to the constant interference and tyranny of an idle, +worthless profligate? Do you suppose that any woman is such a +pattern of devotion and submission that she willingly stitches +all day for the small sum of fifty cents, that she may enjoy the +unspeakable privilege, in obedience to your laws, of paying for +her husband's tobacco and rum? Think you the wife of the +confirmed, beastly drunkard would consent to share with him her +home and bed, if law and public sentiment would release her from +such gross companionship? Verily, no! Think you the wife with +whom endurance has ceased to be a virtue, who, through much +suffering, has lost all faith in the justice of both heaven and +earth, takes the law in her own hand, severs the unholy bond, and +turns her back forever upon him whom she once called husband, +consents to the law that in such an hour tears her child from +her—all that she has left on earth to love and cherish? The +drunkards' wives speak through us, and they number 50,000. Think +you that the woman who has worked hard all her days in helping +her husband to accumulate a large property, consents to the law +that places this wholly at his disposal? Would not the mother +whose only child is bound out for a term of years against her +expressed wish, deprive the father of this absolute power if she +could?</p> + +<p>For all these, then, we speak. If to this long list you add the +laboring women who are loudly demanding remuneration for their +unending toil; those women who teach in our seminaries, +academies, and public schools for a miserable pittance; the +widows who are taxed without mercy; the unfortunate ones in our +work-houses, poor-houses, and prisons; who are they that we do +not now represent? But a small class of the fashionable +butterflies, who, through the short summer days, seek the +sunshine and the flowers; but the cool breezes of autumn and the +hoary frosts of winter will soon chase all these away; then they, +too, will need and seek protection, and through other lips demand +in their turn justice and equity at your hands.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The friends of woman suffrage may be said to have fairly held a +protracted meeting during the two following weeks in Albany, with +hearings before both branches of the Legislature, and lectures evening +after evening in Association Hall, by Mrs. Rose, Mr. Channing, Mr. +Phillips, and Miss Brown, culminating in a discussion by the entire +press of the city and State; for all the journals had something to say +on one side or the other, Mrs. Rose, Mr. Channing, Miss Brown, and +several anonymous writers taking part in the newspaper debate. As this +was the first Convention held at the Capitol, it roused considerable +agitation on every phase of the question, not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_606" id="Page_606">[Pg 606]</a></span> only among the +legislators on the bills before them, but among the people throughout +the State.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Albany Transcript</i> thus sums up the <span class="smcap">Woman's Rights +Convention</span>.—The meeting last evening was attended by the largest +and most brilliant audience of the series. A large number of +members of the Legislature were there, and a full representation +of our most influential citizens. Indeed they could not have +asked for a more numerous or talented body of hearers. Mrs. Rose +was the sole speaker, owing to the necessity which had called the +others away.... She was listened to with the most profound +attention, and encouraged by frequent and prolonged applause.</p> + +<p>Thus has ended the first Convention of women designed to +influence political action. On Monday the 6,000 petitions will be +presented in the Legislature, and the address be placed on the +members' tables. Whatever may be the final disposition of the +matter, it is well to make a note of this <i>first effort</i> to +influence the Legislature. It was originated by Miss Susan B. +Anthony, and has been managed financially by her. Though a +stranger amongst us, she has made the contracts for the room, +advertised in the papers, employed the speakers, published the +address, and performed much other arduous labor.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nichols, one of the speakers, has long been connected with +the press, and is a woman of no mean ability. Her mild, beaming +countenance and the affectionate tones of her voice, disprove +that she is any less a woman than those who do not "speak in +public on the stage." Mrs. Love is a new caterer to public favor, +and promises well. Some have remarked that she is well named, +being a "Love of a woman." Mrs. Jenkins is a fluent and agreeable +speaker, and has a good degree of power in swaying an audience. +But Mrs. Rose is the queen of the company. On the educational +question in particular, she rises to a high standard of +oratorical power. When speaking of Hungary and her own crushed +Poland, she is full of eloquence and pathos, and she has as great +a power to chain an audience as any of our best male speakers.</p> + +<p><i>The Evening Journal</i> (Thurlow Weed, editor): <span class="smcap">Woman's +Rights</span>.—Mr. Channing and Mrs. Rose pleaded the cause of woman's +rights before the Senate Committee of bachelors yesterday. The +only effect produced was a determination more fixed than ever in +the minds of the committee, to <i>remain</i> bachelors in the event of +the success of the movement. And who would blame them?</p> + +<p>The same champions, with others probably, will speak to the House +Committee in the Assembly Chamber this afternoon; and Mr. +Channing and Mrs. Rose make addresses in Association Hall this +evening. Price twenty-five cents.</p> + +<p><i>The Albany Register</i>: <span class="smcap">Women in the Senate Chamber</span>.—The Senate +was alarmed yesterday afternoon. It surrendered to progress. The +Select Committee to whom the women's rights petitions had been +referred, took their seats on the president's platform, looking +as grave as possible. Never had Senators Robertson, Yost, and +Field been in such responsible circumstances. They were calm, but +evidently felt themselves in great peril.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_607" id="Page_607">[Pg 607]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the circle of the Senate, ranged in invincible row, sat seven +ladies, from quite pretty to quite plain.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Ernestine L. Rose and Rev. William Henry Channing presented the +arguments and appeals to the Committee, and Mrs. Rose invited them to +ask questions. <i>The Register</i> concludes:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The Honorable Senators quailed beneath the trial. There was a +terrible silence, and the audience eager to hear what the other +ladies had to say, were wretched when they found that the +Committee had silently dissolved—surrendered. Oh, what a fall +was there, my countrymen!</p> + +<p><i>The Albany Argus</i> of March 4th, says: <span class="smcap">The Rights of Women +Defined by Themselves</span>.—Miss Anthony and Mrs. Rose before the +House Committee, March 3d. The Committee took their seats in the +clerk's desk, and the ladies took possession of the members' +seats, filling the chamber, many members of the Legislature being +present. Miss Anthony presented a paper prepared by Judge William +Hay, of Saratoga, asking that husband and wife should be tenants +in common of property without survivorship, but with a partition +on the death of one; that a wife shall be competent to discharge +trusts and powers the same as a single woman; that the statute in +respect to a married woman's property descend as though she had +been unmarried; that married women shall be entitled to execute +letters testamentary, and of administration; that married women +shall have power to make contracts and transact business as +though unmarried; that they shall be entitled to their own +earnings, subject to their proportionable liability for support +of children; that post-nuptial acquisitions shall belong equally +to husband and wife; that married women shall stand on the same +footing with single women, as parties or witnesses in legal +proceedings; that they shall be sole guardians of their minor +children; that the homestead shall be inviolable and inalienable +for widows and children; that the laws in relation to divorce +shall be revised, and drunkenness made cause for absolute +divorce; that better care shall be taken of single women's +property, that their rights may not be lost through ignorance, +that the preference of males in descent of real estate shall be +abolished; that women shall exercise "the right of suffrage," and +be eligible to all offices, occupations, and professions; +entitled to act as jurors; eligible to all public offices; that +courts of conciliation shall be organized as peace-makers; that a +law shall be enacted extending the masculine designation in all +statutes of the State to females.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rose then addressed the Committee, saying: The right of +petition is of no avail unless the reform demanded be candidly +considered by the legislators. We judge of the intellectual +inferiority of our fellow-men by the amount of resistance they +oppose to oppression, and to some extent we judge correctly by +this test. The same rule holds good for women; while they tamely +submit to the many inequalities under which they labor, they +scarcely deserve to be freed from them.... These are not the +demands of the moment or the few; they are the demands of the +age; of the second half of the nineteenth century. The world will +endure after us, and future generations may look back to this +meeting to acknowledge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_608" id="Page_608">[Pg 608]</a></span> that a great onward step was here taken +in the cause of human progress.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rose took her seat amidst great applause from the galleries +and lobbies. The Committee adjourned.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><i>Albany Register</i>, March 7: <span class="smcap">Woman's Rights in the +Legislature</span>.—While the feminine propagandists of women's rights +confined themselves to the exhibition of short petticoats and +long-legged boots, and to the holding of Conventions, and +speech-making in concert-rooms, the people were disposed to be +amused by them, as they are by the wit of the clown in the +circus, or the performances of Punch and Judy on fair days, or +the minstrelsy of gentlemen with blackened faces, on banjos, the +tambourine, and bones. But the joke is becoming stale. People are +getting cloyed with these performances, and are looking for some +healthier and more intellectual amusement. The ludicrous is +wearing away, and disgust is taking the place of pleasurable +sensations, arising from the novelty of this new phase of +hypocrisy and infidel fanaticism. People are beginning to inquire +how far public sentiment should sanction or tolerate these +unsexed women, who make a scoff of religion, who repudiate the +Bible and blaspheme God; who would step out from the true sphere +of the mother, the wife, and the daughter, and taking upon +themselves the duties and the business of men, stalk into the +public gaze, and by engaging in the politics, the rough +controversies, and trafficking of the world, upheave existing +institutions, and overturn all the social relations of life.</p> + +<p>It is a melancholy reflection, that among our American women who +have been educated to better things, there should be found any +who are willing to follow the lead of such foreign propagandists +as the ringleted, glove-handed exotic, Ernestine L. Rose. We can +understand how such men as the Rev. Mr. May, or the sleek-headed +Dr. Channing may be deluded by her to becoming her disciples. +They are not the first instances of infatuation that may overtake +weak-minded men, if they are honest in their devotion to her and +her doctrines. Nor would they be the first examples of a low +ambition that seeks notoriety as a substitute for true fame, if +they are dishonest. Such men there are always, and honest or +dishonest, their true position is that of being tied to the +apron-strings of some "strong-minded woman," and to be exhibited +as rare specimens of human wickedness, or human weakness and +folly. But, that one educated American woman should become her +disciple and follow her infidel and insane teachings, is a +marvel.</p> + +<p>Ernestine L. Rose came to this country, as she says, from Poland, +whence she was compelled to fly in pursuit of freedom. Seeing her +course here, we can well imagine this to be true. In no other +country in the world, save possibly one, would her infidel +propagandism and preachings in regard to the social relations of +life be tolerated. She would be prohibited by the powers of +government from her efforts to obliterate from the world the +religion of the Cross—to banish the Bible as a text-book of +faith, and to overturn social institutions that have existed +through all political and governmental revolutions from the +remotest time. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_609" id="Page_609">[Pg 609]</a></span> strong hand of the law would be laid upon +her, and she would be compelled back to her woman's sphere. But +in this country, such is the freedom of our institutions, and we +rejoice that it should be so, that she, and such as she, can give +their genius for intrigue full sway. They can exhibit their +flowing ringlets and beautiful hands, their winning smiles and +charming stage attitudes to admiring audiences, who, while they +are willing to be amused, are in the main safe from their +corrupting theories and demoralizing propagandism.</p> + +<p>The laws and the theory of our government suppose that the people +are capable of taking care of themselves, and hence need no +protection against the wiles of domestic or foreign mountebanks, +whether in petticoats or in breeches and boots. But it never was +contemplated that these exotic agitators would come up to our +legislators and ask for the passage of laws upholding and +sanctioning their wild and foolish doctrines. That was a stretch +of folly, a flight of impudence which was hardly regarded as +possible. It was to be imagined, of course, that they would +enlist as their followers, here and there one among the restless +old maids and visionary wives who chanced to be unevenly +tempered, as well as unevenly yoked. It was also to be assumed, +as within the range of possibility, that they might bring within +the sphere of their attractions, weak-minded, restless men, who +think in their vanity that they have been marked out for great +things, and failed to be appreciated by the world, men who comb +their hair smoothly back, and with fingers locked across their +stomachs, speak in a soft voice, and with upturned eyes. But no +man supposed they would abandon their "private theatricals" and +walk up to the Capitol, and insist that the performances shall be +held in legislative halls. And yet so it is.</p> + +<p>This Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, with a train of followers, like a +great kite with a very long tail, has, for a week, been amusing +Senatorial and Assembly Committees, with her woman's rights +performances, free of charge, unless the waste of time that might +be better employed in the necessary and legitimate business of +legislation, may be regarded as a charge. Those committees have +sat for hours, grave and solemn as owls, listening to the +outpourings of fanaticism and folly of this Polish propagandist, +Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, and her followers in pantalets and short +gowns. The people outside, and especially those interested in the +progress of legislation, are beginning to ask one another how +long this farce is to continue. How long this most egregious and +ridiculous humbug is to be permitted to obstruct the progress of +business before the Committees and the Houses, and whether Mrs. +Ernestine L. Rose and her followers ought not to be satisfied +with the notoriety they have already attained. The great body of +the people regard Mrs. Rose and her followers as making +themselves simply ridiculous, and there is some danger that these +legislative committees will make themselves so too.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lecture of the Rev. Antoinette L. Brown</span>.—It will be seen the +Rev. Antoinette L. Brown delivers a lecture at Association Hall +to-morrow evening. It has been said that we have done the women's +rights people injustice in charging upon them the infidelity of +Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose. If we have done them injustice in this +matter it is but right that we should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_610" id="Page_610">[Pg 610]</a></span> make amends by calling +attention to the lecture of Miss Brown, which, as we understand, +will embrace the Bible argument in favor of the measures which +they advocate. Miss Brown is a talented woman, and we have no +doubt an exemplary Christian.</p> + + +<p class="heading"><i>For the Albany Daily State Register.</i></p> + +<p class="heading">WOMAN'S RIGHTS.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Editor</span>:—In your paper of Monday the 6th inst., I perceive +you pass judgment upon the woman's rights cause, upon those +engaged in it, and particularly upon myself—how justly, I leave +to your conscience to decide.</p> + +<p>Every one who ever advanced a new idea, no matter how great and +noble, has been subjected to criticism, and therefore we too must +expect it. And, in accordance with the spirit of the critic, will +be the criticism. Whether dictated by the spirit of justice, +kindness, gentleness, and charity, or by injustice, malice, +rudeness, and intolerance, it is still an index of the man. But +it is quite certain that no true soul will ever be deterred from +the performance of a duty by any criticism.</p> + +<p>But there is one thing which I think even editors have no right +to do, namely: to state a positive falsehood, or even to imply +one, for the purpose of injuring another. And, as the spirit of +charity induces me to believe that in your case it was done more +from a misunderstanding than positive malice, therefore I claim +at your hands the justice to give this letter a place in your +paper.</p> + +<p>In the article alluded to, you say: "Ernestine L. Rose came to +this country, as she says, from Poland, whence she was compelled +to fly in pursuit of freedom." It is true that I came from +Poland; but it is false that I was compelled to fly from my +country, except by the compulsion, or dictates of the same spirit +of "propagandism," that induced so many of my noble countrymen to +shed their blood in the defence of the rights of this country, +and the rights of man, wherever he struggles for freedom. But I +have no desire to claim martyrdom which does not belong to me. I +left my country, not flying, but deliberately. I chose to make +this country my home, in preference to any other, because if you +carried out the theories you profess, it would indeed be the +noblest country on earth. And as my countrymen so nobly aided in +the physical struggle for Freedom and Independence, I felt, and +still feel it equally my duty to use my humble abilities to the +uttermost in my power, to aid in the great moral struggle for +human rights and human freedom.</p> + +<p>Hoping that you will acede to my (I think) just claim to give +this a place in your paper,</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">I am, very respectfully,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc close">Ernestine L. Rose.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0 close"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>Mar. 7, 1854</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">William Henry Channing</span> asks the following questions in the <i>Albany +Evening Journal</i>:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">WOMAN'S RIGHTS.</p> + +<p>A lady actively and prominently connected with, the movement +which is expected to secure "justice to woman," personally +requested us to publish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_611" id="Page_611">[Pg 611]</a></span> the following communication. It is +proper to state that it is written in reply to an article of one +of our morning contemporaries, published a day or two ago:</p> + +<p>"Let us take it for granted that your pop-gun of pleasantry has +killed off the six thousand 'strong-minded' women and +'weak-minded' men who signed the petitions to the Legislature for +Justice to Woman. And thus having disposed of personalities, will +you be pleased to pass on to a discussion of the following +questions:</p> + +<p>"1. Are women, in New York, persons, people, citizens, members of +the State? If they are not, then why are they numbered in the +census, taxed by assessors, and subjected to legal penalties? If +they are, then why is authority exercised over them without their +consent asked or granted?</p> + +<p>"2. If among the male half of the people, only criminals, aliens, +and minors are excluded from the right of suffrage are all women +excluded from exercising this right, on the ground of +criminality, idiocy, foreign associations, or infantile +imbecility?</p> + +<p>"3. If the mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters of New York are +the peers and equals of their fathers, brothers, husbands, and +sons, why should they not enjoy all civil and political rights +equally with them? If they are, on the contrary, an inferior +caste, how can a jury of men thus avowedly superior, be regarded +as peers and equals of any woman whom they are summoned to try?</p> + +<p>"4. Would the editor of <i>The Register</i> consider himself justly +treated if he would some day find himself governed by women, +without his consent, taxed by women without power of voting for +his representative, tried by a jury of women under laws made and +administered by women?</p> + +<p>"5. If prosecuted under the law of libel before a court of women +for his late remarks, does he think he would get his deserts?</p> + +<p class="author">"<span class="smcap">Fair Play</span>."</p> + + +<p><i>Knickerbocker</i>, Albany, March 8, 1854: <span class="smcap">Going it Blind</span>.—The +editor of <i>The State Register</i> is going it blind on woman's +rights matters. He was out on Monday with a half column leader +that touched everything except the matter in dispute. We quote a +paragraph:</p> + +<p>"People are beginning to inquire how far public sentiment should +sanction or tolerate these unsexed women, who make a scoff at +religion, who repudiate the Bible, and blaspheme God; who would +step out from the true sphere of the mother, the wife, and the +daughter, and take upon themselves the duties and the business of +men; stalk into the public gaze, and by engaging in the politics, +the rough controversies, and trafficking of the world, upheave +existing institutions, and overturn all the social relations of +life."</p> + +<p><i>The Register</i> either misunderstands matters, or else willfully +misrepresents them. The leading women connected with this new +movement do not scoff at religion, repudiate the Bible, nor +blaspheme God. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Brown are no more opposed to +God and religion than the editor of <i>The Register</i> is. They are +educated, Christian women, and would no sooner "overturn society" +than they would bear false witness against their neighbors. +Before <i>The Register</i> again attacks the reforms proposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_612" id="Page_612">[Pg 612]</a></span> by the +Woman's Rights Conventions, it should become acquainted with +them. "Going it blind," not only exposes one's prejudices, but +ignorance. Many of the innovations proposed by Mrs. Stanton are +such as every common-sense man would or should vote for. We mean +those improvements which she would have made in the rights of +property and the care of children. There are other propositions +in her platform which we should dissent from. <i>The State +Register</i> may do the same. All the "Woman's Rights" women claim +is fair play and truthful criticism. They object, however, to any +misstatements. They are willing to fall before truth, but not +before detraction. <i>The State Register</i> will please notice and +act accordingly.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton's address to the Legislature was laid upon the members' +desks Monday morning, Feb. 20, 1854. When the order of petitions was +reached, Mr. D. P. Wood, of Onondaga, presented in the Assembly a +petition signed by 5,931 men and women, praying for the just and equal +rights of women, which, after a spicy debate, was referred to the +following Select Committee: James L. Angle, of Monroe Co.; George W. +Thorn, of Washington Co.; Derrick L. Boardman, of Oneida Co.; George +H. Richards, of New York; James M. Munro, of Onondaga; Wesley Gleason, +of Fulton; Alexander P. Sharpe, of New York.</p> + +<p>In the Senate, on the same day, Mr. Richards, or Warren County, +presented a petition signed by 4,164 men and women, praying for the +extension of the right of suffrage to women, and on his motion it was +referred to the following Select Committee: George Yost, of Montgomery +Co.; Ben. Field, of Orleans Co.; W. H. Robertson, of Westchester Co.</p> + +<p>We give the report of the presentation and discussion of the petitions +from <i>The Albany Evening Journal</i> of Feb. 20, 1854:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">WOMAN'S RIGHTS.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Assembly</span>, Monday, <i>February 20, 1854</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">D. P. Wood</span>: I am requested by a Committee of the Woman's +Rights Convention recently assembled in this city, to present to +this body their address, together with a petition signed by 5,931 +men and women, asking that certain withheld rights shall be +granted to the women of the State. I ask the reference of these +two documents to a Select Committee of seven; and in making this +motion, I wish the Speaker to waive the courtesy which would +require him, under ordinary circumstances, to place me at the +head of this Committee. I am already on several Committees which +are pressed with business, and I would not, in my present state +of health, be able to give the subject that careful consideration +which the importance requires. I am satisfied, sir, that these +ladies are entitled to some relief. They think so, and they say +so, in language equally eloquent and impressive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_613" id="Page_613">[Pg 613]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Burnett</span>: I hope the House will not act at all on this subject +without due consideration. I hope before even this motion is put, +gentlemen will be allowed to reflect upon the important question +whether these individuals deserve any consideration at the hands +of the Legislature. Whatever may be their pretensions or their +sincerity, they do not appear to be satisfied with having unsexed +themselves, but they desire to unsex every female in the land, +and to set the whole community ablaze with unhallowed fire. I +trust, sir, the House may deliberate before we suffer them to +cast this firebrand into our midst. (Here was heard a "hiss" from +some part of the chamber). True, as yet, there is nothing +officially before us, but it is well known that the object of +these unsexed women is to overthrow the most sacred of our +institutions, to set at defiance the Divine law which declares +man and wife to be one, and establish on its ruins what will be +in fact and in principle but a species of legalized adultery. +That this is their real object, however they may attempt to +disguise it, is well known to every one who has looked, not +perhaps at the intentions of all who take part in it, but at the +practical and inevitable result of the movement.</p> + +<p>It is, therefore, a matter of duty, a duty to ourselves, to our +consciences, to our constituents, and to God, who is the source +of all law and of all obligations, to reflect long and +deliberatively before we shall even seem to countenance a +movement so unholy as this. The Spartan mothers asked no such +immunities as are asked for by these women. The Roman mothers +were content to occupy their legitimate spheres; and our own +mothers, who possessed more than Spartan or Roman virtue, asked +for no repudiation of the duties, obligations, or sacred +relations of the marital rite.</p> + +<p>Are we, sir, to give the least countenance to claims so +preposterous, disgraceful, and criminal as are embodied in this +address? Are we to put the stamp of truth upon the libel here set +forth, that men and women, in the matrimonial relation, are to be +equal? We know that God created man as the representative of the +race; that after his creation, his Creator took from his side the +material for woman's creation; and that, by the institution of +matrimony, woman was restored to the side of man, and became one +flesh and one being, he being the head. But this law of God and +creation is spurned by these women who present themselves here as +the exponents of the wishes of our mothers, wives, and daughters. +They ask no such exponents, and they repel their sacrilegious +doctrines.</p> + +<p>But again, sir, our old views of matrimony were, that it was a +holy rite, having holy relations based on mutual love and +confidence; and that while woman gave herself up to man, to his +care, protection, and love, man also surrendered something in +exchange for this confidence and love. He placed his happiness +and his honor, all that belongs to him of human hopes and of +human happiness, in the keeping of the being he received in the +sacred relationship of wife. I say, sir, that this ordinance, +sought to be practically overthrown by these persons, was +established by God Himself; and was based on the mutual love and +confidence of husband and wife. But we are now asked to have this +ordinance based on jealousy and distrust; and, as in Italy, so in +this country, should this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_614" id="Page_614">[Pg 614]</a></span> mischievous scheme be carried out to +its legitimate results, we, instead of reposing safe confidence +against assaults upon our honor in the love and affection of our +wives, shall find ourselves obliged to close the approaches to +those assaults by the padlock. (The "hiss" was here repeated).</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Lozier</span>: Mr. Speaker, twice I have heard a hiss from the +lobby. I protest against the toleration of such an insult to any +member of this House, and call for proper action in view of it.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Speaker</span>: The chair observed the interruption, and was +endeavoring to discover its source, but has been unable to do so. +If, however, its author can be recognized, the chair will +immediately order the person to the bar of the House.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Burnett</span>: I have nothing further. The leading features of this +address are well known; and I do not wish at present to further +enter upon the argument of its character. I merely wish that +members be afforded time for consideration. I therefore move to +lay the pending motion on the table.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">D. P. Wood</span>: I am surprised that the gentleman from Essex, who +professes to desire light, and to afford members time for +examination, should make a motion which, if carried, will +preclude light and prevent examination. The gentleman sees fit to +regard the memorial of these 6,000 men and women as a firebrand. +I do not believe the ladies who presented it intended it as such; +and they will be surprised to learn that a gentleman of his age +and experience should have taken fire from it. Their requests are +simple. They ask for "justice and equal rights," and this simple +request is made the excuse for an attack upon them as unheard of +as it is unjust. They ask only for "justice and equal rights." If +the House does not see fit to grant them what they ask, let my +motion be voted down, and send the memorial to the Judiciary +Committee, of which the gentleman from Essex is chairman. Let +such a disposition be made of it, and there will then be no +danger that any one will be fired up by it, for it will then be +sure to sleep the sleep of death.</p> + +<p>Sir, when a petition like this comes before the Legislature, it +should not only be respectfully received, but courteously +considered; particularly when it asks, as this petition does, a +review of the entire code of our statute laws. It should not be +sent to a Committee adverse to its request. That would be +unparliamentary and the end of it. If sent to such a Committee it +would be smothered. The House, I am sure, is not prepared for any +such disposition of the matter, but is willing to look candidly +at the alleged grievances, and, if consistent with public policy, +redress them, although in doing so we may infringe upon +time-honored notions and usages.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Peters</span>: I am not surprised at the direction which the +gentleman from Essex seeks to give this memorial. Any gentleman +who would assail these ladies as he has done, would be prepared +to make any disrespectful disposition of their rights. I may +regret that he has sought to deny a hearing to these petitioners, +but I am not surprised that he has done so. I trust that no other +member on this floor will refuse, practically, to receive this +petition—refuse to our mothers, wives, and sisters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_615" id="Page_615">[Pg 615]</a></span> what we +every day grant to our fathers, brothers, and sons. These women +come here with a respectful petition, and we should give them a +candid and respectful hearing. If it be true, and true it is, +that there are real grievances complained of, I hope they may be +redressed after careful and candid consideration.</p> + +<p>The time has gone by, sir, when we may say progress must stop. It +is well known that in many particulars the laws are glaringly +unjust in regard to the female sex. The education of the sex is +defective; and this fact unfolds the secret germ of this +movement. We should review the structure of our institutions of +learning, and see whether there be not there room for reform. I +do not believe it to be a part of the duty of women to sit in the +jury-box, to vote, or to participate in all the tumultuous +strifes of life; but I do believe that those who differ from me +in opinion should have respectful hearing. Nor, because women are +not allowed to vote, do I admit that they are precluded from all +agency in the direction of national affairs. They, more than +their husbands, have power over the future history of the +country, by imparting a correct fireside education to their sons. +But there are legal disabilities imposed upon women which I would +be willing to see removed, in regard to property, etc. Whether +those disabilities are of a character to justify affirmative +action on the part of this House or not, is not now the question. +The question simply is, shall this petition be received? I trust +that it may be, and that it may afterward be sent to a select +committee.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Benedict</span>: The gentleman from Onondaga asks that this petition +shall be sent to a select committee of seven, although he admits +that the Judiciary Committee would be more appropriate, if it +would not be sure, if sent to that Committee, to sleep the sleep +of death. Sir, I am one of that Committee, and protest against +any such imputation upon it. I will not only not vote to reject +any petition offered the House, but I will give every petition +sent to any committee of which I am a member a respectful +hearing. This is a petition signed by some 6,000 men and women. +They ask "justice" and relief. What kind of relief they may +desire is no matter. It is enough for me to know that they ask to +be heard. I shall vote to give them a hearing; and I can assure +the gentleman from Onondaga that if sent to the Judiciary +Committee it will sleep no sleep of death, but will be +respectfully considered. A contrary intimation is an unjust +reflection on that Committee.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Wood</span>: My remark was not intended to reflect upon that +Committee. I referred merely to the great amount of business +before it.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Benedict</span>: There the gentleman is equally at fault. That +Committee is a working Committee, and disposed of all the +business before it on Friday last. I am, however, in favor of the +motion for a select committee, and desire that the petition +should receive legitimate and careful consideration, not only +because the petition is largely signed, but because every +petition from any portion of the people on any subject, should +receive a respectful hearing from the people's representatives. I +I hope, therefore, that not a single member may vote against the +reception of this petition, whatever his views may be in regard +to granting its prayer. I am in favor of the right of petition.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_616" id="Page_616">[Pg 616]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Burnett</span>: It was not my wish in the motion I made to have this +petition rejected. Had I intended any such thing I should have +said so; for I always go directly at what I want to accomplish, +and never fail to call things by their right names. I merely +wished, before any disposition was made of the petition, that the +members should have time to examine the address, which is the key +of the whole subject. This is all I desire; and it was simply an +expression of this desire that has awakened all this windy gust +of passion. After members shall examine the address which +accompanies this petition, they can make such disposition of the +petition itself as they shall deem wise and proper. This is the +length and breadth of my object and desire.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Wood</span>: I think the House understands the subject sufficiently +to justify action upon my motion of reference.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The motion for the Select Committee prevailed, ayes, 84; the Committee +appointed, and Mr. Wood excused from serving.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">In Assembly, Monday</span>, <i>March 27, 1854</i>.</p> + +<p>The Select Committee, to whom was referred the various petitions +requesting "the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York to +appoint a joint committee to revise the Statutes of New York, and +to propose such amendments as will fully establish the legal +equality of women with men," report: That they have examined the +said petition, and have heard and considered the suggestions of +persons who have appeared before them on behalf of the +petitioners.</p> + +<p>Your Committee are well aware that the matters submitted to them +have been, and still are, the subject of ridicule and jest; but +they are also aware that ridicule and jest never yet effectually +put down either truth or error; and that the development of our +times and the progression of our age is such, that many thoughts +laughed at to-day as wild vagaries, are to-morrow recorded as +developed principles or embodied as experimental facts.</p> + +<p>A higher power than that from which emanates legislative +enactments has given forth the mandate that man and woman shall +not be equal; that there shall be inequalities by which each in +their own appropriate sphere shall have precedence to the other; +and each alike shall be superior or inferior as they well or ill +act the part assigned them. Both alike are the subjects of +Government, equally entitled to its protection; and civil power +must, in its enactments, recognize this inequality. We can not +obliterate it if we would, and legal inequalities must follow.</p> + +<p>The education of woman has not been the result of statutes, but +of civilization and Christianity; and her elevation, great as it +has been, has only corresponded with that of man under the same +influences. She owes no more to these causes than he does. The +true elevation of the sexes will always correspond. But +elevation, instead of destroying, show? more palpably those +inherent inequalities, and makes more apparent the harmony and +happiness which the Creator designed to accomplish by them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_617" id="Page_617">[Pg 617]</a></span></p> + +<p>Your Committee will not attempt to prescribe, or, rather, they +will not attempt to define the province and peculiar sphere which +a power that we can not overrule has prescribed for the different +sexes. Every well-regulated home and household in the land +affords an example illustrative of what is woman's proper sphere, +as also that of man. Government has its miniature as well as its +foundation in the homes of our country; and as in governments +there must be some recognized head to control and direct, so must +there also be a controlling and directing power in every smaller +association; there must be some one to act and to be acted with +as the embodiment of the persons associated. In the formation of +governments, the manner in which the common interest shall be +embodied and represented is a matter of conventional arrangement; +but in the family an influence more potent than that of contracts +and conventionalities, and which everywhere underlies humanity, +has indicated that the husband shall fill the necessity which +exists for a head. Dissension and distraction quickly arise when +this necessity is not answered. The harmony of life, the real +interest of both husband and wife, and of all dependent upon +them, require it. In obedience to that requirement and necessity, +the husband is the head—the representative of the family.</p> + +<p>It was strongly urged upon your Committee that women, inasmuch as +their property was liable to taxation, should be entitled to +representation. The member of this House who considers himself +the representative only of those whose ballots were cast for him, +or even of all the voters in his district, has, in the opinion of +your Committee, quite too limited an idea of his position on this +floor. In their opinion he is the representative of the +inhabitants of his district, whether they be voters or not, +whether they be men or women, old or young; and he who does not +alike watch over the interests of all, fails in his duty and is +false to his trust.</p> + +<p>Your Committee can not regard marriage as a <i>mere contract</i>, but +as something above and beyond; something more binding than +records, more solemn than specialties; and the person who reasons +as to the relations of husband and wife as upon an ordinary +contract, in their opinion commits a fatal error at the outset; +and your Committee can not recommend any action based on such a +theory.</p> + +<p>As society progresses new wants are felt, new facts and +combinations are presented which constantly call for more or less +of addition to the body of our laws, and often for innovations +upon customs so old that "the memory of man runneth not to the +contrary thereof." The marriage relation, in common with +everything else, has felt the effects of this progress, and from +time to time been the subject of legislative action. And while +your Committee report adversely to the prayer of the petitions +referred to them, they believe that the time has come when +certain alterations and amendments are, by common consent, +admitted as proper and necessary.</p> + +<p>Your Committee recommend that the assent of the mother, if she be +living, be made necessary to the validity of any disposition +which the father may make of her child by the way of the +appointment of guardian or of apprenticeship. The consent of the +wife is now necessary to a deed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_618" id="Page_618">[Pg 618]</a></span> of real estate in order to bar +her contingent interest therein; and there are certainly far more +powerful reasons why her consent should be necessary to the +conveyance or transfer of her own offspring to the care, +teaching, and control of another.</p> + +<p>When the husband from any cause neglects to provide for the +support and education of his family, the wife should have the +right to collect and receive her own earnings and the earnings of +her minor children, and apply them to the support and education +of the family free from the control of the husband, or any person +claiming the same through him.</p> + +<p>There are many other rules of law applicable to the relation of +husband and wife which, in occasional cases, bear hard upon the +one or the other, but your Committee do not deem it wise that a +new arrangement of our laws of domestic relations should be +attempted to obviate such cases; they always have and always will +arise out of every subject of legal regulation.</p> + +<p>There is much of wisdom (which may well be applied to this and +many other subjects) in the quaint remark of an English lawyer, +philosopher, and statesman, that "it were well that men in their +innovations would follow the example of time, which innovateth +greatly but quietly, and by degrees scarcely to be perceived. It +is good also in states not to try experiments, except the +necessity be urgent and the utility evident; and well to beware +that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not +the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation."</p> + +<p>In conclusion, your Committee recommend that the prayer of the +petitioners be denied; and they ask leave to introduce a +bill<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> corresponding with the suggestions hereinbefore +contained.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The report was signed by James L. Angle and all the members of the +Committee except Mr. Richards.</p> + +<p>Of the report on the petitions, Mr. Weed says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. Angle, from the Select Committee of the Assembly, to which +the woman's rights petitions were referred, made a report last +evening, which we publish elsewhere to-day. It is a compact, +lucid, and ably drawn document, highly creditable to its author, +and becomingly respectful to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_619" id="Page_619">[Pg 619]</a></span> the petitioners. The Committee +report adversely to the petitions, but recommend one or two +changes in our existing law, which will, we think, commend +themselves as well to the opponents, as to the advocates of +woman's rights.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The work in the State of New York was now thoroughly systematized. +Susan B. Anthony was appointed General Agent, and it was decided to +hold a series of Conventions in all the counties and chief cities of +the State, in order to roll up mammoth petitions with which to bombard +the Legislature at every annual session. Two appeals<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> were issued +to the women of the State, one in June, prepared by Mr. Channing, and +one in December, by Mrs. Stanton. A number of able speakers<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> +joined in the work, and the State was thoroughly canvassed every year +until the war, and petitions presented by the thousands until the bill +securing the civil rights of married women was passed in March, 1860.</p> + +<p>Lest our readers should think that there was no variety to our lives +in these early days, that we did nothing but resolve, complain, +petition, protest, hold conventions, and besiege Legislatures, we +record now and then some cheerful item from the Metropolitan papers +concerning some of our leading women.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>March 14, 1854</i>.</p> + +<p class="heading">ANNIVERSARY OF THE 83D BIRTHDAY OF ROBERT OWEN AT 600 BROADWAY.</p> + +<p>When the reporter entered the room he found the ladies and +gentlemen assembled there tripping the light fantastic toe to the +music of a harp, piano, and violin. Ernestine L. Rose was +president of the occasion, and gave a very interesting sketch of +the life and labors of this noble man. After which they had a +grand supper, and Lucy Stone replied to the toast, "Woman, +coequal with man." The ladies not only danced and made speeches, +but they partook of the supper. They did not sit in the +galleries, as the custom then was, to look at the gentlemen eat, +and listen to their after-dinner speeches, but enjoyed an equal +share in the whole entertainment. Mrs. Rose and Miss Stone seemed +to feel as much at home on this festive occasion, as amid the +more important proceedings of a convention.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As the agitation was kept up from year to year with frequent +conventions, ever and anon some prominent person who had hitherto<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_620" id="Page_620">[Pg 620]</a></span> +been silent, would concede a modicum of what we claimed, so timidly, +however, and with so many popular provisos, that the concessions were +almost buried in the objections. It was after this manner that Henry +Ward Beecher, then in the zenith of his popularity, vouchsafed an +opinion. He believed in woman's right to vote and speak in public. +There was no logical argument against either, but he would not like to +see his wife or mother go to the polls or mount the platform. This +utterance called out the following letter from Gerrit Smith in <i>The +Boston Liberator</i>:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Peterboro, N. Y.</span>, <i>Nov. 19, 1854</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Garrison</span>:—I am very glad to see in your paper that Henry +Ward Beecher avows himself a convert to the doctrine of woman's +voting. But I regret that this strong man is nevertheless not +strong enough to emancipate himself entirely from the dominion of +superstition. Mr. Beecher would not have his wife and sister +speak in public. Of course he means that he would not, however +competent they might be for such an exercise. I will suppose that +they all remove to Peterboro, and that a very important, nay, an +entirely vital question springs up in our community, and +profoundly agitates it; and I will further suppose that the wife +and sister of Mr. Beecher are more capable than any other persons +of taking the platform and shedding light upon the subject. Are +we not entitled to their superior light? Certainly. And certainly +therefore are they bound to afford it to us. Nevertheless Mr. +Beecher would have them withhold it from us. Pray what is it but +superstition that could prompt him to such violation of +benevolence and common-sense? Will Mr. Beecher go to the Bible +for his justification? That blessed book is to be read in the +life of Jesus Christ; and in that life is the fullness of +benevolence and common-sense, and no superstition at all. Will +Mr. Beecher limit his wife and sisters in the given case to their +pens?<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> Such limitation would he then be bound in consistency +to impose upon himself. Would he impose it? Again, it takes lips +as well as pens to carry instruction to the utmost.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Gerrit Smith.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Your friend,</p> + +</blockquote> + + +<h3>SARATOGA CONVENTIONS,<br /> +<small>August, 1854-'55.</small></h3> + +<p>Seeing calls for two national conventions, by the friends of +Temperance, and the Anti-Nebraska movement, to be held in Saratoga the +third week of August, the State Woman Suffrage Committee decided to +embrace that opportunity to hold a convention there at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_621" id="Page_621">[Pg 621]</a></span> the same +time.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> As it was at the height of the fashionable season it was +thought much good might be accomplished by getting the ear of a new +class of hearers.</p> + +<p>But after the arrangements were all made, and Miss Anthony on the +ground, she received messages from one after another of the speakers +on whom she depended, that none of them could be present. Accordingly, +encouraged by the Hon. William Hay, she decided to go through alone. +Happily, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Sarah Pellet being in Saratoga, came +forward and volunteered their services, and thus was the Convention +carried successfully through.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> The meeting was held in St. +Nicholas Hall, which was well filled throughout, three-hundred dollars +being taken at the door. The following <i>resumé</i> of this occasion is +from the pen of Judge William Hay, in a letter to <i>The North Star</i> of +Rochester (Frederick Douglass, editor):</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">THE SARATOGA CONVENTION.</p> + +<p>Miss Sarah Pellet addressed an audience of six hundred persons in +the afternoon, most of whom returned with others to St. Nicholas +Hall in the evening, thus manifesting their satisfaction with +what they had heard and their interest in the cause, which was +farther discussed by Mrs. Gage, whose address was an elaborate +argument for the removal of woman's legal and social +disabilities. Among other authorities she quoted with judgment, +was the following from Wm. W. Story: "In respect to the powers +and rights of married women, the law is by no means abreast the +spirit of the age. Here are seen the old fossil prints of +<i>feudalism</i>. The law relating to woman tends to make every family +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_622" id="Page_622">[Pg 622]</a></span> barony, a monarchy, or a despotism, of which the husband is +the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the dependent, the serf, +or slave. That this is not always the fact, is not due to the +law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow limits +of its rules; for if the husband choose, he has his wife as +firmly in his grasp and dominion, as the <i>hawk</i> has the <i>dove</i> +upon whom he has pounced. This age is ahead of the law. Public +opinion is a check to legal rules on this subject, but the rules +are feudal and stern. It can not, however, be concealed that the +position of woman is always the criterion of the freedom of a +people or an age, and when man shall despise that right which is +founded only on might, woman will be free to stand on an equal +level with him—a friend and not a dependent."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gage also, and with like effect, cited from the same learned +jurist, laws, which, had her lecture been a sermon, might have +been prefixed as a text. Such opinions, although but seldom known +to any but lawyers, and not appreciated by many of them, have +frequently been printed in books, which, however, being +professional, are perused by few persons only. Mrs. Gage<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> +concluded her excellent discourse with Bryant's celebrated +stanza, relative to truth and error.</p> + +<p>Miss Anthony's situation had become embarrassing, if not +critical. At a late hour of a summer night, she was to follow +Mrs. Gage on the same subject, and before a fastidious audience, +almost surfeited during three days with public addresses in +several different conventions, and many of whom desired to +contrast her expected effort with the splendid platform eloquence +of Henry J. Raymond, Wm. H. Burleigh, and "their like," +fearlessly advocating the redress of wrongs and the promotion of +human rights. Miss Anthony, who had conciliated her audience by +lady-like conduct and courtesy, in providing seats for the +accommodation of those standing, commenced with an appropriate +apology for unavoidable repetition, when it was her lot to follow +Mrs. Gage. Sufficient here to say that she acquitted herself +admirably. The simplicity and repose of her manner, the dignity +of her deportment, the distinctiveness of her enunciation, her +emphatic earnestness, the pathos of her appeals, and completeness +of her arguments, convinced the understanding and persuaded all +hearts.</p> + +<p>The gossip of mustached dandies, and the half-suppressed giggle +of bedizened beauty, soon settled down into respectful attention, +if not appreciation. Indeed many of the most intelligent hearers +before retiring, audibly confessed that they came to find fault, +but had seen nothing to censure. So some who came to scoff +remained to applaud. With such advocates there can be no +retrogression of Woman's Rights. Equality is their motto, and +onward their destiny.</p> + +<p class="author">Wm. Hay.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>This Convention was so successful in point of numbers and receipts, +and the sale of woman suffrage literature, that it was decided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_623" id="Page_623">[Pg 623]</a></span> to +repeat the experiment the next year; accordingly the following call +was issued early in the season:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">SARATOGA CONVENTION, 1855.</p> + +<p>A Convention will be held at Saratoga Springs on the 15th and +16th of August next, to discuss woman's right to suffrage.</p> + +<p>In the progress of human events, woman now demands the +recognition of her civil existence, her legal rights, her social +equality with man.</p> + +<p>How her claims can be the most easily and speedily established on +a firm, enduring basis, will be the subject of deliberation at +the coming Convention.</p> + +<p>The friends of the movement, and the public generally, are most +respectfully invited to attend.</p> + +<p>Many of the advocates of the cause are expected to be in +attendance.</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table summary="Attendees"> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Elizabeth Cady Stanton,</td><td class='left sc'>Lydia Mott,</td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Ernestine L. Rose,</td><td class='left sc'>Antoinette L. Brown,</td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Samuel J. May,</td><td class='left sc'>Susan B. Anthony.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This Convention also was held in St. Nicholas Hall, and a large +audience greeted the speakers of the occasion as they appeared upon +the platform.</p> + +<p>A brief report of the secretaries in <i>The Una</i> of September, 1855, +says: A large audience assembled on the morning of August 15th at St. +Nicholas Hall. Susan B. Anthony called the meeting to order, and +presented a list of officers<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> nominated at a preliminary +gathering, which was accepted. Martha C. Wright, on taking the chair, +made a brief statement of the object of the Convention, and invited +all those who were opposed to our demands to come to the platform and +state their objections.</p> + +<p>During the absence of the Business Committee, Ernestine L. Rose +briefly reviewed the rise and progress of the woman's rights movement. +Antoinette Brown reported a series of resolutions, on which she +commented at some length, when the Rev. Samuel J. May was introduced. +Although he spoke to the entire edification of the platform, yet he +was constantly interrupted by the audience. It was a novelty to hear +women speak, and the audience having assembled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_624" id="Page_624">[Pg 624]</a></span> for that purpose, +preferred to listen to woman's pathetic statements of her wrongs, than +to the most gifted orators that men could boast. It was not until +after repeated requests for order from the president, and assurances +from several of the ladies that they would not speak until Mr. May had +finished his remarks, that quiet was restored.</p> + +<p>It was at this Convention that Mary L. Booth<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> made her first +appearance on our platform, as one of the secretaries. One feature of +these meetings was the freedom and warm sympathy between the audience +and the platform. At the close of almost every speech, some one on the +floor asked questions, or stated some objections which were quickly +answered and refuted by the speakers in the most pleasant +conversational manner.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rose presented the wrongs of woman in her most happy manner, +demanding the ballot as the underlying power to protect all other +rights. Thomas Wentworth Higginson made an address especially adapted +to the fashionable audience. Many of the thoughtless ones whom idle +curiosity had led to the hall, must have felt like the woman of +Samaria (John iv. 29) at the well, when she reported that she had seen +a man who told her all the things that ever she had done, so nearly +did Mr. Higginson picture to them their thoughts and feelings, the +ennui of their daily lives. Lucy Stone, whom the papers now call Mrs. +Blackwell, arriving in the midst of the convention, was greeted with +long and repeated cheers, and spoke with her wonted simplicity and +earnestness. The resolutions covering all the different phases of the +movement were duly discussed through two entire days.</p> + +<p>Antoinette Brown was called on as usual to meet the Bible argument. A +clergyman accused her of misapplying texts. He said Genesis iv. 7 did +not allude to Cain and Abel, and that the language in Genesis iii. 16, +as applied to Eve, did not mean the same thing. Miss Brown maintained +her position that the texts were the same in letter and spirit; and +that authority to all men over all women could be no more logically +inferred from the one, than authority to all elder brothers over the +younger could be from the other; and that there was no divine +authority granted in either case.</p> + +<p>Miss Anthony announced that woman's rights tracts and papers were for +sale at the door, and urged all who had become interested in the +subject to procure them not only for their own benefit, but to +circulate among their neighbors. If they would be intelligent as to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_625" id="Page_625">[Pg 625]</a></span> +the real claims of the movement, they must take <i>The Una</i>, a paper +owned and edited by one of its leaders. No one would expect to get +temperance truths from Bennett's <i>Herald</i>, nor anti-slavery facts from +<i>The New York Observer</i>, or <i>Christian Advocate</i>; no more can we look +to any of the popular newspapers, political or religious, for reliable +information on the woman's rights movement.</p> + +<p>She also presented the claims of <i>The Woman's Advocate</i>, a paper just +started in Philadelphia by Anna E. McDowell, devoted chiefly to +woman's right to work—equal pay for equal service (she was sorry that +it did not see that the right of suffrage underlies the work problem); +nevertheless the existence of a paper owned, edited, published, and +printed all by women, was a living woman's rights fact, and she hoped +every one would give it encouragement and support. She then gave a +brief report of the work done in the State during the past year,<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> +and closed by presenting the form of petition that had just been +adopted.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a></p> + +<p>Mr. May moved the appointment of a committee of five<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> to engage +lecturing agents and raise funds for their compensation. The president +thanked the people for the respect and attention manifested during the +several sessions, and adjourned the Convention.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_626" id="Page_626">[Pg 626]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Saratoga papers were specially complimentary in their notices of +Ernestine L. Rose and Lucy Stone, pronouncing them logical and +eloquent, and Miss Anthony was highly praised for her skill in getting +contributions and distributing documents. She sold over twenty +thousand pamphlets that year. As there were many Southern people +always at Saratoga, this was considered a grand opportunity through +tracts to sow the seeds of rebellion all through the Southern States. +This Convention afforded a new theme for conversation at the hotels, +and was discussed for many days after with levity or seriousness, to +be laughed over and thought over by the women at their leisure.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">LETTERS TO THE CONVENTION.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>June 23, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:—Your note of the 20th has just come to hand. I am +sorry to say that my engagements are such that it will not be +possible for me to be present at the Woman's Rights Convention at +Saratoga, which I should very much rejoice to attend.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Theodore Parker.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Heartily and hastily yours,</p> + + +<p class="ltr-date break"><span class="smcap">Syracuse</span>, <i>June 13, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—I like your call to the Convention at Saratoga, and +I shall endeavor to be there on my return from Massachusetts, +where I deliver an oration on education on the 8th of August. By +all means put Judge Hay's name on the Central Committee. Invite +Theodore Parker without delay.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right">Samuel J. May</p> +<p class="ltr-left">In great haste, but very truly yours,</p> + + +<p class="ltr-date break"><span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>Sixth Mo., 11, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Susan B. Anthony</span>:—Returning home, I hasten to answer thy +letter forwarded to me a week ago by sister M. C. Wright. It is +always with regret that I have to answer any letter of the kind +in the negative. But the time fixed for the Saratoga Convention +renders it impracticable for me to be present. My husband and I +hope to attend the National Convention at Cincinnati in October. +Thy active interest and exertions in this cause are greatly +cheering. We are doing little hereaway. Pennsylvania is always +slow in every reformatory movement. We have circulated many of +the pamphlets.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_627" id="Page_627">[Pg 627]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wishing you all success at the convention, and sure of thy "great +recompense and reward,"</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Lucretia Mott.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">I am thine affectionately,</p> + + + +<p class="ltr-date break"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>June 6, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—I have kept your letter by me, and omitted to +reply, hoping, and indeed expecting, that though I give up all +but two or three routine and neighboring engagements in the +summer. I might plan so as to accept yours. But I find I can not +come as you ask. My summer months must be devoted otherwise. I +hope you will not nickname me <i>No</i>, for my so constantly using +that monosyllable to you. Indeed, I will try to oblige you next +winter.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Wendell Phillips.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">With much regard, yours truly,</p> + + + +<p class="ltr-date break"><span class="sc">High Rock, Lynn, Mass.</span>, <i>August 4, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Earnest Friend</span>:—We have just received your hearty invitation to +the Convention at Saratoga. Nothing would give us more pleasure +than to be with you on that occasion. We are all interested in +Woman's Rights, and in liberty for all humanity.</p> + +<p>Long submission has smothered the hope and extinguished the +desire in many for any change of condition. But the light of the +nineteenth century should awake all to earnest battle for their +God-given rights. We will consult together, and if we can make up +a quartette we will try and be with you to sing once more our +songs<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> of freedom for another struggling class. With much +esteem</p> + +<p class="ltr-right"><span class="sc">John W. Hutchinson</span>,<br />(for the family).</p> +<p class="ltr-left">I remain yours truly,</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">Following the Convention the usual attacks were made by the press, +accusing the members of "infidelity and free love," which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_628" id="Page_628">[Pg 628]</a></span> Miss Brown +refuted through <i>The New York Tribune</i>. In this way, with conventions +being continually held at the fashionable watering places<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> in the +summer, and at the center of legislative assemblies in the winter, New +York was compelled to give some attention to the question. A Woman's +Eights meeting and a hearing were of annual occurrence as regular as +the convening of the Legislature.</p> + + +<h3>ALBANY CONVENTION, 1855.</h3> + +<p>The second Convention at Albany was held in the Green Street +Universalist Church, February 13 and 14, 1855. Martha C. Wright +presided; the usual speakers<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> were present, and letters of +sympathy were received from Wendell Phillips, T. W. Higginson, +Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, expressing regret at +not being able to attend.</p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>February 8, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—I can not be in Albany next week, because I some +time since promised to speak on Wednesday in Maine, and must keep +my engagement. Nor, indeed, can I deem it of any consequence that +I should attend your Convention. You know, already, that I am +thoroughly committed to the principle that <i>woman shall decide +for herself</i> whether she shall have a voice and a vote in +legislation, or shall continue to be represented and legislated +for exclusively by man.</p> + +<p>My own judgment is that woman's presence in the arena of politics +would be useful and beneficent; but I do not assume to judge for +her. She must consider, determine, and act for herself. Whenever +she shall in earnest have resolved that her own welfare and that +of the race will be promoted by her claiming a voice in the +direction of civil government, as I think she ultimately will do, +then the day of her emancipation will be near. That day I will +hope yet to see.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Horace Greeley.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours,</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">Of the hearings before the Legislature which followed this Convention, +we give the report from</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>The Albany Register, February 17, 1855.</i></p> + +<p class="heading">JUST AND EQUAL RIGHTS—HEARING BEFORE THE ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE.</p> + +<p>The select Committee of the Assembly, to which was referred the +petition for Woman's Rights, granted a bearing to the petitioners +in the Assembly Chamber on Saturday evening, Ernestine L. Rose, +Antoinette Brown, and Susan B. Anthony<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_629" id="Page_629">[Pg 629]</a></span> represented the +petitioners. The arguments were able, and well received. Members +of the 'Committee and others sent up a number of questions which +the ladies promptly answered, with a due sprinkling of wit, +logic, and sarcasm, greatly to the entertainment of the audience, +which did not disperse until after eleven o'clock.</p> + +<p>Mr. Rickerson, from the Select Committee, to whom was referred +"The Petition for the Right of Suffrage," stated that "after +mature consideration the Committee unanimously report adversely +to the prayer of the petitioners." Mr. Rickerson, from the same +Committee to whom was referred—the petition for the just and +equal civil rights of woman, said: "The Committee have given the +petition that examination which time and circumstances would +allow, and report favorably thereon, as embraced in the bill," +which they introduced.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The petitions of 1856 were referred to the Judiciary Committee, Samuel +A. Foote, Chairman. Mr. Foote was at one time a member of the bar of +New York, associating with some of the first families in the State—a +son, a husband, a father—and yet in his maturer years he had so +little respect for himself, his mother, wife, and daughters as to +present in a dignified legislative assembly the following report on a +grave question of human rights—a piece of buffoonery worthy only a +mountebank in a circus:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">LEGISLATIVE REPORT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS.</p> + +<p class="heading"><i>The Register</i>, <span class="smcap">Albany</span>, <i>March, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. Foote, from the Judiciary Committee, made a report on Women's +Rights that set the whole House in roars of laughter:</p> + +<p>"The Committee is composed of married and single gentlemen. The +bachelors on the Committee, with becoming diffidence, have left +the subject pretty much to the married gentlemen. They have +considered it with the aid of the light they have before them and +the experience married life has given them. Thus aided, they are +enabled to state that the ladies always have the best place and +choicest titbit at the table. They have the best seat in the +cars, carriages, and sleighs; the warmest place in the winter, +and the coolest place in the summer. They have their choice on +which side of the bed they will lie, front or back. A lady's +dress costs three times as much as that of a gentleman; and, at +the present time, with the prevailing fashion, one lady occupies +three times as much space in the world as a gentleman.</p> + +<p>"It has thus appeared to the married gentlemen of your Committee, +being a majority (the bachelors being silent for the reason +mentioned, and also probably for the further reason that they are +still suitors for the favors of the gentler sex), that, if there +is any inequality or oppression in the case, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_630" id="Page_630">[Pg 630]</a></span> gentlemen are +the sufferers. They, however, have presented no petitions for +redress; having, doubtless, made up their minds to yield to an +inevitable destiny.</p> + +<p>"On the whole, the Committee have concluded to recommend no +measure, except that as they have observed several instances in +which husband and wife have both signed the same petition. In +such case, they would recommend the parties to apply for a law +authorizing them to change dresses, so that the husband may wear +petticoats, and the wife the breeches, and thus indicate to their +neighbors and the public the true relation in which they stand to +each other."</p> + + +<p class="heading">ASSEMBLY—WOMEN'S RIGHTS.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Prendergast</span> presented several petitions asking for an +extension of Women's Rights. Mr. P. stated that undoubtedly the +Judiciary was the proper Committee to receive these petitions; +but the petitioners had signified to him that, from a recent +manifestation on the part of the Chairman of that Committee +(Judge Foote), they would prefer that the petition should be +referred to some other Committee. He therefore moved their +reference to the Committee on Claims.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Northup</span> seconded the motion.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Foote</span> remarked, that if there was any other Committee of this +House that would or could unsex the female sex, he had no +objection to the reference moved.</p> + +<p>The motion prevailed.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Lydia Mott, in a letter to Susan B. Anthony, under date of Albany, +March 15, 1856, says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I mail a paper to you, containing the Hon. Samuel A. Foote's +report on our petitions. I hardly expected any report this +winter. I am glad he made one; am only sorry it was verbal. There +ought to have been a large number printed for circulation. I hope +you won't get discouraged; remember the good work goes bravely +on, the Honorable Legislature to the contrary notwithstanding. We +shall get all we demand one of these days. Our reform is so +comprehensive, we must not expect a sudden change in public +opinion. Only see how long we have been laboring to convert +people to the one self-evident truth that a man has a right to +himself; and where are we now after a quarter of a century? No; +we must not be disheartened. Our labor has not been in vain. I +see its good effects every day, and they will continue to +multiply.</p> + +<p>Only think, here in our midst we have a constant testimony borne +to good audiences every Sunday. I don't know whether I wrote you +what a true man we have in the Unitarian Church, and what a treat +his sermons are to me. You remember A. D. Mayo, who has written +letters to our Conventions; he doesn't come as an Unitarian, but +as an Independent. It can not be otherwise than that he will do a +world of good. He gave to day one of the boldest as well as +finest sermons I have ever heard—full of noble thoughts. He +always recognizes woman in every department. It amuses me to see +the effect on Rome of the women as he portrays woman side by side +with man, always making her his equal in every position. Mr. Mayo +is the first minister who has filled the church, and the only one +that has not seemed afraid of his own shadow. Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_631" id="Page_631">[Pg 631]</a></span> Garrison heard +him when here; said he could not wish to change one word or to +add one to his sermon. That from Garrison is saying a great deal.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The Hon. Wm. Hay, who always aided us and watched the Legislature very +closely in its action upon our question, in a letter to Miss Anthony, +dated March 20, 1856, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I write this in the Assembly Chamber which has so recently been +disgraced by an old fogy—Sam. A. Foote. He can not, however, +prevent the agitation as to Woman's Rights. That of Suffrage has +been discussed several times this week, incidentally, in both +Houses, and will be up here again to-morrow directly....</p> + +<p>March 21st, he says: The petition from Milton, Ulster County, was +presented yesterday, and referred to the Committee on Claims, +instead of the Judiciary or a Select Committee. It is thus +manifest that the cause is not to be put down or even passed by +with contemptuous silence, vulgar abuse, or conservative scorn. +Foote squealed out his angry opposition, in the old stupid slang +(of Shakespeare perverted from "Macbeth"), about unsexing woman +with the right of suffrage, and endeavored to contrast it with +property-claims; as if the revolutionary maxim concerning +taxation and representation going together is not a property +rule. I suspect, too, that personal rights, secured by the right +preservative of all rights, are more important than mere property +rights. But they need not be distinguished in that respect. The +proceeding is (even if without any present beneficial result) a +triumph; because it proves to Judge Foote and others that the +Woman's Rights petitions (or rather demands) must receive +suitable consideration and, at least, a respectful report.</p> + +<p>Next winter we may hope to be more successful—if not then, +success is merely postponed. It has become a question of time +only, and perhaps of place—probably Nebraska!</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE SEVENTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S EIGHTS CONTENTION.</h3> + +<p>Pursuant to a call issued by the Central Committee, the Seventh +National Woman's Rights Convention was held in New York, at the +Broadway Tabernacle, November 25 and 26, 1856.</p> + +<p>The Convention was called to order by Martha C. Wright, President of +the last Convention.</p> + +<p>The officers were duly appointed.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_632" id="Page_632">[Pg 632]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>, on taking the chair, said: I am sure that all present +will agree with me that this is a day of congratulation. It is +our Seventh Annual National Woman's Rights Convention. Our first +effort was made in a small room in Boston, where a few women were +gathered, who had learned woman's rights by woman's wrongs. There +had been only one meeting in Ohio, and two in New York. The laws +were yet against us, custom was against us, prejudice was against +us, and more than all, women were against us. We were strong only +"in the might of our right"—and, now, when this seventh year has +brought us together again, we can say as did a laborer in the +Republican party, though all is not gained, "we are without a +wound in our faith, without a wound in our hope, and stronger +than when we began." Never before has any reformatory movement +gained so much in so short a time. When we began, the statute +books were covered with laws against women, which an eminent +jurist (Judge Walker) said would be a disgrace to the statute +books of any heathen nation.</p> + +<p>Now almost every Northern State has more or less modified its +laws. The Legislature of Maine, after having granted nearly all +other property rights to wives, found a bill before it asking +that a wife should be entitled to what she earns, but a certain +member grew fearful that wives would bring in bills for their +daily service, and, by an eloquent appeal to pockets, the measure +was lost for the time, but that which has secured other rights +will secure this. In Massachusetts, by the old laws, a wife owned +nothing but the fee simple in her real estate. And even for that, +she could not make a will without the written endorsement of her +husband, permitting her to do so. Two years ago the law was so +changed that she now holds the absolute right to her entire +property, earnings included. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode +Island have also very much amended their statutes. New York, the +proud Empire State, has, by the direct effort of this movement, +secured to wives every property right except earnings. During two +years a bill has been before the Legislature, which provides that +if a husband be a drunkard, a profligate, or has abandoned his +wife, she may have a right to her own earnings. It has not +passed. Two hundred years hence that bill will be quoted as a +proof of the barbarism of the times; now it is a proof of +progress.</p> + +<p>Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana have also very materially modified +their laws. And Wisconsin—God bless these young States—has +granted almost all that has been asked except the right of +suffrage. And even this, Senator Sholes,<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> in an able minority +report on the subject, said, "is only a question of time, and as +sure to triumph as God is just." It proposed that the Convention +which meets in two years to amend the Constitution of the State +should consider the subject. In Michigan, too, it has been moved +that women should have a right to their own babies, which none of +you, ladies, have here in New York. The motion caused much +discussion in the Legislature, and it would probably have been +carried had not a disciple of Brigham Young's, a Mormon member, +defeated the bill. In Nebraska everything is bright for our +cause. Mrs. Bloomer is there, and she has circulated petitions, +claiming for women the right to vote. A bill to that effect +passed the House of Representatives, and was lost in the Senate, +only because of the too early closing of the session. That act of +justice to woman would be gained in Nebraska first, and scores +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_633" id="Page_633">[Pg 633]</a></span> women would go there that they might be made citizens, and be +no longer subjects.</p> + +<p>In addition to these great legal changes, achieved so directly by +this reform, we find also that women have entered upon many new +and more remunerative industrial pursuits; thus being enabled to +save themselves from the bitterness of dependent positions, or +from lives of infamy. Our demand that Harvard and Yale Colleges +should admit women, though not yielded, only waits for a little +more time. And while they wait, numerous petty "female colleges" +have sprung into being, indicative of the justice of our claim +that a college education should be granted to women. Not one of +these female colleges (which are all second or third rate, and +their whole course of study only about equal to what completes +the sophomore year in our best colleges) meets the demand of the +age, and so will eventually perish. Oberlin and Antioch Colleges +in Ohio, and Lima College in New York, admit women on terms +nearly equal with men.</p> + +<p>In England, too, the claims of women are making progress. The +most influential papers in London have urged the propriety of +women physicians. Also a petition was sent to Parliament last +year, signed by the Brownings, the Howitts, Harriet Martineau, +Mrs. Gaskell, and Mrs. Jameson, asking for just such rights as we +claim here. It was presented by Lord Brougham, and was +respectfully received by Parliament. The ballot has not yet been +yielded; but it can not be far off when, as in the last +Presidential contest,<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> women were urged to attend political +meetings, and a woman's name was made one of the rallying cries +of the party of progress. The enthusiasm which everywhere greeted +the name of Jessie<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> was so far a recognition of woman's right +to participate in politics. Encouraged by the success of these +seven years of effort, let us continue with unfailing fidelity to +labor for the practical recognition of the great truth, that all +human rights inhere in each human being. We welcome to this +platform man and women irrespective of creed, country, or color; +those who dissent from us as freely as those who agree with us.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span>, from the Business Committee, reported a series +of resolutions.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a></p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_634" id="Page_634">[Pg 634]</a></span></p> + +<p>The President stated that several letters had been received, one from +Francis Jackson, of Boston, one of the noblest of the noble men of the +age, inclosing $50, which, he says, he gives "to help this righteous +cause along." Also a letter from the Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Salem, +Massachusetts, which would be read by Mr. Higginson.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Rev. <span class="smcap">T. W. Higginson</span> said he was much more willing to be called +upon to read the words of others at this time, than to utter poor +words of his own. There were many who came into a Woman's Rights +Convention and started to find men on the platform. He could only +say, that in these times, and with the present light, there was +no place where a man could redeem his manhood better than on the +Woman's Rights Platform. Gentlemen in distant seats were perhaps +trembling to think that they had actually got that far into this +dangerous place. They might think themselves well off—no, badly +off—if the maelstrom did not draw them nearer and nearer and +nearer in, as it did him. He began, like them, hesitating and +smiling on the back seats; they saw what he had got to now, and +he hoped they, too, might get into such noble company before +long. He was prouder to train in this band than to be at the head +of the play-soldiers who were marching through the streets +to-day, and immortalizing themselves by not failing, so utterly +as some of their companions, to hit some easy target. Those were +play-soldiers; these were soldiers in earnest.</p> + +<p>Men talk a great deal of nonsense about the woman's rights +movement. He never knew a husband who was demolished in an +argument by his wife, or a young gentleman who found his +resources of reason entirely used up by a young lady, who did not +fall back at last when there was no retreat, and say: "It's no +use; you can't reason with a woman." Well, so it would seem in +their case. Others shelter themselves behind the general +statement, that they don't wish to marry a woman's rights woman. +I have no doubt the woman's rights women reciprocate the wish. +These appear to have some anxiety about dinner—that seems to be +the trouble. Jean Paul, the German, wanted to have a wife who +could cook him something good; and Mrs. Frederica Bremer, the +novelist, remarked, that a wife can always conciliate her husband +by having something to stop his mouth. In a conversation in +Philadelphia the other day, a young lawyer, when told that Mrs. +Emma R. Coe was studying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_635" id="Page_635">[Pg 635]</a></span> law with the intention of practicing, +remarked, that he should never see her in Court, but she would +remind him of mince pies; to which the gentleman he was in +conversation with, observed that he had better not get her as his +antagonist in trying a suit, or she would remind him of minced +meat. Having given two or three examples of the nonsense of men +upon this subject, he would now read them some sense. The letter +was from one of the most eloquent and learned of the younger +clergy of New England; a man possessed of powers of genius and +practical wisdom which would yet make him heard in a larger +sphere than that which he now occupied. It was not the old +English Sam. Johnson who said that "there never was a lawsuit or +a quarrel where a woman was not at the bottom of it." This was +Sam. Johnson Americanized, and of course he was a woman's rights +man.</p> + + +<p class="heading">LETTER FROM REV. SAMUEL JOHNSON.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Salem</span>, <i>October 4, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—In complying with your desire that I should send a +few words to the Woman's Rights Convention, I am quite aware that +in this matter infinitely more depends upon what women do than +upon what men say; nevertheless, if my confession of faith will +be of the least service, it shall not be wanting.</p> + +<p>I regard this movement as no less than the sum and crown of all +our moral enterprises; as a proclamation of entire social +freedom, never practicable until now. I welcome it, not merely +because it aims at delivering half the human race from +constraints that degrade and demoralize the whole, but also +because it is opening a new spiritual hemisphere, destined to put +a new heart into our semi-barbarian theology, politics, manners, +literature, and law. And especially do I rejoice, that having +defrauded the feminine element of its due share in practical +affairs for so many ages, and found ourselves, as a natural +consequence, drifting toward barbarism with all our wealth and +wisdom, we are compelled at last to learn that justice to woman +is simply mercy to ourselves.</p> + +<p>Doubtless the main obstacles to this work come from her own sex. +Strange if it were not so; if the meagre hope doled out to women +hitherto should have unfitted them to believe that such a +function awaits them. Strange if they did not fear a thousand +perils in the untried way of freedom. But the unwise distrust +will have to be abandoned; and so will the conventional flippancy +and contempt. I think the grand duty of every honorable man +toward this effort at emancipation is simply <i>not to stand in its +way</i>. For how much is really covered by that duty? It means that +he must wash his hands of every law or prejudice that dooms woman +to an inferior position, and makes her the victim of miserable +wages and fatal competitions with herself. It means that he must +clear himself of this senseless twaddle about "woman's sphere," a +matter surely no more for his legislation, than his "sphere" is +for hers; and one upon which, at this stage of their experience, +it is unbecoming in either to dogmatize; and it means that as a +simple act of justice, he must resign to her the control of her +own earnings, secure her fair and full culture, and welcome her +to the pulpit, the bar, the medical profession, and to whatever +other posts of public usefulness she may prepare herself to fill. +As long as he fails of doing this, he is unjustly interfering +with her sacred rights; and <i>after</i> he has done this, he may +safely leave the rest to her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_636" id="Page_636">[Pg 636]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is humiliating indeed that numbers of well-disposed persons +should not recognize so plain a duty. I have no patience to argue +it. The moral logic of this movement is as patent as the simplest +rule in arithmetic. Every argument brought against it resolves +itself into a sneer at woman's capacity, or an anxiety lest the +distinction God has established between the sexes will not bear +testing; or, what is more common still, though covered up in a +thousand ways, the brutish assertion that "might makes right." +There is but one answer to these impertinences, and that is the +success of individual women in the work they set about. The +current ridicule at "doing justice to women" will pass for the +sheer vulgarity it is, when so many women shall do justice to +themselves, that they can not be taken as exceptions to prove the +rule. And this success depends on their own wills. The noble use +of God's gifts shall make its mark in this world. As sure as God +lives, it shall compel a becoming respect. For more and more of +these lessons in true honor do we pray; for the very name of +manhood must make us blush, so long as it is identified with +these airs of patronage and control, these insulting obeisances, +these flatterers of what is childish in women, these sarcasms +upon what is noblest; worse than all, this willingness to derive +gain from the degradation and suffering of the sex it professes +to adore. And words are poor to express the gratitude that shall +be forever due to those women whose moral energy shall rebuke +this littleness, and stir true manliness in man.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">With sincere respect, I am truly your friend,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">Samuel Johnson.</p> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span> remarked, that in the letter read by Mr. +Higginson there was one sentence that struck her with great +force, viz: that it is of far greater importance what woman does +than what man thinks; and, she would add, what woman thinks. The +influence of what she had done was felt not only in this country, +but throughout the entire continent of Europe.</p> + +<p>The author of that letter had expressed another sentiment to +which she wished briefly to advert. He said that where ten men +could be convinced of the truth of Woman's Rights, hardly one +woman could be gained. At first sight it might so appear. But it +should be borne in mind, that men were more accustomed to think +and reflect and argue upon everything connected with the legal +and political rights of men, at least, and, therefore, they were +more easily convinced. Nevertheless, the subject, whenever +presented to the mind of woman in its proper light, would not +fail to find an echo in her heart. Whenever the subject was +broached to a woman hitherto unacquainted with it, it first +caused a smile, and, perchance, a sneer; but, put to her a few +common-sense questions, and the smile disappeared, and her +countenance assumed a serious expression. Ask her if she is not +entitled to self-government, to the full development of her +mental powers, to the free choice of her industrial avocations, +to proper remuneration for her labor, to equal control of her +offspring with that of her husband, to the possession and control +of her own property, and to a voice in making the laws that +impose taxes upon property that she may hold—ask her a few +simple, straight-forward questions like these, and see if an +immediate, hearty, and warm assent is not elicited.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In spite of a violent storm a large number assembled in the evening. +The speakers announced were Mrs. Elizabeth Jones and Wendell Phillips. +Mrs. Jones' address was a clear and logical statement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_637" id="Page_637">[Pg 637]</a></span> of the whole +claim of woman. By her own request, it was not published.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span>:—Ladies and gentlemen. I am told that the +<i>Times</i> of to-day warns the women of this Convention that if they +proceed in their crusade they will forfeit the protection of the +men. Perhaps, before it is offered, the question had better be +asked whether it is needed. I do not think that I should run the +risk of much difference of opinion if I claimed, that nine men +out of ten would not be able to defend their right to vote as +logically as the lady who has just addressed us has defended her +right to vote. I question whether one-quarter of what we call the +men educated by the colleges, and in active life—the better +education of the two—would be able, arrogating to themselves as +they do a far greater political and civil capacity, to state the +grounds of civil rights and responsibilities, to mark out the +limits, to vindicate the advantages, and to analyze the bases on +which these rest, as we have just had it done. If participation +in civil rights is based on mind—as in this country we claim it +to be—then certainly to-night we have no right to deny that the +cause is gained, for the friend who has preceded me has left very +little for any one to say; she has covered the whole ground.</p> + +<p>In fact this question is a question of civilization, nothing +less. The position of woman anywhere is the test of civilization. +You need not ask for the statistics of education, of national +wealth, or of crime; tell me the position of woman, and you +answer the question of the nation's progress. Utah is barbarism; +we need no evidence; we read it in the single custom that lowers +the female sex. Wherever you go in history this is true. Step by +step as woman ascends, civilization ripens. I warn the anxious +and terrified that their first efforts should be to conquer their +fears, for the triumph of this crusade is written as certain on +the next leaf that turns in the great history of the race, as +that the twentieth century will open.</p> + +<p>The time was when a Greek dared not let his wife go out of doors, +and in the old comic play of Athens, one of the characters says, +"Where is your wife?" "She has gone out." "Death and furies! what +does she do out?" Doubtless, if any "fanatic" had claimed the +right of woman to walk out of doors, he would have been deemed +crazy in Athens; had he claimed the right of a modest married +woman to be seen out of doors it would have been considered +fanaticism, and I do not know but that the <i>Herald</i> of that day +would have branded him as an infidel. But spite of the anchored +conservatism of others, women got out of doors and the country +grew, and the world turned round, and so modern Europe has +progressed. Now the pendulum swung one way, and now another, but +woman has gained right after right until with us, to the +astonishment of the Greek, could he see it—of the Turk, when he +hears it—she stands almost side by side with man in her civil +rights. The Saxon race has led the van. I trample underfoot +contemptuously the Jewish—yes, the Jewish—ridicule which laughs +at such a Convention as this; for we are the Saxon blood, and the +first line of record that is left to the Saxon race is that line +of Tacitus, "On all grave questions they consult their women." +When the cycle of Saxondom is complete, when the Saxon element +culminates in modern civilization, another Tacitus will record in +the valley of the Mississippi, as he did in the valley of the +Rhine, "On all grave questions they consult their women." The +fact is, there is no use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_638" id="Page_638">[Pg 638]</a></span> of blinking the issue. It is Paul +against the Saxon blood; it is a religious prejudice against the +blood of the race. The blood of the race accords to woman +equality; it is a religious superstition which stands in the way +and balks the effort.</p> + +<p>Europe has known three phases. The first was the dominion of +force; the second the dominion of money; the third is +beginning—the dominion of brains. When it comes, woman will step +out on the platform side by side with her brother. The old Hindoo +dreamed that he saw the human race led out to its varied fortune, +and first he saw a man bitted and curbed, and the reins went back +to an iron hand. Then he saw a man led on and on, under various +changes, until, at last, he saw the man led by threads that came +from the brain and went back to an invisible hand. The first was +the type of despotism—the reign of force, the upper classes +keeping down the under. The last is ours—the dominion of brains. +We live in a government where <i>The New York Herald</i> and <i>New York +Tribune</i>, thank God, are more really the government than Franklin +Pierce and Caleb Cushing. Ideas reign. I know some men do not +appreciate this fact; they are overawed by the iron arm, by the +marble capitol, by the walls of granite—palpable power, felt, +seen. I have seen the palace of the Cæsars, built of masses that +seemed as if giants alone could have laid them together, to last +for eternity, as if nothing that did not part the solid globe +could move them. But the tiny roots of the weeds of Italian +summers had inserted themselves between them, and the palace of +the Cæsars lies a shapeless ruin. So it is with your government. +It may be iron, it may be marble, but the pulses of right and +wrong push it aside; only give them time. I hail the government +of ideas.</p> + +<p>There is another thing I claim. You laugh at Woman's Rights +Conventions; you ridicule socialism (I do not accept that); you +dislike the anti-slavery movement. The only discussion of the +grave social questions of the age, the questions of right and +wrong that lie at the basis of society—the only voices that have +stirred them and kept those questions alive have been those of +these three reforms. Smothered with gold—smothered with material +prosperity, the vast masses of our countrymen were living the +lives of mere getters of money; but the ideas of this half of the +nineteenth century have been bruited by despised reformers, kept +alive by three radical movements, and whoever in the next +generation shall seek for the sources of mental and intellectual +change will find it here; and in a progressive people like ours +that claim is a most vital and significant one....</p> + +<p>I contend that woman, broadly considered, makes half the money +that is made. Go the world over, take either Europe or America, +the first source of money is intelligence and thrift; it is not +speculation.... Out of the twenty millions of American people +that make money, woman does more than half of the work that +insures the reward. I claim for that half of the race whose +qualities garner up wealth, the right to dispose of it, and to +control it by law.</p> + +<p>Again, take thought. I know our sister has modestly told us how +utterly they are deprived of what are called the institutions of +education; but we know very well that book learning is a +miserably poor thing, and that the best education in the world is +what we clutch in the streets; and of that education, by hook or +by crook, woman has so far gained enough, that, Europe and +America through, where is the man presumptuous enough to doubt +that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_639" id="Page_639">[Pg 639]</a></span> hand of woman is not felt as much on the helm of public +opinion as that of man? To be sure, she does not have an outside +ambitious distinction; but at home, in the molding hours, in +youth, in the soft moments when the very balance-wheel of +character is touched, we all know that woman, though she may not +consciously enunciate ideas, does as much to form public opinion +as man. The time has been—and every man who has ever analyzed +history knows it—when in France, the mother to Europe of all +social ideas; France that has lifted up Germany from mysticism, +and told England what she means and what she wants: France that +has construed England to herself, and interpreted to her what she +was blindly reaching out for; when in that very France, at the +fountain-head of that eighteenth century of civil progress, it +was in the saloons of woman that man did his thinking, and it was +under the brilliant inspiration of her society that that mighty +revolution in the knowledge and science of civil affairs was +wrought. In this country, too, at this hour, woman does as much +to give the impulse to public opinion as man does.</p> + +<p>Wherever I find silent power I want recognition of the +responsibility. I am not in favor of a power behind the throne. I +do not want half the race concealed behind the curtain and +controlling without being responsible. Drag them to the light, +hold them up as you do men to the utmost study of public +questions, and to a personal responsibility for their public +settlement. Corruption—it often takes the very form of the +passions of woman. In Paris, to-day, we are told, when the +government approaches a man, the way is, not to give him wealth +for his own enjoyment, but to dower his daughter. It is the pride +of woman through which they reach him. Drag that woman forward on +the platform of public life; give to her manifest ability a fair +field, let her win wealth by her own exertions, not by the +surrender of principle in the person of her husband; and although +my friend doubts it, I believe, when you put the two sexes +harmoniously in civil life, you will secure a higher state of +civilization—not because woman is better, not because she is +more merciful, or more just, or more pure than man, as man +naturally, but because God meant that a perfect human being +should be made up of man and woman allied, and it is only when +the two march side by side on the pathway of civilization that +the harmonious development of the race begins.</p> + +<p>Then, again, you can not educate woman, in the sense that we use +education. She has no motive. As my friend said, when she +marries, education ceases. At that age the education of man +commences: he has wealth, ambition, social position, as his +stimulus: he knows that by keeping his mind on the alert he earns +them all. You furnish a woman with books—you give her no motive +to open them. You open to her the door of science: why should she +enter? She can gain nothing except in individual and exceptional +cases; public opinion drives her back, places a stigma upon her +of blue-stocking, and the consequence is, the very motive for +education is taken away. Now, I believe, a privileged class, an +aristocracy, a set of slaveholders, does just as much harm to +itself as it does to the victimized class. When man undertakes to +place woman behind him, to assume the reins of government and to +govern for her, he is an aristocrat; and all aristocracies are +not only unjust, but they are harmful to the progress of society.</p> + +<p>I welcome this movement, because it shows that we have got a +great amount<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_640" id="Page_640">[Pg 640]</a></span> of civilization. Every other movement to redress a +wrong in the past generations of the world has been yielded to +only from fear. Bentham says truly, the governing race never +yielded a right unless they were bullied out of it. That is true +historically; but we have come to a time—and this movement shows +it—when civilization has rendered man capable of yielding to +something different from fear. This movement has only been eight +years on foot, and during that time, we who have watched the +statute-book are aware to admiration of the rapid changes that +have taken place in public opinion, and in legislation, all over +the States. Within the last four years, in different localities, +woman has been allowed the right to protect her earnings, and to +make a will—two of the great points of property. Aye, and one +little star of light begins to twinkle in the darkness of the +political atmosphere: Kentucky allows her to vote. Yes, from the +land where on one question they are so obstinate, the white race +have remembered justice to their white co-equals. In her +nobly-planned school system, Kentucky divides her State into +districts; the trustees are annually chosen for the State funds; +and it is expressly provided, that besides the usual voters in +the election of trustees for the school fund, which is coveted by +millions, there shall be allowed to vote, every widow who has a +child betwixt six and eighteen years old, and she shall go to the +ballot-box in person or by proxy. Kentucky repudiates the +doctrine that to go to the ballot-box forfeits the delicacy of +the sex; for she provides, in express terms, that she shall go to +the ballot-box in person, or by proxy, as she pleases. It is the +first drop of the coming storm—it is the first ray of light in +the rising sun.</p> + +<p>Civilization can not defend itself, on American principles, +against this claim. My friend of Brooklyn claims the right to +make political speeches, as well as sermons, because he is a +citizen. Well, woman is a citizen too: and if a minister can +preach politics because he is a citizen, woman can meddle in +politics and vote, because she is a citizen too. When Mr. Beecher +based his right, not on the intellect which flashes from Maine to +Georgia, not on the strength of that nervous right arm, but +solely on his citizenship, he dragged to the platform twelve +millions of American women to stand at his side. But the +difficulty is, no man can defend his own right to vote, without +granting it to woman. The only reason why the demand sounds +strange, is because man never analyzed his own right. The moment +he begins to analyze it, he can not defend it without admitting +her. Our fathers proclaimed, sixty years ago, that government was +co-equal with the right to take money and to punish for crime. +Now, all that I wish to say to the American people on this +question is, let woman go free from the penal statute—let her +property be exempt from taxation, until you admit her to the +ballot-box—or seal up the history of the Revolution, make +Bancroft and Hildreth prohibited books, banish the argument of +'76, and let Mr. Simms have his own way with the history of all +the States, as well as South Carolina. Yes, the fact is, women +make opinion for us; and the only thing we shut them out from is +the ballot-box.</p> + +<p>I would have it constantly kept before the public, that we do not +seek to prop up woman; we only ask for her space to let her grow. +Governments are not made; they grow. They are not buildings like +this, with dome and pillars; they are oaks, with roots and +branches, and they grow, by God's blessing, in the soil He gives +to them. Now man has been allowed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_641" id="Page_641">[Pg 641]</a></span> to grow, and when Pharaoh tied +him down with bars of iron, when Europe tied him down with +privilege and superstition, he burst the bonds and grew strong. +We ask the same for woman. Göethe said that if you plant an oak +in a flower-pot, one of two things was sure to happen: either the +oak will be dwarfed, or the flower-pot will break. So we have +planted woman in a flower-pot, hemmed her in by restrictions, and +when we move to enlarge her sphere, society cries out, "Oh! +you'll break the flower-pot!" Well, I say, let it break. Man made +it, and the sooner it goes to pieces the better. Let us see how +broadly the branches will throw themselves, and how beautiful +will be the shape, and how glorious against the moonlit sky, or +glowing sunset, the foliage shall appear.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 342px;"> +<a name="v1_1641" id="v1_1641"> +<img src="images/v1_1641.png" width="342" height="500" +alt="Martha C. Wright (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>I say the very first claim, the middle and last claim of all our +Conventions should be the ballot. Everywhere, in each State, we +should claim it; not for any intrinsic value in the ballot, but +because it throws upon woman herself the responsibility of her +position. Man never grew to his stature until he was provoked to +it by the pressure and weight of responsibility; and I take it +woman will grow up the same way.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The first three resolutions on the Presidential election were brought +up for discussion and adopted. Those persons in the audience who +desired to speak were urged to do so.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> said: In reference to this last election, though it was +not my good fortune to be here during the time of that great +excitement, being then on the continent of Europe; yet, even at +that great distance, the fire of freedom that was kindled here +spread itself across the Atlantic. The liberal, intelligent, and +reformatory portion of the people of Europe, as well as in +England, have most warmly, most heartily sympathized with us in +the last struggle of freedom against slavery. It is a most +glorious epoch. I will not enter into a political or anti-slavery +lecture, but simply state this fact—the time has come when the +political parties are entirely annihilated. They have ceased to +exist. There is no longer Whig and no longer Democrat—there is +Freedom or Slavery. We have here an equally great purpose to +achieve. This, too, is not woman's rights or man's rights, but it +is human rights. It is based on precisely the same fundamental +truths with the other question. In the last election the general +feeling prevailed that woman ought to take more interest in +political affairs, and with the noble work she did during the +campaign, it seems to me most extraordinary that the men who have +worked thus nobly for the freedom of one class, should yet refuse +freedom to the other class.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Phillip D. Moore</span> rose in the body of the building and said: +During this last Presidential canvass I heard more than once the +oldest member of Congress declare that Freedom was based upon the +law of God, which was declared in our Bill of Rights—our +Declaration of Independence—that it was the inalienable right of +all mankind to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. +He placed this last Presidential struggle upon that right higher +than all human law; and upon that it seems this contest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_642" id="Page_642">[Pg 642]</a></span> in +behalf of human rights is based. I think that we should adopt +these resolutions, and also appeal to the legislative bodies, +where, I believe, there are men who will hear and heed the voice +of justice.</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">T. W. Higginson</span> took the floor, and expressed his hope that +they would have more speaking from the floor and less from the +platform. As a Republican voter, he would take his stand in +support of these resolutions; and he would declare that it was +true that the close of the Presidential election was the time for +a woman's Convention to be held. It was true that the Republican +party was pledged, if it had any manliness in it, to support the +cause of women, to whom it had applied to support its cause every +day; and it was positively true that, if there were such a thing +in the land as a Democratic party, that party was the party of +the women also. As a further illustration of the idea expressed +by the gentleman who had preceded him, he would state the fact +that, when he was invited to Vermont to address the Legislature +in favor of the appropriation of $20,000 for Kansas,<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> the +meeting was postponed, on the ground that the shortness of the +notice would not allow time for procuring the attendance of the +women of the village to fill the galleries, and by their sympathy +to influence the determination of the members of the Legislature +who might be present. Accordingly they waited a little longer, +gave sufficient notice, got the gallery full of ladies, and +ultimately got the $20,000 appropriation, too. But always when +the women had given their sympathy and began to demand some in +return, it was found out that they were very "dependent" +creatures, and that, if they persisted in it, they would forfeit +the "protection" of the men; and this in the face of the fact, +that when politicians wanted votes and clergymen wanted money, +their invariable practice was to appeal to the women!</p> + +<p>The last time he had considered woman's rights he was in a place +where man's rights needed to be defended—it was in Kansas. No +man could go to Kansas and see what woman had done there, and +come back and see the little men who squeak and shout on +platforms in behalf of Kansas, and then turn to deride and +despise women, without a feeling of disgust. He would like to +place some of these parlor orators and dainty platform speakers +where the women of Kansas had stood, and suffered, and acted. He +saw, while in Kansas, a New York woman<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a>—whose story they +might remember in the newspapers—how she hospitably prepared, in +one day, three dinners for the marauders who were hovering around +her house, and in their starvation became respectful at last, and +asked her for the hospitality they did not then quite dare to +enforce; and how they ate her dinner and abused her husband, +until the good woman could stand it no longer, and at last opened +her lips and gave them a piece of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_643" id="Page_643">[Pg 643]</a></span> her mind. He saw that woman. +She had lived for weeks together in the second story of a log +hut, with the windows of the lower story boarded up, so that the +inmates had to climb in by a ladder. She was surrounded by +pro-slavery camps; and while her husband was in the army, she was +left alone. The house had been visited again and again, and +plundered. The wretches would come at night, discharge their +rifles, and howl like demons. Her little girl, a nervous child, +had sickened and died from sheer fright. But still, after the +death of that child, the mother lived on, and still gave +hospitality to free-soil men, and still defended the property of +her husband by her presence. At last the marauders burned her +house over her head, and she retreated for a time. The speaker +saw her when she was on her way back to that homestead, to +rebuild the house which she had seen once reduced to ashes by the +enemy; and she said that if her husband was killed there in +Kansas, she should preempt that claim, and defend the property +for her children.</p> + +<p>He saw another woman, a girl of twenty. He visited a mill which +had been burnt by Missourians, where piles of sawdust were still +in flames before his eyes, and there he met her; and when he +asked to whom that house belonged, she said to her father. And +when he inquired about her adventures in connection with that +burning house, this was the story. Twenty-eight hundred +Missourians were encamped around that house the morning after +they had burned it. The girl had fled with her mother a mile off, +but had come back to see if she could save any of the property. +She walked into the midst of the crowd, and found a man she had +previously known seated upon her favorite horse. Said she, "That +is my horse; get off." He laughed at her. She repeated her +demand. He loaded her with curses and insults. She turned to the +bystanders—the herd of ruffians who had burned her father's +house—and said: "This is my horse; make that man get off." Those +fellows obeyed her; they shrank before that heroic girl, and made +their companion dismount. She mounted the horse and rode off. +When she had gone about half a mile, she heard a trampling of +horses' hoofs behind her. The thief, mounted on a fleeter horse, +was riding after her. He overtook her, and reining his horse in +front of her, he seized hers by the bridle, and commanded her to +let go. She held on. Said he, "Let go, or it will be the worse +for you." She still held on. He took out his bowie-knife, and +drew it across her hand, so that she could feel the sharpness of +the edge. Said he, "If you don't let go, I will cut your hand +off." Said she, "Cut if you dare." He cut the rope close to her +hand, and took the bridle from her. It was useless to resist any +longer, so she slipped off and walked away. But it was not ten +minutes before she again heard trampling behind, and as she +looked around, she saw two companions of this miscreant—two men +less utterly villainous than he—bringing back her horse. Moved +by her heroism, they had compelled him again to give up the +horse, had brought it back to her, and she owns it now.</p> + +<p>That was what great emergencies made out of woman. That girl had +splendid physical proportions, and though some accident had +deprived her of her left arm, she had a right arm, however, which +was worth a good many. She had one arm, and the editor of <i>The +New York Times</i>, he supposed, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_644" id="Page_644">[Pg 644]</a></span> two. He was not much +accustomed to seeking defence of anybody, but he must say that, +if he ever did get into difficulty as a Woman's Rights man, and +had to choose between the protection of the one arm of that girl +in Kansas, and the two of the New York editor, he thought his +first choice would not be the Lieutenant-Governor. Seeing the +heroism of the women of Kansas, he told the men of Lawrence, that +when the time came for them to assert their rights, he hoped they +would not imitate the border ruffians of the Eastern States, who +asserted rights for man, and denied them to woman.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Higginson then reported the following resolution from the Business +Committee:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That the warm sympathies of this Convention are +respectfully offered to those noble women in England, who are +struggling against wrongs even greater than those of American +women, but the same in kind; and we trust that they will follow +on their demands in logical consistency, until they comprise the +full claim for the equality of the sexes before the law.</p> + +<p>This resolution referred, as some of them knew, to the recent +action of some of the noblest women in England, in behalf of +juster rights of property and a larger construction of human +rights than had hitherto prevailed there. The list included a few +of the very noblest of the women who had helped to make England's +name glorious by their deeds in literature and in art. It +included Mrs. Norton, to whom Wendell Phillips had referred, as a +living proof of the intellectual greatness of woman; she had a +husband who, after blasting her life by an infamous charge +against her, which he confessed to his counsel he did not +believe, now lived on the earnings of the brains of his wife. It +included, also, Mrs. Somerville, a woman who had forever +vindicated the scientific genius of her sex, by labors that +caused the wonder and admiration of scientific men; a woman of +whom it is said, that she is in all respects true to her sex, +because while studying the motions of the heavenly bodies, she +does not forget the motion of the tea-cups around her own table, +and is as exquisite a housekeeper, as she is wise and +accomplished as a student. It included also Harriet Martineau, +that woman who, perhaps more than any other person in this age, +had contributed to place the last half century in Europe in a +clear light, by her admirable History, and shown in her treatise +on Political Economy, a grasp and clearness which few men attain. +It included also the name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that +woman of rarest genius, of whom her husband, himself the greatest +of England's living poets, had said that his wife's heart, which +few knew, was greater than her intellect, which everybody knew; a +woman whose inspiration had drawn from that husband, in the +closing poem of his latest volume, the very highest strain which +modern English poetry had struck, and the noblest utterance of +emotion that ever man produced toward woman, in the speaker's +judgment, since the world began. It also included Mary Howitt, +whose beautiful union with her husband is a proof of what true +marriage will be, when man and woman are equals, and whose genius +had brought forth the wonderful powers of another woman whom we +may fearlessly claim as a co-laborer, Frederica Bremer. These +were the women of England to whom the resolution referred; women +who had taken the first step in that movement, of which the full +enfranchisement of woman will be the last.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_645" id="Page_645">[Pg 645]</a></span></p> + +<p>He could not quite accept the opinion by Mrs. Jones in her +admirable essay in regard to the superior education of the women +of England. The women of England, as he took it, did not equal +the women of America in their average education, although they +did surpass them in that physical vigor of constitution which, in +the end, gave greater power of action and thought. Whilst the +English woman was, by the necessity of the case, taught more of +the modern languages, she was not so commonly taught either the +ancient languages or the mathematics, and had not, therefore, the +same amount of mental training. In England, too, this Woman's +Rights movement was met by more serious obstacles. It had to +encounter all the thunders of <i>The Thunderer</i>—all the terrors of +<i>The Times</i>—whilst here it had to undergo the very diluted +thunders of <i>The Times the Little</i>. A recent traveler has +remarked that he could distinguish the Massachusetts women from +the women of any other State—not because they spoke through +their nose, or sung psalms, but because they had "views." Every +woman had her "views" upon every subject. It was true that the +English women had superb frames, grand muscles, fine energies, +that they spoke two or three languages, but then they usually +didn't have any "views"; and he thanked God that he lived in a +State where women had them.</p> + +<p>He had spoken for woman and to woman, because he was a man. He +did not dare, as a Republican voter, to throw his vote with one +hand, without doing something for Woman's Rights with the other. +Men and women were one before God, and this union can not be +perfect until their equality be recognized. So long as woman is +cut off from education, man is deprived of his just education. So +long as woman is crushed into a slave, so long will man be +narrowed into a despot. Without this movement, the political +conventions of the present day would only prove to posterity that +the nation was half civilized; but now future historians will +record that in 1856, New York had not only her caucuses and her +ballot-boxes, but her Woman's Rights Convention also.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rose wished to remark, in reference to the resolution +offered by Mr. Higginson, that English women, to her knowledge, +were very active in forwarding the Woman's Rights movement +throughout Great Britain. And not only English women, but young +and noble English girls—girls, who were too timid to take part +publicly in the movement, but who were untiring and indefatigable +in making converts and enlisting aid. There was Miss Smith, Miss +Fox, the daughter of the celebrated W. J. Fox, the eloquent +lecturer and member of Parliament for Oldham, Miss Parkes, and +others. They had devoted themselves to the great work, which was +more difficult in that country than this. They had no declaration +of independence to appeal to, declaring that all men were created +equal, and endowed with the incalculable right to life, liberty, +and the pursuit of happiness. They had no such standard to appeal +to there, because men there were not recognized as free. Banking +interests, manufacturing interests, land monopolies, and +monopolies of every other kind were represented in England, but +not men. The principle of universal suffrage had not yet obtained +in England, and hence the greater difficulties that woman had to +encounter there.</p> + +<p>Another obstacle was the division of the people into classes and +castes. No movement could make headway in England unless it was +commenced among what are termed the higher classes. Every +petition to Parliament must first have some names that have a +title attached to them before it can obtain other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_646" id="Page_646">[Pg 646]</a></span> signatures. +The thinking portion of the middle classes were kept silent to a +great extent, because of their utter inability to do anything +unless it was taken up and supported by the higher classes. But +this state of things would not continue long; there was "a good +time coming" there as well as here. Signatures by thousands had +been obtained to the Woman's Petition, and she presumed by the +time it was presented to Parliament it would contain tens of +thousands of names.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> then offered the following resolution from the +Committee:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That we also present our assurances of respect +and sympathy to the supporters of the cause of women in +Paris, the worthy successors of Pauline Roland and Jeanne +Deroine, who, in the face of imperial despotism, dare to +tell the truth.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In commenting on this resolution, Mrs. Rose remarked that if the +difficulties surrounding English women who advocated an +amelioration of woman's condition were great, how much greater +were those which surrounded the French women, owing to the blight +of despotism in that country. They could write their thoughts, +but their writings could not be published in France. They had to +send them to the one State in Italy which was not crushed by dark +and bitter despotism. That bright spot is Sardinia. The works of +the noble French women had to be sent to Turin, printed there, +and sent back to Paris for private, secret distribution. And when +these women met in consultation, they had to watch the doors and +windows, to see that all was secure. She knew many of them, but +dared not mention their names, for fear they might be borne +across the Atlantic, and lead to their oppression and +proscription. The noblest thoughts that had ever been uttered in +France were by women, not only before the Revolution, but down to +the present day. Madame Roland was imprisoned for uttering the +truth, in consequence of which imprisonment she lost her arm. +Jeanne Deroine was exiled, and now resides in London, where she +supports herself, two daughters and son. She was teaching them +herself, because she had no means to pay for their education. She +filled their minds with noble thoughts and feelings, even to the +very sacrifice of themselves for the benefit of the race, and +more especially for the elevation of woman, without which she +feels convinced that the elevation of man can never be +accomplished.</p> + +<p>But while the names of a few such noble women were made public, +hundreds, nay, thousands, who had done as much, and even more +than these, were in obscurity. They were constantly watching to +find what was done in America. And there was one thing which +characterized these French women, and that was, the entire +absence of jealousy and envy of the talents and virtues of +others. Wherever they see a man or woman of intellect or virtue, +they recognize them as a brother or sister; and they never ask +from whom a great thought or a virtuous action comes, but, is it +good, is it noble? It seemed to her that the character of the +French women was the very essence of human nobility. They are +ready to welcome, with heart and hand, every reformer, without +stopping to inquire whether he is English, American, German, or +Turk. But poor France was oppressed as she never was before. The +usurper that now disgraces the throne, as well as the name he +bears, does not allow the free utterance of a single free +thought. Men and women are taken up privately and imprisoned, and +no newspaper dares to publish any account of it.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_647" id="Page_647">[Pg 647]</a></span></p> + +<p>When Mrs. Rose had concluded, a young gentleman in the rear of the +hall rose from his seat, and desired to make a few remarks. We +subsequently understood he was from Virginia, and that his name was +Leftwich, a theological student. He asked whether the claims of woman, +which had been stated and advocated in the Convention, were founded on +Nature or Revelation? He wished Mr. Higginson would enlighten him and +several of his friends on that subject.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Rev. Mr. <span class="smcap">Higginson</span> said that he was very glad that it was not a +place for theological discussion. He was requested to answer the +query whether the claims of woman, as stated in this Convention, +were founded in Nature or Revelation. To define either what +Nature or Revelation was, would involve metaphysical argument and +abstract considerations that would take up the entire day. The +basis of the movement was not due to this or that creed. Every +Woman's Rights man or woman does his or her own thinking. He (the +speaker) did his own. Included in the movement were men and women +of all sects. There was Wendell Phillips, who thought himself a +strict Calvinist; there were on the other hand professed atheists +among them, and there were, he believed, Roman Catholics, so that +it would be, in the highest degree, presumptuous for any one man +to speak on that peculiar topic. Antoinette L. Brown had formed +her idea of Woman's Rights from the Bible, and some of her +friends thought that she was wasting her time in writing a +treatise on Woman's Rights, deduced from Scripture. She was an +orthodox Congregational minister, ordained in a Methodist +meeting-house, while a Baptist minister preached the ordination +sermon. There were some of the Woman's Rights friends who +believed that we could get support from the Bible, and some who +believed we could not, and who did not care whether we can or +not. There were, also, those who simply believed that God made +man and woman, and knew what He was about when He made +them—giving them rights founded on the eternal laws of nature. +It was upon these laws of nature that he (Mr. H.) founded his +Woman's Rights doctrines. If there was any book or teacher in the +world which contradicted them, he was sorry for that book and for +that teacher. Was the gentleman answered?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Gentleman From Virginia</span> rose, in his place, in the rear of +the building, and replied that he was not answered. Although +earnestly invited to come upon the platform and address the +audience, he declined to do so. His remarks, in consequence, were +inaudible to about one-half the audience. He said it seemed to +him that there was an inconsistency and an antagonism between +theology and Mr. Higginson's views, as expressed by himself. The +gentleman had contradicted himself. He refused to treat the +question on the ground of revelation, and then declared that the +claim of Woman's Rights was founded on the fundamental laws of +God and nature. Here he took issue with Mr. H. The test of the +naturalness of a claim was its universality. The principles upon +which it was based must be found wherever man was found, and must +have existed through all time and under every condition of life. +What was found everywhere under all circumstances was natural. +This Woman's Rights claim was not found everywhere even in this +country, let alone others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_648" id="Page_648">[Pg 648]</a></span> He knew many enlightened and refined +districts which had never heard the principles of this society, +much less felt them. They were not popular anywhere in the age in +which they were inaugurated. Therefore they were not founded in +nature, and the claim of naturalism must fall to the ground. The +taste for the beautiful, and the love of right, were innate +faculties of the mind, because they existed everywhere; not so +with the recognition of the claim of Woman's Rights. Again, the +claim was not based on revelation, which he would prove in this +way: Revelation is never inconsistent with itself. The claim for +woman of the right to vote, inasmuch as she would of necessity +vote as she pleased, and therefore sometimes contrary to her +husband, involved a disobedience of her husband, which was +directly antagonistic to the injunction of the Scriptures +requiring wives to obey their husbands.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">An elderly Quaker Lady</span> in the body of the audience rose, and told +the gentleman from the Old Dominion that if he wished to do any +good he must come on the platform where he could be heard. The +gentleman declined.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> said that men had rights as well as women, and she +would not insist on the gentleman coming to the platform if he +chose to remain where he was, but it would be more convenient if +he would come.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Gentleman from Virginia</span> still declined, and proceeded to +quote Scripture against the Woman's Rights movement.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Quaker Lady</span> again started up, and told him he had got hold of +the letter of the Bible, but not the spirit.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> desired that each speaker would take his or her turn, +"in due order, so that all might be edified."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Gentleman from Virginia</span> proceeded. Referring to a remark of +Mr. Phillips on the preceding evening, in connection with a +quotation from Tacitus, "that this movement was Paul against the +Anglo-Saxon blood," he stood by the apostle to the Gentiles, and +Mr. Phillips might stand by the corrupted Saxon blood.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Gentleman</span> rose and requested him to go upon the platform, as +half the audience were breaking their necks by trying to listen +to him. Still the gentleman declined.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Virginian</span> argued that woman was not fitted for the pulpit, +the rostrum, or the law court, because her voice was not powerful +enough. God gave her a mild, sweet voice, fitted for the parlor +and the chamber, for the places for which He had designed her. +God has not given her a constitution to sustain fatigue, to +endure as man endures, to brave the dangers which man can brave. +She was too frail, too slender—too delicate a flower for rough +blasts and tempests. In her whole physical organization there was +proof that she was not capable of what man was capable. Hers was +a more beautiful mission than man's—a pure atmosphere was hers +to breathe. Surrounded by all gentle influences, let her be +content with the holy and beautiful position assigned to her by +her Maker. He did not rise to make a speech. He was urged into it +by the desultory, erratic, shallow, superficial reasonings of the +gentleman who in one breath invited them to free discussion, and +in the next defamed and scandalized the editor of <i>The Times</i>, +because he took the liberty to discuss this question freely in +his paper.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Higginson</span> came forward promptly to reply. He thanked the +gentleman for his speech. Such speeches were just what the +Convention wanted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_649" id="Page_649">[Pg 649]</a></span> He was glad to hear from the applause which +followed the gentleman's remarks, that there was a large number +of persons present who were opposed to the views of the +Convention. It was of little use talking to friends who already +agreed with you, but it was always of advantage to talk to +opponents, whom you might hope to convert. He was glad that those +who differed with them were there, because it showed that the +question was one of interest, and was beginning to excite those +who probably had bestowed but little thought on it before. He did +not think the gentleman could have meant what he said when he +accused him of slander. He did not mean to slander anybody. And +he did not think he quite meant what he said about his erratic +and shallow reasonings. He would appeal to all if he had not +treated the gentleman with courtesy. He thought he had answered +the gentleman's inquiry, when in reply to the question whether he +founded this claim on nature or on revelation, he said that he +personally founded it on nature. If there was in the compass of +the English language any simpler way of answering the question +than that he did not know it. The gentleman, from the scope of +his remarks, evinced a considerable love for metaphysical +theology. His reasoning appeared to be a little dim; perhaps it +was for want of comprehension on his part. He liked to plant +himself on the fundamental principles of human nature, and work +out his opinions from them.</p> + +<p>In reply to the gentleman's reasoning about the universality of a +thing being a test of its naturalness, he could say that there +were a good many races who did not know that two and two make +four. According to the gentleman's idea of natural laws, +therefore, it was not natural that two and two should make four. +But it had always been a question among metaphysicians, which was +really the most natural condition for man—the savage or the +civilized state? His own opinion was that the state of highest +cultivation was the most natural state of man. He tried to +develop his own nature in that way, and one of the consequences +of that development was the conviction that two and two made +four; while another was the conviction that his wife had as much +right to determine her sphere in life for herself as he had for +himself. And having come to that conviction, he should endeavor +to carry it out, and he hoped by the time the young gentleman +came to have a wife, he would be converted to that principle.</p> + +<p>In reference to his attack on the editor of <i>The Daily Times</i> for +the article on the Woman's Convention, which had appeared in the +edition of the previous day, he remarked that he had read that +article without any particular reverence for its author. He knew +the quarter from which it came. There was not a man in New York +who better understood on which side his bread is buttered than +the editor of <i>The Daily Times</i>. That gentleman always wished +people to understand that his journal was <i>The Times</i>, and was +not <i>The Tribune</i>, and never failed to avail himself of the +Woman's Rights movement as giving him such an opportunity. Have +you ever seen a little boy running along the street, and +carefully dodging between two big boys? If you have, that was the +editor of <i>The Times</i> between Greeley and Bennett. <i>The Times</i> +seeks to be a journal and nothing else. I will always say of it, +continued the speaker, that the <i>reports</i> in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_650" id="Page_650">[Pg 650]</a></span> <i>The Times</i> are +very perfect and very excellent. I do not mean any disrespect to +the other reporters present when I say that the report of +yesterday's proceedings of this Convention, published in this +morning's <i>Times</i>, was fuller and far more perfect than the +report of any other paper. And so it always is with the reports +of <i>The Times</i>. They are as full, as its criticisms on moral +subjects are empty.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span> vacated the chair to address the meeting. She was more +than glad, for the sake of the cause, that this discussion had +arisen. She was glad that the question had been asked, whether +this claim was based on nature or on revelation. Many were asking +the same question, and it was proper that it should be answered. +If we were living in New Zealand where there is no revelation and +nobody has ever heard of one, there would yet be an everlasting +truth or falsehood on this question of woman's rights, and the +inhabitants of that island would settle it in some way, without +revelation. The true test of every question is its own merits. +What is true will remain. What is false will perish like the +leaves of autumn when they have served their turn.</p> + +<p>But in regard to this question of Nature and Revelation, we found +our claim on both. By Revelation I suppose the gentleman means +Scripture. I find it there, "He who spake as never man spake" +held up before us all radiant with God's own sunlight the great +truth, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, +do ye even so to them"; and that revelation I take as the +foundation of our claim, and tell the gentleman who takes issue +with us, that if he would not take the position of woman, denied +right of access to our colleges, deprived of the right of +property, compelled to pay taxes, to obey laws that he never had +a voice in making, and be defrauded of the children of his love, +then, according to the revelation which he believes in, he must +not be thus unjust to me.</p> + +<p>The gentleman says he believes in Paul. So do I. When Paul +declares that there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor +free, male nor female in Christ, I believe he meant what he said. +The gentleman says he believes in Paul more than in the +Anglo-Saxon blood. I believe in both. But when Paul tells us to +"submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake," +and to "fear God and honor the king," the heavy tread of the +Anglo-Saxon blood walks over the head of Paul and sweeps away +from this republic the possibility of a king. And the gentleman +himself, I presume, would not assent to the sway of a crowned +monarch, Paul to the contrary, notwithstanding. Just as the +people have outgrown the injunction of Paul in regard to a king, +so have the wives his direction to submit themselves to their +husbands. The gentleman intimates that wives have no right to +vote against their husbands, because the Scriptures command +submission, and he fears that it would cause trouble at home if +they were to do so. Let me give him the reply of an old lady, +gray with the years which bring experience and wisdom. She said +that when men wanted to get their fellow-men to vote in the way +they desire, they take especial pains to please them, they smile +upon them, ask if their wives and children are well, and are +exceedingly kind. They do not expect to win their vote by +quarreling with them—that would be absurd. In the same way, if a +man wanted his wife to vote for his candidate he will be sure to +employ conciliatory means.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_651" id="Page_651">[Pg 651]</a></span></p> + +<p>The golden rule settles this whole question. We claim it as ours, +and whatever is found in the Bible contradictory to it, never +came from God. If men quote other texts in conflict with this, it +is their business, not mine, to make them harmonize. I did not +quite understand the gentleman's definition of what is natural. +But this I do know, that when God made the human soul and gave it +certain capacities, He meant these capacities should be +exercised. The wing of the bird indicates its right to fly; and +the fin of the fish the right to swim. So in human beings, the +existence of a power, presupposes the right to its use, subject +to the law of benevolence. The gentleman says the voice of woman +can not be heard. I am not aware that the audience finds any +difficulty in hearing us from this platform. All Europe and +America have listened to the voice of Madam Rachel and Jenny +Lind. The capacity to speak indicates the right to do so, and the +noblest, highest, and best thing that any one can accomplish, is +what that person ought to do, and what God holds him or her +accountable for doing, nor should we be deterred by the senseless +cry, "It is not our proper sphere."</p> + +<p>As regards woman's voting, I read a letter from a lady traveling +in the British provinces, who says that by a provincial law of +Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, women were actually voters for +members of Parliament; and still the seasons come and go, +children are born, and fish flock to that shore. The voting there +is <i>viva voce</i>. In Canada it is well known that women vote on the +question of schools. A friend told me when the law was first +passed giving women who owned a certain amount of property, or +who paid a given rental, a right to vote, he went trembling to +the polls to see the result. The first woman who came was a large +property holder in Toronto; with marked respect the crowd gave +way as she advanced. She spoke her vote and walked quietly away, +sheltered by her womanhood. It was all the protection she needed. +In face of all the arguments in favor of the incapacity of woman +to be associated in government, stood the fact that women had sat +on thrones and governed as successfully as men. England owes more +to Queen Elizabeth than to any other sovereign except Alfred the +Great. We must not always be looking for precedents. New ideas +are born and old ones die. Ideas that have prevailed a thousand +years have been at last exploded. Every new truth has its +birth-place in a manger, lives thirty years, is crucified, and +then deified. Columbus argued through long years that there must +be a western world. All Europe laughed at him. Five crowned heads +rejected him, and it was a woman at last who sold her jewels and +fitted out his ships. So, too, the first idea of applying steam +to machinery was met with the world's derision. But its triumphs +are recognized now. What we need is to open our minds wide and +give hospitality to every new thought, and prove its truth.</p> + +<p>I want to say a word upon the resolutions. The present time, just +after a presidential election, is most appropriate to consider +woman's demand for suffrage. The Republican party claims +especially to represent the principles of freedom, and during the +last campaign has been calling upon women for help. One of the +leaders of that party went to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and said he +wanted her help in this campaign; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_652" id="Page_652">[Pg 652]</a></span> before she told me what +answer she made, she asked me how I would have felt if the same +had been asked of me. I told her I should have felt as Samson did +when the Philistines put out his eyes, and then asked that he +should make merriment for them. The Republican party are a part +of those who compel us to obey laws we never had a voice in +making—to pay taxes without our consent; and when we ask for our +political and legal rights, it laughs in our face, and only says: +"Help <i>us</i> to places of power and emolument, and <i>we</i> will rule +over you." I know there are men in the Republican party who, like +our friend Mr. Higginson, take a higher stand, and are ready to +recognize woman as a co-sovereign; but they are the exceptions. +There is but one party—that of Gerrit Smith—that makes the same +claim for woman that it does for man. But while the Republican +and Democratic parties deny our political existence, they must +not expect that we shall respond to their calls for aid.</p> + +<p>Madame de Staël said to Bonaparte, when asked why she meddled +with politics: "Sire, when women have their heads cut off, it is +but just they should know the reason." Whatever political +influence springs into being, woman is affected by it. We have +the same rights to guard that men have; we shall therefore insist +upon our claims. We shall go to your meetings, and by and by we +shall meet with the same success that the Roman women did, who +claimed the repeal of the Appian law. War had emptied the +treasury, and it was still necessary to carry it on; women were +required to give up their jewels, their carriages, etc. But by +and by, when the war was over, they wished to resume their old +privileges. They got up a petition for the repeal of the law; and +when the senators went to their places, they found every avenue +to the forum thronged by women, who said to them as they passed, +"Do us justice." And notwithstanding Cato, the Censor, was +against them, affirming that men must have failed in their duty +or women would not be clamorous for their rights, yet the +obnoxious law was repealed.</p> + +<p>In that story of Mr. Higginson's, of the heroic woman in Kansas +whose left arm was cut off, there is a lesson for us to learn. I +tell you, ladies, though we have our left hand cut off by unjust +laws and customs, we have yet the right hand left; and when we +once demand the ballot with as much firmness as that Kansas +daughter did her horse, believe me, it will not be in the power +of men to withhold it—even the border ruffians among them will +hasten to restore it. After all, the fault is our own. We have +sat to</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Suckle fools, and chronicle small beer;"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>and, in inglorious ease, have forgotten that we are integral +parts in the fabric of human society—that all that interests the +race, interests us. We have never once, as a body, claimed the +practical application of the principles of our government. It is +our own fault. Let it be so no longer. Let us say to men: +"Government is just only when it obtains the consent of the +governed": we are governed, <i>surrender to us our ballot</i>. If they +deride, still answer: Surrender our ballot! <i>and they will give +it up</i>. "It is not in our stars that we are underlings, but in +ourselves." Woman has sat, like Mordecai at the king's gate, +hoping that her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_653" id="Page_653">[Pg 653]</a></span> silent presence would bring justice; but justice +has not come. The world has talked of universal suffrage; but it +has made it universal only to man. It is time we spoke and acted. +It is time we gave man faith in woman—and, still more, woman +faith in herself. It is time both men and women knew that +whatever has been achieved by woman in the realm of mind or +matter, has been achieved by right womanly women. Let us then +work, and continue to work, until the world shall assent to our +right to do whatever the capacities God has given us enable us to +do.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span> rose and said that several gentlemen had handed +her contributions, one $40, another $25. She trusted that all New +York men and women would find they had something more to do than +listen to speeches.</p> + + +<p class="heading">LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>November 22, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Friend</span>:—You are promised to be present and speak at the +approaching "Woman's Rights Convention." I, too, mean to attend +its deliberations, or some portion thereof, but not to take part +in them. For I find this evil apparently inseparable from all +Radical gatherings: a very large and influential portion of the +press, including, I grieve to say, religious as well as secular +journals, are prone and eager to expose to odium those whom they +would undermine and destroy, by attributing to them, not the +sentiments they have personally expressed, but those of others +with whom they are or have been associated in some reformatory +movement. He, then, who appears as a speaker at a Woman's Rights +Convention is made responsible for whatever may be uttered at +such Convention—no matter by whom—which is most likely to +excite popular prejudice and arouse popular hostility. I have +borne a good share of this unfairly exalted and unjust odium, +with regard to the dietetic, anti-slavery, and social reforms +suggested in our day, and shall bear on as patiently as I may; +but I grow older, and do not confront the world on a fresh issue +with so light a heart, so careless a defiance, as I might have +done twenty years ago. Allow me, then, through you, to say what I +think of the woman's rights movement, its objects, incitements, +and limitations. If I may thus attain perspicuity, I can bear the +imputation of egotism.</p> + +<p>1. I deem the intellectual, like the physical capacities of women +unequal in the average to those of men; but I perceive no reason +in this natural diversity for a factitious and superinduced legal +inequality. On the contrary, it seems to me that the fact of a +natural and marked discrepancy in the average mental as well as +muscular powers of men and women ought to allay any apprehensions +that the latter, in the absence of legal interdicts and +circumscriptions, would usurp the functions and privileges of the +former.</p> + +<p>2. I believe the range of employment for woman, in our age and +country, far too restricted, and the average recompense of her +labor, consequently far less than it should be. In saying this, I +do not intimate a doubt that the best possible employment for +most women is to be found in the care and management of their own +households respectively, with the rearing and training of their +children. But many women, including<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_654" id="Page_654">[Pg 654]</a></span> some of the most noble and +estimable, are never called to preside over households; while +some of the called are impelled to decline the invitation. In +point of fact, then, there is and always will be a large +proportion of the gentler sex who are, at least temporarily, +required to earn their own subsistence, and vindicate their own +usefulness in some other capacity than that of the loved and +honored wife and mother. The maiden or widow, blessed with +opulence, ought to be insured against the worse calamities of a +reverse of fortune, by the mastery of some handicraft or +industrial avocation; she ought to lead a life of persistent and +efficient industry, as the fulfillment of a universal duty; while +her unportioned sister must do this or grovel in degrading +idleness and dependence on a father's or brother's overtaxed +energies, looking to marriage as her only chance of escape +therefrom. For man's sake, no less than woman's, it is eminently +desirable that that large portion of our women, who are not +absorbed in domestic cares, should be attracted and stimulated to +industry by a wider range of pursuits, and a consequent increase +of recompense. I deem it at once unjust and—like all +injustice—impolitic, that a brother and sister, hired by the +same farmer, the one to aid him in his own round of labor, the +other to assist his wife in hers, should be paid, the one twelve +to twenty, the other but four to six dollars per month. The +difference in their wages should be no greater than in their +physical and mental ability. Still more glaring is this +discrepancy, when the two are employed as teachers, and, though +of equal efficiency, the one is paid five hundred dollars per +annum, the other but two, or in that proportion, merely because +the former is a man and the latter a woman. While such +disparities exist, right here in this metropolis of American +civilization and Christianity, it is in vain that Conservatism +stops its ears and raises its eyebrows at the announcement of a +Woman's Rights Convention.</p> + +<p>3. Regarding marriage as the most important, most sacred, and +tender of human relations, and deeming it irrevocable, save by +death, it seems to me essential that woman should be proffered +such a range of employments, with such adequate recompense, as to +enable her at all times to support herself in honored and +virtuous independence, so that marriage shall be accepted by her +at the dictates of love, and not of hunger. Much might be urged +on this point, but I choose simply to commend it to the +consideration of others.</p> + +<p>4. As to woman's voting or holding office, I defer implicitly to +herself. If the women of this or any other country believe their +rights would be better secured and their happiness promoted by +the assumption on their part of the political franchises and +responsibilities of men, I, a Republican in principle from +conviction, shall certainly interpose no objection. I perceive +what seem to be serious practical difficulties in the way of +realizing such assumption; but these are difficulties, not for +me, but for them. I deem it unjust that men should be so +constantly and unqualifiedly impeached as denying rights to woman +which the great majority of women seem quite as reluctant to +claim as men are to concede. I apprehend that whenever women +shall generally and earnestly desire an equality of political +franchises with men, they will meet with little impediment from +the latter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_655" id="Page_655">[Pg 655]</a></span></p> + +<p>5. I can not share at all in the apprehensions of those who are +alarmed at the Woman's Rights agitation, lest it should result in +the unsexing of woman, or her general deflection from her proper +sphere. On the contrary, I feel sure that the freest inquiry and +discussion will only result in a clearer and truer appreciation +of woman's proper position, and a more general and rigid +adherence thereto. "Let there be light!" for this is an +indispensable condition of all true and healthy growth. Let all +convictions find free utterance—all grievances be stated and +considered. In the range of my observation, I have found those +women who were conscious of defects in the present legal and +social position of their sex among the most zealous, faithful, +and efficient in the discharge of their household and parental +duties. I feel confident that a general discussion of the subject +of Woman's Rights will result in a more general recognition and +cheerful performance of woman's appropriate duties.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Horace Greeley.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Very truly yours,</p> + +<p class="ltr-to ltr-clear">Rev. <span class="sc">Samuel J. May</span>.</p> + + +<p class="heading">LETTER FROM HON. WILLIAM HAY, OF SARATOGA SPRINGS.</p> + +<p>I acknowledge, with much pleasure, the receipt of a printed +circular, calling for the Seventh Woman's Rights Annual +Convention. I also acknowledge, with increased pleasure, and +perhaps with more pride than becomes me, the accompanying +invitation to attend that Convention, and take part in its +proceedings. I like this word, because it implies progress.</p> + +<p>Pre-engagement will prevent my personal attendance at the +Broadway Tabernacle, but, be assured, my heart shall be there, +with all its desires and hopes for the future of humanity; +because I am convinced that until the individual and social +rights of our whole race, without distinction of caste or sex, +shall have been universally recognized, the tyrannies of earth +will not cease from oppressing it.</p> + +<p>I wish that every woman in the United States could be at New +York, throughout the continuance of your Convention, where each +might see for herself, in Mrs. Lucretia Mott, what woman may be, +and should be, and must be, before her sex can attain, +individually and socially, "that equal station to which the laws +of Nature and of Nature's God entitle" her. For physical and +mental improvement of man's condition, according to his +birthright and educational capacity, there must be, in America, +more Marys, the mothers of Washingtons.</p> + +<p>The great political and legal reform announced in your circular, +contemplating complete development of the entire human race, is +already operating, sympathetically and auspiciously, in Europe, +upon preeminent minds, like that of Lord Brougham, and may +favorably react, in practical adoption here, of Jefferson's +elementary truth (almost a self-evident proposition, and yet +treated as theory), that government derives its just powers from +suffrage-consent of all (not half) of the governed. Partial +consent (especially by and to a moiety of mankind, arrogantly +claiming, like Louis XIV., to be the State) can confer only +unjust power, which Heaven's higher law of liberty, equality, and +justice never sanctioned.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_656" id="Page_656">[Pg 656]</a></span></p> + +<p>Your Convention is most opportune, for this Continent is +threatened with permanent and peculiar danger, produced by the +feudal condition of women. I allude to the increasing curse of +Mormonism, a consequence of woman's legalized inferiority or +nonentity. With power from your local situation and undoubted +sphere, to influence, for all time, the destiny of every +civilized country, the members of your Convention, conscious of +their duty, will never flinch from the responsibility of their +position. It requires an unequivocal and uncompromising claim for +perfect equality of rights in every department of manual and +machine labor, of thought, of speech, of government, of society, +and of life itself. Indeed, testamentary provision for assertion +of that claim, by those few fortunate women who have, like Mrs. +Blandina Dudley<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a>, wealth to bestow, should become a ruling +principle, instead of that passion, so strong in death, for +posthumous pulpit and newspaper applause, which Protestantism has +sagaciously substituted in lieu of the saving ordinances of the +Roman Catholic Church.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Respectfully yours,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">William Hay.</p> + + +<p class="heading">LETTER FROM FRANCES D. GAGE</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">St. Louis</span>, <i>November 19, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Lucy Stone</span>:—Most earnestly did I desire to attend this +Seventh National Convention, more especially as I felt that I +should be the only representative from the west side of the great +Father of Waters. But it is impossible for me to remove the +barriers just now opposed to so long a journey and absence from +home. There is much thought in the free States of the great +West—much less of conservatism and rigid adherence to the +old-time customs of law and theology among the masses, than in +the East. Thousands are becoming ready to be baptized into a new +faith, a broader and holier recognition of the rights of +humanity. The harvest-fields are ripening for the reapers.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The gloomy night is breaking—<br /></span> +<span class="i1">E'en now the sunbeams rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With a bright and cheering radiance<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On the hill-tops of the West;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mists are slowly rising<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From the valley and the plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a spirit is awaking<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That shall never sleep again.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>But since I can not meet you in your councils, I will endeavor to +allay the disappointment by striving to reach with my pen some of +the sunset homes in the far West, and endeavor to arouse woman +there to her duties and responsibilities, that she may sympathize +more fully with her Eastern sisters, who caught the first glow of +the sunrise hour of our great reform movement. With sincere and +earnest wishes for your advancement in right and truth,</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Frances D. Gage.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">I am respectfully yours,</p> + +<p class="ltr-clear">Mr. <span class="smcap">Higginson</span> was then introduced. Mrs. President, and Ladies and +Gentlemen: I think, as perhaps some of you do, that a +disproportionately large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_657" id="Page_657">[Pg 657]</a></span> portion of the time of the meeting +to-day has been taken up by the speeches of men; therefore I do +not intend that this man's speech shall be a very long one. I +remember a certain sermon, of which it was said it had nothing +good in it except its subject and its shortness. My speech is +going to be like that sermon. But there is one great advantage +which men, enjoy in speaking on a Woman's Rights platform: they +can not help doing good to the movement, no matter how they +speak; for if a man speaks well, of course he helps it by his +speech; and if he speaks ill on the subject, he still helps it, +because there are women about him who won't speak ill, and the +comparison is useful.</p> + +<p>I wish to take up a point which, as a man, I am entitled to claim +should have more prominence given it than has yet been the case; +a point touched upon by me previously, in something I said +yesterday, which some of you thought was not correct; and a point +touched upon by Wendell Phillips this afternoon. I mean the claim +of the Woman's Rights movement on woman; the wrong done by woman +to that movement; and the injustice of the charge against man, +that he especially resists it. And yet I can not fully accept the +position taken by Rev. Mr. Johnson and Horace Greeley, that man's +duty is only to stand aside and let woman take her rights. Not +so. It is not so easy as that, let me tell you, gentlemen, to get +rid of the responsibility of years of wrong. We men have been +standing for years with our hands crushing down the shoulders of +woman, so that she should not attain her true altitude; and it is +not so easy, after we have cramped, dwarfed, and crippled her, to +get rid of our responsibility by standing back at last, and +saying, "There, we will let you go; stand up for yourself." If it +is true, as these women say, that we have wronged them for +centuries, we have got to do something more than mere negative +duty. By as much as we have helped to wrong them, we have got to +help to right them; by as much as we have discouraged them +heretofore, we have got to encourage them hereafter; and that is +why I wish to speak to women to-night of their duties, as these +women have spoken to us of ours. I want to remind them that the +time has come when men must appeal to them; for be assured that +when women are ready to claim their rights, men will be ready to +grant them.</p> + +<p>There are three special obstacles, Mrs. President, to the +willingness of woman to do her simple duty to the Woman's Rights +movement. The first is the obstacle of folly—sheer, +unadulterated folly—the folly in which women are trained, and in +which we men help to train them, and for which we then denounce +them. The reason why many women don't like the Woman's Rights +movement, is because they have too little real thought in them to +appreciate it at all. They have been brought up as fashionable +society brings up woman on one side, or as mere household +drudgery brings them up on the other—in each case, without power +to appreciate a great principle—without power to appreciate a +sublime purpose—without power to appreciate anything but a "good +match," and the way to obtain it. On their entrance into life, +their choice lies, for social position, for enjoyment, for +occupation, for usefulness, in this narrow alternative—between a +husband and nothing; and that, as Theodore Parker once said, is +very often a choice between two nothings. These women may have +literary culture and social polish; but, for want of an idea to +light up their eyes and strengthen their souls, these things are +only glitter and worthlessness.</p> + +<p>A certain celebrated French woman in the last century (Mlle. de +Launay), who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_658" id="Page_658">[Pg 658]</a></span> made mathematical science her study, at last had a +lover; whereupon she partially forgot her mathematics, and only +remembered enough of it for practical purposes. And, in her +Memoirs, she mentions the fact that her lover at length began to +be less attentive to her; so much so, that she observed that +whereas in walking home with her in the evening, he used to take +pains to go round the two sides of the public square, in order to +make the walk as long as possible, he now cut it short by always +striking across the center; "so that his love for me," she +observes, "must have decreased in the inverse ratio between the +diagonal of a rectangular parallelogram and the sum of two +adjacent sides." Who shall say that mathematics are wasted on a +woman after that? Now, that is the sum of the science that is +taught in half our institutions of education, in more than half +our fashionable boarding-schools, in nearly all the most +cultivated social circles in the land. How can you expect, from +such women, any nobleness or appreciation of nobleness? How can +you expect any from such a woman's husband, when all his thoughts +of woman have been crushed down, by sad experience, to the level +of his wife's capacities? When I find a man who is obstinate +against Woman's Rights, I try to find out either what sort of a +mother or what sort of a wife that man has, and there I find the +key to his position; for how can you expect any man to have a +noble and equal idea of woman, when his mother knows nothing in +the universe beyond a cooking-stove, and his wife has not much +experimental acquaintance even with that?</p> + +<p>No; the first obstacle to this Woman's Rights movement is the +feminine, that builds all its hopes upon the wretched adulation +and flattery of men—that thinks "the gentlemen admire weakness +in a woman." Well, so they do admire to flatter it and to laugh +at it! Those are the women who have called out from gifted men, +age after age, those terrible denunciations of which literature +is full. Women who are here, who think men admire weakness in a +woman, let me tell you that if you want to know what men really +think of women, you must go beyond the flatteries of the +ball-room; you must go beyond the compliments of the public +speaker. You must follow your young admirer from the ball-room +into the bar-room, where he ridicules you among his companions, +and laughs at the folly he has been flattering. You must pass +from the public meeting into the office or study, to learn how +the man who flatters woman most may despise her in his heart.</p> + +<p>Think what great men of the world have said of woman. Voltaire +said: "Ideas are like beards—women and young men have none." +Lessing, the German, says: "The woman who thinks is like a man +who puts on rouge—ridiculous." Dr. Maginn, that accomplished +literary man, says: "We like to hear a few words of wit from a +woman, just as we like to hear a few words of sense from a +parrot—because they are so unexpected." These things were never +said to women, but they were said of them. In the presence of +female intellect, men are very often like that Englishman who was +reproached by the judge in the police-court, because he, being a +very large, athletic man, allowed his wife, who was a very +delicate, puny woman, occasionally, to beat him. Said the judge: +"How can you allow it? you have ten times her strength." "Oh," +said the giant, drawing himself up to his full stature, "it is no +great matter; it pleases her, and it don't hurt me." That is the +way men deal with female intellect—they like to amuse themselves +with it, to flatter it as an entertaining trifle. But when it +comes in earnest, and shows itself, then it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_659" id="Page_659">[Pg 659]</a></span> that these men +stand apart from the new spectacle of a woman transformed into a +thinker and worker; while true men rejoice to see nobleness in a +woman. There is not a man here who does not, in his own highest +moments, reverence in woman the same qualities he admires in +himself, if he thinks he claims them. Power of clear thought and +of heroic action—every man admires these in woman in the best +moments of his life. It is when he lowers himself to the level of +the public meeting, or of the fashionable drawing-room, that he +is changed into a flatterer, and he who flatters always despises +the object of his flattery.</p> + +<p>Another source of opposition to this movement among women is +founded in Fear. It does not require much courage for a man to +stand on a Woman's Rights platform. I do not say that it does not +require more than a good many men have, for it would be difficult +to find a thing so easy as not to do that. He, of course, has to +run the gauntlet of the old nonsense of "strong-minded women and +weak-minded men." Well, I am willing to be accounted weak-minded +in the presence of strength of mind and heart, with which it has +been my privilege to be associated in this movement. That is a +small thing, and it is the experience of every man who has +entered into this reform, that if he had a fiber of manhood in +him heretofore, that fiber had been doubled, trebled, and +quadrupled before he had been in it a year. Instead of requiring +courage for a man to enter into this movement, it rather requires +courage to keep out of it, if he is a logical, clear-headed man. +But with a woman it is different. She needs much courage. A woman +who, for instance, has been engaged in some literary avocation, +and obtained some position, does not wish to risk her reputation +by connecting herself with those who advocate the right of woman, +not merely to write and to speak, but to vote also; hence, while +admitting, secretly admitting, the justice of the claim, she will +shrink back from avowing it for fear of "losing her position." +How can any brave man honor such a recreant woman as that, who, +having gained all she wants to herself, under cover of the bolder +efforts of these nobler spirits, then settles back upon the ease +and comfort of that position, and turns her small artillery on +her own sisters? I feel a sense of shame for American literature, +when I think how our literary women shrink, and cringe, and +apologize, and dodge to avoid being taken for "strong-minded +women." Oh, there's no danger. I don't wonder that their literary +efforts are stricken with the palsy of weakness from the +beginning. I don't wonder that our magazines are filled with +diluted stories, in which sentimental heroines sigh, cry, and die +through whole pages of weary flatness, and not a single noble +thought relieves that Sahara of emptiness and barrenness. It is a +retribution on them. A man or woman can not put in a book more +than they have in themselves, and if woman is not noble enough to +appreciate a great thought, she is not noble enough to write one. +I don't wonder that their fame does not keep the promise of its +dawn, when that dawn is so dastardly.</p> + +<p>The time will come, let me tell you, ladies, when the first +question asked about any woman in this age who is worth +remembering will be, "Did that woman comprehend her whole sphere? +Did she stand beside her sisters who were laboring for the right? +If she did not this, it is no matter what she did." It is thus we +already begin to judge the American women of the past. The time +will come, when of all Mrs. Adams' letters, the passage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_660" id="Page_660">[Pg 660]</a></span> best +remembered will be that, where she points out to her great +husband, that while emancipating the world, he still believes in +giving men the absolute control over women. So the time will come +when Harriet Beecher Stowe will be less honored, even as the +authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," than as the woman who in <i>The +New York Independent</i>, that repository of religious thought, +dared to place it among her religious thoughts, that Antoinette +Brown had a right to stand in the pulpit. I wish Mrs. Stowe were +yet more consistent; I wish she were not satisfied with merely +wishing that others would attend Woman's Rights Conventions, and +support Woman's Rights Lectures, but would join and take part in +these things herself, as I believe she will when her brave spirit +has gone a little further. Her heroic brother, Henry Ward +Beecher, is with us already in the public advocacy of the right +of suffrage for women.</p> + +<p>The third obstacle that sets woman against this movement is +<i>prejudice</i>. It is the honest feeling of multitudes of women that +their "natural sphere," their domestic duties, will be interfered +with by any other career. Let me tell you that so judging, you +have only learned half the story we have to tell. We encourage +these domestic duties most fully and amply. There is not a woman +here who is not proud to claim them. Of all the women who have +stood or spoken on this platform since this Convention began, +there is only one who is not a married woman; there are very few +who are not mothers; and among them all there is not one who does +not give, by the nobleness of her domestic life, a proof of the +consistency of that with the rest of the claims she makes for her +sex. Some there are who doubt this; some there are who do not see +how the elective franchise is any way connected with home duties +and cares. I tell you there is the closest connection. If any one +thing caps the sum of the argument for the rights of woman, it is +the fact of those domestic duties which some idly array against +it. What has a man at stake in society? What has he to risk by +his ballot? Ask him at the ballot-box, and you will hear his +statement. You will hear it in a thousand ways, and in a thousand +voices. His own personal interest. A man invests <i>himself</i> in +society; woman invests infinitely more, for she throws in <i>her +child</i>. The man can run away to California with his interests, +and from his duties; the woman is anchored to her home. It is +important to him, you say, whether the community provides, by its +statutes, schools or dram-shops. Then how vast, how unspeakable +the importance to her! Deprive every man in the nation of the +ballot, if you will, but demand, oh, demand its protection for +the wife and the mother!</p> + +<p>See the unjust workings of the present system. I knew in a town +in Massachusetts a widow woman, who paid the highest tax bill in +the town; nay, for every dollar that any man paid in the town, +she paid two, and yet that woman had not the right to the ballot, +which belonged to the most ignorant Irishman in her employ. She +hadn't the right to protect her child from the misappropriation +of his property; and if she had owned the whole town, and there +had not been any other person to pay a property tax except that +solitary woman, the case would have been the same, and not the +slightest power of protection would have been in her hands, +against the most outrageous misappropriation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_661" id="Page_661">[Pg 661]</a></span></p> + +<p>In another town of Massachusetts there is a story told of a man, +a member of the Society of Friends. He was once sending his wife +on a long journey. As she was about to set forth in the stage, +"My dear," said she, "thee has forgotten to give me any money for +my journey." "Why," said the Quaker, "thee knows very well that I +paid thy fare in the stage." "But thee knows," said she, "that I +am going to be away for some weeks, and perhaps it may be well +for me to have some little money, in case I should have any +expenses." "Rachel," said the astonished husband, "where is that +ninepence I gave thee day before yesterday?" That man had gained +all the money he had in the world through that wife. He obtained +her property by marriage; he invested that property in real +estate, and had grown richer and richer, until he grew rich +enough to spare a ninepence for Rachel the day before yesterday. +It is such marriages as that, that we wish to avert, by placing +woman in an honorable position, by substituting an equal union in +marriage; such a union as is shown in the lives of those who +stand behind me now.</p> + +<p>The movement which these women urge is sweeping on with +resistless power. Within the last seven years, every legislature, +every school, every industrial avocation has been reached by it. +This is preliminary work. The final Malakoff, the right of +suffrage, is yet to be gained. Already it has been partially +conceded, in communities differing in all else, in Canada and in +Kentucky. We have only to press on. Strange to say, the reform is +reversing the ordinary weapons of the sexes, for the women have +all the logic, and the men only gossip and slander. But it finds +its answering echo in the very hostility it creates. It has a +million hearts. Silence every woman on this platform, and the +movement still goes on. Elevate woman at any point, and you lead +directly to this. The thousand schools of New York are educating +a Woman's Rights advocate in every house.</p></blockquote> + +<p>During the latter part of Mr. Higginson's remarks, a frequent +disturbance was made by some of the occupants of the galleries, who +were evidently curious to hear the female speakers.</p> + +<p>The President then introduced Ernestine L. Rose, who said she wished +to say to all self-respecting men, that this is the last place in +which they should create a disturbance, especially in a matter which +concerns their sisters, their wives, and their mothers.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: This morning a young man made some remarks in +opposition to our claims. We were glad to hear him, because he +gave evidence of an earnest, sincere spirit of inquiry, which is +always welcome in every true reform movement. And as we believe +our cause to be based on truth, we know it can bear the test of +reason, and, like gold doubly refined, will come out purer and +brighter from the fiery ordeal. The young man, who, I hope, is +present, based his principal argument against us, "Because," said +he, "you can bring no authority from revelation or from nature." +I will not enter into an inquiry as to what he meant by these +terms, but I will show him the revelation from which we derive +our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_662" id="Page_662">[Pg 662]</a></span> authority, and the nature in which it is written in living +characters. It is true we do not go to revelations written in +books; but ours is older than all books, and whatever of good +there is in any written revelations, must necessarily agree with +ours, or it is not true, for ours only is the true revelation, +based in nature and in life. That revelation is no less than the +living, breathing, thinking, feeling, acting revelation +manifested in the nature of woman. In her manifold powers, +capacities, needs, hopes, and aspirations, lies her title-deed, +and whether that revelation was written by nature or nature's +God, matters not, for here it is. No one can disprove it. No one +can bring an older, broader, higher, and more sacred basis for +human rights. Do you tell me that the Bible is against our +rights? Then I say that our claims do not rest upon a book +written no one knows when, or by whom. Do you tell me what Paul +or Peter says on the subject? Then again I reply that our claims +do not rest on the opinions of any one, not even on those of Paul +and Peter, for they are older than they. Books and opinions, no +matter from whom they came, if they are in opposition to human +rights, are nothing but dead letters. I have shown you that we +derive our claims from humanity, from revelation, from nature, +and from your Declaration of Independence; all proclaim our right +to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and having life, +which fact I presume you do not question, then we demand all the +rights and privileges society is capable of bestowing, to make +life useful, virtuous, honorable, and happy.</p> + +<p>But I am told that woman needs not as extensive an education as +man, as her place is only the domestic sphere; <i>only</i> the +domestic sphere! Oh, how utterly ignorant is society of the true +import of that term! Go to your legislative halls, and your +Congress; behold those you have sent there to govern you, and as +you find them high or low, great or small, noble or base, you can +trace it directly or indirectly to the domestic sphere.</p> + +<p>The wisest in all ages have acknowledged that the most important +period in human education is in childhood—that period when the +plastic mind may be moulded into such exquisite beauty, that no +unfavorable influences shall be able entirely to destroy it—or +into such hideous deformity, that it shall cling to it like a +thick rust eaten into a highly polished surface, which no +after-scouring shall ever be able entirely to efface. This most +important part of education is left entirely in the hands of the +mother. She prepares the soil for future culture; she lays the +foundation upon which a superstructure shall be erected that +shall stand as firm as a rock, or shall pass away like the +baseless fabric of a vision, and leave not a wreck behind. But +the mother can not give what she does not possess; weakness can +not impart strength.</p> + +<p>Sisters, you have a duty to perform—and duty, like charity, +begins at home. In the name of your poor, vicious, outcast, +down-trodden sister! in the name of her who once was as innocent +and as pure as you are! in the name of her who has been made the +victim of wrong, injustice, and oppression! in the name of man! +in the name of all, I ask you, I entreat you, if you have an hour +to spare, a dollar to give, or a word to utter—spare it, give +it, and utter it, for the elevation of woman! And when your +minister asks you for money for missionary purposes, tell him +there are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_663" id="Page_663">[Pg 663]</a></span> higher, and holier, and nobler missions to be +performed at home. When he asks for colleges to educate +ministers, tell him you must educate woman, that she may do away +with the necessity of ministers, so that they may be able to go +to some useful employment. If he asks you to give to the churches +(which means to himself) then ask him what he has done for the +salvation of woman. When he speaks to you of leading a virtuous +life, ask him whether he understands the causes that have +prevented so many of your sisters from being virtuous, and have +driven them to degradation, sin, and wretchedness. When he speaks +to you of a hereafter, tell him to help to educate woman, to +enable her to live a life of intelligence, independence, virtue, +and happiness here, as the best preparatory step for any other +life. And if he has not told you from the pulpit of all these +things; if he does not know them; it is high time you inform him, +and teach him his duty here in this life.</p> + +<p>This subject is deep and vast enough for the wisest heads and +purest hearts of the race; it underlies our whole social system. +Look to your criminal records—look to your records of mortality, +to your cemeteries, peopled by mothers before the age of thirty +or forty, and children under the age of five; earnestly and +impartially investigate the cause, and you can trace it directly +or indirectly to woman's inefficient education; her helpless, +dependent position; her inexperience; her want of confidence in +her own noble nature, in her own principles and powers, and her +blind reliance in man. We ask, then, for woman, an education that +shall cultivate her powers, develop, elevate, and ennoble her +being, physically, mentally, and morally; to enable her to take +care of herself, and she will be taken care of; to protect +herself, and she will be protected. But to give woman as full and +extensive an education as man, we must give her the same motives. +No one gathers keys without a prospect of having doors to unlock. +Man does not acquire knowledge without the hope to make it useful +and productive; the highest motives only can call out the +greatest exertion. There is a vast field of action open to man, +and therefore, he is prepared to enter it; widen the sphere of +action for woman, throw open to her all the avenues of industry, +emolument, usefulness, moral ambition, and true greatness, and +you will give her the same noble motives, the same incentives for +exertion, application, and perseverance that man possesses—and +this can be done only by giving her her legal and political +rights—pronounce her the equal of man in all the rights and +advantages society can bestow, and she will be prepared to +receive and use them, and not before. It would be folly to +cultivate her intellect like that of man without giving her the +same chances to use it—to give her an industrial avocation +without giving her the right to the proceeds of her industry, or +to give her the right to the proceeds of her industry without +giving her the power to protect the property she may acquire; she +must therefore have the legal and political rights, or she has +nothing. The ballot-box is the focus of all other rights, it is +the pivot upon which all others hang; the legal rights are +embraced in it, for if once possessed of the right to the +ballot-box, to self-representation, she will see to it that the +laws shall be just, and protect her person and her property, as +well as that of man. Until she has political rights she is not +secure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_664" id="Page_664">[Pg 664]</a></span> in any she may possess. One legislature may alter some +oppressive law, and give her some right, and the next legislature +may take it away, for as yet it is only given as an act of +generosity, as a charity on the part of man, and not as her +right, and therefore it can not be lasting, nor productive of +good.</p> + +<p>Mothers, women of America! when you hear the subject of Woman's +Rights broached, laugh at it and us, ridicule it as much as you +please; but never forget, that by the laws of your country, you +have no right to your children—the law gives the father as +uncontrolled power over the child as it gives the husband over +the wife; only the child, when it comes to maturity, the father's +control ceases, while the wife never comes to maturity. The +father may bequeath, bestow, or sell the child without the +consent of the mother. But methinks I hear you say that no man +deserving the name of man, or the title of husband and father, +could commit such an outrage against the dearest principles of +humanity; well, if there are no such men, then the law ought to +be annulled, a law against which nature, justice, and humanity +revolt, ought to be wiped off from the statute book as a +disgrace; and if there are such—which unhappily we all know +there are—then there is still greater reason why the laws ought +to be changed, for bad laws encourage bad men and make them +worse; good men can not be benefited by the existence of bad +laws; bad men ought not to be; laws are not made for him who is a +law unto himself, but for the lawless. The legitimate object of +law is to protect the innocent and inexperienced against the +designing and the guilty; we therefore ask every one present to +demand of the Legislatures of every State to alter these unjust +laws; give the wife an equal right with the husband in the +property acquired after marriage; give the mother an equal right +with the father in the control of the children; let the wife at +the death of the husband remain his heir to the same extent that +he would be hers, at her death; let the laws be alike for both, +and they are sure to be right; but to have them so, woman must +help to make them.</p> + +<p>We hear a great deal about the heroism of the battle-field. What +is it? Compare it with the heroism of the woman who stands up for +the right, and it sinks into utter insignificance. To stand +before the cannon's mouth, with death before him and disgrace +behind, excited to frenzy by physical fear, encouraged by his +leader, stimulated by the sound of the trumpet, and sustained by +the <i>still emptier sound of glory</i>, requires no great heroism; +the merest coward could be a hero in such a position; but to face +the fire of an unjust and prejudiced public opinion, to attack +the adamantine walls of long-usurped power, to brave not only the +enemy abroad, but often that severest of all enemies, your own +friends at home, requires a heroism that the world has never yet +recognized, that the battle-field can not supply, but which woman +possesses.</p> + +<p>When the Allied Powers endeavored to take Sebastopol they found +that every incision and inroad they made in the fortress during +the day was filled up by the enemy during the night; and even +now, after the terrible sacrifice of life to break it down, they +are not safe, but the enemy may build it up again. But in a moral +warfare, no matter how thick and impenetrable the fortress of +prejudice may be, if you once make an inroad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_665" id="Page_665">[Pg 665]</a></span> in it, that space +can never be filled up again; every stone you remove is removed +for aye and for good; and the very effort to replace it tends +only to loosen every other stone, until the whole foundation is +undermined, and the superstructure crumbles at our feet.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">President</span>: Before this Convention closes, I want to say a +word to the women who hear me. This work lies chiefly in our +hands. We have undertaken no child's play. It is nothing less +than a change in customs hoary with age—in laws which have +existed through long years—in mistaken religious interpretations +and views of duty, which have received the sanction and +veneration of antiquity. It is to place woman where she may make +herself fit for life's duties, in whatever department she may +find herself, whether as woman, daughter, wife, or mother. Every +influence around us to-day tends to the reverse. The young girl +stands beside her brother in the world's wide arena, and looks +out to see what it shall assign her. To him, everything that +power can win is open, while the world cheers him, by so much as +he grasps and conquers. To her is presented, what kind of a life? +There is not a man in the world, who, if such a life were offered +him, would not sooner lie down peacefully in his grave, than in a +paltry cage fret away a life that ought to have been broad and +grand, as God who gave it intended it should be.</p> + +<p>Horace Greeley says he thinks the intellect of woman is not equal +to that of man. Horace Greeley was a poor boy, and had to make +his way up in the world. He has reached a position that is +attained by few. When he speaks the nation listens. Suppose that +he had been told by his mother, as she placed her hand upon his +little head, with all the tenderness that gushes from a mother's +heart, "My son, here is your brother; he shall grow up in the +world of society, and no school or college shall be closed +against him; the great school of life shall be free to him; he +shall have a voice in making the laws he is to obey; he shall pay +taxes, and he shall direct the use of the tax; but for you, alas! +none of these places will be open; you must therefore rest +satisfied with helping your brother. He will win power and +wealth, but none of it shall be your own; if you seek to enter +into the same position that he is in, the world will scorn and +deride you." And if when he came into life he had found all that +his mother told him was true, what think you would have been the +success of Horace Greeley, with all this mountain-weight upon +him? Would he have taken the place he has now? I am glad he was +not hindered; I am only sorry that woman is. It is too early for +him or us to say what the intellect of woman is, till she has had +the freedom to try its powers. I am reminded of what Frederick +Douglass said of the negroes: "You shut us out of the schools and +colleges, you put your foot on us, and then say, Why don't you +know something?" That is just what is said to us.</p> + +<p>Let us teach men who talk of the wrongs perpetrated in Kansas, +that they are doing the very same thing to us here. One need not +go to Kansas to find border ruffians, or bogus legislation, for +they can all be found here; and when the future historian shall +record that in Kansas, Missourians deprived free State men of the +franchise, and that New York men deprived the women of the same, +it will be said that the border ruffians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_666" id="Page_666">[Pg 666]</a></span> of Missouri and the +border ruffians of New York were very much alike—one came with +the gloved hand, and smiled and bowed, saying, I can't let you +vote; while the other said, If you do I will blow out your +brains. The result is the same.</p> + +<p>I look in the faces of men and marvel that they can meet us in +the way they do, when they have made such laws against us. +Clear-headed and far-sighted, they do not appear to realize that +the outrages they condemn in Kansas, they are themselves all the +while inflicting upon us. John Randolph, when the women of +Virginia were making garments for the Greeks, pointed to long +gangs of slaves, and said, "Ladies, the Greeks are at your +doors."</p></blockquote> + +<p>In addition to the annual canvass of the State, lectures from the most +popular orators were secured in the large cities. In the winter of +1856, by invitation of Miss Anthony, Theodore Parker, William Lloyd +Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Ralph Waldo Emerson, lectured in +Corinthian Hall, Rochester, to good audiences. In the spring of 1858, +Miss Emily Howland managed a course of lectures in Mozart Hall, New +York, in aid of "The Shirt-sewers' and Seamstresses' Union," viz: +George Wm. Curtis, "Fair Play for Women"; Lucy Stone, "Woman and the +Elective Franchise"; Hon. Eli Thayer, "Benefit to Women of Organized +Emigration"; and Rev. E. H. Chapin, "Woman and her Work." In the +autumn of the same year, through the enterprise of Elizabeth M. +Powell, Henry Ward Beecher, James T. Brady, Solon Robinson, and others +addressed a large audience in Dr. Chapin's church, Mayor Tieman +presiding, to aid in the establishment of a "Free Library for Working +Women."</p> + +<p>In January, 1859, Antoinette L. Brown gave a series of Sunday sermons +in Rochester, and in 1860 she preached in Hope Chapel, New York, for +six months. In Rochester during the winter of 1859, Miss Anthony had a +series of lectures by George William Curtis, Wendell Phillips, +Antoinette Brown, Ernestine L. Rose, and others. The following letter +will show that Thomas Starr King was in full sympathy with our +movement:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Sep. 20, 1858</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:—It would afford me great satisfaction to be able to +serve you as you request. I am compelled to say, however, that it +is entirely out of my power. I have already engaged for so much +work beyond my regular duties, that I shall have no leisure even +to prepare a new Lyceum address. Not having any lecture upon the +position of woman that is full enough, and adequate in any way to +the present state of the discussion, I must reluctantly decline +the opportunity you offer.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right">T. S. King.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">With sincere thanks, I remain truly yours,</p> +</blockquote> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_667" id="Page_667">[Pg 667]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the autumn of 1858, Francis Jackson, of Boston, placed $5,000 in +the hands of Wendell Phillips for woman's enfranchisement, as will be +seen by the following letter:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>Nov. 6, 1858</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—I have had given me five thousand dollars, to be +used for the Woman's Rights cause; to procure tracts on that +subject, publish and circulate them, pay for lectures, and secure +such other agitation of the question as we deem fit and best to +obtain equal civil and social position for woman.</p> + +<p>The name of the giver of this generous fund I am not allowed to +tell you; the only condition of the gift is, that the fund is to +remain invested in my keeping. In other respects, we three are a +Committee of Trustees to spend it wisely and efficiently.</p> + +<p>Let me ask you to write me what plan strikes you as best to begin +with. I think some agitation specially directed to the +Legislature very important. It is wished that we should begin our +efforts at once.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Wendell Phillips,</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours truly,</p> +<p class="ltr-clear nobreak"> +Miss <span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span>.<br /> +Mrs. <span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>It was in the year 1859 that Charles F. Hovey of Boston left by +will,<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> a sum of $50,000 to be expended annually in the promotion +of various reforms. Woman's Rights among them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_668" id="Page_668">[Pg 668]</a></span></p> + +<h3>MOZART HALL,<br /> +<small>NEW YORK, MAY 13, 14, 1858.</small></h3> + +<p>The year 1857 seems to have passed without a National Convention, +although the work was still vigorously prosecuted in the State of New +York, but in the spring of 1858, the ninth National Convention was +called in New York during the week of the anniversaries when crowds +were always attracted to attend the various religious and reformatory +meetings. Henceforward, for many years, a Woman's Rights Convention +was a marked feature of this period in the month of May. There were +several persons at this Convention who had not before honored our +platform.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> These, with the usual familiar speakers,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> filled +the platform with quite a striking group of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_669" id="Page_669">[Pg 669]</a></span> ladies and gentlemen. The +morning session was occupied with the usual preliminary business +matters, choosing officers, presenting resolutions, and planning new +aggressive steps for the coming year. Susan B. Anthony was President +on this occasion, and fulfilled her duties to the general +satisfaction. During the evening session the hall was crowded, all the +available space for either sitting or standing was occupied, the +platform and steps were densely packed, and this at twenty-five cents +admission.</p> + +<p>Mr. Phillips, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Rose, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Higginson, Miss +Brown, and Lucy Stone all spoke with their usual effect. Mrs. Eliza +Woodson Farnham, the author of "Woman and her Era," spoke at length on +the "Superiority of Woman."</p> + +<blockquote><p>She presented a series of resolutions, recognizing the right of +man in the primary era in his physical and cerebral structure, to +be the conqueror, the mechanic, the inventor, the clearer of +forests, the pioneer of civilization, but she looked to the +dawning of a higher era, when woman should assume her true +position in harmony with her superior organism, her delicacy of +structure, her beauty of person, her great powers of endurance, +and thus prove herself not only man's equal in influence and +power, but his superior in many of the noblest virtues. In +woman's creative power during maternity, she recognized her as +second only to God himself. Woman should recognize man as a John +the Baptist, going before to prepare the world for her coming, he +recognizing her greater divinity as equal in the Godhead, as +heavenly mother as well as father.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Farnham<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> enforced her theory of woman's superiority in a long +speech, which was received with apparent satisfaction by the audience, +though several on the platform dissented from the claim of +superiority, thinking it would be a sufficient triumph over the +tyrannies of the past, if popular thought could be educated to the +idea of the equality of the sexes.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sarah Hallock read an extract from the Statutes of New York, +giving the items set aside by law for use of the wife and minor +children, in case the husband died without a will.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">(Extract from the Statutes of New York).</p> + +<p class="heading">ARTICLES INVENTORIED, BUT NOT APPROVED, BELONGING TO THE WIDOW +AND MINOR CHILDREN.</p> + +<p>1st. All spinning-wheels, weaving-looms, or stoves put up for +use.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_670" id="Page_670">[Pg 670]</a></span></p> + +<p>2d. The family Bible, family pictures, school-books, and books +not exceeding in value fifty dollars.</p> + +<p>[Mrs. Hallock here interjected, husbands had better give their +wives cheap books].</p> + +<p>3d. Ten sheep and their fleeces, and the yarn and cloth +manufactured from the same; one cow, two swine, and the pork of +such swine. [Laughter],</p> + +<p>4th. All necessary wearing apparel, beds, bedsteads, and bedding; +the clothing of the widow and her ornaments proper to her station +(as to ornaments, tastes differ as to those proper to her +station), one table, six chairs (suppose there were seven or ten +children, what then? queried Mrs. Hallock [Laughter],) six knives +and forks, six tea-cups and saucers, one sugar-dish, one +milk-pot, one tea-pot, and six spoons. "So great a favorite is +the female sex of the laws of England and America," says +Blackstone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> protested against <i>one</i> tea-pot; the law didn't mention +tea-pot at all. [Great laughter].</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Hallock</span>: Oh, yes! but not a coffee-pot. [Renewed laughter].</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Gage</span>: In Ohio they give twelve spoons. [Convulsive +laughter].</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Hallock</span>: We'll get up a delegation to Ohio, then.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Farnham</span>: I would say that I will give up all these things if +the State will only give us in return one of our children. +[Applause and laughter].</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Hallock</span>: Isn't it a pity that our laws—are they ours?</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span>: No.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Hallock</span>: Well, then, your laws. It is a pity that those +statutes should not be revised so as to give a widow a carpet and +other smaller articles of luxury. [Great laughter].</p></blockquote> + +<p>And such was the boasted "protection" secured to the wives and mothers +by the laws of the most civilized nations on the globe, and such the +law-makers in whose hands woman's interests were supposed to be +secure, when we began our battle for equality. Class laws, class +legislation, legalized robbery from the unborn child, down to the +commonest necessaries of life, has been the "protection" woman has +complained of from fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. Those just +awaking to an interest in this reform, see but the smoke of the former +battles; they can not appreciate all the tyranny from which this +agitation has freed them. Step by step, custom by custom, law by law, +a partial victory has been wrested, and a public opinion slowly +created that promises other victories in the near future.</p> + +<p>Those who have not been through the conflict will never realize how +dark the prospect was in starting. Denied education, and a place in +the world of work, denied the rights of property, whether of her own +earnings, or her inheritance, with the press and the pulpit, custom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_671" id="Page_671">[Pg 671]</a></span> +and public opinion sustaining the law, was there ever a struggle +entered upon, which at its beginning seemed more hopeless than this +for woman? But these constant presentations of the laws, with the +comments and arguments in our Conventions, gradually appealed to the +understanding of sensible men and women, and opened the eyes of the +community to the wrongs of woman, perpetrated under the specious name +of justice.</p> + +<p>All the sessions of this Convention were interrupted by the rowdyism +of a number of men occupying the rear part of the hall.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Parker Pillsbury</span> said he had attended three of these Conventions, +but had not spoken in one before. He thought the ladies +encroached a little on the men's rights, as in the first and +second, the Methodists gave the ladies the use of their church in +a city of the West, on condition that Parker Pillsbury should not +be allowed to speak. [Applause and laughter]. Now that the door +was open, and he had ventured in, he did not know what to say. +[Laughter and cries of "Go on"]. He would recommend the women to +hold their next Convention at the ballot-box, as that would do +more good than a hundred such as these. If their votes were +refused, let them look the tax collectors in the face and defy +them to come for taxes, as long as they were not allowed a voice +in the Government. And carry the war into the Church, too, demand +equality there as well as in the State.</p> + +<p>He knew an orthodox church, consisting of twelve members. One was +a man and a deacon, the remainder were women. A vote had to be +taken for changing the day for the prayer-meeting, but some +difficulty arose between the minister and the deacon, and the +only way it could be settled was by the votes of the women. So +the deacon went round on tip-toe, and put his head under each +bonnet, and held a little private caucus meeting with one after +another, and then returned to the altar and reported to the +minister that the vote was unanimous. If women had any proper +self-respect, they would scorn to remain one hour in any church +in which they were not considered and recognized as equals.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Oliver Johnson</span> said there was a new church formed called +"Progressive Friends," in which men and women stood on perfect +equality. He said there was another church (Henry Ward Beecher's) +in Brooklyn, where women were expected to vote on all questions +connected with the business affairs of the congregation. Another +church in this city (Rev. Dr. Cheever's) had a difficulty in +which the capitalists tried to dismiss the pastor, because he +maintained the right of the slave to freedom, and of the woman to +the elective franchise. He agreed with Mr. Pillsbury that it was +woman's duty to test her equality in the Church as well as the +State.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Aaron M. Powell</span> took the same ground. As women made the large +majority in the churches, they could easily secure equal rights +there if united in an effort to do so. Why, said he, are there no +young women sitting at the reporters' desks, taking note of the +proceedings of this Convention?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_672" id="Page_672">[Pg 672]</a></span> He advocated the elective +franchise, saying that no class could be protected in all its +rights without a voice in the laws.</p> + +<p>A Mr. <span class="smcap">Warren</span> said he had no objection to woman's claiming +equality, but when they declared their superiority, they injured +themselves and the rising generation in teaching the young to +disrespect the men of the household. (Great laughter and hisses). +Woman might be the savior of man, but was not God, and had no +place in the Godhead. (Laughter and cheers). He spoke from +experience when he said men had already suffered much from the +tyrannical usurpations of women. Let woman be the true helpmate +of man, religiously, politically, morally, socially; but, oh! +said he, in a sorrowful tone, it will be a sad day for the race +when woman takes command, and man is pushed aside. (Convulsive +laughter, and cries of "Give us your experience.")</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Farnham</span> was glad the subject of woman's superiority had been +broached, and only regretted that as a scientific fact it could +not be more seriously discussed.</p> + +<p>A gentleman deprecated the fact that Mr. Warren had not been more +fully heard.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The President</span> said it was the audience and not the platform that +laughed. Loud calls were made for</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Douglass</span>, to which he responded, claiming woman's right to +freedom and equality on the same grounds he based his own.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">William Lloyd Garrison</span> maintained woman's right to sit in +Congress and the legislatures—that there should be the same +number of women as men in all the national councils. He said +respect for his sainted mother, love for his noble wife, and for +the only daughter of his house and heart (my own Fanny), compel +me to defend the rights of all women. Those who have inaugurated +this movement are worthy to be ranked with the army of martyrs +and confessors in the days of old. Blessings on them! They should +triumph, and every opposition be removed, that peace and love, +justice and liberty, might prevail throughout the world.</p> + +<p>A Mr. <span class="smcap">Tyler</span> remarked that a fear had been expressed that in +coming to the polls, woman would be compelled to meet men who +drink and smoke. Do women encounter no such evils in their homes? +Whisky and tobacco are much greater obstacles at the marriage +altar than at the polls—in the relation of wife than in that of +citizen.</p></blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">George William Curtis</span>, then in the height of his reputation (as +Howadji), spoke at length in favor of suffrage for woman, but amid +constant interruptions. With a short speech from Mrs. Rose, the +Convention adjourned amid great confusion.</p> + + +<h3>NINTH NATIONAL CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p>In accordance with a call issued by the Central Committee, the Ninth +National Woman's Rights Convention was held in the City of New York on +Thursday, May 12, 1859.</p> + +<p>The sessions commenced with a business meeting, on the afternoon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_673" id="Page_673">[Pg 673]</a></span> of +that day, in Mozart Hall. The meeting was called to order by <span class="smcap">Susan B. +Anthony</span>, of Rochester, New York, who made a few introductory remarks, +after which, the question of the expediency of memorializing the +Legislatures of the different States, on the subject of granting equal +rights to Woman, was discussed at some length. At the close of the +debate, a resolution was adopted, that it was expedient so to +memorialize the several Legislatures, and a committee<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> was +appointed for that purpose, and a series of resolutions<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> offered +by Caroline H. Dall.</p> + +<p>These resolutions were discussed by Mrs. Dall, Mrs. Hallock, Mrs. +Elizabeth Neal Gay, Lucretia Mott, A. M. Powell, Charles C. Burleigh, +and others.</p> + +<h4>EVENING SESSION.</h4> + +<p>At an early hour, Mozart Hall was crowded to overflowing, every seat +being occupied, and crowds standing in the aisle, and the rear of the +hall.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span> had been chosen to preside, but was not able, on account +of the crowd, to reach the platform at the hour appointed. The +Convention was therefore called to order by Susan B. Anthony.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Caroline H. Dall</span>, of Boston, was the first speaker. She desired +to commemorate the century which had just closed since the death of +Mary Woolstonecraft, and to show that what she did in the old world, +Margaret Fuller had done in the new; but the noise and restlessness +among the audience were so great (much of which, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_674" id="Page_674">[Pg 674]</a></span> charitably hope, +was attributable rather to the discomfort of their position than to +any want of respect for the speaker, or for the cause which the +Convention represented), that she yielded to the wish of the presiding +officer, and sat down without speaking of Margaret Fuller.</p> + +<p>Short speeches were made by Lucretia Mott, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, +and Ernestine L. Rose; but as it proved to be another turbulent +meeting, Wendell Phillips, who understood from long experience how to +play with and lash a mob, and thrust what he wished to say into their +long ears, all with one consent yielded the platform to him, and for +nearly two hours he held that mocking crowd in the hollow of his hand. +In closing he said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I will not attempt to detain you longer. ["Go on"—"Go on."] I +have neither the disposition nor the strength to trespass any +longer upon your attention. The subject is so large that it might +well fill days, instead of hours. It covers the whole surface of +American society. It touches religion, purity, political economy, +wages, the safety of cities, the growth of ideas, the very +success of our experiment. I gave to-night a character to the +city of Washington which some men hissed. You know it is true. If +this experiment of self-government is to succeed, it is to +succeed by some saving element introduced into the politics of +the present day. You know this: Your Websters, your Clays, your +Calhouns, your Douglases, however intellectually able they may +have been, have never dared or cared to touch that moral element +of our national life. Either the shallow and heartless trade of +politics had eaten out their own moral being, or they feared to +enter the unknown land of lofty right and wrong.</p> + +<p>Neither of these great names has linked its fame with one great +moral question of the day. They deal with money questions, with +tariffs, with parties, with State law, and if by chance they +touch the slave question, it is only like Jewish hucksters +trading in the relics of Saints. The reformers—the fanatics, as +we are called—are the only ones who have launched social and +moral questions. I risk nothing when I say, that the anti-slavery +discussion of the last twenty years has been the salt of this +nation; it has actually kept it alive and wholesome. Without it, +our politics would have sunk beyond even contempt. So with this +question. It stirs the deepest sympathy; it appeals to the +highest moral sense; it enwraps within itself the greatest moral +issues. Judge it, then, candidly, carefully, as Americans, and +let us show ourselves worthy of the high place to which God has +called us in human affairs. (Applause).</p> + + +<p class="heading">MEMORIAL.</p> + +<p>To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of ——</p> + +<p>The National Woman's Rights Convention, held in New York City, +May 12, 1859, appointed your memorialists a Committee to call +your attention to the anomalous position of one-half the people +of this Republic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_675" id="Page_675">[Pg 675]</a></span></p> + +<p>All republican constitutions set forth the great truth that every +human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights—such as +life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and as a +consequence, a right to the use of all those means necessary to +secure these grand results.</p> + +<p>1st.—A citizen can not be said to have a right to life, who may +be deprived of it for the violation of laws to which she has +never consented—who is denied the right of trial by a jury of +her peers—who has no voice in the election of judges who are to +decide her fate.</p> + +<p>2d.—A citizen can not be said to have a right to liberty, when +the custody of her person belongs to another; when she has no +civil or political rights—no right even to the wages she earns; +when she can make no contracts—neither buy nor sell, sue or be +sued—and yet can be taxed without representation.</p> + +<p>3d.—A citizen can not be said to have a right to happiness, when +denied the right to person, property, children, and home; when +the code of laws under which she is compelled to live is far more +unjust and tyrannical than that which our fathers repudiated at +the mouth of the cannon nearly one century ago.</p> + +<p>Now, we would ask on what principle of republicanism, justice, or +common humanity, a minority of the people of this Republic have +monopolized to themselves all the rights of the whole? Where, +under our Declaration of Independence, does the white Saxon man +get his power to deprive all women and negroes of their +inalienable rights?</p> + +<p>The mothers of the Revolution bravely shared all dangers, +persecutions, and death; and their daughters now claim an equal +share in all the glories and triumphs of your success. Shall they +stand before a body of American legislators and ask in vain for +their right of suffrage—their right of property—their right to +the wages they earn—their right to their children and their +homes—their sacred right to personal liberty—to a trial by a +jury of their peers?</p> + +<p>In view of these high considerations, we demand, then, that you +shall, by your future legislation, secure to women all those +rights and privileges and immunities which in equity belong to +every citizen of a republic.</p> + +<p>And we demand that whenever you shall remodel the Constitution of +the State in which you live, the word "male" shall be expurgated, +and that henceforth you shall legislate for all citizens. There +can be no privileged classes in a truly democratic government.</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table summary="Committee"> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Elizabeth Cady Stanton,</td><td class='left sc'>Martha C. Weight,</td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Wendell Phillips,</td><td class='left sc'>Caroline M. Severance,</td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Caroline H. Dall,</td><td class='left sc'>Thomas W. Higginson,</td></tr> +<tr><td class='left sc'>Ernestine L. Rose,</td><td class='left sc'>Susan B. Anthony,</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="2" class='left'><span class="sc">Antoinette Brown Blackwell</span>, <i>Committee</i>.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The above memorial was extensively circulated and sent to the +Legislature of every State in the nation, but, owing to the John Brown +raid and the general unrest and forebodings of the people on the eve +of our civil war, it commanded but little attention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_676" id="Page_676">[Pg 676]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">FORM OF APPEAL AND PETITION CIRCULATED IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK +DURING THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1859.</p> + +<p><i>To the Women of the Empire State:</i></p> + +<p>It is the desire and purpose of those interested in the Woman's +Rights movement, to send up to our next Legislature an +overwhelming petition, for the civil and political rights of +woman. These rights must be secured just as soon as the majority +of the women of the State make the demand. To this end, we have +decided thoroughly to canvass our State before the close of the +present year. We shall hold conventions in every county, +distribute tracts and circulate petitions, in order, if possible, +to arouse a proper self-respect in woman.</p> + +<p>The want of funds has heretofore crippled all our efforts, but as +large bequests have been made to our cause during the past year, +we are now able to send out agents and to commence anew our work, +which shall never end, until, in Church and State, and at the +fireside, the equality of woman shall be fully recognized.</p> + +<p>We hope much from our Republican legislators. Their well-known +professions encourage us to believe that our task is by no means +a hard one. We shall look for their hearty co-operation in every +effort for the elevation of humanity. We have had bills before +the Legislature for several years, on some of which, from time to +time, have had most favorable reports. The property bill of '48 +was passed by a large majority. The various bills of rights, to +wages, children, suffrage, etc., have been respectfully +considered. The bill presented at the last session, giving to +married women their rights to make contracts, and to their wages, +passed the House with only three dissenting votes, but owing to +the pressure of business at the close of the session, it was +never brought before the Senate.</p> + +<p>Whilst man, by his legislation and generous donations, declares +our cause righteous and just—whilst the very best men of the +nation, those who stand first in Church and State, in literature, +commerce, and the arts, are speaking for us such noble words and +performing such God-like deeds—shall woman, herself, be +indifferent to her own wrongs, insensible to all the +responsibilities of her high and holy calling? No! No!! I Let the +women of the Empire State now speak out in deep and earnest tones +that can not be misunderstood, demanding all those rights which +are at the very foundation of Republicanism—a full and equal +representation with man in the administration of our State and +National Government.</p> + +<p>Do you know, women of New York! that under our present laws +married women have no right to the wages they earn? Think of the +40,000 drunkards' wives in this State—of the wives of men who +are licentious—of gamblers—of the long line of those who do +nothing; and is it no light matter that all these women who +support themselves, their husbands and families, too, shall have +no right to the disposition of their own earnings? Roll up, then, +your petitions<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_677" id="Page_677">[Pg 677]</a></span> on this point, if no other, and secure to +laboring women their wages at the coming session!</p> + +<p>Now is the golden time to work! Before another Constitutional +Convention be called, see to it that the public sentiment of this +State shall demand suffrage for woman! Remember, "they who would +be free, themselves must strike the blow!"</p> + +<p class="author">E. Cady Stanton,</p> +<p class="ltr-title"><i>Chairman Central Committee.</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Of the canvass of 1859 and '60, we find the following letter in <i>The +New York Tribune</i>, February, 1860.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>To the Editor of The Tribune:</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>:—The readers of <i>The Tribune</i> who have perused its columns +closely for the last six months will have noticed repeated +announcements of County Conventions in different parts of the +State to be addressed by certain ladies engaged in advocating +equal rights for woman. It may not be uninteresting to them to +know that every one of those appointments was filled by said +ladies. Over fifty counties of the State have been thus visited, +and petitions presented to the people for their signatures, +praying for equal property rights, and for steps to be taken to +so amend the Constitution as to secure to woman the right of +suffrage, which have been numerously signed and duly presented to +the Legislature. In the rural districts the success has been +wonderful, considering the unpopularity of the subject; our most +violent opposers being demagogical Democrats who frankly +acknowledge that if our doctrines prevail, anti-slavery, +temperance, moral reform, and Republicanism will conquer.</p> + +<p>Large bequests have been made in the East for the furtherance of +this movement, and under the direction of a committee appointed +for that purpose, these ladies have gone forth to proclaim the +doctrine of civil and political equality for woman. No laggards +are they in their work. In the language of Mr. Greeley, they have +found a work to be done, and have gone at it with ready and +resolute will; they have not been able to answer all the calls +made upon their time and talent. One of them (I can speak but for +one) between the 11th of November and the 31st of January, has +given sixty-eight lectures, not missing one appointment, resting +only through the holidays and on Sundays. The others have +doubtless done as well. In most instances all have been able to +pay their own expenses, and in some cases their own salaries.</p> + +<p>These ladies are not disappointed old maids, desolate widows, or +unhappy wives, though there is one widow and one who has passed +what is called the sunny side of twenty-five. Miss Susan B. +Anthony, the general agent, resides at Rochester, and is +unmarried. Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, of New York City, is too +widely known to need comment. The same may be said of Antoinette +Brown Blackwell, the eloquent minister,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_678" id="Page_678">[Pg 678]</a></span> accomplished scholar, +and amiable wife and mother. Mrs. J. Elizabeth Jones, of Ohio, is +a lady in the ripeness of womanhood, to whom, equally with the +above, all these adjectives apply. Mrs. Hannah Tracy Cutler, of +Illinois, has been twice married, and has superintended two +families of children satisfactorily; she has been teacher in a +high school in Columbus, Ohio, and matron of a deaf and dumb +asylum, has taken premiums on sorghum sugar made by her own +hands, and is also a physician among the poor of her +neighborhood. Mrs. Lucy N. Colman, of New York, is a widow, and +has fought life's battle bravely and well for herself and +children. Mrs. Frances D. Gage, of Missouri, formerly of Ohio, +might claim the nomination for President under the authority of +Henry Ward Beecher, "having brought up six unruly boys," whose +aggregate height would form a column of thirty-six feet in honor +of their mother, who will all vote the Republican ticket in 1860 +but one, and he is not old enough; and no one of them smokes or +chews, or stimulates the inner man with intoxicating beverages. +She is also the mother of two daughters.</p> + +<p>Two years ago Mr. Greeley said to one of the ladies, "Why don't +you ladies go to work?" They have gone to work; and with the help +of such men as Garrison, Phillips, Parker, Giddings, Curtis, +Beecher, Chapin, Brady, and a host of others whom the world +delights to honor, their cause will surely triumph. It is a +question of time only; not of fact. God speed the day.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The State Convention of 1860 was held in Association Hall, Albany, +February 3d and 4th, with fine audiences throughout, and the usual +force of speakers. As the outpourings of Miss Anthony's love element +all flowed into the suffrage movement, she was sorely tried with the +imperative cares that the domestic experiments of most of her +coadjutors so constantly involved. Her urgent missives coming ever and +anon to arouse us to higher duties, are quite inspiring even at this +date. In a letter to Martha C. Wright, she says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mr. Bingham, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, will bring +in a radical report in favor of all our claims, but previous to +his doing so he wishes our strongest arguments made before the +Committee, and he says Mrs. Stanton must come. I write her this +mail, but I wish you would step over there and make her feel that +the salvation of the Empire State, at least the women in it, +depends upon her bending all her powers to moving the hearts of +our law-makers at this time. Mr. Bingham says our Convention here +has wrought wondrous changes with a large number of the members +who attended, and so says Mr. Mayo, of the Albanians; indeed our +claims are so patent they need only to be known to be approved. +Mrs. Stanton must move heaven and earth now to secure this bill, +and she can, if she will only try. I should go there myself this +very night, but I must watch and encourage friends here. The +Earnings Bill has passed the House, and is in Committee of the +Whole in the Senate. Then a Guardianship Bill must be drafted and +put through if possible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_679" id="Page_679">[Pg 679]</a></span> I returned from New York last evening; +have taken the "Cooper Union," for our National Convention in +May. Saw Miss Howland; she said Mr. Beecher's lecture is to be in +this week's <i>Independent</i>. Only think how many priestly eyes will +be compelled to look at its defiled page. Theodore Tilton told me +that Mr. Beecher had had a severe battle to get into <i>The +Independent</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton, in answering Miss Anthony's appeal, says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I am willing to do the appointed work at Albany. If Napoleon says +cross the Alps, they are crossed. I can not, my dear friend, +"move heaven and earth," but I will do what I can with pen and +brain. You must come here and start me on the right train of +thought, as your practical knowledge of just what is wanted is +everything in getting up the right document. Kind regards to the +anti-slavery host now with you. I did not think that the easy +arm-chair I occupied on the Auburn platform was to bring me so +much glory. Did you know the resolutions of that meeting were +read on the floor of Congress?—that pleased me greatly. I am +very proud to stand maternal sponsor for the whole string. I wish +our Albany resolutions had more snap in them. The Garrison clique +are the only men in this nation that know how to write a +resolution.</p></blockquote> + +<p>On the 18th of February Mrs. Stanton addressed the Legislature on +woman's right of suffrage and the bill then pending in the Senate. A +magnificent audience greeted her in the Capitol. She occupied the +Speaker's desk, and was introduced by Senator Hammond, and spoke as +follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen of the Judiciary</span>:—There are certain natural rights as +inalienable to civilization as are the rights of air and motion +to the savage in the wilderness. The natural rights of the +civilized man and woman are government, property, the harmonious +development of all their powers, and the gratification of their +desires. There are a few people we now and then meet who, like +Jeremy Bentham, scout the idea of natural rights in civilization, +and pronounce them mere metaphors, declaring that there are no +rights aside from those the law confers. If the law made man too, +that might do, for then he could be made to order to fit the +particular niche he was designed to fill. But inasmuch as God +made man in His own image, with capacities and powers as +boundless as the universe, whose exigencies no mere human law can +meet, it is evident that the man must ever stand first; the law +but the creature of his wants; the law giver but the mouthpiece +of humanity. If, then, the nature of a being decides its rights, +every individual comes into this world with rights that are not +transferable. He does not bring them like a pack on his back, +that may be stolen from him, but they are a component part of +himself, the laws which insure his growth and development. The +individual may be put in the stocks, body and soul, he may be +dwarfed, crippled, killed, but his rights no man can get; they +live and die with him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_680" id="Page_680">[Pg 680]</a></span></p> + +<p>Though the atmosphere is forty miles deep all round the globe, no +man can do more than fill his own lungs. No man can see, hear, or +smell but just so far; and though hundreds are deprived of these +senses, his are not the more acute. Though rights have been +abundantly supplied by the good Father, no man can appropriate to +himself those that belong to another. A citizen can have but one +vote, fill but one office, though thousands are not permitted to +do either. These axioms prove that woman's poverty does not add +to man's wealth, and if, in the plenitude of his power, he should +secure to her the exercise of all her God-given rights, her +wealth could not bring poverty to him. There is a kind of nervous +unrest always manifested by those in power, whenever new claims +are started by those out of their own immediate class. The +philosophy of this is very plain. They imagine that if the rights +of this new class be granted, they must, of necessity, sacrifice +something of what they already possess. They can not divest +themselves of the idea that rights are very much like lands, +stocks, bonds, and mortgages, and that if every new claimant be +satisfied, the supply of human rights must in time run low. You +might as well carp at the birth of every child, lest there should +not be enough air left to inflate your lungs; at the success of +every scholar, for fear that your draughts at the fountain of +knowledge could not be so long and deep; at the glory of every +hero, lest there be no glory left for you....</p> + +<p>If the object of government is to protect the weak against the +strong, how unwise to place the power wholly in the hands of the +strong. Yet that is the history of all governments, even the +model republic of these United States. You who have read the +history of nations, from Moses down to our last election, where +have you ever seen one class looking after the interests of +another? Any of you can readily see the defects in other +governments, and pronounce sentence against those who have +sacrificed the masses to themselves; but when we come to our own +case, we are blinded by custom and self-interest. Some of you who +have no capital can see the injustice which the laborer suffers; +some of you who have no slaves, can see the cruelty of his +oppression; but who of you appreciate the galling humiliation, +the refinements of degradation, to which women (the mothers, +wives, sisters, and daughters of freemen) are subject, in this +the last half of the nineteenth century? How many of you have +ever read even the laws concerning them that now disgrace your +statute-books? In cruelty and tyranny, they are not surpassed by +any slaveholding code in the Southern States; in fact they are +worse, by just so far as woman, from her social position, +refinement, and education, is on a more equal ground with the +oppressor.</p> + +<p>Allow me just here to call the attention of that party now so +much interested in the slave of the Carolinas, to the similarity +in his condition and that of the mothers, wives, and daughters of +the Empire State. The negro has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas or +Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The woman has +no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe or Mrs. John Doe, just whose +Mrs. she may chance to be. Cuffy has no right to his earnings; he +can not buy or sell, or lay up anything that he can call his own. +Mrs. Roe has no right to her earnings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_681" id="Page_681">[Pg 681]</a></span> she can neither buy nor +sell, make contracts, nor lay up anything that she can call her +own. Cuffy has no right to his children; they can be sold from +him at any time. Mrs. Roe has no right to her children; they may +be bound out to cancel a father's debts of honor. The unborn +child, even by the last will of the father, may be placed under +the guardianship of a stranger and a foreigner. Cuffy has no +legal existence; he is subject to restraint and moderate +chastisement. Mrs. Roe has no legal existence; she has not the +best right to her own person. The husband has the power to +restrain, and administer moderate chastisement.</p> + +<p>Blackstone declares that the husband and wife are one, and +learned commentators have decided that that one is the husband. +In all civil codes, you will find them classified as one. Certain +rights and immunities, such and such privileges are to be secured +to white male citizens. What have women and negroes to do with +rights? What know they of government, war, or glory?</p> + +<p>The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no +stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, +and manifested very much in the same way. The negro's skin and +the woman's sex are both <i>prima facie</i> evidence that they were +intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. The few +social privileges which the man gives the woman, he makes up to +the negro in civil rights. The woman may sit at the same table +and eat with the white man; the free negro may hold property and +vote. The woman may sit in the same pew with the white man in +church; the free negro may enter the pulpit and preach. Now, with +the black man's right to suffrage, the right unquestioned, even +by Paul, to minister at the altar, it is evident that the +prejudice against sex is more deeply rooted and more unreasonably +maintained than that against color. As citizens of a republic, +which should we most highly prize, social privileges or civil +rights? The latter, most certainly.</p> + +<p>To those who do not feel the injustice and degradation of the +condition, there is something inexpressibly comical in man's +"citizen woman." It reminds me of those monsters I used to see in +the old world, head and shoulders woman, and the rest of the body +sometimes fish and sometimes beast. I used to think, What a +strange conceit! but now I see how perfectly it represents man's +idea! Look over all his laws concerning us, and you will see just +enough of woman to tell of her existence; all the rest is +submerged, or made to crawl upon the earth. Just imagine an +inhabitant of another planet entertaining himself some pleasant +evening in searching over our great national compact, our +Declaration of Independence, our Constitutions, or some of our +statute-books; what would he think of those "women and negroes" +that must be so fenced in, so guarded against? Why, he would +certainly suppose we were monsters, like those fabulous giants or +Brobdignagians of olden times, so dangerous to civilized man, +from our size, ferocity, and power. Then let him take up our +poets, from Pope down to Dana; let him listen to our Fourth of +July toasts, and some of the sentimental adulations of social +life, and no logic could convince him that this creature of the +law, and this angel of the family altar, could be one and the +same being. Man is in such a labyrinth of contradictions with his +marital and property<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_682" id="Page_682">[Pg 682]</a></span> rights; he is so befogged on the whole +question of maidens, wives, and mothers, that from pure +benevolence we should relieve him from this troublesome branch of +legislation. We should vote, and make laws for ourselves. Do not +be alarmed, dear ladies! You need spend no time reading Grotius, +Coke, Puffendorf, Blackstone, Bentham, Kent, and Story to find +out what you need. We may safely trust the shrewd selfishness of +the white man, and consent to live under the same broad code +where he has so comfortably ensconced himself. Any legislation +that will do for man, we may abide by most cheerfully....</p> + +<p>But, say you, we would not have woman exposed to the grossness +and vulgarity of public life, or encounter what she must at the +polls. When you talk, gentlemen, of sheltering woman from the +rough winds and revolting scenes of real life, you must be either +talking for effect, or wholly ignorant of what the facts of life +are. The man, whatever he is, is known to the woman. She is the +companion, not only of the accomplished statesman, the orator, +and the scholar; but the vile, vulgar, brutal man has his mother, +his wife, his sister, his daughter. Yes, delicate, refined, +educated women are in daily life with the drunkard, the gambler, +the licentious man, the rogue, and the villain; and if man shows +out what he is anywhere, it is at his own hearthstone. There are +over forty thousand drunkards in this State. All these are bound +by the ties of family to some woman. Allow but a mother and a +wife to each, and you have over eighty thousand women. All these +have seen their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, in the lowest +and most debased stages of obscenity and degradation. In your own +circle of friends, do you not know refined women, whose whole +lives are darkened and saddened by gross and brutal associations? +Now, gentlemen, do you talk to woman of a rude jest or jostle at +the polls, where noble, virtuous men stand ready to protect her +person and her rights, when, alone in the darkness and solitude +and gloom of night, she has trembled on her own threshold, +awaiting the return of a husband from his midnight revels?—when, +stepping from her chamber, she has beheld her royal monarch, her +lord and master—her legal representative—the protector of her +property, her home, her children, and her person, down on his +hands and knees slowly crawling up the stairs? Behold him in her +chamber—in her bed! The fairy tale of "Beauty and the Beast" is +far too often realized in life. Gentlemen, such scenes as woman +has witnessed at her own fireside, where no eye save Omnipotence +could pity, no strong arm could help, can never be realized at +the polls, never equaled elsewhere, this side the bottomless pit. +No, woman has not hitherto lived in the clouds, surrounded by an +atmosphere of purity and peace—but she has been the companion of +man in health, in sickness, and in death, in his highest and in +his lowest moments. She has worshiped him as a saint and an +orator, and pitied him as madman or a fool. In Paradise, man and +woman were placed together, and so they must ever be. They must +sink or rise together. If man is low and wretched and vile, woman +can not escape the contagion, and any atmosphere that is unfit +for woman to breathe is not fit for man. Verily, the sins of the +fathers shall be visited upon the children to the third and +fourth generation. You, by your unwise legislation, have crippled +and dwarfed womanhood, by closing to her all honorable and +lucrative means of employment, have driven her into the garrets +and dens of our cities, where she now revenges herself on your +innocent sons, sapping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_683" id="Page_683">[Pg 683]</a></span> the very foundations of national virtue +and strength. Alas! for the young men just coming on the stage of +action, who soon shall fill your vacant places—our future +Senators, our Presidents, the expounders of our constitutional +law! Terrible are the penalties we are now suffering for the ages +of injustice done to woman.</p> + +<p>Again, it is said that the majority of women do not ask for any +change in the laws; that it is time enough to give them the +elective franchise when they, as a class, demand it.</p> + +<p>Wise statesmen legislate for the best interests of the nation; +the State, for the highest good of its citizens; the Christian, +for the conversion of the world. Where would have been our +railroads, our telegraphs, our ocean steamers, our canals and +harbors, our arts and sciences, if government had withheld the +means from the far-seeing minority? This State established our +present system of common schools, fully believing that educated +men and women would make better citizens than ignorant ones. In +making this provision for the education of its children, had they +waited for a majority of the urchins of this State to petition +for schools, how many, think you, would have asked to be +transplanted from the street to the school-house? Does the State +wait for the criminal to ask for his prison-house? the insane, +the idiot, the deaf and dumb for his asylum? Does the Christian, +in his love to all mankind, wait for the majority of the +benighted heathen to ask him for the gospel? No; unasked and +unwelcomed, he crosses the trackless ocean, rolls off the +mountain of superstition that oppresses the human mind, proclaims +the immortality of the soul, the dignity of manhood, the right of +all to be free and happy.</p> + +<p>No, gentlemen, if there is but one woman in this State who feels +the injustice of her position, she should not be denied her +inalienable rights, because the common household drudge and the +silly butterfly of fashion are ignorant of all laws, both human +and Divine. Because they know nothing of governments, or rights, +and therefore ask nothing, shall my petitions be unheard? I stand +before you the rightful representative of woman, claiming a share +in the halo of glory that has gathered round her in the ages, and +by the wisdom of her past words and works, her peerless heroism +and self-sacrifice, I challenge your admiration; and, moreover, +claiming, as I do, a share in all her outrages and sufferings, in +the cruel injustice, contempt, and ridicule now heaped upon her, +in her deep degradation, hopeless wretchedness, by all that is +helpless in her present condition, that is false in law and +public sentiment, I urge your generous consideration; for as my +heart swells with pride to behold woman in the highest walks of +literature and art, it grows big enough to take in those who are +bleeding in the dust.</p> + +<p>Now do not think, gentlemen, we wish you to do a great many +troublesome things for us. We do not ask our legislators to spend +a whole session in fixing up a code of laws to satisfy a class of +most unreasonable women. We ask no more than the poor devils in +the Scripture asked, "Let us alone." In mercy, let us take care +of ourselves, our property, our children, and our homes. True, we +are not so strong, so wise, so crafty as you are, but if any kind +friend leaves us a little money, or we can by great industry earn +fifty cents a day, we would rather buy bread and clothes for our +children than cigars and champagne for our legal protectors. +There has been a great deal written and said about protection. +We, as a class, are tired of one kind of protection, that which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_684" id="Page_684">[Pg 684]</a></span> +leaves us everything to do, to dare, and to suffer, and strips us +of all means for its accomplishment. We would not tax man to take +care of us. No, the Great Father has endowed all his creatures +with the necessary powers for self-support, self-defense, and +protection. We do not ask man to represent us; it is hard enough +in times like these for man to carry backbone enough to represent +himself. So long as the mass of men spend most of their time on +the fence, not knowing which way to jump, they are surely in no +condition to tell us where we had better stand. In pity for man, +we would no longer hang like a millstone round his neck. Undo +what man did for us in the dark ages, and strike out all special +legislation for us; strike the words "white male" from all your +constitutions, and then, with fair sailing, let us sink or swim, +live or die, survive or perish together.</p> + +<p>At Athens, an ancient apologue tells us, on the completion of the +temple of Minerva, a statue of the goddess was wanted to occupy +the crowning point of the edifice. Two of the greatest artists +produced what each deemed his masterpiece. One of these figures +was the size of life, admirably designed, exquisitely finished, +softly rounded, and beautifully refined. The other was of +Amazonian stature, and so boldly chiselled that it looked more +like masonry than sculpture. The eyes of all were attracted by +the first, and turned away in contempt from the second. That, +therefore, was adopted, and the other rejected, almost with +resentment, as though an insult had been offered to a discerning +public. The favored statue was accordingly borne in triumph to +the place for which it was designed, in the presence of +applauding thousands, but as it receded from their upturned eyes, +all, all at once agaze upon it, the thunders of applause +unaccountably died away—a general misgiving ran through every +bosom—the mob themselves stood like statues, as silent and as +petrified, for as it slowly went up, and up the soft expression +of those chiselled features, the delicate curves and outlines of +the limbs and figure, became gradually fainter and fainter, and +when at last it readied the place for which it was intended, it +was a shapeless ball, enveloped in mist. Of course, the idol of +the hour was now clamored down as rationally as it had been cried +up, and its dishonored rival, with no good will and no good looks +on the part of the chagrined populace, was reared in its stead. +As it ascended, the sharp angles faded away, the rough points +became smooth, the features full of expression, the whole figure +radiant with majesty and beauty. The rude hewn mass, that before +had scarcely appeared to bear even the human form, assumed at +once the divinity which it represented, being so perfectly +proportioned to the dimensions of the building, and to the +elevation on which it stood, that it seemed as though Pallas +herself had alighted upon the pinnacle of the temple in person, +to receive the homage of her worshippers.</p> + +<p>The woman of the nineteenth century is the shapeless ball in the +lofty position which she was designed fully and nobly to fill. +The place is not too high, too large, too sacred for woman, but +the type that you have chosen is far too small for it. The woman +we declare unto you is the rude, misshapen, unpolished object of +the successful artist. From your stand-point, you are absorbed +with the defects alone. The true artist sees the harmony between +the object and its destination. Man, the sculptor, has carved out +his ideal, and applauding thousands welcome his success. He has +made a woman that from his low stand-point looks fair and +beautiful, a being without rights, or hopes, or fears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_685" id="Page_685">[Pg 685]</a></span> but in +him—neither noble, virtuous, nor independent. Where do we see, +in Church or State, in school-house or at the fireside, the much +talked-of moral power of woman? Like those Athenians, we have +bowed down and worshiped in woman, beauty, grace, the exquisite +proportions, the soft and beautifully rounded outline, her +delicacy, refinement, and silent helplessness—all well when she +is viewed simply as an object of sight, never to rise one foot +above the dust from which she sprung. But if she is to be raised +up to adorn a temple, or represent a divinity—if she is to fill +the niche of wife and counsellor to true and noble men, if she is +to be the mother, the educator of a race of heroes or martyrs, of +a Napoleon, or a Jesus—then must the type of womanhood be on a +larger scale than that yet carved by man.</p> + +<p>In vain would the rejected artist have reasoned with the +Athenians as to the superiority of his production; nothing short +of the experiment they made could have satisfied them. And what +of your experiment, what of your wives, your homes? Alas! for the +folly and vacancy that meet you there! But for your club-houses +and newspapers, what would social life be to you? Where are your +beautiful women? your frail ones, taught to lean lovingly and +confidingly on man? Where are the crowds of educated +dependents—where the long line of pensioners on man's bounty? +Where all the young girls, taught to believe that marriage is the +only legitimate object of a woman's pursuit—they who stand +listlessly on life's shores, waiting, year after year, like the +sick man at the pool of Bethesda, for some one to come and put +them in? These are they who by their ignorance and folly curse +almost every fireside with some human specimen of deformity or +imbecility. These are they who fill the gloomy abodes of poverty +and vice in our vast metropolis. These are they who patrol the +streets of our cities, to give our sons their first lessons in +infamy. These are they who fill our asylums, and make night +hideous with their cries and groans.</p> + +<p>The women who are called masculine, who are brave, courageous, +self-reliant and independent, are they who in the face of adverse +winds have kept one steady course upward and onward in the paths +of virtue and peace—they who have taken their gauge of womanhood +from their own native strength and dignity—they who have learned +for themselves the will of God concerning them. This is our type +of womanhood. Will you help us raise it up, that you too may see +its beautiful proportions—that you may behold the outline of the +goddess who is yet to adorn your temple of Freedom? We are +building a model republic; our edifice will one day need a +crowning glory. Let the artists be wisely chosen. Let them begin +their work. Here is a temple to Liberty, to human rights, on +whose portals behold the glorious declaration, "All men are +created equal." The sun has never yet shone upon any of man's +creations that can compare with this. The artist who can mold a +statue worthy to crown magnificence like this, must be godlike in +his conceptions, grand in his comprehensions, sublimely beautiful +in his power of execution. The woman—the crowning glory of the +model republic among the nations of the earth—what must she not +be? (Loud applause).<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_686" id="Page_686">[Pg 686]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>AN ACT CONCERNING THE RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES OF HUSBAND AND WIFE.</h3> + +<p>The Act of 1860<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> was offered by Andrew J. Colvin in the Senate as +a substitute for a bill from the Assembly, which was simply an +amendment of the law of 1848. Senators Hammond, Ramsey, and Colvin +constituted the Judiciary Committee, to whom the bill was referred. +Mr. Colvin objected to it for want of breadth in giving to married +women the rights to which he thought them entitled, and urged that a +much more liberal measure was demanded by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_687" id="Page_687">[Pg 687]</a></span> spirit of the times. In +one of Miss Anthony's interviews with Mr. Colvin, she handed him a +very radical bill just introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature, +which after due examination and the addition of two or three more +liberal clauses, was accepted by the Committee, reported to the Senate +by Mr. Colvin, and adopted by that body February 28, 1860<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a>. The +bill was concurred in by the Assembly, and signed by the Governor, +Edwin D. Morgan. It is quite remarkable that the bill in its transit +did not receive a single alteration, modification, or amendment from +the time it left Mr. Colvin's hands until it took its place on the +statute-book. The women of the State who labored so persistently for +this measure, felt that the victory at last was due in no small degree +to the deep interest and patient skill of Andrew J. Colvin. Hon. Anson +Bingham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who did good service in +the Assembly at this time, should be gratefully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_688" id="Page_688">[Pg 688]</a></span> remembered by the +women of New York. Mr. Bingham acted in concert with Mr. Colvin, both +earnestly putting their shoulders to the wheel, one in the Assembly +and one in the Senate, and with the women pulling all the wires they +could outside, together they pushed the grand measure through.</p> + +<p>Judge Bingham served our cause also by articles on all phases of the +question over the signature of "Senex," published in many journals +throughout the State. And this, too, at an early day, when every word +in favor of woman's rights was of immense value in breaking down the +prejudice of the ages.</p> + +<p>In addition to this, another act of great benefit to a large number of +housekeepers, called the "Boarding House Law," was secured by the same +members. Miss Emily Howland, Mrs. Margaret Murray, Mrs. Manning, and +Mrs. Griffith Satterlee spent some weeks in Albany using their +influence in favor of this measure.</p> + +<p>In February, 1860, Emily Howland arranged a course of lectures on +Woman's Rights, to be given in Cooper Institute, New York. Henry Ward +Beecher delivered his first lecture on the question in this course, +receiving his fee of $100 in advance, as it was said he considered no +engagement of that sort imperative without previous payment. Mr. +Beecher's speech was published in full in <i>The New York Independent</i>, +of which he was then editor-in-chief. The State Committee purchased a +large number, which Lydia Mott, of Albany, laid on the desk of every +member of both Houses. At the time we felt the speech worth to our +cause all it cost.</p> + + +<h3>TENTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.<br /> +<small>COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, MAY 10-11, 1860.</small></h3> + +<p>A large audience assembled in Cooper Institute at 10½ o'clock, +Thursday morning. Susan B. Anthony called the Convention to order, and +submitted a list of officers,<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> nominated at a preliminary meeting, +which was adopted without dissent.</p> + +<p>The President, Martha C. Wright, of Auburn, on taking the Chair, +addressed the Convention as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_689" id="Page_689">[Pg 689]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote><p>I have only to thank you for the honor you have conferred by +electing me to preside over the deliberations of this Convention. +I shall leave it to others to speak of the purposes of this great +movement and of the successes which have already been achieved.</p> + +<p>There are those in our movement who ask, "What is the use of +these Conventions? What is the use of this constant iteration of +the same things?" When we see what has been already achieved, we +learn the use of this "foolishness of preaching:" and after all +that we demand has been granted, as it will be soon, <i>The New +York Observer</i> will piously fold its hands and roll up its eyes, +and say, "This beneficent movement we have always advocated," and +the pulpits will say "Amen!" (Laughter and applause). Then will +come forward women who have gained courage from the efforts and +sacrifices of others, and the great world will say, "Here come +the women who are going to do something, and not talk."</p> + +<p>There are those, too, who find fault with the freedom of our +platform, who stand aloof and criticise, fearful of being +involved in something that they can not fully endorse. Forgetting +that, as Macaulay says, "Liberty alone can cure the evils of +liberty," they fear to trust on the platform all who have a word +to say. But we have invited all to come forward and speak, and +not to stand aside and afterward criticise what has been said. We +trust that those present who have an opinion, who have a word to +say, whether they have ever spoken before or not, will speak now. +If they disapprove of our resolutions, if they disapprove of +anything that is said on this platform, let them oppose if they +can not unite with us. (Applause.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Susan B. Anthony was then introduced, and read the following report:</p> + +<blockquote><p>For our encouragement in laboring for the elevation of woman, it +is well ever and anon to review the advancing steps. Each year we +hail with pleasure new accessions to our faith. Strong words of +cheer have come to us on every breeze. Brave men and true, from +the higher walks of literature and art, from the bar, the bench, +the pulpit, and legislative halls, are ready now to help woman +wherever she claims to stand. The Press, too, has changed its +tone. Instead of ridicule, we now have grave debate. And still +more substantial praises of gold and silver have come to us. A +gift of $5,000 from unknown hands; a rich legacy from the coffers +of a Boston merchant prince—the late Charles F. Hovey; and, but +a few days ago, $400,000 from Mr. Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, to +found a college for girls, equal in all respects to Yale and +Harvard.</p> + +<p>We had in New York a legislative act passed at the last session, +securing to married women their rights to their earnings and +their children. Other States have taken onward steps. And, from +what is being done on all sides, we have reason to believe that, +as the Northern States shall one by one remodel their +Constitutions, the right of suffrage will be granted to women. +Six years hence New York proposes to revise her Constitution. +These should be years of effort with all those who believe that +it is the right and the duty of every citizen of a State to have +a voice in the laws that govern them.</p> + +<p>Woman is being so educated that she will feel herself capable of +assuming grave responsibilities as lawgiver and administrator. +She is crowding into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_690" id="Page_690">[Pg 690]</a></span> higher avocations and new branches of +industry. She already occupies the highest places in literature +and art. The more liberal lyceums are open to her, and she is +herself the subject of the most popular lectures now before the +public. The young women of our academies and high schools are +asserting their right to the discipline of declamation and +discussion, and the departments of science and mathematics. +Pewholders, of the most orthodox sects, are taking their right to +a voice in the government of the church, and in the face of +priests, crying "let your women keep silence in the churches," +yes, at the very horns of the altar, calmly, deliberately, and +persistently casting their votes in the choice of church officers +and pastors.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> Mass-meetings to sympathize with the "strikers" +of Massachusetts are being called in this metropolis by women. +Women are ordained ministers, and licensed physicians. Elizabeth +Blackwell has founded a hospital in this city, where she proposes +a thorough medical education, both theoretical and practical, for +young women. And this Institute in which we are now assembled, +with its school of design, its library and reading-room, where +the arts and sciences are freely taught to women, and this hall, +so cheerfully granted to our Convention, shows the magnanimity of +its founder, Peter Cooper. All these are the results of our +twenty years of agitation. And it matters not to us, though the +men and the women who echo back our thought do fail to recognize +the source of power, and while they rejoice in each onward step +achieved in the face of ridicule and persecution, ostracise those +who have done the work. Who of our literary women has yet +ventured one word of praise or recognition of the heroic +enunciators of the great idea of woman's equality—of Mary +Woolstonecraft, Frances Wright, Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, +Elizabeth Cady Stanton? It matters not to those who live for the +race, and not for self alone, who has the praise, so that justice +be done to woman in Church, in State, and at the fireside—an +equal everywhere with man—they will not complain, though even +<i>The New York Observer</i> itself does claim to have done for them +the work.</p> + +<p>During the past six years this State has been thoroughly +canvassed, and every county that has been visited by our +lecturers and tracts has rolled up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_691" id="Page_691">[Pg 691]</a></span> petitions by the hundreds and +thousands asking for woman's right to vote and hold office—her +right to her person, her wages, her children, and her home. Again +and again have we held Conventions at the capital, and addressed +our Legislature, demanding the exercise of all our rights as +citizens of the Empire State. During the past year, we have had +six women<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> lecturing in New York for several months each. +Conventions have been held in forty counties, one or more +lectures delivered in one hundred and fifty towns and villages, +our petitions circulated, and our tracts and documents sold and +gratuitously distributed throughout the entire length and breadth +of the State.</p> + +<p>A State Convention was held at Albany early in February. Large +numbers of the members of the Legislature listened respectfully +and attentively to the discussions of its several sessions, and +expressed themselves converts to the claims for woman. The bills +for woman's right to her property, her earnings, and the +guardianship of her children passed both branches of the +Legislature with scarce a dissenting voice, and received the +prompt signature of the Governor.</p> + +<p>Our Legislature passed yet another bill that brings great relief +to a large class of women. It was called the Boarding-House Bill. +It provides that the keepers of private boarding-houses shall +have the right of lien on the property of boarders, precisely the +same as do hotel-keepers. We closed our work by a joint hearing +before the Committees of the Judiciary at the Capitol on the 19th +of March. Elizabeth Cady Stanton addressed them. The Assembly +Chamber was densely packed, and she was listened to with marked +attention and respect. The Judiciary Committees of neither House +reported on our petition for the right of suffrage, though the +Chairman, with a large minority of the House Committee and a +majority of the Senate Committee, favored the claim. The Hon. A. +J. Colvin, of the Senate Committee, in a letter to me, says:</p> + +<p>"The subject was presented at so late a day as to preclude +action. While a majority of the Senate Committee I think were +favorable, a majority of the House Committee, so far as I could +learn, were opposed. So many progressive measures had passed both +Houses that I felt apprehensive we might perhaps be running too +great a risk by urging this question of justice and reform at +this session. I did not therefore press it. Should I remain in +the Senate, I may take occasion at an early day in the next +session to bring up the subject and present my views at length. +The more reflection I give, the more my mind becomes convinced +that in a Republican Government, we have no right to deny to +woman the privileges she claims. Besides, the moral element which +those privileges would bring into existence would, in my +judgment, have a powerful influence in perpetuating our form of +government. It may be deemed best, at the next session, to urge +an early Constitutional Convention. In case one should be called, +your friends should be prepared to meet the emergency. Is the +public mind sufficiently enlightened to accept a constitution +recognizing the right of women to vote and hold office? You +should consider this."</p> + +<p>The entire expense of the New York State work during the past +year is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_692" id="Page_692">[Pg 692]</a></span> nearly four thousand dollars. The present year we +propose to expend our funds and efforts mostly in Ohio, to +obtain, if possible, for the women of that State, the liberal +laws we have secured for ourselves. Ohio, too, is soon to revise +her Constitution, and we trust she will not be far behind New +York in recognizing the full equality of woman. We who have +grasped the idea of woman's destiny, her power and influence, the +trinity of her existence as woman, wife, and mother, can most +earnestly work for her elevation to that high position that it is +the will of God she should ever fill. Though we have not yet +realized the fullness of our hopes, let us rest in the belief +that in all these years of struggle, no earnest thought, or word, +or prayer has been breathed in vain. The influence has gone +forth, the great ocean has been moved, and those who watch, e'en +now may see the mighty waves of truth slowly swelling on the +shores of time.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"One accent of the Holy Ghost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A heedless word hath never lost."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span> being introduced, said: Frances Wright was the +first woman in this country who spoke on the equality of the +sexes. She had indeed a hard task before her. The elements were +entirely unprepared. She had to break up the time-hardened soil +of conservatism, and her reward was sure—the same reward that is +always bestowed upon those who are in the vanguard of any great +movement. She was subjected to public odium, slander, and +persecution. But these were not the only things that she +received. Oh, she had her reward!—that reward of which no +enemies could deprive her, which no slanders could make less +precious—the eternal reward of knowing that she had done her +duty; the reward springing from the consciousness of right, of +endeavoring to benefit unborn generations. How delightful to see +the molding of the minds around you, the infusing of your +thoughts and aspirations into others, until one by one they stand +by your side, without knowing how they came there! That reward +she had. It has been her glory, it is the glory of her memory; +and the time will come when society will have outgrown its old +prejudices, and stepped with one foot, at least, upon the +elevated platform on which she took her position. But owing to +the fact that the elements were unprepared, she naturally could +not succeed to any great extent.</p> + +<p>After her, in 1837, the subject of woman's rights was again taken +hold of—aye, taken hold of by woman; and the soil having been +already somewhat prepared, she began to sow the seeds for the +future growth, the fruits of which we now begin to enjoy. +Petitions were circulated and sent to our Legislature, and who +can tell the hardships that then met those who undertook that +great work! I went from house to house with a petition for +signatures simply asking our Legislature to allow married women +to hold real estate in their own name. What did I meet with? Why, +the very name exposed one to ridicule, if not to worse treatment. +The women said: "We have rights enough; we want no more"; and the +men, as a matter of course, echoed it, and said: "You have +rights' enough; nay, you have too many already." (Laughter). But +by perseverance in sending petitions to the Legislature, and, at +the same time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_693" id="Page_693">[Pg 693]</a></span> enlightening the public mind on the subject, we +at last accomplished our purpose. We had to adopt the method +which physicians sometimes use, when they are called to a patient +who is so hopelessly sick that he is unconscious of his pain and +suffering. We had to describe to women their own position, to +explain to them the burdens that rested so heavily upon them, and +through these means, as a wholesome irritant, we roused public +opinion on the subject, and through public opinion, we acted upon +the Legislature, and in 1848-49, they gave us the great boon for +which we asked, by enacting that a woman who possessed property +previous to marriage, or obtained it after marriage, should be +allowed to hold it in her own name. Thus far, thus good; but it +was only a beginning, and we went on. In 1848 we had the first +Woman's Rights Convention, and then some of our papers thought it +only a very small affair, called together by a few "strong-minded +women," and would pass away like a nine-days' wonder. They little +knew woman! They little knew that if woman takes anything +earnestly in her hands, she will not lay it aside unaccomplished. +(Applause). We have continued our Conventions ever since. A few +years ago, when we sent a petition to our Legislature, we +obtained, with but very little effort, upward of thirteen +thousand signatures. What a contrast between this number and the +five signatures attached to the first petition, in 1837! Since +then, we might have had hundreds of thousands of signatures, but +it is no longer necessary. Public opinion is too well known to +require a long array of names.</p> + +<p>We have been often asked. "What is the use of Conventions? Why +talk? Why not go to work?" Just as if the thought did not precede +the act! Those who act without previously thinking, are not good +for much. Thought is first required, then the expression of it, +and that leads to action; and action based upon thought never +needs to be reversed; it is lasting and profitable, and produces +the desired effect. I know that there are many who take advantage +of this movement, and then say: "You are doing nothing; only +talking." Yes, doing nothing! We have only broken up the ground +and sowed the seed; they are reaping the benefit, and yet they +tell us we have done nothing! Mrs. Swisshelm, who has proclaimed +herself to be "no woman's rights, woman," has accepted a position +as inspector of logs and lumber. (Laughter). Well, I have no +objection to her having that avocation, if she have a taste and +capacity for it—far from it. But she has accepted still more, +and I doubt not with a great deal more zest and satisfaction—the +five hundred dollars salary; and I hope she will enjoy it. Then, +having accepted both the office and the salary, she folds her +arms, and says: "I am none of your strong-minded women; I don't +go for woman's rights." Well, she is still welcome to it. I have +not the slightest objection that those who proclaim themselves +not strong-minded, should still reap the benefit of a strong mind +(applause and laughter); it is for them we work. So there are +some ladies who think a great deal can be done in the Legislature +without petitions, without conventions, without lectures, without +public claim, in fact, without anything, but a little lobbying. +Well, if they have a, taste for it, they are welcome to engage in +it; I have not the slightest objection. Yes, I have. I, as a +woman, being conscious of the evil that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_694" id="Page_694">[Pg 694]</a></span> is done by these lobby +loafers in our Legislature and in the halls of Congress, object +to it. (Loud cheers). I will wait five years longer to have a +right given to me legitimately, from a sense of justice, rather +than buy it in an underhand way by lobbying. Whatever my +sentiments may be, good, bad, or indifferent, I express them, and +they are known. Nevertheless, if any desire it, let them do that +work. But what has induced them, what has enabled them, to do +that work? The Woman's Rights movement, although they are afraid +or ashamed even of the name "woman's rights."</p> + +<p>You have been told, and much more might be said on the subject, +that already the Woman's Rights platform has upon it lawyers, +ministers, and statesmen—men who are among the highest in the +nation. I need not mention Wm. Lloyd Garrison, or Wendell +Phillips; but there are others, those even who are afraid of the +name of reformer, who have stood upon our platform. Brady! Who +would ever have expected it? Chapin! Beecher! Think of it for a +moment! A minister advocating the rights of woman, even her right +at the ballot-box! What has done it? Our agitation has purified +the atmosphere, and enabled them to see the injustice that is +done to woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Elizabeth Jones</span>, of Ohio, was the next speaker. She said: I +wish to preface my remarks with this resolution:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That woman's sphere can not be bounded. Its +prescribed orbit is the largest place that in her highest +development she can fill. The laws of mind are as immutable +as are those of the planetary world, and the true woman most +ever revolve around the great moral sun of light and truth.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As a general proposition, we say that capacity determines the +true sphere of action, and indicates the kind of labor to be +performed. I often hear women discussing this subject, much more +in earnest than in jest, though they profess to be simply amusing +themselves. One says: "If I were a man, I should be a mechanic"; +another says: "I should be a merchant." One says: "I am sure I +should be rich"; another, in the excess of her humor, thinks she +should be distinguished. Why do women talk thus? Because one +feels that she has mechanical genius; the power to construct, to +perfect. Another understands the secrets of trade, and would like +to incur the heavy responsibilities it involves. A third is +conscious that she was born a financier; while a fourth has an +intuitive perception of the elements of success.</p> + +<p>Many women are beginning to judge for themselves the proper +sphere of action, and are not only jesting about what they should +do under other circumstances, but are already entering upon such +paths as their taste and capacity indicate. Some will doubtless +make mistakes, which experience will rectify, and others will +perhaps persist in striving to do that which it will be very +evident they have no ability to perform. This is the case with +men who have had freedom in every sphere. Look at the American +pulpit, for instance. Go through the country, and listen to those +who claim to be the messengers of God, and if you do not say that +many are destitute of capacity to fill the sphere they have +chosen, we shall regard it as an act of obedience on your part to +the command<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_695" id="Page_695">[Pg 695]</a></span> which says: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." +(Laughter). Let adaptation be the rule for pulpit occupancy, and +while it would eject some who are now no honor to the station, +and no benefit to the people, it would open the place to many an +Anna and Miriam and Deborah to fulfill the mission which God has +clearly indicated by the talents He has bestowed.</p> + +<p>The world says now, man is God's minister, and woman is not fit +to call sinners to repentance; but let it say: "Those who have +faith in the principles of eternal right, and have power to give +it utterance; those who have the clearest perceptions of moral +truth; those who understand the wants of the people, are the +proper persons, whether they be men or women, to dispense to the +needy multitude the bread of life." This would elevate the +standard of pulpit qualifications, and bring into the field a far +greater amount of talent to choose from, and thus would the +intellectual and spiritual needs of the people be more fully +answered. What is true of this profession will apply with equal +force to others. Should I be told that the American bar needs no +more talent, I would reply that it needs decency, and a +well-founded self-respect. When you enter a court-room, and +listen to a cross-examination of a delicate nature, one where +woman is concerned, and she would rather die a hundred deaths, if +she could, than to have the case dragged before the public, you +will see it treated in the coarsest way, as if her holiest +affections and her most sacred functions were fitting themes for +brutish men to jeer at. And even in the most ordinary cases, +gentlemen who would spurn the imputation of incivility in social +life, will so browbeat and badger a witness, that the most +disgusting bear-baiting would become by comparison a refined +amusement. If the young aspirants for legal honors should meet +among the advocates and judges sensible, dignified, and highly +cultivated women, they would, if I am not much mistaken, get the +benefit of certain lessons, upon manners and morals, that it is +essential for all young men to learn. (Applause). It appears to +me that by association of men and women in this profession, the +bar might be purged of this indecorum, and possess the humanity, +the wisdom, and the dignity that should ever characterize a Court +of Justice.</p> + +<p>You need not tell me that the profession would be overstocked, if +women should enter it, for, like men, they must stand on their +merits. Let there be no proscription on account of sex. Let +talent be brought fairly into competition, and although many a +young man, as well as young woman, would sit down forever +briefless, having neither the capacity nor the acquirements to +bring or retain clients, yet their loss would be for the public +good, and for the honor and respectability of the profession. Let +the talents of women be fully developed, and no man will lose any +place that he is qualified to fill in consequence, and no woman +will obtain that place who has not peculiar fitness. All these +matters will find their own level, ultimately. I can point you to +localities now where the people prefer women for teachers. A +Union School in Northern Ohio, which is made up of ten +departments, employs women for teachers, and a woman as +superintendent of the whole. The people reason this way: We +prefer women, because they bring us the best talent. Not that +they have better talents than men, but with the latter, teaching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_696" id="Page_696">[Pg 696]</a></span> +is generally a stepping-stone to a profession. Woman accepts it +as her highest post, and brings her best energies. With man, it +is often a subordinate interest, and his best talents will be +exercised upon what he regards as something higher and better. As +in this, so in other things. The time will come when talent or +capacity will govern the choice and not sex. It is so now in Art, +to a great extent. I think there is not much known of sex there. +The world does not care who wrote "Aurora Leigh." It does not +recognize it as the production of a woman, but as the work of +genius. Let the artists say what they please, the world does not +care who chisels Zenobia, so that Zenobia be well chiseled. It +does not care whether Landseer or Rosa Bonheur paints animals, so +that animals are well painted. No one says this or that is well +done for a woman, but he says, this is the work of an artist, +that has no merit; not because a woman did it, not because a man +did it, but because the author was destitute of capacity to +embody the idea.</p> + +<p>Again, read the little village newspapers, got out by little +editors, and you will find, in many cases, an utter want of +ability to fill the place that has been chosen. I hope young +women will not make such mistakes as these young men have done, +who might have been supposed to know something, if they had only +kept still. (Laughter). If these papers, to which I have +referred, were all in the hands of women, and so destitute of +editorial pith and point as they now are, I should counsel +against any further efforts for the elevation of the sex, +believing the case to be hopeless. (Applause). If I mistake not, +women have a peculiar fitness for trade. Mrs. Dall says, in her +second lecture, that on the Island of Nantucket, women have +engaged in commerce very successfully. They did it in the war, +and afterward, when destitution drove the men to the whale +fisheries, and again when they went to California. They have had +much experience; and Eliza Barney tells of seventy women who +engaged in trade, and retired with a competence, and besides +brought up and educated large families of children. She says, +also, that failures were very uncommon when women managed the +business, and some of the largest and safest fortunes in Boston +were founded by women. Whenever, therefore, one shows any ability +for trade, that is her license for engaging in it—a license +granted under the higher law, and therefore valid. I went into a +bonnet store the other day, and saw a man-milliner holding up a +bonnet on his soft white hand to a lady customer, and expatiating +upon the beauties of the article with an earnestness, if not the +eloquence, of an orator. She tried it on, and he went into +ecstacies. (Laughter). It was so becoming! It was so charming! He +complimented her, and he complimented the bonnet, and had she not +been a strong-minded woman, I do not know how much of the +flattery she would have taken for truth. I thought that man was +out of his sphere: and not only that, but he had crowded some +woman out of her appropriate place, out of the realm of taste and +fashion. (Applause). When I passed out on the street, the harsh, +discordant tone of a fish-woman fell upon my ear. I saw that she +bore a heavy tub upon her head, evidently seeking by this branch +of merchandise to procure a living for herself and family. So few +were the avenues open to her, as she thought, and so much had men +monopolized the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_697" id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</a></span> places she could fill, that she was compelled to +carry fish on her head, until she could raise money enough to +procure a better conveyance.</p> + +<p>Again, I see young men selling artificial flowers, and laces and +embroidery, crinolines and balmorals, and I think to myself they +had better be out digging coal or making brick. When I go back +home to the West, I could take a car-load with me, and set them +to work, and I would greatly benefit their condition, while the +places they vacate here might be filled by the girls who are now +starving in your garrets. (Applause). At a shoe-store, instead of +finding a sprightly miss, to select and fit the ladies gaiters, +you often see a strong, healthy man, kneeling before the customer +with a gallantry that would be admirable in a drawing-room, and +worth infinitely more than the price of the article he is +selling; and he fusses over the gaiters and over the lady's foot, +until you wonder if she is not tempted to propel him into a more +appropriate sphere. (Laughter). Whatever possessed men to imagine +that God designed them to fit ladies' gaiters, is more than I can +imagine. (Applause). I am unable to realize how they obtained the +revelation that for a woman to thus officiate would take her out +of her appropriate sphere. Shall I be held to my principles here, +and told that these men succeed in business, and success being +the test of sphere, therefore they are in their place? It remains +to be proved that they have succeeded. A man may jump Jim Crow +from morning till night, or make a fool of himself in any other +way, and succeed admirably in pleasing auditors and gathering +pennies; but when you take into consideration his high and +heavenly origin, and the noble purposes for which he was made, +you can hardly call it a success. Neither should I think a woman +was in suitable business, even if it were ever so lucrative and +well done, unless that business developed her talents; made her +stronger, more self-reliant, and better fitted her for life and +its duties. These stores would be a good discipline for young +girls, but not for men.</p> + +<p>This whole question lies in a small compass. Our reform would +leave woman just where God placed her—a moral, accountable +being, endowed with talents whose scope and character indicate +the work she is to do; and who is responsible primarily to her +Creator for the use she makes of those talents. He says to every +man and to every woman, Go work in my vineyard! That vineyard I +understand to be the world, embracing all the varied +responsibilities of life. Whether man shall pursue science, +literature, or art, whether he shall engage in agriculture, +manufactures, or mechanics, is for <i>him</i> to determine, and +whether woman shall engage in any of these things is for <i>her</i> to +determine. Nothing but an internal consciousness of power to +perform certain work, and that it will be for her own good, can +aid her in her choice. If a woman can write vigorous verse, then +let her write verse. If she can build ships, then let her be a +ship-builder. I know no reason why. If she can keep house, and +that takes as much brains as any other occupation, let her be a +housekeeper. They tell us that "eternal vigilance is the price of +liberty"; eternal vigilance is the price of a well-ordered home, +and every woman before me knows it. (Applause). I know that the +conservative, in his fear, says, Surely you would not have woman +till the soil, sail the seas, run up the rigging of a ship like a +monkey (I use the language of one of your most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_698" id="Page_698">[Pg 698]</a></span> distinguished +men), go to war, engage in political brawls? No! I would not have +her do anything. She must be her own judge. In relation to +tilling the soil, the last census of the United Kingdom reports +128,418 women employed in agriculture. Examples are by no means +rare where a woman carries on a farm which her deceased husband +has left, and I have, seen much skill evinced in the management. +"In Media, Pa., two girls named Miller carry on a farm of 300 +acres, raising hay and grain, hiring labor, but working mostly +themselves." I have been on a farm in your own State where I saw, +not Tennyson's six mighty daughters of the plow, but I saw +three<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> who plowed, and not only that, but they plowed well. +Doubtless, some of our fastidious young ladies would be greatly +shocked at such an exhibition, and I must acknowledge that it was +to me a novel sight; but the more I considered it, the more I +thought that I would rather see a young woman holding the plow, +than to see her leading such an aimless, silly life as many a +young lady leads. I would rather see a young woman holding the +plow, than to see her decked out in her finery, and sitting idle +in the parlor, waiting for an offer of marriage. (Applause). I +hope women will not copy the vices of men. I hope they will not +go to war; I wish men would not. I hope they will not be +contentious politicians; I am sorry that men are. I hope they +will not regard their freedom as a license to do wrong; I am +ashamed to acknowledge that men do. But we need not fear. We may +safely trust the judgment of those who tell us that politics and +morals, and every department into which woman may enter, will be +elevated and refined by her influence.</p> + +<p>So far as navigation is concerned, I think many women would not +be attracted to that life. There might be now and then a Betsy +Miller, who could walk the quarter-deck in a gale, and that +certainly would indicate constitutional ability to become a +sailor. I do not suppose so much violence would be done to her +nature by navigating the seas, as by helping a drunken husband to +navigate the streets habitually. (Applause). In relation to +running up the rigging like a monkey, or in regard to any other +monkey performance, I do not believe that women will ever enter +into competition with men in these things, because the latter +have shown such remarkable aptitude for that business. (Laughter +and applause). But after all that may be said on this subject, we +fail to reach one class in the community who have spare time, +spare energies, abundance of power for work. I mean young ladies +of wealth and rank. The world shows a degree of toleration now +toward any young woman who from necessity has engaged in any +industrial avocation to which women have not heretofore applied +themselves. But there is no such toleration for the rich. Many of +these are now striving to kill time with fancy-work and fiction, +with flirtation and flaunting. Some are destitute of aspiration +for anything better. These could be moved only by some convulsion +in the social system, like the earthquake, or like the volcano +that opens the ground at our feet and shows us our danger. But +there are others whose convictions lead them to desire something +better; who feel that they are living to no purpose; who know +that their own powers, good as any God ever created, are lying in +inglorious repose. Some of the advocates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_699" id="Page_699">[Pg 699]</a></span> of our cause have said +that for these there is no profession but marriage. If they are +not literary, artistic, or philanthropic, what can they do? They +are held by a cable, made up of home influence, of fashion, and +of perverted Scripture, which binds them down to an insipid +existence. Hence, they suppress all desire for a fuller, larger +life; they smile graciously upon their fetters; they profess to +be the happiest of all happy women, and thus they glide along +through the thoroughfares of society with a lying tongue and an +aching heart.</p> + +<p>I wish these had enough vitality of soul and enough energy of +character to rise superior to the circumstances around them, and +make some approach to their own ideal. I know this is asking them +to martyrize themselves. But could they see the beauty and the +glory that will invest the future woman, when she shall have her +proper place among the children of the Father; when she shall +infuse her love, her moral perceptions, her sense of justice, +into the ethics and governments of the earth; when she shall be +united to man in a Divine harmony, and her children shall go +forth to bless all coming generations, they would regard +martyrdom but dust in the balance compared with such blessing. +And when the world shall see the moral grandeur, the sublime +position of a race redeemed by the sanctifying influences of this +Divine harmony, it will weave for them a brighter chaplet than it +has ever woven for any of its martyrs who have suffered at the +stake. (Loud applause).</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Beriah Green</span>, of Whitesboro', N. Y., was next introduced, +and said:</p> + +<p>It is not, I suppose, at all the design of this platform in any +way to abolish what the grammarians call "the distinction of +sex"; and when we speak of "woman's rights," we admit, in the +very language which is thus employed, that she is a "woman"—that +that is appropriately her character—that under this name she is +fitly described. Now, a comprehensive description of all the +rights which any member of the human family, whoever and whatever +and wherever he may be, is entitled to challenge and maintain, we +have in the brief and simple expression, the right to be himself; +the right to be true to the nature which he has inherited; the +right to the free and full development of the powers with which +he is endowed; the right to lay out those resources of which he +is constructed happily, effectively, properly; the right to rise +to the highest position in excellence and in blessedness to which +his capacities and powers may elevate him. This is a +comprehensive description of man's rights, a comprehensive +description of woman's rights, and a comprehensive description of +human rights, under every form and phase of application of which +human rights may be supposed capable.</p> + +<p>Now, I regard it as a repulsive feature of the age, that one sex +should feel itself constrained to come forward and defend itself +from the other sex; to demand a redress of the wrongs to which it +may be exposed, and a vindication of the rights to which it may +be entitled; for, look you! most obviously and clearly, the +relation between the sexes is naturally most intimate. The one +lives in and through the other. They do not make two distinct +classes, most obviously and certainly. They do not in nature; +they do not according to the Divine arrangement; and it always +seems to me to be most absurd, and in the highest degree +ungrateful, to present the subject with which we are now +occupied, under any such aspect. Mankind are divided, +doubtless—divided now by accident, and now by arrangement—into +different classes; but to make the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_700" id="Page_700">[Pg 700]</a></span> women one class, and the men +another class, seems to me to be essentially and flagrantly +absurd. (Applause). Manifestly, the grand right of man (employing +the term man here not generally, but specifically), in his +relations to woman, as well as in all his other relations, is to +be grandly, vigorously beautiful; in every way a man; in all the +relations of life to be true to whatever may be characteristic of +his nature, and to whatever may be distinctive in his sex. And +what may be affirmed of him in this respect may be affirmed of +his mother, of his wife, of his sister.</p> + +<p>It is a general law of our humanity, an all-comprehensive and all +controlling principle, that we belong, as human beings, to each +other. Every man belongs to the whole human family, and the whole +human family belongs to every one of its members. We are +mutually, as a matter of course, under the controlling influence +of this great law; we are mutually to contribute, as effectively +and wisely as we may, to each other's improvement and welfare. +This is the great general law which lies at the very basis of our +being; this is the law which asserts its majesty in the depths of +our consciousness. This law has manifestly a specific and +beneficent application to the relation which binds man to woman, +and unites woman to man. In a natural state of things, where the +ordinances of our true Father were regarded, where the principles +of our existence were reverently heeded, as a matter of course, +individually and generally, man would devote himself, as man, +generously, magnanimously, his entire self, whatever belongs to +his manhood, in every department of his being—he would devote +himself, as man, to woman; and woman, on the other hand, would +just as characteristically, just as nobly, just as cheerfully, +just as gratefully, just as effectively, devote herself to the +improvement and welfare of man; and according to the nature of +the relation which unites them, the one would supply whatever +might seem to be demanded in the construction of the other. A man +is never completely himself until he is united to woman, and a +woman is never completely herself until she is united to man; and +thus they become a beautiful unit, playing continually into each +other's hands, their hearts beating in delightful harmony with +each other. This is the great fundamental law of our social +existence. The very germ of the social is to be found in the +sexual relations which bind men and women together, and society, +in all its forms and phases, is nothing under heaven but the +development, the fit, symmetrical, and full development of the +germ to which I have thus referred.</p> + +<p>As has already been intimated in the beautiful thoughts which +have been expressed by those who have preceded me, the great law, +which was, perhaps, as intelligibly and impressively presented by +Napoleon as by any other man, giving liberty to every man to use +the tools who is qualified to use them—"The tools to him who can +use them!"—or, in better language still, as it fell from the +lips of the Great Teacher, "Every man according to his +ability"—this great law applies with equal force to woman as to +man. There have been women greatly distinguished for physical +power. You remember the old story of Kate Guardinier. A +distinguished wrestler, who came to lay hold of her brother, her +muscular and gigantic brother, and measure strength with him, +found that he was absent. "Well," says Kate, "I will wrestle with +you, and if I throw you, you need not wait the return of my +brother." And so she did, and he went away, fully satisfied that +there was no occasion for him, to wait for any more vigorous arm +than Kate Guardinier wielded. Now, wherever there is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_701" id="Page_701">[Pg 701]</a></span> strong +arm, adapt its task to its powers—that is the will of High +Heaven. Wherever there are well-trained powers, let these be +recognized powers, and of course the general results can not be +otherwise than happy.</p> + +<p>In regard to the great question who shall take the lead in the +family or the community, let me say, that I do not care through +what medium wisdom may reach me, through what medium I may secure +the benefit of healthful guidance. What I want is wisdom. Wisdom, +goodness, and power are the soul of all government. Wherever +these are combined, there you have the results of wisdom, +goodness, and power. Now, then, if the mother in a household, or +even if a daughter in a household, is more distinguished for +these high qualities, for these grand attainments, than any other +member of that family, why, it is nothing but rebellion against +God, it is nothing but gibbering madness, that would make any +member of that family hesitate to avail himself of the guidance +thus offered, of the light of the wisdom which may thus be poured +around him. In God's name, give me wisdom, give me genuine power, +give me magnanimity!—as to the incidents of the matter, I do not +insist upon them. Whether it be through my father or my mother +that true guidance is afforded, whether it be by my wife or my +daughter that good counsel is offered, very clearly, to reject +these is to spurn the kindness of benignant Heaven.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span> said:—We are here to enforce, on the +consideration of the civil state, those elements of power which +have already made the social state. You do not find it necessary +to-day to say to a husband, "Your wife has a right to read"; or +necessary to say to Dickens, "You have as many women over your +pages as men." You do not find it necessary to say to the male +members of a church that the women members have a right to change +their creed. All that is settled; nobody contests it. If a man +stood up here and said, "I am a Calvinist, and therefore my wife +is bound to be one," you would send him to a lunatic asylum. You +would say, "Poor man! don't judge him by what he says; he don't +mean it." But law is halting back just where that old +civilization was; we want to change it.</p> + +<p>We are not doing anything new. There is no fanaticism about it. +We are merely extending the area of liberty—nothing else. We +have made great progress. The law passed at the last session of +the New York Legislature grants, in fact, the whole question. The +moment you grant us anything, we have gained the whole. You can +not stop with an inconsistent statute-book. A man is uneasy who +is inconsistent. As Thomas Fuller says, "You can not make one +side of the face laugh, and the other cry!" You can not have +one-half your statute-book Jewish, and the other Christian; +one-half of the statute-book Oriental, the other Saxon. You have +granted that woman may be hung, therefore you must grant that +woman may vote. You have granted that she may be taxed, +therefore, on republican principles, you must grant that she +ought to have a voice in fixing the laws of taxation—and this +is, in fact, all that we claim—the whole of it.</p> + +<p>Now, I want to consider some of the objections that are made to +this claim. Men say, "Woman is not fit to vote; she does not know +enough; she has not sense enough to vote." I take this idea of +the ballot as the Gibraltar of our claim, for this reason, +because I am speaking in a democracy; I am speaking under +republican institutions. The rule of despotism is that one class +is made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_702" id="Page_702">[Pg 702]</a></span> to protect the other; that the rich, the noble, the +educated are a sort of probate court, to take care of the poor, +the ignorant, and the common classes. Our fathers got rid of all +that. They knocked it on the head by the simple principle, that +no class is safe, unless government is so arranged that each +class has in its own hands the means of protecting itself. That +is the idea of republics. The Briton says to the poor man, "Be +content; I am worth five millions, and I will protect you." And +America says, "Thank you, sir; I had rather take care of +myself!"—and that is the essence of democracy. (Applause). It is +the corner-stone of progress, also; because, the moment you have +admitted that poor ignorant heart as an element of the +government, able to mold your institutions, those five millions +of dollars, feeling that their cradle is not safe and their life +is in peril, unless that heart is bulwarked with education and +informed with morality, selfishness dictates that wealth and +education should do its utmost to educate poverty and hold up +weakness—and that is the philosophy of democratic institutions. +(Applause). I am speaking in a republic which admits the +principle that the poor are not to be protected by the rich, but +to have the means of protecting themselves. So, too, the +ignorant; so, too, races. The Irish are not to trust to the sense +of justice in the Saxon; the German is not to trust to the +native-born citizen; the Catholic is not to trust to the +Protestant; but all sects, all classes, are to hold in their own +hands the scepter—the American scepter—of the ballot, which +protects each class. We claim it, therefore, for woman. The reply +is, that woman has not got sense enough. If she has not, so much +the more shame for your public-schools—educate her! For you will +not say that woman naturally has not mind enough. If God did not +give her mind enough, then you are brutes, for you say to her: +"Madam, you have sense enough to earn your own living—don't come +to us!" You make her earn her own bread, and, if she has sense +enough to do that, she has enough to say whether Fernando Wood or +Governor Morgan shall take one cent out of every hundred to pay +for fireworks. When you hold her up in both hands, and say, "Let +me work for you! Don't move one of your dainty fingers! We will +pour wealth into your lap, and be ye clothed in satin and velvet, +every daughter of Eve!"—then you will be consistent in saying +that woman has not sense enough to vote. But if she has sense +enough to work, to depend for her bread on her work, she has +sense enough to vote....</p> + +<p>But men say it would be very indelicate for woman to go to the +ballot-box or sit in the Legislature. Well, what would she see +there? Why, she would see men. (Laughter). She sees men now. In +"Cranford Village," that sweet little sketch by Mrs. Gaskill, one +of the characters says, "I know these men—my father was a man." +(Laughter). I think every woman can say the same. She meets men +now; she could meet nothing but men at the ballot-box, or, if she +meets brutes, they ought not to be there. (Applause). Indelicate +for her to go to the ballot-box!—but you may walk up and down +Broadway any time from nine o'clock in the morning until nine at +night, and you will find about equal numbers of men and women +crowding that thoroughfare, which is never still. You may get +into an omnibus—women are there, crowding us out, sometimes. +(Laughter). You can not go into a theater without being crowded +to death by two women to one man. If you go to the lyceum, woman +is there. I have stood on this very platform, and seen as many +women as men before me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_703" id="Page_703">[Pg 703]</a></span> and one time, at least, when they could +not have met any worse men at the ballot-box than they met in +this hall. (Laughter and applause). You may go to church, and you +will find her facing men of all classes—ignorant and wise, +saints and sinners. I do not know anywhere that woman is not. It +is too late now to say that she can not go to the ballot-box. Go +back to Turkey, and shut her up in a harem; go back to Greece, +and shut her up in the private apartments of women; go back to +the old Oriental phases of civilization, that never allowed +woman's eyes to light a man's pathway, unless he owned her, and +you are consistent; but you see, we have broken down the bulwark, +centuries ago. You know they used to let a man be hung in public, +and said that it was for the sake of the example. They got +ashamed of it, and banished the gallows to the jail-yard, and +allowed only twelve men to witness an execution. It is too late +to say that you hang men for the example, because the example you +are ashamed to have public can not be a wholesome example. So it +is with this question of woman. You have granted so much, that +you have left yourselves no ground to stand on. My dear, delicate +friend, you are out of your sphere; you ought to be in Turkey. My +dear, religiously, scrupulously fashionable, exquisitely anxious +hearer, fearful lest your wife, or daughter, or sister shall be +sullied by looking into your neighbors' faces at the ballot-box, +you do not belong to the century that has ballot-boxes. You +belong to the century of Tamerlane and Timour the Tartar; you +belong to China, where the women have no feet, because it is not +meant that they shall walk. You belong anywhere but in America; +and if you want an answer, walk down Broadway, and meet a hundred +thousand petticoats, and they are a hundred thousand answers; for +if woman can walk the streets, she can go to the ballot-box, and +any reason of indelicacy that forbids the one covers the other.</p> + +<p>Men say, "Why do you come here? What good are you going to do? +You do nothing but talk." Oh, yes, we have done a great deal +besides talk! But suppose we had done nothing but talk? I saw a +poor man the other day, and said he (speaking of a certain period +in his life), "I felt very friendless and alone—I had only God +with me"; and he seemed to think that was not much. And so thirty +millions of thinking, reading people are constantly throwing it +in the teeth of reformers that they rely upon talk! What is talk? +Why, it is the representative of brains. And what is the +characteristic glory of the nineteenth century? That it is ruled +by brains, and not by muscle; that rifles are gone by, and ideas +have come in; and, of course, in such an era, talk is the +fountain-head of all things. But we have done a great deal. In +the first place, you will meet dozens of men who say, "Oh, +woman's right to property, the right of the wife to her own +earnings, we grant that; we always thought that; we have had that +idea for a dozen years." I met a man the other day in the cars, +and we read the statute of your New York Legislature. "Why," said +he, "that is nothing; I have assented to that for these fifteen +years." All I could say to that was this: "This agitation has +either given you the idea, or it has given you the courage to +utter it, for nobody ever heard it from you until to-day." ...</p> + +<p>What do we toil for? Why, my friends, I do not care much whether +a woman actually goes to the ballot-box and votes—that is a +slight matter; and I shall not wait, either, to know whether +every woman in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_704" id="Page_704">[Pg 704]</a></span> audience wants to vote. Some of you were +saying to-day, in these very seats, coming here out of mere +curiosity, to see what certain fanatics could find to say, "Why, +I don't want any more rights; I have got rights enough." Many a +lady, whose husband is what he ought to be, whose father is what +fathers ought to be, feeling no want unsupplied, is ready to say, +"I have all the rights I want." So the daughter of Louis +Sixteenth, in the troublous time of 1791, when somebody told her +that the people were starving in the streets of Paris, exclaimed, +"What fools! I would eat bread first!" Thus wealth, comfort, and +ease say, "I have rights enough." Nobody doubted it, madam! But +the question is not of you; the question is of some houseless +wife of a drunkard; the question is of some ground-down daughter +of toil, whose earnings are filched from her by the rum debts of +a selfishness which the law makes to have a right over her, in +the person of a husband. The question is not of you, it is of +some friendless woman of twenty, standing at the door of the +world, educated, capable, desirous of serving her time and her +race, and saying, "Where shall I use these talents? How shall I +earn bread?" And orthodox society, cabined and cribbed in St. +Paul, cries out, "Go sew, jade! We have no other channel for you. +Go to the needle, or wear yourself to death as a +school-mistress." We come here to endeavor to convince you, and +so to shape our institutions that public opinion, following in +the wake, shall be willing to open channels for the agreeable and +profitable occupation of women as much as for men. People blame +the shirt-makers and tailors because they pay two cents where +they ought to pay fifty. It is not their fault. They are nothing +but the weathercocks, and society is the wind. Trade does not +grow out of the Sermon on the Mount; merchants never have any +hearts, they have only ledgers; two per cent. a month is their +Sermon on the Mount, and a balance on the wrong side of the +ledger is their demonstration. (Laughter). Nobody finds fault +with them for it. Everything according to the law of its life. A +man pays as much for making shirts or coats as it is necessary to +pay, and he would be a fool and a bankrupt if he paid any more. +He needs only a hundred workwomen; there are a thousand women +standing at his door saying, "Give us work; and if it is worth +ten cents to do it, we will do it for two"; and a hundred get the +work, and nine hundred are turned into the street, to drag down +this city into the pit that it deserves. (Loud applause).</p> + +<p>Now, what is the remedy? To take that tailor by the throat, and +gibbet him in <i>The New York Tribune</i>? Not at all; it does the +women no good, and he does not deserve it. I will tell you what +is to be done. Behind the door at which those women stand asking +for work, on one side stands an orthodox disciple of St. Paul, +and on the other a dainty exquisite; and the one says, it is not +religious, and the other says, it is not fashionable, for woman +to be anything but a drudge. Now, strangle the one in his own +creed, and smother the other in his own perfumes, and give to +those thousand women freedom to toil. Let public opinion only +grant that, like their thousand brothers, those thousand women +may go out, and wherever they find work to do, do it, without a +stigma being set upon them. Let the educated girl of twenty have +the same liberty to use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_705" id="Page_705">[Pg 705]</a></span> the pen, to practice law, to write +books, to attend the telegraph, to go into the artist's studio, +to serve in a library, to tend in a gallery of art, to do +anything that her brother can do. St. Paul is dead and rotten, +and ought to be forgotten—(Applause, laughter, and a few +hisses)—so far as this doctrine goes, mark you! for his is the +noblest figure in all history, except that of Christ, the +broadest and most masterly intellect of any age; but he was a Jew +and not a Christian; he lived under Jewish civilization and not +ours, and was speaking by his own light, and not by inspiration +of God.</p> + +<p>This is all we claim; and we claim the ballot for this reason; +the moment you give woman power, that moment men will see to it +that she has the way cleared for her. There are two sources of +power: one is civil, the ballot; the other is physical, the +rifle. I do not believe that the upper classes—education, +wealth, aristocracy, conservatism—the men that are in—ever +yielded, except to fear. I think the history of the race shows +that the upper classes never granted a privilege to the lower out +of love. As Jeremy Bentham says, "The upper classes never yielded +a privilege without being bullied out of it." When man rises in +revolution, with the sword in his right hand, trembling wealth +and conservatism say, "What do you want? Take it; but grant me my +life." The Duke of Tuscany, Elizabeth Barrett Browning has told +us, swore to a dozen constitutions when the Tuscans stood armed +in the streets of Florence, and he forgot them when the Austrians +came in and took the rifles out of the Tuscans' hands. You must +force the upper classes to do justice by physical or some other +power. The age of physical power is gone, and we want to put +ballots into the hands of women....</p> + +<p>Political economy puts in every man's hand, by the labor of half +a day, money enough to be drunk a week. There is one temptation, +dragging down the possibility of self-government into the pit of +imbruted humanity; and on the other side, is that hideous problem +of modern civilized life—prostitution—born of orthodox scruples +and aristocratic fastidiousness—born of that fastidious denial +of the right of woman to choose her own work, and, like her +brother, to satiate her ambition, her love of luxury, her love of +material gratifications, by fair wages for fair work. As long as +you deny it, as long as the pulpit covers with its fastidious +orthodoxy this question from the consideration of the public, it +is but a concealed brothel, although it calls itself an orthodox +pulpit. (Applause and hisses). I know what I say; your hisses can +not change it. Go, clean out the Gehenna of New York! (Applause). +Go, sweep the Augean stable that makes New York the lazar-house +of corruption! You know that on one side or the other of these +temptations lies very much of the evil of modern civilized life. +You know that before them, statesmanship folds its hands in +despair. Here is a method by which to take care of at least one. +Give men fair wages, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will +disdain to steal. The way to prevent dishonesty is to let every +man have a field for his work, and honest wages; the way to +prevent licentiousness is to give to woman's capacity free play. +Give to the higher powers activity, and they will choke down the +animal. The man who loves thinking, disdains to be the victim of +appetite. It is a law of our nature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_706" id="Page_706">[Pg 706]</a></span> Give a hundred women honest +wages for capacity and toil, and ninety-nine out of the hundred +will disdain to win it by vice. <i>That</i> is a cure for +licentiousness. (Applause).</p> + +<p>I wish to put into our civil life the element of woman's right to +shape the laws, for all our social life copies largely from the +statute-book. Let woman dictate at the capital, let her say to +Wall Street, "My votes on finance are to make stocks rise and +fall," and Wall Street will say to Columbia College, "Open your +classes to woman; it needs be that she should learn." The moment +you give her the ballot, you take bonds of wealth and fashion and +conservatism, that they will educate this power, which is holding +their interest in its right hand. I want to spike the gun of +selfishness; or rather, I want to double-shot the cannon of +selfishness. Let Wall Street say, "Look you! whether the New York +Central stock shall have a toll placed upon it, whether my +million shares shall be worth sixty cents in the market or +eighty, depends upon whether certain women up there at Albany +know the laws of trade and the secrets of political economy"—and +Wall Street will say, "Get out of the way, Dr. Adams!—absent +yourself, Dr. Spring!—we don't care for Jewish prejudices; these +women must have education!" (Loud applause). Show me the +necessity in civil life, and I will find you forty thousand +pulpits that will say St. Paul meant just that. (Renewed +applause). Now, I am orthodox; I believe in the Bible; I +reverence St. Paul; I believe his was the most masterly intellect +that God ever gave to the race; I believe he was the connecting +link, the bridge, by which the Asiatic and European mind were +joined; I believe that Plato ministers at his feet; but, after +all, he was a man, and not God. (Applause). He was limited, and +made mistakes. You can not anchor this western continent to the +Jewish footstool of St. Paul; and, after all, that is the +difficulty—religious prejudice. It is not fashion—we shall beat +it; it is not the fastidiousness of the exquisite—we shall +smother it; it is the religious prejudice, borrowed from a +mistaken interpretation of the New Testament. That is the real +Gibraltar with which we are to grapple, and my argument with that +is simply this: You left it when you founded a republic; you left +it when you inaugurated Western civilization; we must grow out of +one root.</p> + +<p>Let me, in closing, show you, by one single anecdote, how mean a +thing a man can be. You have heard of Mrs. Norton, "the woman +Byron," as critics call her—the granddaughter of Sheridan, and +the one on whose shoulders his mantle has rested—a genius by +right of inheritance and by God's own gift. Perhaps you may +remember that when the Tories wanted to break down the reform +administration of Lord Melbourne, they brought her husband to +feign to believe his wife unfaithful, and to sue her before a +jury. He did so, brought an action, and an English jury said she +was innocent; and his own counsel has since admitted, in writing, +under his own signature, that during the time he prosecuted that +trial, the Honorable Mr. Norton (for so he is in the Herald's +Book) confessed all the time that he did not believe a word +against his wife, and knew she was innocent. She is a writer. The +profits of her books, by the law of England, belong to her +husband. She has not lived with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_707" id="Page_707">[Pg 707]</a></span> him—of course not, for she is a +woman!—since that trial; but the brute goes every six months to +John Murray, and eats the profits of the brain of the wife whom +he tried to disgrace. (Loud cries of "shame," "shame"). And the +law of England says it is right; the orthodox pulpit says, "If +you change it, it will be the pulling down of the stars and St. +Paul." I do not believe that the Honorable Mr. Norton is half as +near to the mind of St. Paul as the Honorable Mrs. Norton. I go, +therefore, for woman having her right to her brain, to her hands, +to her toil, to her ballot. "The tools to him that can use +them"—and let God settle the rest. If He made it just that we +should have democratic institutions, then He made it just that +everybody who is to suffer under the law should have a voice in +making it; and if it is indelicate for woman to vote, then let +Him stop making women (applause and laughter), because +republicanism and such women are not consistent. I say it +reverently; and I only say it to show you the absurdity. Why, my +dear man and woman, we are not to help God govern the world by +telling lies! He can take care of it Himself. If He made it just, +you may be certain that He saw to it that it should be delicate; +and you need not insert your little tiny roots of fastidious +delicacy into the great giant rifts of God's world—they are only +in the way. (Applause).</p></blockquote> + +<p>The first evening session was called to order at 7½ o'clock. The +President in the chair. The audience was very large, the hall being +uncomfortably full, and the attention unremitting and profound. The +most excellent order was preserved; the meeting, in this respect, +furnishing a marked and gratifying contrast with the evening sessions +of the last two years at Mozart Hall.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rose, from the Business Committee, presented a series of +resolutions<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a>, which were read by Miss Anthony. Elizabeth Cady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_708" id="Page_708">[Pg 708]</a></span> +Stanton was the first speaker of the evening. By particular request +she gave the same address recently delivered before the Legislature at +Albany, and was followed by Ernestine L. Rose with one of her logical +and convincing arguments.</p> + +<p>Susan B. Anthony then read the following letters:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">LETTER FROM HON. GERRIT SMITH.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Peterboro</span>, <i>May 3, 1860</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Cady Stanton:</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Very Dear Cousin</span>:—It is proper that one of the first letters +which I write in my new life, should be to the cousin whose views +are most in harmony with my own. I call it my new life, because I +have come up into it from the gates of death. May it prove a new +life also, in being a far better and nobler one than that which I +had hitherto lived!</p> + +<p>I wake up with joy to see my old fellow-laborers still in their +work of honoring God, in benefiting and blessing man. Your own +zeal for truth is unabated. I see that you are still laboring to +free the slave from his chains, and woman from her social, civil, +and political disabilities; and to preserve both man and woman +from defiling and debasing themselves with intoxicating liquors +and tobacco. Precious reforms are these which have enlisted your +powers! It is true that they do not cover the whole ground of +religious duty. But it is also true that the religion, which, +like the current one, opposes or ignores them all, is spurious; +and so, too, that the religion which opposes or ignores any one +of them is always sadly defective, if not always spurious.</p> + +<p>Please add the inclosed draft for $25 to the fund for serving the +cause of woman's rights. To no better cause can money, time, or +talents be appropriated. I am in high, health, compared with any +I have enjoyed since the succession of my frightful diseases, +begun two and a half years ago. My nerves, however, are still +weak, and most of the year 1859 is still full of confusion and +darkness to me.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Gerrit Smith.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Your friend and cousin,</p> + + + +<p class="heading ltr-clear">LETTER FROM FRANCIS JACKSON, ESQ.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>May 6, 1860</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucy Stone</span>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—I intend to be at the annual meeting of the +American Anti-Slavery Society, but my engagements are such that I +shall not stop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_709" id="Page_709">[Pg 709]</a></span> long enough in New York to attend your meeting of +Woman's Rights. I herewith inclose you $20 to help the cause +along.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Francis Jackson.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Hon. Erastus D. Culver, of Brooklyn, New York, being present among +that portion of the audience seated upon the platform, was recognized +and loudly called for, and came forward in response to the call, and +spoke as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">President, Ladies, and Gentlemen</span>:—They used to have, in old +times, in the country where I was brought up, a minister, who, +after delivering his sermon, would call upon some brother to get +up and make the application. Now, I want to give you an +application of what I have heard to-night, and there seems to be +a sort of providence in it. This very day, since I opened my +court this morning, three cases have come in review before me, +each one of them directly connected with the subject matter of +this evening's deliberations, and with the law which has been +alluded to to-night. The first was the case of a woman who had +brought a suit, in conjunction with her husband (as she had to +do, as the law was) against the city of Brooklyn, for personal +injuries, received by falling into a hole; and on the first +trial, it was found very difficult to make out the case, because +we were obliged to exclude the woman as a witness. If her husband +had fallen into that hole, and hurt his side, making him a +cripple for life, he might have brought a suit, and he would have +been by law a competent witness: but his wife was not; and as he +was not with her at the time of the accident, of course he could +not testify. To-day the case came on again, and they were making +a very poor show at proving the accident, when the lawyer for the +lady said, "I will offer the lady as a witness." The other lawyer +started up (he is an old fogy, who does not keep up with the +times) and said, "She is a party out of sight in law; in law, she +is one of the invisibles"; when, to my great surprise and joy +(for I had lost track of it myself) the lady's lawyer pulled out +from his pocket a slip from a newspaper, which contained the +noble law of the 20th of March, 1860, and that law says that "any +married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name +for damages against any person or body corporate for any injury +to her person or character." That obviated the difficulty. The +law was handed to the opposite lawyer, and when he had read it +through, with a frown on his face, he said, ill-naturedly, "If +your honor please, it is so; they have emancipated the women from +all obligations to their husbands." Now, just look at that old +presumption of the law, that a married woman could not tell the +truth, even in a matter about which she knew better than any one +else, on the ground that she was a <i>feme covert</i>, and was +<i>nil</i>—nothing!</p> + +<p>That was one case. Another was that of a woman who made a bitter +complaint against her husband, saying that he had become a +drunkard, and was squandering her estate, and threatened to take +their two children away. I signed the writ, and the husband and +two children were brought in. He addressed the Court in his own +defence, and I have not heard such eloquence in court for many a +year. He told how he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_710" id="Page_710">[Pg 710]</a></span> loved his wife, how devoted he was, and +that it would ruin him for ever to be separated from her. He said +to his lawyer, "Do you keep still; I can talk better than you +can." "Now," said he to the Court, "I adjure you, by the feelings +of a father and a man, restore to me my wife and children! Do not +disgrace me in this way!" All present were deeply affected, and +it seemed as if he had carried the people with him, whether he +had the Court or not. His speech sounded admirably; but I am +sorry to say, that when his wife's turn came, she had not spoken +five minutes before she had taken the wind entirely out of his +sails. "I was married," she said, "eleven years ago, and not a +fortnight after, he beat me, and left his bruises upon me. He has +pawned all my clothes, everything I have in the house has been +pledged, and I am left destitute; and here, your honor, are the +wounds upon my head, here are the bruises that he has left. I can +not live with him any longer; I can not be reconciled, until he +abjures rum and comes home resolved to live a sober life." +"Well," said the husband's lawyer, "we claim our paramount +rights—that the father shall have the custody of the children." +Then came up this very law again, and this lawyer was as much +surprised as the one to whom I first referred. There is a clause +in that law which declares that, from this time forward, there +shall be no such thing as "paramount rights." It is declared in +that statute that from this day "every married woman is +constituted and declared to be the joint guardian of her +children, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to +them, with her husband." In view of that law, I said, "I can not +take the children away from the mother; she has just as much +right to them as her husband, and if she says she must have them, +I will let her have them." (Loud applause).</p> + +<p>Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have never been identified with this +Woman's Rights movement, but I tell you what it is, we have got +to admit some things. We have got to admit that these +indefatigable laborers, amid obloquy and reproach, in Church and +State, by buffoons and by men, have at last set the under-current +in motion. The statute-book is their vindication to-night. The +last measure passed has relieved woman, to a great extent, from +the disabilities under which she was placed. I am one who +believes that she may go forward. There will come a time, +friends, when we shall see the ballot-box open, and one +particular department (as we have at the post-office) where the +ladies will all march up and vote. (Applause, and a few hisses). +Now, you men that hiss, you would like to have them help you +elect your candidate this year, wouldn't you? I wish most +sincerely that they could help elect our Republican candidate. +(Applause). There is to be a still further advance in this +matter. I do not think it at all degrading to say, that there +will come a time when ladies will sit in the jury-box, to pass +upon certain cases that come particularly within their sphere; +and I will say (now that I am off the bench) that they would make +better judges than some who are on the benches now. (Laughter and +applause).</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Rose</span> added: I have been most happy to hear the remarks of +Judge Culver. Who can doubt of our success, when judges, and +noble ones, too—for it is only noble ones who are ready to +identify themselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_711" id="Page_711">[Pg 711]</a></span> with this cause before it becomes fully +successful—come forward to endorse our movement! All we now have +to do is, to continue in the good cause, and, depend upon it, the +time will come when we shall look back to this last spring's +enactment of the Legislature, as the commencement of the real +"good time coming." But we have yet some duties to perform. What +we have gained, has not been gained without labor. Freedom, my +friends, does not come from the clouds, like a meteor; it does +not bloom in one night; it does not come without great efforts +and great sacrifices; all who love liberty, have to labor for it. +We expect that from this hour, you will all help us to work out +that glorious problem, whether or not woman can govern herself +quite as well as man can govern her. Give us the elective +franchise, and we ask for no more. When we have obtained that, it +shall be our fault if we do not take all the rights we now claim. +(Applause).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Jones</span> said: The adoption of the plans now proposed +would place woman above the necessity of any mercenary marriages. +She could leave her father's home if she didn't like it, and +engage in business and support herself. Who cared for the husband +of Jenny Lind, or of Mrs. Norton? It was not necessary for +Florence Nightingale, Harriet Hosmer, or Elizabeth Blackwell to +marry to secure the world's consideration. The wife should have +equal and joint proprietorship with her husband. Two brothers, +John and Henry, go to California and form a partnership; John +cooks while Henry digs. Henry finds one day a lump of gold worth +a hundred dollars. Will he pay John fifty cents for cooking, and +take the rest himself? Of course not; he will divide with him. So +the husband should regard the property that he accumulates as +owned by his wife jointly and equally with himself. Woman would +have her rights, let man do what he might. She asked no rights +from man, for man had none to give her—none to spare from +himself. Satan promised Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and +the glory of them, if He would fall down and worship him; but it +was well known that the poor devil had not a foot to give. And so +man could give no rights to woman. She was born with rights, and +only wanted man to recognize them. Her purpose was to demand them +persistently, or, if need be, like the Prince of Orange, die in +the last ditch before she surrendered them. (Applause).</p></blockquote> + +<p>Rev. Samuel Longfellow, of Brooklyn, N. Y., brother of the poet, was +next introduced, and spoke as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">President</span>:—It might seem, that on a platform like this, +when a woman speaks, her presence is not merely a plea and an +argument, but also a proof. When a woman speaks, and speaks well, +speaks so as to interest and move and persuade men, there is no +need of any argument back of that to prove that she has the +liberty and the right, and that it is a part of her sphere to do +it. She has done it; and that of itself is the whole +argument—both premise and conclusion in one. And I think if +there were none but men present here, it would be better that +only women should speak; for there is a subtle power which God +implanted from the first in woman over man, so that the thought +of her mind and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_712" id="Page_712">[Pg 712]</a></span> the tone of her voice are more powerful over us +than almost any man, be he eloquent as he may; but not only men +are here, but women, also; and as our friend who has just spoken +has addressed herself to men, I will address myself to women.</p> + +<p>I have often thought that the obstacle in the way of a full +allowance and recognition of woman's right to stand side by side +with man in all the departments of life, and to add her feminine +influence and fiber twined in with man's influence and fiber, in +all things that are thought and done, that the obstacle lay more +in woman than in man. I have often thought that men were more +willing to accept these ideas and grant these claims than women +were even to make the claims for themselves; and I have no doubt +that those women who have labored, through so much difficulty, +through so much scorn and obloquy, in behalf of these simple +rights, will tell you that they have often found the greatest +opposition among their own sex.</p> + +<p>The simple proposition which, it seems to me, includes the whole +of this matter, is, what I should call a self-evident +truth—that, in all departments of life, men and women, made from +the first to be co-mates and partners, should stand side by side, +and work hand to hand. Not because men and women are identical, +not because they are not different, but because they are +different; because each has a special quality running through the +whole organization of the man and the woman, which quality is +needed to make a complete manhood and womanhood. And then there +is another proposition, which is this: that whatever any human +being can do well, that being has a right to do, and the ability +of any person marks the sphere of that person. ("Hear"—"hear"). +This, I say, I count to be strictly a self-evident proposition. +(Applause). If you want to know what the level of water is at any +particular spot upon the face of the earth, you do not force the +water up with a force-pump, you do not build a great reservoir +with high stone walls, to hold it, you simply leave it alone, and +it finds its level. So, if you want to know what is the true +sphere of man or woman, just leave the man or the woman alone, +and the natural law, and the divine law, which can not be broken, +and which are as sure in the moral and human world as they are in +the external world, will settle the matter. If you want to know, +really and sincerely, what woman's sphere is, leave her +unhampered and untrammeled, and her own powers will find that +sphere. She may make mistakes, and try, as man often does, to do +things which she can not, but the experiment will settle the +matter; and nothing can be more absurd than for man, especially, +<i>a priori</i>, to establish the limits which shall bound woman's +sphere, or for woman, as a mere matter of speculation, to debate +what her sphere shall be, since the natural laws are revealed, +not to speculation, but to action.</p> + +<p>The obstacle to the progress of the simple ideas which underlie +this movement and to their being carried out into practice, I +take to be nothing else than this—the <i>vis inertiæ</i> of +prejudice, the dead-weight of the customary and familiar—that +which has been; and that is simply the dead-weight which hangs +upon the wheels of every movement of reform. A thing has not not +been, it is not customary, it is strange, it disturbs our +ordinary modes of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_713" id="Page_713">[Pg 713]</a></span> thought, and we will have nothing to do with +it. When you are driving with your carriage along the track of +the horse-railroad, your wheels run very smoothly; but if you are +obliged to turn out, it wrenches the wheels and jars your +carriage; and the deeper the ruts, the more disturbance and +trouble will you have if you are obliged to move out of them. We +all move in the ruts of habit and custom; and it disturbs and +troubles us to be asked to move out of them—to do or think +anything unusual. This <i>vis inertiae</i> is what stands in the way, +first and most of all, of the success of this movement, of the +reception of these ideas, as of every other movement of reform. +And this dead-weight of prejudice, this <i>vis inertiae</i> of old and +traditional thought, is concentrated in this phrase, uttered with +tones of indifference or with tones of self-satisfaction and +pride, "I think, for my part, that woman's sphere is home." This +phrase you hear everywhere—in the parlors, in the streets, in +conventions, and in pulpits, and read in books—"Woman's sphere +is home!" (Applause). "Well, is it not?" some one asks among you, +perhaps. Now, I have no desire to deny that the home is for +woman, as for man, the most noble sphere of life. I am sure that +there is not one who will stand upon this platform, or speak or +write in this cause, who will deny that; not one but will declare +that they count home a sacred and noble sphere for woman, as for +man—a sphere for grand and high influence, for noble +consecration and devoted work; whether it be the simple duties of +housekeeping, which a high and cultivated soul can make beautiful +by the spirit in which they are done—or whether it be the care +of children and the training up of the youthful mind into noble +thought and preparation for noble action, which is a sphere so +high, that none of us, perhaps, know how high it is—or whether +it be as the friend and comforter, encourager and inspirer, to +all things noble in thought and grand in action, of man. But if +home be the sphere of woman—as none of us deny or doubt for a +moment—if it be a sphere for woman high and noble, and to some +altogether sufficient to bound their capacities and bound their +desires, it is also a sphere for man—a sphere which he +altogether too much neglects, not knowing how high and noble it +is, and that his duty lies at home, however much he ignores it, +with his wife and with his children. But when it is said that +home is woman's only sphere—and that is what is meant—it is +simply a mistake; it is simply a narrow statement. Take the very +woman who says this. As she passes along the street, she sees a +placard for a Woman's Rights meeting, and with scornful lip she +says, "I think woman's sphere is home"—and goes promenading up +and down the street to meet acquaintances, and spends all the +morning in shopping—because woman's sphere is home! (Applause +and laughter). And after dinner, she says to her husband, "Where +shall we go this evening?" "I think we will go to the opera," he +says; and so she leaves the children with the servant, and spends +half the night at the opera, because woman's sphere is home! +(Laughter). On Sunday she goes to church morning and evening, +because woman's sphere is home! and during the week goes to +concerts and lectures and balls, perhaps, because woman's sphere +is home! This is the answer to be given to all those who claim +that woman can do nothing but attend to household affairs, or to +those duties which are called especially the duties of home. No +woman attends to these utterly. No woman need neglect the duties +of home in order to fulfill duties in a wider sphere. It takes as +much time to sit and hear a lecture as to stand and deliver it; +to sit and hear a concert as to stand before the audience and +sing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_714" id="Page_714">[Pg 714]</a></span> There is time enough, and if one has a talent for either, +that is the sphere for him or her.</p> + +<p>But when this claim is made that woman's sphere is at home, it is +quite forgotten how many women there are who have not imposed +upon them the cares of a home; what numbers there are who are not +at the head of families; what numbers there are who have not +these domestic ties to call upon them for effort; and it is also +forgotten how many there are who can not possibly always remain +at home, because upon their going forth depends the getting of +the money that shall provide for the wants of the home—that +shall bring the clothing and the bread that are to supply the +home's outward wants. To do this, these women must go from their +homes; and oh! hundreds and thousands of working-women in this +city are women whose sphere can not be home alone. It is upon +this ground that there is pressed home upon us the consideration +of the demands for a wider sphere of work for woman, that she +shall not be cut off from this and that means of getting a +living, which are freely opened to man, but from which woman is +excluded, through prejudices and fears. Let the wide sphere of +work be opened to woman, that she may select from it, just as man +does, whatever her strength and skill are sufficient for her to +accomplish. She is not to be shut up, it is claimed, and justly, +to a few poor, small, and wretchedly-paid employments, by which +she can, with her own hands and skill, gain a living, but is to +be allowed and encouraged to open to herself every variety of +employment wherein she shall be paid an equal sum with that which +man is paid for doing the same work; a claim which has been too +long ignored and set aside, but which will press itself until its +manifest justice shall compel its admission. The woman who has +not the care of a family is to be encouraged to expand her +powers, her talents, and genius, and to apply them to the purpose +of securing a livelihood, without any obstacle whatever being put +in the way; for when we talk of man's sphere and woman's sphere, +it is all a farce. There is no one sphere fitted for all men, any +more than for all women. Some men can not make good business men, +and must fail if they try; and some men can not possibly write +books, or preach, or speak in public, and must fail if they try. +They do not try, because they have wisdom enough to know that +they could not succeed. So it will be with women. People commonly +think, that if you grant this claim of woman's right to make her +own sphere, that all women will immediately rush into public +speaking, and be crowding to the platform, or into the pulpit, or +writing books, or carving statues, or painting pictures. There is +not the slightest danger of that. Of course, if either of these +is the true sphere of any woman, she ought to go there; but those +who have not a talent for these things will not try them.</p> + +<p>If the right to vote was granted to woman—from which I do not +see how we can escape—I do not suppose that all women would go +to the polls, for I know that many men do not, although they have +much to say about the great privilege which every man enjoys, of +having a voice in the government, and the responsibility of a +voter. Things would remain much as now if to-morrow every +obstacle were removed from woman's path. Only gradually would the +change occur, as individual after individual found larger room +for action than that in which she is now pent. As this discussion +has been going on, woman after woman has been enlarging the +sphere allowed her. Women write admirable books, paint admirable +pictures, chisel admirable statues, make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_715" id="Page_715">[Pg 715]</a></span> most excellent and +well-instructed physicians. Women are doing everything which it +is now claimed they have the right to do, except voting, which +they are not yet permitted to do; and I am not sure, in regard to +that, that the best plan would not be, as our Platonic friend in +New England once said, for the women to go quietly and vote, +without waiting to be asked or told that they would be permitted +to do so. To be sure, he said, their votes could not be counted, +but there they would be, and they would have their force. He +thought that the moral influence of those votes would go a great +ways, and it is quite possible that they would have that effect. +But I hope, whether in that way or some other—perhaps before +that step is taken—men will be led to see, that in the sphere of +politics, as well as in the sphere of literature and art, woman's +influence is needed; and all the objections that are made to +woman's voting are of the most trivial character, that would not +stand a day before any serious desire that she should have her +simple right in this matter, so far as she chooses to claim it. +And her right lies simply in these old propositions, so dear to +our fathers—upon which they stood and fought an eight years' +war—"Taxation without representation is tyranny," and that "all +just powers of government are derived from the consent of the +governed." And there is nothing in these two propositions which +confines their application to man; there is nothing in them which +does not demand that woman should be included as well as man. +Wherever woman is taxed, she has a right to vote, by this +fundamental principle of our government; and wherever she is +legislated for and governed, she is entitled to a voice in that +legislation and government.</p> + +<p>This is a very simple matter. To-day, it is only a question of +time, when, from a matter of speculation, it will become a matter +of fact, the details of which can be managed as well as anything +in the world. Women will not be obliged to enter into a scramble +with dirty and fighting men at the polls—though it is possible, +if she went where such men are, they would be put on their good +manners, and be as well-behaved as anybody; but she could have a +separate place to vote, and go to the polls as quietly, and with +as little loss of time, as she now goes to the post-office, or +walks the streets, where rough, rude men congregate, but where +she has enough room to go and purchase her silks and satins and +laces in Broadway. (Applause). I congratulate those who, taking +an interest in this cause, espoused it when it was a great cross +to bear—who took it up with the simple courage of woman, the +patient perseverance of woman, and have carried it through as far +as it has gone now—upon the advances which it has made, upon the +opening and enlightenment of the public mind, and upon its +favorable reception, spite of all the obstacles that still +remain. I bid them be of good cheer, and remember that the great +law of progress is a law of steps; so that we must needs all be +patient, while we must also all needs be persevering. It is but a +question of time and of steps. The great psalm of human progress +is (to borrow a phrase from the Hebrew Bible) a psalm of degrees. +By patient steps man rises out of falsehood into truth, out of +wrongs into rights. So it is with woman, as a part of humanity. +Let every woman be true to this as her mission; let no woman dare +to place any obstacle or coldness in the way of this movement; +but let all calmly consider it, hear the arguments that are made, +and allow them to have their full weight; look at the simple +facts, and decide. Then we may, perhaps, all of us live to see +the day when, throughout all the spheres of his life, and all +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_716" id="Page_716">[Pg 716]</a></span> departments of his action, side by side with man and the +manly quality, there shall be woman and the womanly quality, and +a new Eden begin on earth. (Applause).</p></blockquote> + +<p>The President said:—Before introducing the next speaker, I want to +express the gratitude which we women feel to Mr. Longfellow and the +other gentlemen who have identified themselves with an unpopular and +ridiculed cause. Permit me to say one word in relation to this matter +of woman's sphere. There is a lady in my neighborhood, who was +speaking to me not long since, in the most enthusiastic terms, of this +recent law that has passed through our Legislature, and of gratitude +toward Susan B. Anthony, through whose untiring exertions and +executive ability, aided by two or three other women, this law has +been secured. After she had expatiated for a while on this subject, +her husband said, "Miss Anthony had a great deal better have been at +home, taking care of her husband and children." Thank Heaven! there is +one woman who has leisure to care for others as well as herself. +(Applause).</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Cady Stanton then presented a series of resolutions,<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> in +support of which she addressed the Convention as follows:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">President</span>:—In our common law, in our whole system of +jurisprudence, we find man's highest idea of right. The object of +law is to secure justice. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_717" id="Page_717">[Pg 717]</a></span> inasmuch as fallible man is the +maker and administrator of law, we must look for many and gross +blunders in the application of its general principles to +individual cases.</p> + +<p>The science of theology, of civil, political, moral, and social +life, all teach the common idea, that man ever has been, and ever +must be, sacrificed to the highest good of society; the one to +the many—the poor to the rich—the weak to the powerful—and all +to the institutions of his own creation. Look, what thunderbolts +of power man has forged in the ages for his own destruction!—at +the organizations to enslave himself! And through those times of +darkness, those generations of superstition, behold all along the +relics of his power and skill, that stand like mile-stones, here +and there, to show how far back man was great and glorious! Who +can stand in those vast cathedrals of the old world, as the +deep-toned organ reverberates from arch to arch, and not feel the +grandeur of humanity? These are the workmanship of him, beneath +whose stately dome the architect himself now bows in fear and +doubt, knows not himself, and knows not God—a mere slave to +symbols—and with holy water signs the Cross, whilst He who died +thereon declared man God.</p> + +<p>I repudiate the popular idea of man's degradation and total +depravity. I place man above all governments, all +institutions—ecclesiastical and civil—all constitutions and +laws. (Applause). It is a mistaken idea, that the same law that +oppresses the individual can promote the highest good of society. +The best interests of a community never can require the sacrifice +of one innocent being—of one sacred right. In the settlement, +then, of any question, we must simply consider the highest good +of the individual. It is the inalienable right of all to be +happy. It is the highest duty of all to seek those conditions in +life, those surroundings, which may develop what is noblest and +best, remembering that the lessons of these passing hours are not +for time alone, but for the ages of eternity. They tell us, in +that future home—the heavenly paradise—that the human family +shall be sifted out, and the good and pure shall dwell together<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_718" id="Page_718">[Pg 718]</a></span> +in peace. If that be the heavenly order, is it not our duty to +render earth as near like heaven as we may?</p> + +<p>For years, there has been before the Legislature of this State a +variety of bills, asking for divorce in cases of drunkenness, +insanity, desertion, cruel and brutal treatment, endangering +life. My attention was called to this question very early in +life, by the sufferings of a friend of my girlhood, a victim of +one of those unfortunate unions, called marriage. What my great +love for that young girl, and my holy intuitions, then decided to +be right, has not been changed by years of experience, +observation, and reason. I have pondered well these things in my +heart, and ever felt the deepest interest in all that has been +written and said upon the subject, and the most profound respect +and loving sympathy for those heroic women, who, in the face of +law and public sentiment, have dared to sunder the unholy ties of +a joyless, loveless union.</p> + +<p>If marriage is a human institution, about which man may +legislate, it seems but just that he should treat this branch of +his legislation with the same common-sense that he applies to all +others. If it is a mere legal contract, then should it be subject +to the restraints and privileges of all other contracts. A +contract, to be valid in law, must be formed between parties of +mature age, with an honest intention in said parties to do what +they agree. The least concealment, fraud, or deception, if +proved, annuls the contract. A boy can not contract for an acre +of land, or a horse, until he is twenty-one, but he may contract +for a wife at fourteen. If a man sell a horse, and the purchaser +find in him great incompatibility of temper—a disposition to +stand still when the owner is in haste to go—the sale is null +and void, and the man and his horse part company. But in +marriage, no matter how much fraud and deception are practiced, +nor how cruelly one or both parties have been misled; no matter +how young, inexperienced, or thoughtless the parties, nor how +unequal their condition and position in life, the contract can +not be annulled. Think of a husband telling a young and trusting +girl, but one short month his wife, that he married her for her +money; that those letters so precious to her, that she had read +and re-read, and kissed and cherished, were written by another; +that their splendid home, of which, on their wedding-day, her +father gave him the deed, is already in the hands of his +creditors; that she must give up the elegance and luxury that now +surround her, unless she can draw fresh supplies of money to meet +their wants! When she told the story of her wrongs to me—the +abuse to which she was subject, and the dread in which she +lived—I impulsively urged her to fly from such a monster and +villain, as she would before the hot breath of a ferocious beast +of the wilderness. (Applause). And she did fly; and it was well +with her. Many times since, as I have felt her throbbing heart +against my own, she has said, "Oh, but for your love and +sympathy, your encouragement, I should never have escaped from +that bondage. Before I could, of myself, have found courage to +break those chains my heart would have broken in the effort."</p> + +<p>Marriage, as it now exists, must seem to all of you a mere human +institution. Look through the universe of matter and mind—all +God's arrangements are perfect, harmonious, and complete! There +is no discord, friction, or failure in His eternal plans. +Immutability, perfection, beauty, are stamped on all His laws. +Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the +center to the circumference, the graduating circles of all +thought and action. Love is the talisman of human weal and +woe—the open sesame to every human soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_719" id="Page_719">[Pg 719]</a></span> Where two beings are +drawn together, by the natural laws of likeness and affinity, +union and happiness are the result. Such marriages might be +Divine. But how is it now? You all know our marriage is, in many +cases, a mere outward tie, impelled by custom, policy, interest, +necessity; founded not even in friendship, to say nothing of +love; with every possible inequality of condition and +development. In these heterogeneous unions, we find youth and old +age, beauty and deformity, refinement and vulgarity, virtue and +vice, the educated and the ignorant, angels of grace and +goodness, with devils of malice and malignity: and the sum of all +this is human wretchedness and despair; cold fathers, sad +mothers, and hapless children, who shiver at the hearthstone, +where the fires of love have all gone out. The wide world, and +the stranger's unsympathizing gaze, are not more to be dreaded +for young hearts than homes like these. Now, who shall say that +it is right to take two beings, so unlike, and anchor them right +side by side, fast bound—to stay all time, until God shall +summon one away?</p> + +<p>Do wise, Christian legislators need any arguments to convince +them that the sacredness of the family relation should be +protected at all hazards? The family, that great conservator of +national virtue and strength, how can you hope to build it up in +the midst of violence, debauchery, and excess? Can there be +anything sacred at that family altar, where the chief-priest who +ministers makes sacrifice of human beings, of the weak and the +innocent? where the incense offered up is not to the God of +justice and mercy, but to those heathen divinities, who best may +represent the lost man in all his grossness and deformity? Call +that sacred, where woman, the mother of the race—of a Jesus of +Nazareth—unconscious of the true dignity of her nature, of her +high and holy destiny, consents to live in legalized +prostitution!—her whole soul revolting at such gross +association!—her flesh shivering at the cold contamination of +that embrace, held there by no tie but the iron chain of the law, +and a false and most unnatural public sentiment? Call that +sacred, where innocent children, trembling with fear, fly to the +corners and dark places of the house, to hide themselves from the +wrath of drunken, brutal fathers, but, forgetting their past +sufferings, rush out again at their mother's frantic screams, +"Help, oh help"? Behold the agonies of those young hearts, as +they see the only being on earth they love, dragged about the +room by the hair of the head, kicked and pounded, and left half +dead and bleeding on the floor! Call that sacred, where fathers +like these have the power and legal right to hand down their +natures to other beings, to curse other generations with such +moral deformity and death?</p> + +<p>Men and brethren, look into your asylums for the blind, the deaf +and dumb, the idiot, the imbecile, the deformed, the insane; go +out into the by-lanes and dens of this vast metropolis, and +contemplate that reeking mass of depravity; pause before the +terrible revelations made by statistics, of the rapid increase of +all this moral and physical impotency, and learn how fearful a +thing it is to violate the immutable laws of the beneficent Ruler +of the universe; and there behold the terrible retributions of +your violence on woman! Learn how false and cruel are those +institutions, which, with a coarse materialism, set aside those +holy instincts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_720" id="Page_720">[Pg 720]</a></span> the woman to bear no children but those of +love! In the best condition of marriage, as we now have it, to +woman comes all the penalties and sacrifices. A man, in the full +tide of business or pleasure, can marry and not change his life +one iota; he can be husband, father, and everything beside; but +in marriage, woman gives up all. Home is her sphere, her realm. +Well, be it so. If here you will make us all-supreme, take to +yourselves the universe beside; explore the North Pole; and, in +your airy car, all space; in your Northern homes and cloud-capt +towers, go feast on walrus flesh and air, and lay you down to +sleep your six months' night away, and leave us to make these +laws that govern the inner sanctuary of our own homes, and +faithful satellites we will ever be to the dinner-pot, the +cradle, and the old arm-chair. (Applause).</p> + +<p>Fathers, do you say, let your daughters pay a life-long penalty +for one unfortunate step? How could they, on the threshold of +life, full of joy and hope, believing all things to be as they +seemed on the surface, judge of the dark windings of the human +soul? How could they foresee that the young man, to-day so noble, +so generous, would in a few short years be transformed into a +cowardly, mean tyrant, or a foul-mouthed, bloated drunkard? What +father could rest at his home by night, knowing that his lovely +daughter was at the mercy of a strong man drunk with wine and +passion, and that, do what he might, he was backed up by law and +public sentiment? The best interests of the individual, the +family, the State, the nation, cry out against these legalized +marriages of force and endurance. There can be no heaven without +love, and nothing is sacred in the family and home, but just so +far as it is built up and anchored in love. Our newspapers teem +with startling accounts of husbands and wives having shot or +poisoned each other, or committed suicide, choosing death rather +than the indissoluble tie; and, still worse, the living death of +faithless wives and daughters, from the first families in this +State, dragged from the privacy of home into the public prints +and courts, with all the painful details of sad, false lives. +What say you to facts like these? Now, do you believe, men and +women, that all these wretched matches are made in heaven? that +all these sad, miserable people are bound together by God? I know +Horace Greeley has been most eloquent, for weeks past, on the +holy sacrament of ill-assorted marriages; but let us hope that +all wisdom does not live, and will not die with Horace Greeley. I +think, if he had been married to <i>The New York Herald</i>, instead +of the Republican party, he would have found out some Scriptural +arguments against life-long unions, where great incompatibility +of temper existed between the parties. (Laughter and applause).</p> + +<p>Our law-makers have dug a pit, and the innocent have fallen into +it; and now will you coolly cover them over with statute laws, +<i>Tribunes</i>, and Weeds,<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> and tell them to stay there and pay +the life-long penalty of having fallen in? Nero was thought the +chief of tyrants, because he made laws and hung them up so high +that his subjects could not read them, and then punished them for +every act of disobedience. What better are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_721" id="Page_721">[Pg 721]</a></span> our Republican +legislators? The mass of the women of this nation know nothing +about the laws, yet all their specially barbarous legislation is +for woman. Where have they made any provision for her to learn +the laws? Where is the Law School for our daughters? where the +law office, the bar, or the bench, now urging them to take part +in the jurisprudence of the nation?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 414px;"> +<a name="v1_1721" id="v1_1721"> +<img src="images/v1_1721.png" width="414" height="500" +alt="Elizabeth Cady Stanton (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + +<p>But, say you, does not separation cover all these difficulties? +No one objects to separation when the parties are so disposed. +But, to separation there are two very serious objections. First, +so long as you insist on marriage as a divine institution, as an +indissoluble tie, so long as you maintain your present laws +against divorce, you make separation, even, so odious, that the +most noble, virtuous, and sensitive men and women choose a life +of concealed misery, rather than a partial, disgraceful release. +Secondly, those who, in their impetuosity and despair, do, in +spite of public sentiment, separate, find themselves in their new +position beset with many temptations to lead a false, unreal +life. This isolation bears especially hard on woman. Marriage is +not all of life to man. His resources for amusement and +occupation are boundless. He has the whole world for his home. +His business, his politics, his club, his friendships with either +sex, can help to fill up the void made by an unfortunate union or +separation. But to woman, marriage is all and everything; her +sole object in life—that for which she is educated—the subject +of all her sleeping and her waking dreams. Now, if a noble, +generous girl of eighteen marries, and is unfortunate, because +the cruelty of her husband compels separation, in her dreary +isolation, would you drive her to a nunnery; and shall she be a +nun indeed? Her solitude is nothing less, as, in the present +undeveloped condition of woman, it is only through our fathers, +brothers, husbands, sons, that we feel the pulsations of the +great outer world.</p> + +<p>One unhappy, discordant man or woman in a neighborhood, may mar +the happiness of all the rest. You can not shut up discord, any +more than you can small-pox. There can be no morality where there +is a settled discontent. A very wise father once remarked, that +in the government of his children, he forbade as few things as +possible; a wise legislation would do the same. It is folly to +make laws on subjects beyond human prerogative, knowing that in +the very nature of things they must be set aside. To make laws +that man can not and will not obey, serves to bring all law into +contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people +should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what +becomes of civil government? What do our present divorce laws +amount to? Those who wish to evade them have only to go into +another State to accomplish what they desire. If any of our +citizens can not secure their inalienable rights in New York +State, they may in Connecticut and Indiana. Why is it that all +agreements, covenants, partnerships, are left wholly at the +discretion of the parties, except the contract, which of all +others is considered most holy and important, both for the +individual and the race? This question of divorce, they tell us, +is hedged about with difficulties; that it can not be approached +with the ordinary rules of logic and common-sense. It is too +holy, too sacred to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_722" id="Page_722">[Pg 722]</a></span> be discussed, and few seem disposed to touch +it. From man's standpoint, this may be all true, as to him they +say belong reason, and the power of ratiocination. Fortunately, I +belong to that class endowed with mere intuitions, a kind of +moral instinct, by which we feel out right and wrong. In +presenting to you, therefore, my views of divorce, you will of +course give them the weight only of the woman's intuitions. But +inasmuch as that is all God saw fit to give us, it is evident we +need nothing more. Hence, what we do perceive of truth must be as +reliable as what man grinds out by the longer process of reason, +authority, and speculation.</p> + +<p>Horace Greeley, in his recent discussion with Robert Dale Owen, +said, this whole question has been tried, in all its varieties +and conditions, from indissoluble monogamic marriage down to free +love; that the ground has been all gone over and explored. Let me +assure him that but just one-half of the ground has been +surveyed, and that half but by one of the parties, and that party +certainly not the most interested in the matter. Moreover, there +is one kind of marriage that has not been tried, and that is, a +contract made by equal parties to live an equal life, with equal +restraints and privileges on either side. Thus far, we have had +the man marriage, and nothing more. From the beginning, man has +had the sole and whole regulation of the matter. He has spoken in +Scripture, he has spoken in law. As an individual, he has decided +the time and cause for putting away a wife, and as a judge and +legislator, he still holds the entire control. In all history, +sacred and profane, the woman is regarded and spoken of simply as +the toy of man—made for his special use—to meet his most gross +and sensuous desires. She is taken or put away, given or +received, bought or sold, just as the interest of the parties +might dictate. But the woman has been no more recognized in all +these transactions, through all the different periods and +conditions of the race, than if she had had no part nor lot in +the whole matter. The right of woman to put away a husband, be he +ever so impure, is never hinted at in sacred history. Even Jesus +himself failed to recognize the sacred rights of the holy mother +of the race. We can not take our gauge of womanhood from the +past, but from the solemn convictions of our own souls, in the +higher development of the race. No parchments, however venerable +with the mould of ages, no human institutions, can bound the +immortal wants of the royal sons and daughters of the great I +Am,—rightful heirs of the joys of time, and joint heirs of the +glories of eternity.</p> + +<p>If in marriage either party claims the right to stand supreme, to +woman, the mother of the race, belongs the scepter and the crown. +Her life is one long sacrifice for man. You tell us that among +all womankind there is no Moses, Christ, or Paul,—no Michael +Angelo, Beethoven, or Shakspeare,—no Columbus, or Galileo,—no +Locke or Bacon. Behold those mighty minds attuned to music and +the arts, so great, so grand, so comprehensive,—these are our +great works of which we boast! Into you, O sons of earth, go all +of us that is immortal. In you center our very life-thoughts, our +hopes, our intensest love. For you we gladly pour out our heart's +blood and die, knowing that from our suffering comes forth a new +and more glorious resurrection of thought and life. (Loud +applause).</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_723" id="Page_723">[Pg 723]</a></span></p> + +<p>Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell followed, and prefaced her remarks by +saying: "Ours has always been a free platform. We have believed in the +fullest freedom of thought and in the free expression of individual +opinion. I propose to speak upon the subject discussed by our friend, +Mrs. Stanton. It is often said that there are two sides to every +question; but there are three sides, many sides, to every question. +Let Mrs. Stanton take hers; let Horace Greeley take his; I only ask +the privilege of stating mine. (Applause). I have embodied my thought, +hastily, in a series of resolutions,<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> and my remarks following +them will be very brief."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_724" id="Page_724">[Pg 724]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Blackwell continued:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I believe that the highest laws of life are those which we find +written within our being; that the first moral laws which we are +to obey are the laws which God's own finger has traced upon our +own souls. Therefore, our first duty is to ourselves, and we may +never, under any circumstances, yield this to any other. I say we +are first responsible to ourselves, and to the God who has laid +the obligation upon us, to make ourselves the grandest we may. +Marriage grows out of the relations of parties. The law of our +development comes wholly from within; but the relation of +marriage supposes two persons as being united to each other, and +from this relation originates the law. Mrs. Stanton calls +marriage a "tie." No, marriage is a <i>relation</i>; and, once formed, +that relation continues as long as the parties continue with the +natures which they now essentially have. Let, then, the two +parties deliberately, voluntarily consent to enter into this +relation. It is one which, from its very nature, must be +permanent. Can the mother ever destroy the relation which exists +between herself and her child? Can the father annul the relation +which exists between himself and his child? Then, can the father +and mother annul the relation which exists between themselves, +the parents of the child? It can not be. The interests of +marriage are such that they can not be destroyed, and the only +question must be, "Has there been a marriage in this case or +not?" If there has, then the social law, the obligations growing +out of the relation, must be life-long.</p> + +<p>But I assert that every woman, in the present state of society, +is bound to maintain her own independence and her own integrity +of character; to assert herself, earnestly and firmly, as the +equal of man, who is only her peer. This is her first right, her +first duty; and if she lives in a country where the law supposes +that she is to be subjected to her husband, and she consents to +this subjection, I do insist that she consents to degradation; +that this is sin, and it is impossible to make it other than sin. +True, in this State, and in nearly all the States, the idea of +marriage is that of subjection, in all respects, of the wife to +the husband—personal subjection, subjection in the rights over +their children and over their property; but this is a false +relation. Marriage is a union of equals—equal interests being +involved, equal duties at stake; and if any woman has been +married to a man who chooses to take advantage of the laws as +they now stand, who chooses to subject her, ignobly, to his will, +against her own, to take from her the earnings which belong to +the family, and to take from her the children which belong to the +family, I hold that that woman, if she can not, by her influence, +change this state of things, is solemnly obligated to go to some +State where she can be legally divorced; and then she would be as +solemnly bound to return again, and, standing for herself and her +children, regard herself, in the sight of God, as being bound +still to the father of those children, to work for his best +interests, while she still maintains her own sovereignty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_725" id="Page_725">[Pg 725]</a></span> Of +course, she must be governed by the circumstances of the case. +She may be obliged, for the protection of the family, to live on +one continent while her husband is on the other: but she is never +to forget that in the sight of God and her own soul, she is his +wife, and that she owes to him the wife's loyalty; that to work +for his redemption is her highest social obligation, and that to +teach her children to do the same is her first motherly duty. +Legal divorce may be necessary for personal and family +protection; if so, let every woman obtain it. This, God helping +me, is what I would certainly do, for under no circumstances will +I ever give my consent to be subjected to the will of another, in +any relation, for God has bidden me not to do it. But the idea of +most women is, that they must be timid, weak, helpless, and full +of ignoble submission. Only last week, a lady who has just been +divorced from her husband said to me—"I used to be required to +go into the field and do the hardest laborer's work, when I was +not able to do it; and my husband would declare, that if I would +not thus labor, I should not be allowed to eat, and I was obliged +to submit." I say the fault was as much with the woman as with +the man; she should never have submitted.</p> + +<p>Our trouble is not with marriage as a relation between two; it is +all individual. We have few men or women fit to be married. They +neither fully respect themselves and their own rights and duties, +nor yet those of another. They have no idea how noble, how +godlike is the relation which ought to exist between the husband +and wife.</p> + +<p>Tell me, is marriage to be merely a contract—something entered +into for a time, and then broken again—or is the true marriage +permanent? One resolution read by Mrs. Stanton said that, as men +are incompetent to select partners in business, teachers for +their children, ministers of their religion, or makers, +adjudicators, or administrators of their laws, and as the same +weakness and blindness must attend in the selection of +matrimonial partners, the latter and most important contract +should no more be perpetual than either or all of the former. I +do not believe that, rightly understood, she quite holds to that +position herself. Marriage must be either permanent, or capable +of being any time dissolved. Which ground shall we take? I insist +that, from the nature of things, marriage must be as permanent +and indissoluble as the relation of parent and child. If so, let +us legislate toward the right. Though evils must sometimes +result, we are still to seek the highest law of the relation.</p> + +<p>Self-devotion is always sublimely beautiful, but the law has no +right to require either a woman to be sacrificed to any man, or a +man to be sacrificed to any woman, or either to the good of +society; but if either chooses to devote himself to the good of +the other, no matter how low that other may have fallen, no +matter how degraded he may be, let the willing partner strive to +lift him up, not by going down and sitting side by side with +him—that is wrong—but by steadily trying to win him back to the +right: keeping his own sovereignty, but trying to redeem the +fallen one as long as life shall endure. I do not wish to go to +the other state of being, and state what shall be our duty there, +but I do say, that where there is sin and suffering in this +universe of ours, we may none of us sit still until we have +overcome that sin and suffering. Then if my husband was wretched +and degraded in this life, I believe God would give me strength +to work for him while life lasted. I would do that for the lowest +drunkard in the street, and certainly I would do as much for my +husband. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_726" id="Page_726">[Pg 726]</a></span> believe that the greatest boon of existence is the +privilege of working for those who are oppressed and fallen; and +those who have oppressed their own natures are those who need the +most help. My great hope is, that I may be able to lift them +upwards. The great responsibility that has been laid upon me is +the responsibility never to sit down and sing to myself psalms of +happiness and content while anybody suffers. (Applause). Then, if +I find a wretched man in the gutter, and feel that, as a human +sister, I must go and lift him up, and that I can never enjoy +peace or rest until I have thus redeemed him and brought him out +of his sins, shall I, if the man whom I solemnly swore to love, +to associate with in all the interests of home and its holiest +relations—shall I, if he falls into sin, turn him off, and go on +enjoying life, while he is sunk in wretchedness and sin? I will +not do it. To me there is a higher idea of life. If, as an +intelligent human being, I promised to co-work with him in all +the higher interests of life, and if he proves false, I will not +turn from him, but I must seek first to regenerate him, the +nearest and dearest to me, as I would work, secondly, to save my +children, who are next, and then my brothers, my sisters, and the +whole human family. (Applause).</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton asks, "Would you send a young girl into a nunnery, +when she has made a mistake?" Does Mrs. Stanton not know that +nunneries belong to a past age, that people who had nothing to do +might go there and try to expiate their own sins? I would teach +the young girl a higher way. I do not say to her, "If you have +foolishly united yourself to another" (not "if you have been tied +by the law"; for, remember, it was not the law that tied her; she +said, "I will do it," and the law said, "So let it be!")—"sunder +the bond"; but I say to her, that her duty is to reflect, "Now +that I see my mistake, I will commence being true to myself; I +will become a true unit, strong and noble in myself; and if I can +never make our union a true one, I will work toward that good +result, I will live for this great work—for truth and all its +interests." Let me tell you, if she is not great enough to do +this, she is not great enough to enter into any union!</p> + +<p>Look at those who believe in thus easily dissolving the marriage +obligation! In very many cases they can not be truly married, or +truly happy in this relation, because there is something +incompatible with it in their own natures. It is not always so; +but when one feels that it is a relation easily to be dissolved, +of course, incompatibility at once seems to arise in the other, +and every difficulty that occurs, instead of being overlooked, as +it ought to be, in a spirit of forgiveness, is magnified, and the +evil naturally increased. We purchase a house, the deed is put +into our hands, and we take possession. We feel at once that it +is really very convenient. It suits us, and we are surprised that +we like it so much better than we supposed. The secret is, that +it is our house, and until we are ready to part with it, we make +ourselves content with it as it is. We go to live in some country +town. At first we do not like it; it is not like the home we came +from; but soon we begin to be reconciled, and feel that, as Dr. +Holmes said of Boston, our town is the hub of the universe. So, +when we are content to allow our relations to remain as they are, +we adapt ourselves to them, and they adapt themselves to us, and +we constantly, unconsciously (because God made us so) work toward +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_727" id="Page_727">[Pg 727]</a></span> perfecting of all the interests arising from those +relations. But the moment we wish to sell a house, or remove from +a town, how many defects we discover! The place has not the same +appearance to us at all; we wish we could get out of it; we feel +all the time more and more dissatisfied. So, let any married +person take the idea that he may dissolve this relation, and +enter into a new one, and how many faults he may discover that +otherwise never would have been noticed! The marriage will become +intolerable. The theory will work that result; it is in the +nature of things, and that to me is everything.</p> + +<p>Of course, I would not have man or woman sacrificed—by no means. +First of all, let every human being maintain his own position as +a self-protecting human being. At all hazards, let him never sin, +or consent to be sacrificed to the hurt of himself or of another; +and when he has taken this stand, let him act in harmony with it. +Would I say to any woman, "You are bound, because you are legally +married to one who is debased to the level of the brute, to be +the mother of his children?" I say to her, "No! while the law of +God continues, you are bound never to make one whom you do not +honor and respect, as well as love, the father of any child of +yours. It is your first and highest duty to be true to yourself, +true to posterity, and true to society." (Applause). Thus, let +each decide for himself and for herself what is right. But, I +repeat, either marriage is in its very nature a relation which, +once formed, never can be dissolved, and either the essential +obligations growing out of it exist forever, or the relation may +at any time be dissolved, and at any time those obligations be +annulled. And what are those obligations? Two persons, if I +understand marriage, covenant to work together, to uphold each +other in all excellence, and to mutually blend their lives and +interests into a common harmony. I believe that God has so made +man and woman, that it is not good for them to be alone, that +they each need a co-worker. There is no work on God's footstool +which man can do alone and do well, and there is no work which +woman can do alone and do well. (Applause). We need that the two +should stand side by side everywhere. All over the world, we need +this co-operation of the two classes—not because they are alike, +but because they are unlike—in trying to make the whole world +better. Then we need something more than these class workers. Two +persons need to stand side by side, to stay up each other's +hands, to take an interest in each other's welfare, to build up a +family, to cluster about it all the beauties and excellencies of +home life; in short, to be to each other what only one man and +one woman can be to each other in all God's earth.</p> + +<p>No grown-up human being ought to rush blindly into this most +intimate, most important, most enduring of human relations; and +will you let a young man, at the age of fourteen, contract +marriage, or a young maiden either? If the law undertakes to +regulate the matter at all, let it regulate it upon principles of +common-sense. But this is a matter which must be very much +regulated by public opinion, by our teachers. What do you, the +guides of our youth, say? You say to the young girl, "You ought +to expect to be married before you are twenty, or about that +time; you should intend to be; and from the time you are fifteen, +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_728" id="Page_728">[Pg 728]</a></span> should be made your one life purpose; and in all human +probability, you may expect to spend the next ten or twenty years +in the nursery, and at forty or fifty, you will be an old woman, +your life will be well-nigh worn out." I stand here to say that +this is all false. Let the young girl be instructed that, above +her personal interests, her home, and social life, she is to have +a great life purpose, as broad as the rights and interests of +humanity. I say, let every young girl feel this, as much as every +young man does. We have no right, we, who expect to live forever, +to play about here as if we were mere flies, enjoying ourselves +in the sunshine. We ought to have an earnest purpose outside of +home, outside of our family relations. Then let the young girl +fit herself for this. Let her be taught that she ought not to be +married in her teens. Let her wait, as a young man does, if he is +sensible, until she is twenty-five or thirty. (Applause). She +will then know how to choose properly, and probably she will not +be deceived in her estimate of character; she will have had a +certain life-discipline, which will enable her to control her +household matters with wise judgment, so that, while she is +looking after her family, she may still keep her great life +purpose, for which she was educated, and to which she has given +her best energies, steadily in view. She need not absorb herself +in her home, and God never intended that she should; and then, if +she has lived according to the laws of physiology, and according +to the laws of common-sense, she ought to be, at the age of fifty +years, just where man is, just where our great men are, in the +very prime of life! When her young children have gone out of her +home, then let her enter in earnest upon the great work of life +outside of home and its relations. (Applause).</p> + +<p>It is a shame for our women to have no steady purpose or pursuit, +and to make the mere fact of womanhood a valid plea for +indolence; it is a greater shame that they should be instructed +thus to throw all the responsibility of working for the general +good upon the other sex. God has not intended it. But as long as +you make women helpless, inefficient beings, who never expect to +earn a farthing in their lives, who never expect to do anything +outside of the family, but to be cared for and protected by +others throughout life, you can not have true marriages; and if +you try to break up the old ones, you will do it against the +woman and in favor of the man. Last week I went back to a town +where I used to live, and was told that a woman, whose husband +was notoriously the most miserable man in the town, had in +despair taken her own life. I asked what had become of the +husband, and the answer was, "Married again." And yet everybody +there knows that he is the vilest and most contemptible man in +the whole neighborhood. Any man, no matter how wretched he maybe, +will find plenty of women to accept him, while they are rendered +so helpless and weak by their whole education that they must be +supported or starve. The advantage, if this theory of marriage is +adopted, will not be on the side of woman, but altogether on the +side of man. The cure for the evils that now exist is not in +dissolving marriage, but it is in giving to the married woman her +own natural independence and self-sovereignty, by which she can +maintain herself.</p> + +<p>Yes, our women and our men are both degenerate; they are weak +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_729" id="Page_729">[Pg 729]</a></span> ignoble. "Dear me!" said a pretty, indolent young lady, "I +had a great deal rather my husband would take care of me, than to +be obliged to do it for myself." "Of course you would," said a +blunt old lady who was present; "and your brother would a great +deal rather marry an heiress, and lie upon a sofa eating +lollypops, bought with her money, than to do anything manly or +noble. The only difference is, that as heiresses are not very +plenty, he may probably have to marry a poor girl, and then +society will insist that he shall exert himself to earn a living +for the family; but you, poor thing, will only have to open your +mouth, all your life long, like a clam, and eat." (Applause and +laughter). So long as society is constituted in such a way that +woman is expected to do nothing if she have a father, brother, or +husband able to support her, there is no salvation for her, in or +out of marriage. When you tie up your arm, it will become weak +and feeble; and when you tie up woman, she will become weak and +helpless. Give her, then, some earnest purpose in life, hold up +to her the true ideal of marriage, and it is enough—I am +content! (Loud applause).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span> said:—Mrs. President—The question of a +Divorce law seems to me one of the greatest importance to all +parties, but I presume that the very advocacy of divorce will be +called "Free Love." For my part (and I wish distinctly to define +my position), I do not know what others understand by that term; +to me, in its truest significance, love must be free, or it +ceases to be love. In its low and degrading sense, it is not love +at all, and I have as little to do with its name as its reality.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Mrs. Blackwell gave us quite a sermon on what woman +ought to be, what she ought to do, and what marriage ought to be; +an excellent sermon in its proper place, but not when the +important question of a Divorce law is under consideration. She +treats woman as some ethereal being. It is very well to be +ethereal to some extent, but I tell you, my friends, it is quite +requisite to be a little material, also. At all events, we are +so, and, being so, it proves a law of our nature. (Applause).</p> + +<p>It were indeed well if woman could be what she ought to be, man +what he ought to be, and marriage what it ought to be; and it is +to be hoped that through the Woman's Rights movement—the +equalizing of the laws, making them more just, and making woman +more independent—we will hasten the coming of the millennium, +when marriage shall indeed be a bond of union and affection. But, +alas! it is not yet; and I fear that sermons, however well meant, +will not produce that desirable end; and as long as the evil is +here, we must look it in the face without shrinking, grapple with +it manfully, and the more complicated it is, the more +courageously must it be analyzed, combated, and destroyed. +(Applause).</p> + +<p>Mrs. Blackwell told us that, marriage being based on the perfect +equality of husband and wife, it can not be destroyed. But is it +so? Where? Where and when have the sexes yet been equal in +physical or mental education, in position, or in law? When and +where have they yet been recognized by society, or by themselves, +as equals? "Equal in rights," says Mrs. B. But are they equal in +rights? If they were, we would need no conventions to claim our +rights. "She can assert her equality." Yes, she can assert it, +but does that assertion constitute a true marriage? And when the +husband holds the iron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_730" id="Page_730">[Pg 730]</a></span> heel of legal oppression on the +subjugated neck of the wife until every spark of womanhood is +crushed out, will it heal the wounded heart, the lacerated +spirit, the destroyed hope, to assert her equality? And shall she +still continue the wife? Is that a marriage which must not be +dissolved? (Applause).</p> + +<p>According to Mr. Greeley's definition, viz., that there is no +marriage unless the ceremony is performed by a minister and in a +church, the tens of thousands married according to the laws of +this and most of the other States, by a lawyer or justice of the +peace, a mayor or an alderman, are not married at all. According +to the definition of our reverend sister, no one has ever yet +been married, as woman has never yet been perfectly equal with +man. I say to both, take your position, and abide by the +consequences. If the few only, or no one, is really married, why +do you object to a law that shall acknowledge the fact? You +certainly ought not to force people to live together who are not +married. (Applause).</p> + +<p>Mr. Greeley tells us, that, marriage being a Divine institution, +nothing but death should ever separate the parties; but when he +was asked, "Would you have a being who, innocent and +inexperienced, in the youth and ardor of affection, in the fond +hope that the sentiment was reciprocated, united herself to one +she loved and cherished, and then found (no matter from what +cause) that his profession was false, his heart hollow, his acts +cruel, that she was degraded by his vice, despised for his +crimes, cursed by his very presence, and treated with every +conceivable ignominy—would you have her drag out a miserable +existence as his wife?" "No, no," says he; "in that case, they +ought to separate." Separate? But what becomes of the union +divinely instituted, which death only should part? (Applause).</p> + +<p>The papers have of late been filled with the heart-sickening +accounts of wife-poisoning. Whence come these terrible crimes? +From the want of a Divorce law. Could the Hardings be legally +separated, they would not be driven to the commission of murder +to be free from each other; and which is preferable, a Divorce +law, to dissolve an unholy union, which all parties agree is no +true marriage, or a murder of one, and an execution (legal +murder) of the other party? But had the unfortunate woman, just +before the poisoned cup was presented to her lips, pleaded for a +divorce, Mrs. Blackwell would have read her a sermon equal to St. +Paul's "Wives, be obedient to your husbands," only she would have +added, "You must assert your equality," but "you must keep with +your husband and work for his redemption, as I would do for my +husband"; and Mr. Greeley would say, "As you chose to marry him, +it is your own fault; you must abide the consequences, for it is +a 'divine institution, a union for life, which nothing but death +can end.'" (Applause). The Tribune had recently a long sermon, +almost equal to the one we had this morning from our reverend +sister, on "Fast Women." The evils it spoke of were terrible +indeed, but, like all other sermons, it was one-sided. Not one +single word was said about fast men, except that the "poor victim +had to spend so much money." The writer forgot that it is the +demand which calls the supply into existence. But what was the +primary cause of that tragic end? Echo answers, "what?" Ask the +lifeless form of the murdered woman, and she may disclose the +terrible secret, and show you that, could she have been legally +divorced, she might not have been driven to the watery grave of a +"fast woman." (Applause).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_731" id="Page_731">[Pg 731]</a></span></p> + +<p>But what is marriage? A human institution, called out by the +needs of social, affectional human nature, for human purposes, +its objects are, first, the happiness of the parties immediately +concerned, and, secondly, the welfare of society. Define it as +you please, these are only its objects; and therefore if, from +well-ascertained facts, it is demonstrated that the real objects +are frustrated, that instead of union and happiness, there are +only discord and misery to themselves, and vice and crime to +society, I ask, in the name of individual happiness and social +morality and well-being, why such a marriage should be binding +for life?—why one human being should be chained for life to the +dead body of another? "But they may separate and still remain +married." What a perversion of the very term! Is that the union +which "death only should part"? It may be according to the +definition of the Rev. Mrs. Blackwell's theology and Mr. +Greeley's dictionary, but it certainly is not according to +common-sense or the dictates of morality. No, no! "It is not well +for man to be alone," before nor after marriage. (Applause).</p> + +<p>I therefore ask for a Divorce law. Divorce is now granted for +some crimes; I ask it for others also. It is granted for a +State's prison offense. I ask that personal cruelty to a wife, +whom he swore to "love, cherish, and protect," may be made a +heinous crime—a perjury and a State's prison offense, for which +divorce shall be granted. Willful desertion for one year should +be a sufficient cause for divorce, for the willful deserter +forfeits the sacred title of husband or wife. Habitual +intemperance, or any other vice which makes the husband or wife +intolerable and abhorrent to the other, ought to be sufficient +cause for divorce. I ask for a law of Divorce, so as to secure +the real objects and blessings of married life, to prevent the +crimes and immoralities now practiced, to prevent "Free Love," in +its most hideous form, such as is now carried on but too often +under the very name of marriage, where hypocrisy is added to the +crime of legalized prostitution. "Free Love," in its degraded +sense, asks for no Divorce law. It acknowledges no marriage, and +therefore requires no divorce. I believe in true marriages, and +therefore I ask for a law to free men and women from false ones. +(Applause).</p> + +<p>But it is said that if divorce were easily granted, "men and +women would marry to-day and unmarry to-morrow." Those who say +that, only prove that they have no confidence in themselves, and +therefore can have no confidence in others. But the assertion is +false; it is a libel on human nature. It is the indissoluble +chain that corrodes the flesh. Remove the indissolubility, and +there would be less separation than now, for it would place the +parties on their good behavior, the same as during courtship. +Human nature is not quite so changeable; give it more freedom, +and it will be less so. We are a good deal the creatures of +habit, but we will not be forced. We live (I speak from +experience) in uncomfortable houses for years, rather than move, +though we have the privilege to do so every year; but force any +one to live for life in one house, and he would run away from it, +though it were a palace.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Greeley asks, "How could the mother look the child in the +face, if she married a second time?" With infinitely better grace +and better conscience than to live as some do now, and show their +children the degrading example, how utterly father and mother +despise and hate each other, and still live together as husband +and wife. She could say to her child, "As, unfortunately, your +father proved himself unworthy, your mother could not be so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_732" id="Page_732">[Pg 732]</a></span> +unworthy as to continue to live with him. As he failed to be a +true father to you, I have endeavored to supply his place with +one, who, though not entitled to the name, will, I hope, prove +himself one in the performance of a father's duties." (Applause).</p> + +<p>Finally, educate woman, to enable her to promote her +independence, and she will not be obliged to marry for a home and +a subsistence. Give the wife an equal right with the husband in +the property acquired after marriage, and it will be a bond of +union between them. Diamond cement, applied on both sides of a +fractured vase, re-unites the parts, and prevents them from +falling asunder. A gold band is more efficacious than an iron +law. Until now, the gold has all been on one side, and the iron +law on the other. Remove it; place the golden band of justice and +mutual interest around both husband and wife, and it will hide +the little fractures which may have occurred, even from their own +perception, and allow them effectually to re-unite. A union of +interest helps to preserve a union of hearts. (Loud applause).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span> then said: I object to entering these +resolutions upon the journal of this Convention. (Applause). I +would move to lay them on the table; but my conviction that they +are out of order is so emphatic, that I wish to go further than +that, and move that they do not appear on the journals of this +Convention. If the resolutions were merely the expressions of +individual sentiments, then they ought not to appear in the form +of resolutions, but as speeches, because a resolution has a +certain emphasis and authority. It is assumed to give the voice +of an assembly, and is not taken as an individual expression, +which a speech is.</p> + +<p>Of course, every person must be interested in the question of +marriage, and the branch that grows out of it, the question of +divorce; and no one could deny, who has listened for an hour, +that we have been favored with an exceedingly able discussion of +those questions. But here we have nothing to do with them, any +more than with the question of intemperance, or Kansas, in my +opinion. This Convention is no Marriage Convention—if it were, +the subject would be in order; but this Convention, if I +understand it, assembles to discuss the laws that rest unequally +upon women, not those that rest equally upon men and women. It is +the laws that make distinctions between the sexes. Now, whether a +man and a woman are married for a year or a life is a question +which affects the man just as much as the woman. At the end of a +month, the man is without a wife exactly as much as the woman is +without a husband. The question whether, having entered into a +contract, you shall be bound to an unworthy partner, affects the +man as much as the woman. Certainly, there are cases where men +are bound to women carcasses as well as where women are bound to +men carcasses. (Laughter and applause). We have nothing to do +with a question which affects both sexes equally. Therefore, it +seems to me we have nothing to do with the theory of marriage, +which is the basis, as Mrs. Rose has very clearly shown, of +divorce. One question grows out of the other; and therefore the +question of the permanence of marriage, and the laws relating to +marriage, in the essential meaning of that word, are not for our +consideration. Of course I know, as everybody else does, that the +results of marriage, in the present condition of society, are +often more disastrous to woman than to men. Intemperance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_733" id="Page_733">[Pg 733]</a></span> for +instance, burdens a wife worse than a husband, owing to the +present state of society. It is not the fault of the +statute-book, and no change in the duration of marriage would +alter that inequality.</p> + +<p>The reason why I object so emphatically to the introduction of +the question here is because it is a question which admits of so +many theories, physiological and religious, and what is +technically called "free-love," that it is large enough for a +movement of its own. Our question is only unnecessarily burdened +with it. It can not be kept within the convenient limits of this +enterprise; for this Woman's Rights Convention is not Man's +Convention, and I hold that I, as a man, have an exactly equal +interest in the essential question of marriage as woman has. I +move, then, that these series of resolutions do not appear at all +upon the journal of the Convention. If the speeches are reported, +of course the resolutions will go with them. Most journals will +report them as adopted. But I say to those who use this platform +to make speeches on this question, that they do far worse than +take more than their fair share of the time; they open a gulf +into which our distinctive movement will be plunged, and its +success postponed two years for every one that it need +necessarily be.</p> + +<p>Of course, in these remarks, I intend no reflection upon those +whose views differ from mine in regard to introducing this +subject before the Convention; but we had an experience two years +ago on this point, and it seems to me that we might have learned +by that lesson. No question—Anti-Slavery, Temperance, Woman's +Rights—can move forward efficiently, unless it keeps its +platform separate and unmixed with extraneous issues, unmixed +with discussions which carry us into endless realms of debate. We +have now, under our present civilization, to deal with the simple +question which we propose—how to make that statute-book look +upon woman exactly as it does upon man. Under the law of Divorce, +one stands exactly like the other. All we have asked in regard to +the law of property has been, that the statute-book of New York +shall make the wife exactly like the husband; we do not go +another step, and state what that right shall be. We do not ask +law-makers whether there shall be rights of dower and +courtesy—rights to equal shares—rights to this or that interest +in property. That is not our business. All we say is, "Gentlemen +law-makers, we represent woman; make what laws you please about +marriage and property, but let woman stand under them exactly as +man does; let sex deprive her of no right, let sex confer no +special right; and that is all we claim." (Applause). Society has +done that as to marriage and divorce, and we have nothing more to +ask of it on this question, as a Woman's Rights body.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Abby Hopper Gibbons</span>, of New York City, seconded the motion of Mr. +Phillips, and said that she wished the whole subject of marriage +and divorce might be swept from that platform, as it was +manifestly not the place for it.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Garrison</span> said he fully concurred in opinion with his friend, +Mr. Phillips, that they had not come together to settle +definitely the question of marriage, as such, on that platform; +still, he should be sorry to have the motion adopted, as against +the resolutions of Mrs. Stanton, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_734" id="Page_734">[Pg 734]</a></span> they were a part of her +speech, and her speech was an elucidation of her resolutions, +which were offered on her own responsibility, not on behalf of +the Business Committee, and which did not, therefore, make the +Convention responsible for them. It seemed to him that, in the +liberty usually taken on that platform, both by way of argument +and illustration, to show the various methods by which woman was +unjustly, yet legally, subjected to the absolute control of man, +she ought to be permitted to present her own sentiments. It was +not the specific object of an Anti-Slavery Convention—for +example—to discuss the conduct of Rev. Nehemiah Adams, or the +position of Stephen A. Douglas, or the course of <i>The York +Herald</i>; yet they did, incidentally, discuss all these, and many +other matters closely related to the great struggle for the +freedom of the slave. So this question of marriage came in as at +least incidental to the main question of the equal rights of +woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Blackwell</span>: I should like to say a few words in explanation. +I do not understand whether our friend Wendell Phillips objects +to both series of resolutions on the subject of divorce, or +merely to mine.</p> + +<p>Mr. <span class="smcap">Phillips</span>: To both.</p> + +<p>Mrs. <span class="smcap">Blackwell</span>: I wish simply to say, that I did not come to the +Convention proposing to speak on this subject, but on another; +but finding that these resolutions were to be introduced, and +believing the subject legitimate; I said, "I will take my own +position." So I prepared the resolutions, as they enabled me at +the moment better to express my thought than I could do by merely +extemporizing.</p> + +<p>Now does this question grow legitimately out of the great +question of woman's equality? The world says, marriage is not an +alliance between equals in human rights. My whole argument was +based on the position that it is. If this question is not +legitimate, what is? Then do we not ask for laws which are not +equal between man and woman? What have we been doing here in New +York State? I spent three months asking the State to allow the +drunkard's wife her own earnings. Do I believe that the wife +ought to take her own earnings, as her own earnings? No; I do not +believe it. I believe that in a true marriage, the husband and +wife earn for the family, and that the property is the +family's—belongs jointly to the husband and wife. But if the law +says that the property is the husband's, if it says that he may +take the wages of his wife, just as the master does those of the +slave, and she has no right to them, we must seek a temporary +redress. We must take the first step, by compelling legislators, +who will not look at great principles, to protect the wife of the +drunkard, by giving her her own earnings to expend upon herself +and her children, and not allow them to be wasted by the husband. +I say that it is legitimate for us to ask for a law which we +believe is merely a temporary expedient, not based upon the great +principle of human and marriage equality. Just so with this +question of marriage. It must come upon this platform, for at +present it is a relation which legally and socially bears +unequally upon woman. We must have temporary redress for the +wife. The whole subject must be incidentally opened for +discussion. The only question is one of present fitness. Was it +best, under all the circumstances, to introduce it now? I have +not taken the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_735" id="Page_735">[Pg 735]</a></span> responsibility of answering in the affirmative. +But it must come here and be settled, sooner or later, because +its interests are everywhere, and all human relations center in +this one marriage relation. (Applause).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span>: I hope Mr. Phillips will withdraw his motion +that these resolutions shall not appear on the records of the +Convention. I am very sure that it would be contrary to all +parliamentary usage to say, that when the speeches which enforced +and advocated the resolutions are reported and published in the +proceedings, the resolutions shall not be placed there. And as to +the point that this question does not belong to this +platform,—from that I totally dissent. Marriage has ever been a +one-sided matter, resting most unequally upon the sexes. By it, +man gains all—woman loses all; tyrant law and lust reign supreme +with him—meek submission and ready obedience alone befit her. +Woman has never been consulted; her wish has never been taken +into consideration as regards the terms of the marriage compact. +By law, public sentiment and religion, from the time of Moses +down to the present day, woman has never been thought of other +than as a piece of property, to be disposed of at the will and +pleasure of man. And this very hour, by our statute-books, by our +(so called) enlightened Christian civilization, she has no voice +whatever in saying what shall be the basis of the relation. She +must accept marriage as man proffers it, or not at all.</p> + +<p>And then again, on Mr. Phillips' own ground, the discussion is +perfectly in order, since nearly all the wrongs of which we +complain grow out of the inequality, the injustice of the +marriage laws, that rob the wife of the right to herself and her +children—that make her the slave of the man she marries.</p> + +<p>I hope, therefore, the resolutions will be allowed to go out to +the public, that there may be a fair report of the ideas which +have actually been presented here, that they may not be left to +the mercy of the secular press. I trust the Convention will not +vote to forbid the publication of those resolutions with the +proceedings.</p> + +<p>Rev. <span class="smcap">Wm. Hoisington</span>, the blind preacher: Publish all that you +have said and done here, and let the public know it.</p> + +<p>The question was then put on the motion of Mr. Phillips, and it +was lost.</p> + +<p>After which, the resolutions reported by the Business Committee +were adopted without dissent.</p> + +<p>Miss <span class="smcap">Mary Grew</span>, of Philadelphia, said: Friends, we are about to +separate. This convention was called for the consideration of one +of the most important questions before the American people. The +press may ridicule your movement, the pulpit denounce it, but, as +time rolls on, it will be seen—the press and pulpit will +see—that it is one of the most important questions that has ever +agitated the community. It is well that those who are engaged in +this movement should go forth deeply impressed with the +importance of the work that is before them. It is well that you +who have assembled from curiosity, to listen to what these +"fanatics" have to say, should take home with you to your souls +one thought which is sufficient to settle this whole question. +All the arguments that have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_736" id="Page_736">[Pg 736]</a></span> been adduced against us, and against +granting to woman all her rights, come to us in one form or +another of prejudice or expediency. Talk with whom you will about +it,—the priest, politician, merchant, farmer, mechanic, and one +after another says, (you have heard them, I have heard them, we +all hear them,) to every right which woman claims, "I grant you +that, in the abstract, you are right; but it is not expedient, +nor wise, nor safe for woman nor man, nor good for the world." +Let me tell you, that the man who grants that the position we +assume is, in the abstract, right, has granted all we want; and +if he is not ready to take that step of abstract right, he only +assumes to be wiser than He who made the world.</p> + +<p>Mrs. President, I hear every day of my life, almost, the +assertion that it is fanaticism to say that it is always safe and +right to follow abstract right. This principle does not belong to +any one belief; it is the living soul of God's universe, that the +absolute right is safe. If woman has the same right as man to +read, to vote, to rule, to learn, to teach, there is nothing +further to be said about it; and I never care to argue with the +man who says it is right, but for some reason or other, it ought +not to be granted, for he has granted everything, and has no +ground left to stand upon.</p> + +<p>Is it fanaticism to believe that God is wiser than man; that He, +"who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the +earth," who "commanded the morning, and caused the day-spring to +know its place," is wise enough to give laws to the universe +which it shall be safe for you and me to obey? (Applause). Into +this fanaticism this world is to be educated, if it is to be +saved from going down to moral ruin and death. Remember, then, O +man! father, husband, brother, clergyman, and +politician—remember, when these words slip so easily from your +tongues, as they often do, "I grant you have the same abstract +right to do this that man has," you grant all that woman claims; +and remember, as you stand reverently in the presence of God, +that if you assert that that is not safe which He has pronounced +to be right, you claim to be wiser, not than these women or these +men who stand on the platform of the "Woman's Rights Convention," +but you claim to be wiser than the Creator of man and woman. +(Applause).</p> + +<p>Allusion was made here this morning—well and wisely made—to the +charge that when woman walks out into the avenues of public life, +there to gain a living for herself and her children, or to help +guide the nation, she ceases to be domestic, and faithful to the +cares and shrine of home. We heard something well said this +morning on the sphere of woman being the home, and we are told +that this objection to our movement was altogether dishonest, +contemptible, and ridiculous. It is not always such. Good men and +true, and sometimes wise men, also, really in their souls believe +that if a woman touches a ballot, her hand will be unfit for +domestic duties; that if she teaches in the public congregation, +she can not act well her part in the family circle. As I listened +to what was said here, the words called to my mind the image of a +woman of America, known as a religious and moral teacher, who +bears a name of which this nation will one day be proud, but now +slandered by a venal press, scorned by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_737" id="Page_737">[Pg 737]</a></span> an arrogant pulpit, +little appreciated by the mass of men and women, for whom the +bearer of it is laboring night and day. The image of that woman +rose before me. The world regards her as a public woman, as out +of her sphere, and infers that she is neglectful of the cares and +insensible to the loveliness of domestic life; and as I +remembered her, I felt as I ever feel, that there is not a woman +who, as a representative of my own sex, I would sooner show to +the world as the embodiment of all domestic beauty and wifely +care and motherly fidelity. I only wish that they and you might +know her as I know her. I only wish that you might see in her, as +I see in her, the very best possible illustration of the power of +guiding and guarding all the sanctity of home, of blessing +husband and children and grandchildren, and exerting in the +guidance of her household an intellectual power which would be +the glory of this or any other platform. Not only do husband and +children "rise up and call her blessed," but in the time to come, +the children and children's children of those who now scorn her +name—of priests who have despised it, editors who have ridiculed +and slandered it, and heaped upon it all of the ignominy of their +souls—will thank God, as they reap the benefit of her exertions +and her beautiful life, for the name of <span class="smcap">Lucretia Mott</span>. +(Applause).</p> + +<p>The word I would impress upon you all, as you go hence, is +this—it is always safe to do right. Carry away with you from +this Convention, my friends, this one thought—God is wiser than +man. What He has made right, He has also made safe. His paths are +paths of pleasantness, and all His ways are peace. And to those +who go forward, bearing this great cause in their hands, to work +for themselves, for their sisters, for their mothers—to them I +would say, "Be not discouraged at any obstacles that may lie in +your way! Forget, for a little while, the sneers of the press and +the pulpit, the laugh of the fashionable lady, who calls you +unladylike, and the scorn of arrogant men, who appreciate not +your labors! You need not pay back the laughter and the scorn +with scorn. Your work is too great, too high, too holy. Forgive +them, and pass on! Rejoice to think that, in a few years, they, +too, will rise up and thank you for it. Those who work for +mankind must be content not to receive their reward in the +appreciation of their services as they pass through life. It is +of little consequence. The only thing is to be sure we are doing +right, and living for some great purpose; for, of all the +afflictions that can befall a man or woman, there is none so +great as to pass through life without effecting anything—to die +and leave the world no better than we found it, never being +missed in consequence of any useful work we have done. +(Applause). No good cause can go backward. No good cause +declines. Nothing can put us down if we are right. All that we +need to sustain and strengthen us in any great work is to be +quite satisfied with the smile of God, and to have faith and hope +that man shall at last be wholly and utterly redeemed and saved." +(Applause).</p> + +<p>The Convention then adjourned <i>sine die</i>.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_738" id="Page_738">[Pg 738]</a></span></p> + + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading"><i>From The New York Tribune of May 80</i>.</p> + +<p class="heading">MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.</p> + +<p><i>To the Editor of The New York Tribune</i>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>:—At our recent National Woman's Rights Convention many were +surprised to hear Wendell Phillips object to the question of +Marriage and Divorce, as irrelevant to our platform. He said: "We +had no right to discuss there any laws or customs but those where +inequality existed in the sexes; that the laws on Marriage and +Divorce rested equally on man and woman; that he suffered, as +much as she possibly could, the wrongs and abuses of an +ill-assorted marriage."</p> + +<p>Now, it must strike every careful thinker, that an immense +difference rests in the fact, that man has made the laws, +cunningly and selfishly, for his own purpose. From Coke down to +Kent, who can cite one clause of the marriage contract where +woman has the advantage? When man suffers from false legislation, +he has his remedy in his own hands. Shall woman be denied the +right of protest against laws in which she has had no voice—laws +which outrage the holiest affections of her nature—laws which +transcend the limits of human legislation—in a Convention called +for the express purpose of considering her wrongs? He might as +well object to a protest against the injustice of hanging a +woman, because capital punishment bears equally on man and woman.</p> + +<p>The contract of marriage is by no means equal. The law permits +the girl to marry at twelve years of age, while it requires +several years more of experience on the part of the boy. In +entering this compact, the man gives up nothing that he before +possessed—he is a man still; while the legal existence of the +woman is suspended during marriage, and henceforth she is known +but in and through the husband. She is nameless, purseless, +childless—though a woman, an heiress, and a mother.</p> + +<p>Blackstone says: "The husband and wife are one, and that one is +the husband." Kent says: "The legal effects of marriage are +generally deducible from the principle of the common law, by +which the husband and wife are regarded as one person, and her +legal existence and authority lost or suspended during the +continuance of the matrimonial union."—Vol. 2, p. 109. Kent +refers to Coke on Littleton, 112, a. 187, B. Litt. sec. 168, 291.</p> + +<p>The wife is regarded by all legal authorities as a +"<i>feme-covert</i>," placed wholly <i>sub potestate viri</i>. Her moral +responsibility, even, is merged in the husband. The law takes it +for granted that the wife lives in fear of her husband; that his +command is her highest law: hence a wife is not punishable for +theft committed in presence of her husband.—Kent, vol. 2, p. +127. An unmarried woman can make contracts, sue and be sued, +enjoy the rights of property, to her inheritance—to her +wages—to her person—to her children; but, in marriage, she is +robbed by law of all and every natural and civil right. "The +disability of the wife to contract, so as to bind herself, arises +not from want of discretion, but because she has entered into an +indissoluble connection, by which she is placed under the power +and protection of her husband."—Kent, vol. 2, p. 127. She is +possessed of certain rights until she is married; then all are +suspended, to revive again the moment the breath goes out of the +husband's body.—See "Cowen's Treatise," vol. 2, p. 709.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_739" id="Page_739">[Pg 739]</a></span></p> + +<p>If the contract be equal, whence come the terms "marital +power"—"marital rights"—"obedience and restraint"—"dominion +and control"—"power and protection," etc., etc.? Many cases are +stated, showing the exercise of a most questionable power over +the wife, sustained by the courts.—See Bishop on Divorce, p. +489.</p> + +<p>The laws on Divorce are quite as unequal as those on Marriage; +yes, far more so. The advantages seem to be all on one side, and +the penalties on the other. In case of divorce, if the husband be +the guilty party, he still retains the greater part of the +property. If the wife be the guilty party, she goes out of the +partnership penniless.—Kent, vol. 2, p. 33; Bishop on Divorce, +p. 492.</p> + +<p>In New York and some other States, the wife of the guilty husband +can now sue for a divorce in her own name, and the costs come out +of the husband's estate; but, in the majority of the States, she +is still compelled to sue in the name of another, as she has no +means of paying costs, even though she may have brought her +thousands into the partnership. "The allowance to the innocent +wife of <i>ad interim</i> alimony and money to sustain the suit, is +not regarded as strict right in her, but of sound discretion in +the court."—Bishop on Divorce, p. 581.</p> + +<p>"Many jurists," says Kent, vol. 2, p. 88, "are of opinion that +the adultery of the husband ought not to be noticed or made +subject to the same animadversions as that of the wife, because +it is not evidence of such entire depravity, nor equally +injurious in its effects upon the morals, good order, and +happiness of domestic life. Montesquieu, Pothier, and Dr. Taylor +all insist that the cases of husband and wife ought to be +distinguished, and that the violation of the marriage vow, on the +part of the wife, is the most mischievous, and the prosecution +ought to be confined to the offense on her part.—"Esprit des +Loix," tom. 3, 186; "Traité du Contrat de Mariage," No. 516; +"Elements of Civil Law," p. 254.</p> + +<p>Say you, "These are but the opinions of men"? On what else, I +ask, are the hundreds of women depending, who this hour demand in +our courts a release from burdensome contracts? Are not these +delicate matters left wholly to the discretion of courts? Are not +young women from the first families dragged into the public +courts—into assemblies of men exclusively—the judges all men, +the jurors all men?—no true woman there to shield them by her +presence from gross and impertinent questionings, to pity their +misfortunes, or to protest against their wrongs?</p> + +<p>The administration of justice depends far more on the opinions of +eminent jurists, than on law alone, for law is powerless when at +variance with public sentiment.</p> + +<p>Do not the above citations clearly prove inequality? Are not the +very letter and spirit of the marriage contract based on the idea +of the supremacy of man as the keeper of woman's virtue—her sole +protector and support? Out of marriage, woman asks nothing at +this hour but the elective franchise. It is only in marriage that +she must demand her rights to person, children, property, wages, +life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How can we discuss +all the laws and conditions of marriage, without perceiving its +essential essence, end, and aim? Now, whether the institution of +marriage be human or divine, whether regarded as indissoluble by +ecclesiastical courts, or dissoluble by civil courts, woman, +finding herself equally degraded in each and every phase<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_740" id="Page_740">[Pg 740]</a></span> of it, +always the victim of the institution, it is her right and her +duty to sift the relation and the compact through and through, +until she finds out the true cause of her false position. How can +we go before the Legislatures of our respective States, and +demand new laws, or no laws, on divorce, until we have some idea +of what the true relation is?</p> + +<p>We decide the whole question of slavery by settling the sacred +rights of the individual. We assert that man can not hold +property in man, and reject the whole code of laws that conflicts +with the self-evident truth of that assertion.</p> + +<p>Again I ask, is it possible to discuss all the laws of a +relation, and not touch the relation itself?</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Yours respectfully,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</p> + + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Horace Greeley</span> in <i>The New York Tribune</i>, May 14, 1860.</p> + +<p><i>One Thousand Persons Present, seven-eighths of them Women, and a +fair Proportion Young and Good-looking</i>.—Whether the Woman's +Rights Convention will finally succeed or not in enlarging the +sphere of woman, they have certainly been very successful in +enlarging that of their platform. Having introduced easy Divorce +as one of the reforms which the new order of things demands, we +can see no good reason why the platform should not be altogether +replanked. We respectfully suggest that with this change of +purpose there shall also be a change in name, and that hereafter +these meetings shall be called not by name of Woman, but in the +name of Wives Discontented. Hitherto we have supposed that the +aim of this movement related to wrongs which woman suffered as +woman, political and social inequalities, and disabilities with +which she was mightily burdened. A settlement of the marriage +relation, we conceive, does not come within this category. As +there can be no wives without husbands, the subject concerns the +latter quite as much as it does the former. One of the wrongs +which it is charged woman suffers from man, is that he legislates +for her when she is not represented. We acknowledge the justice +of that plea, and, for that very reason, complain that she, under +the name of Woman's Rights, should attempt to settle a question +of such vital importance to him where he is supposed to be +admitted only on suffrance. We believe in woman's rights; we have +some conclusions(?) on the rights of husbands and wives; we are +not yet, we confess, up to that advanced state which enables us +to consider the rights of wives as something apart from that of +husbands.</p> + +<p>On the subject of marriage and divorce we have some very positive +opinions, and what they are is pretty generally known. But even +were they less positive and fixed, we should none the less +protest against the sweeping character of the resolutions +introduced at the Woman's Rights Convention on Friday by Mrs. +Elizabeth Cady Stanton. We can not look upon the marriage +relation as of no more binding force than that which a man may +make with a purchaser for the sale of dry-goods, or an engagement +he may contract with a schoolmaster or governess. Such doctrine +seems to us simply shocking.</p> + +<p>The intimate relation existing between one man and one woman, +sanctified<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_741" id="Page_741">[Pg 741]</a></span> by, at least, the memory of an early and sincere +affection, rendered more sacred by the present bond of dependent +children, the fruit of that love, hallowed by many joys and many +sorrows, though they be only remembered joys and sorrows, with +other interests that can be broken in upon only to be +destroyed—such a relation, we are very sure, has elements of +quite another nature than those which belong to the shop or the +counting-house. In our judgment, the balance of duty can not be +struck like the balance of a mercantile statement of profit and +loss, or measured with the calculations we bestow on an account +current. Such a doctrine we regard as pernicious and debasing. We +can conceive of nothing that would more utterly sap the +foundations of sound morality, or give a looser rein to the most +licentious and depraved appetites of the vilest men and women. +Upon the physiological and psychological laws which govern +generation, we do not care here to enter, even if Mrs. Stanton +leads the way; but we believe that the progress of the world, +springing out of connections formed under such a dispensation of +humanity as is here indicated, with so little of duty or +conscience, with so little hope or expectation of abiding +affection, with so little intention of permanency as must +necessarily belong to them, would be more monstrous than the +world has ever dreamed of. For such a rule of married life +contemplates no married life at all, and no parental relation. It +destroys the family; it renders the dearest word in the Saxon +tongue (home) a vague and unmeaning term; it multiplies a +thousand-fold and renders universal all the evils which in the +imperfections of human nature are now occasional under the +binding force of a moral sense, the duty of continency, and the +remnant of nothing else is left of love.</p> + +<p>There are some other things besides in these resolutions to which +we might object on the score of truth, some things which we +rather marvel, modest women should say, and that modest women, in +a mixed assembly, should listen to with patience. But these are +secondary matters. The thought—more than them all—that the +marriage tie is of the same nature as a mere business relation, +is so objectionable, so dangerous, that we do not care to draw +attention from that one point.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In asserting that marriage is an equal relation for husbands and +wives, Mr. Greeley, like Mr. Phillips, begs the whole question. If it +is legitimate to discuss all laws that bear unequally on man and woman +in woman's rights conventions, surely those that grow out of marriage, +which are the most oppressive and degrading on the statute-book, +should command our first consideration. There could be no slaveholders +without slaves; the one relation involves the other, and yet it would +be absurd to say that slaves might not hold a convention to discuss +the inequality of the laws sustaining that relation, and incidentally +the whole institution itself, because the slaveholder shared in the +evils resulting from it. There never has been a woman's convention +held in which the injustice suffered by wives and mothers has not been +a topic for discussion, and legitimately so.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_742" id="Page_742">[Pg 742]</a></span> And if the only way of +escape from the infamous laws by which all power is placed in the +hands of man, is through divorce, then that is the hospitable door to +open for those who wish to escape. No proposition contained in Mrs. +Stanton's speech on divorce, viewed in any light, can be a tenth part +so shocking as the laws on the statute-books, or the opinions +expressed by many of the authorities in the English and American +systems of jurisprudence.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to comprehend that the release of the miserable from +false relations, would necessarily seduce the contented from happy +ones, or that the dearest word in the Saxon tongue (home) should have +no significance, after drunkards and villains were denied the right to +enter it. It is a pleasant reflection, in view of the dolorous results +Mr. Greeley foresees from the passage of a divorce law, that the love +of men and women for each other and their children in no way depends +on the Statutes of New York. In the State of Indiana, where the laws +have been very liberal for many years, family life is as beautiful and +permanent as in South Carolina and New York, where the tie can be +dissolved for one cause only. When we consider how little protection +the State throws round the young and thoughtless in entering this +relation, stringent laws against all escape are cruel and despotic, +especially to woman, for if home life, which is everything to her, is +discordant, where can she look for happiness?</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF NEW YORK.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Women Of New York</span>:—Once more we appeal to you to make renewed +efforts for the elevation of our sex. In our marital laws we are +now in advance of every State in the Union. Twelve years ago New +York took the initiative step, and secured to married women their +property, received by gift or inheritance. Our last Legislature +passed a most liberal act, giving to married women their rights, +to sue for damages of person or property, to their separate +earnings and their children; and to the widow, the possession and +control of the entire estate during the minority of the youngest +child. Women of New York! You can no longer be insulted in the +first days of your widowed grief by the coarse minions of the law +at your fireside, coolly taking an inventory of your household +goods, or robbing your children of their natural guardian.</p> + +<p>While we rejoice in this progress made in our laws, we see also a +change in the employment of women. They are coming down from the +garrets and up from the cellars to occupy more profitable posts +in every department of industry, literature, science, and art. In +the church, too, behold the spirit of freedom at work. Within the +past year, the very altar has been the scene of well-fought +battles; women claiming and exercising their right to vote in +church matters, in defiance of precedent, priest, or Paul.</p> + +<p>Another evidence of the importance of our cause is seen in the +deep interest men of wealth are manifesting in it. Three great +bequests have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_743" id="Page_743">[Pg 743]</a></span> been given to us in the past year. Five thousand +dollars from an unknown hand,<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> a share in the munificent fund +left by that noble man of Boston, Charles F. Hovey, and four +hundred thousand dollars by Mr. Vassar, of Poughkeepsie, to found +a college for girls, equal in all respects to Yale and Harvard. +Is it not strange that women of wealth are constantly giving +large sums of money to endow professorships and colleges for boys +exclusively—to churches and to the education of the ministry, +and yet give no thought to their own sex—crushed in ignorance, +poverty, and prostitution—the hopeless victims of custom, law, +and Gospel, with few to offer a helping hand, while the whole +world combine to aid the boy and glorify the man?</p> + +<p>Our movement is already felt in the Old World. The nobility of +England, with Lord Brougham at their head, have recently formed a +"Society for Promoting the Employments of Women."</p> + +<p>All this is the result of the agitation, technically called +"Woman's Rights," through conventions, lectures, circulation of +tracts and petitions, and by the faithful word uttered in the +privacy of home. The few who stand forth to meet the world's cold +gaze, its ridicule, its contumely, and its scorn, are urged +onward by the prayers and tears, crushed hopes and withered +hearts of the sad daughters of the race. The wretched will not +let them falter; and they who seem to do the work, ever and anon +draw fresh courage and inspiration from the noblest women of the +age, who, from behind the scene, send forth good words of cheer +and heartfelt thanks.</p> + +<p>Six years hence, the men of New York purpose to revise our State +Constitution. Among other changes demanded, is the right of +suffrage for women—which right will surely be granted, if +through all the intervening years every woman does her duty. +Again do we appeal to each and all—to every class and +condition—to inform themselves on this question, that woman may +no longer publish her degradation by declaring herself satisfied +in her present position, nor her ignorance by asserting that she +has "all the rights she wants."</p> + +<p>Any person who ponders the startling fact that there are four +millions of African slaves in this republic, will instantly put +the question to himself, "Why do these people submit to the cruel +tyranny that our government exercises over them?" The answer is +apparent—"simply because they are ignorant of their power." +Should they rise <i>en masse</i>, assert and demand their rights, +their freedom would be secure. It is the same with woman. Why is +it that one-half the people of this nation are held in abject +dependence—civilly, politically, socially, the slaves of man?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_744" id="Page_744">[Pg 744]</a></span> +Simply because woman knows not her power. To find out her natural +rights, she must travel through such labyrinths of falsehood, +that most minds stand appalled before the dark mysteries of +life—the seeming contradictions in all laws, both human and +divine. But, because woman can not solve the whole problem to her +satisfaction, because she can not prove to a demonstration the +rottenness and falsehood of our present customs, shall she, +without protest, supinely endure evils she can not at once +redress? The silkworm, in its many wrappings, knows not it yet +shall fly. The woman, in her ignorance, her drapery, and her +chains, knows not that in advancing civilization, she too must +soon be free, to counsel with her conscience and her God.</p> + +<p>The religion of our day teaches that in the most sacred relations +of the race, the woman must ever be subject to the man; that in +the husband centers all power and learning; that the difference +in position between husband and wife is as vast as that between +Christ and the church; and woman struggles to hold the noble +impulses of her nature in abeyance to opinions uttered by a +Jewish teacher, which, alas! the mass believe to be the will of +God. Woman turns from what she is taught to believe are God's +laws to the laws of man; and in his written codes she finds +herself still a slave. No girl of fifteen could read the laws, +concerning woman, made, executed, and defended by those who are +bound to her by every tie of affection, without a burst of +righteous indignation. Few have ever read or heard of the +barbarous laws that govern the mothers of this Christian +republic, and fewer still care, until misfortune brings them into +the iron grip of the law. It is the imperative duty of educated +women to study the Constitution and statutes under which they +live, that when they shall have a voice in the government, they +may bring wisdom and not folly into its councils.</p> + +<p>We now demand the ballot, trial by jury of our peers, and an +equal right to the joint earnings of the marriage copartnership. +And, until the Constitution be so changed as to give us a voice +in the government, we demand that man shall make all his laws on +property, marriage, and divorce, to bear equally on man and +woman.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table summary="Rights Committe"> +<tr> +<td align='center'><i>New York State Woman's<br />Rights Committee</i>.</td> +<td class='center big'>{</td> +<td align='left'> +<span class="smcap">E. Cady Stanton</span>, <i>President</i>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Lydia Mott</span>,<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> <i>Sec. and Treas</i>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Ernestine L. Rose</span>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Martha C. Wright</span>.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span>.<br /> +</td> +</tr> +</table></div> + +<p><i>November, 1860.</i></p> + +<p>N. B.—Let every friend commence to get signatures to the +petition without delay, and send up to Albany early in January, +either to your representative or to Lydia Mott.</p> + +<p>How can any wife or mother, who to-day rejoices in her legal +right to the earnings of her hands, and the children of her love, +withhold the small pittance of a few hours or days in getting +signatures to the petition, or a few shillings or dollars to +carry the work onward and upward, to a final glorious +consummation.</p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_745" id="Page_745">[Pg 745]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>CONVENTION IN ALBANY AND HEARING BEFORE THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE IN THE +ASSEMBLY CHAMBER.<br /> +<small><span class="smcap">February 7th and 8th, 1861</span>.</small></h3> + +<p>The last Convention before the War was held in Albany. Ernestine L. +Rose, Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. Beriah Green, Aaron +M. Powell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony were the +speakers. They had a hearing also before the Judiciary Committee on +the bill then pending asking divorce for various causes.<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> The +interest in the question was intense at this time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_746" id="Page_746">[Pg 746]</a></span> owing to several +very aggravated cases among leading families, both in this country and +England. The very liberal bill pending in the Legislature had drawn +special attention to it in the Empire State, which not only made the +whole question of marriage and divorce a topic of conversation at +every fireside, but of many editorial debates in our leading journals. +Among others, Horace Greeley, in <i>The New York Tribune</i>, had a +prolonged discussion with the Hon. Robert Dale Owen,<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> in which it +was generally thought that the weight of argument rested with Mr. +Owen; but it was evident that Mr. Greeley did not think so, as he +afterward republished the whole controversy at his own expense. <i>The +Albany Evening Journal</i> also took strong grounds against the bill. But +the opponents invariably discussed the question on the basis that +marriage was an <i>equal</i> relation, in which man suffered as much as +woman, ignoring the fact that <i>man</i> had made the laws governing it, +and all to his own advantage.</p> + +<p>From the following letter of Lucretia Mott, we see how clear she was +as to the merits of the position we had taken in the discussion of +this vital question:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Roadside</span>, near Philadelphia, 4th Mo., 30th, '61.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Lydia Mott</span>:—I have wished ever since parting with thee +and our other dear friends in Albany to send thee a line, and +have only waited in the hope of contributing a little +"substantial aid" toward your neat and valuable "depository." The +twenty dollars enclosed is from our Female Anti-Slavery Society.</p> + +<p>I see the annual meeting in New York is not to be held this +spring. Sister Martha is here, and was expecting to attend both +anniversaries. But we now think the Woman's Rights meeting had +better not be attempted, and she has written Elizabeth C. Stanton +to this effect.</p> + +<p>I was well satisfied with being at the Albany meeting. I have +since met with the following from a speech of Lord Brougham's, +which pleased me, as being as radical as mine in your stately +Hall of Representatives:</p> + +<p>"Before woman can have any justice by the laws of England, there +must be a total reconstruction of the whole system; for any +attempt to amend it would prove useless. The great charter, in +establishing the supremacy of law over prerogative, provides only +for justice between man and man; for woman nothing is left but +common-law, accumulations and modifications of original Gothic +and Roman heathenism, which no amount of filtration through +ecclesiastical courts could change into Christian laws. They are +declared unworthy a Christian people by great jurists; still they +remain unchanged."</p> + +<p>So Elizabeth Stanton will see that I have authority for going to +the root of the evil.</p> + +<p>We had a delightful golden-wedding on the 10th inst. All our +children and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_747" id="Page_747">[Pg 747]</a></span> children's children were present, and a number of +our friends hereaway. Our sister Mary W. Hicks and her grand +daughter May were all of James's relatives from New York. Brother +Richard and daughter Cannie could not feel like coming. Brother +Silas and Sarah Cornell could not come.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Lucretia Mott.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Love to all,</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">In 1861 came "the war of the rebellion," the great conflict between +the North and the South, the final struggle between freedom and +slavery. The women who had so perseveringly labored for their own +enfranchisement now gave all their time and thought to the nation's +life; their patriotism was alike spontaneous and enduring. In the +sanitary movement, in the hospitals, on the battle-field, gathering in +the harvests on the far-off prairies—all that heroic women dared and +suffered through those long dark years of anxiety and death, should +have made "justice to woman" the spontaneous cry on the lips of our +rulers, as we welcomed the return of the first glad days of peace. All +specific work for her own rights she willingly thrust aside. No +Conventions were held for five years; no petitions circulated for her +civil and political rights; the action of State Legislatures was +wholly forgotten. In their stead, Loyal Leagues were formed, and +petitions by the hundred thousand for the emancipation of the slaves +rolled up and sent to Congress—a measure which with speech and pen +they pressed on the nation's heart, seeing clearly as they did that +this was the pivotal point of the great conflict.</p> + +<p>Thus left unwatched, the Legislature of New York amended the law of +1860, taking from the mother the lately guaranteed right to the equal +guardianship of her children, replacing it by a species of veto power, +which did not allow the father to bind out or will away a child +without the mother's consent in writing. The law guaranteeing the +widow the control of the property, which the husband should leave at +death, for the care and protection of minor children, was also +repealed. This cowardly act of the Legislature of 1862<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> is the +strongest possible proof of woman's need of the ballot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_748" id="Page_748">[Pg 748]</a></span> in her own +hand for protection. Had she possessed the power to make and unmake +legislators, no State Assembly would have dared thus to rob the mother +of her natural rights. But without the suffrage she was helpless. +While, in her loyalty to the Government and her love to humanity, she +was encouraging the "boys in blue" to fight for the freedom of the +black mothers of the South, these dastardly law-makers, filled with +the spirit of slaveholders, were stealing the children and the +property of the white mothers in the Empire State!</p> + +<p>When Susan B. Anthony heard of the repeal of 1862, she was filled with +astonishment, and wrote thus to Miss Lydia Mott:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dear Lydia</span>:—Your startling letter is before me. I knew some +weeks ago that that abominable thing was on the calendar, with +some six or eight hundred bills <i>before it</i>, and hence felt sure +it would not come up this winter, and that in the meantime we +should sound the alarm. Well, well; while the old guard sleep the +young "devils" are wide-awake, and we deserve to suffer for our +confidence in "man's sense of justice," and to have all we have +gained thus snatched from us. But nothing short of this can rouse +our women again to action. All our reformers seem suddenly to +have grown politic. All alike say, "Have no conventions at this +crisis"! Garrison, Phillips, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Wright Mrs. Stanton, +etc., say, "Wait until the war excitement abates"; which is to +say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_749" id="Page_749">[Pg 749]</a></span> "Ask our opponents if they think we had better speak, or, +rather, if they do not think we had better remain silent." I am +sick at heart, but I can not carry the world against the wish and +the will of our best friends. But what can we do now, when even +the motion to retain the mother's joint guardianship is voted, +down? Twenty thousand petitions rolled up for that—a hard year's +work!—the law secured!—the echoes of our words of gratitude in +the capitol have scarce died away, and now all is lost!</p></blockquote> + +<p>And, worse still, in 1871,<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> after the black man was not only +emancipated, but enfranchised, by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth +Amendments, which, overriding State Constitution and statute law, +abolished the property qualification for colored voters in the State +of New York, another step of retrogressive legislation was taken +against woman, in the repeal of section nine<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> of the Act of 1860, +re-enacting the spirit and letter of the old common law, which holds +that the children born in legal wedlock belong to the father alone. +Had woman held the ballot—that weapon of protection—in her hand to +punish legislators, by withholding her vote from those thus derelict +to duty, no repeal of the law of 1860 could have possibly taken place.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Albany</span>, <i>April 8, 1881</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Miss Anthony</span>:—Your esteemed favor of the 6th duly received.</p> + +<p>The Statute of 1862, Laws of 1862, chapter 90, page 157, repealed +the grandest and crowning section of the Statute of 1860, viz: +Sections 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 11, copies of which sections I +herewith inclose you. Had these sections remained, wives in this +State would have possessed equal rights with their husbands, save +simply the right of voting. It was a great mistake and wrong to +repeal them. Had I been a member of the Senate at that time, as I +was not, I don't think it would have been done.</p> + +<p>I do not know who was the author of the repeal bill, nor did I +know of its existence until I saw it in the statute-book. I think +Judge Charles J. Folger, now Chief-Justice of the Court of +Appeals, was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the +bill of 1862 must therefore have passed through the hands of that +Committee, in which it originated, or through which it was +reported, and by the influence of which it must have been +adopted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_750" id="Page_750">[Pg 750]</a></span></p> + +<p>Strange that you women, so watchful and so regardful of your +rights, should have allowed the repeal of those important +sections, without strenuous opposition.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Very sincerely yours,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">Andrew J. Colvin.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>We were busily engaged rolling up petitions for the Thirteenth +Amendment to the Federal Constitution, our hearts and hands full of +work for the Government in the midst of the war, supposing all was +safe at Albany. But how comes it that the author of the bill of 1860, +residing at the capital, never heard of its repeal? If the bill was so +slyly passed that Mr. Colvin himself did not know of it until he saw +it in the statute-book, it is not remarkable that it escaped our +notice in time to prevent it.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Genena, N. Y.</span>, <i>April 12, 1881</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Miss Anthony, Dear Madam</span>:—I was chairman of the Judiciary +Committee of the New York Senate in 1862-'3-'4-'5-'6-'7-'8-'9. +Judge John Willard, of Saratoga County, was a member of the State +Senate in that year, and a member of that Committee. He was the +author of the Act of 1862. His object, as I have always +understood it, was to simplify, make clear, consistent, and +practical some of the legislation in regard to married women. I +think, with deference I say it, that you are not strictly +accurate in calling the legislation of 1862 a repealing one. The +first section of the Act of 1862 (chap. 172, p. 343) <i>amends</i> the +third section of the Act of 1860 (chap. 90, p. 157), by striking +out the provision requiring the assent of the husband, and giving +the wife the right (or privilege) to contract and convey as a +<i>feme sole</i>, and to covenant for title, etc., etc. That amendment +rendered unnecessary the fourth, fifth, and sixth sections of the +Act of 1860. They would have fallen of themselves, that is, have +been repealed by implication, as inconsistent with the greater +power and freedom attained by married women by the amendment of +1862 to the Act of 1860. But <i>ex abundanti cautela</i>, as Judge +Willard would have said, there was an express repeal of them. The +tenth and eleventh sections of the Act of 1860 were also repealed +expressly; but not to the sole detriment of married women. The +tenth section gave to married men and married women a life estate +in certain cases in one-third of all the real estate of which the +wife or husband died seized. The wife had before the Act of 1860, +and has now, that estate. The tenth section gave her nothing. The +repeal of it took nothing from her. The eleventh section, so far +as it gave a life estate, is the same as the tenth. So far as it +gave the use of all the real estate of the intestate for the +minority of the youngest child, it was an addition to the +property rights of the wife, but it was also an addition to the +property rights of the husband. I am not able from memory to say +why it was repealed; and it is remembrance and not reasoning that +you ask for. The third section of the Act of 1862 amends the +seventh of the Act of 1860 by striking out the phrase, "<i>except +her husband</i>," thus enabling a married woman to protect the +property given to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_751" id="Page_751">[Pg 751]</a></span> her by the husband, in which the Act of 1860 +was lame, and in other ways gave more freedom and power to +married women. The fourth section of the Act of 1862 amends the +eighth section of the Act of 1860, but only in its verbiage. The +fifth section of the Act of 1862 does not impair the Act of 1860; +it simply puts the woman before the courts, and the law as an +entity able to go alone. The sixth section of the Act of 1862 +increases the powers of a married woman, by giving her a veto on +some acts of her husband. The seventh section is like the fifth. +In no other respect than those I have named did the Act of 1862 +affect the Act of 1860. In but one thing did it repeal, in the +sense of taking away any right or power or privilege or freedom +that the Act of 1860 gave. On the contrary, in some respects, it +gave more or greater.</p> + +<p>I am glad that you wrote to me. I am glad that I have the +opportunity to defend the memory of a good man, Judge John +Willard. I make bold to ask you to turn to the thirty-seventh +volume of Barbour's Supreme Court Reports, Appendix, pp. 670 et +seq., and read the words spoken of him by his peers. I am glad +also to have the opportunity to speak a word for my Judiciary +Committee.</p> + +<p>And I will not close this lengthened answer, without suggesting a +suspicion, that those who have taken the notion that the Act of +1862 was a retrograde step, have done so without comparing for +themselves the two acts.</p> + +<p>For myself, I have the distinction of being one of less than +half-a-dozen Senators who voted that women have the right to vote +for delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1866; and one +of about a dozen and a half members of that Convention who voted +to erase from the suffrage article the word "male." I have never +been convinced of the expediency of giving to females the +privilege of suffrage; but I have never been able to see the +argument by which they were not as much entitled to the <i>right</i> +as males.</p> + +<p>Trusting that you will forgive the length of this epistle,</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">I am with respect, yours, etc., etc.,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc close">Charles J. Folger.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0 close "><span class="smcap">Miss Susan B. Anthony</span>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="ltr-clear">As will be seen by the above letters, both Mr. Colvin and Mr. Folger +make mistakes in regard to the effect of these bills. In speaking of +the complete equality of husbands and wives under the law of 1860, Mr. +Colvin said, "All the wife then had to ask was the right of suffrage," +quite forgetting that the wife has never had an equal right to the +joint earnings of the copartnership, as no valuation has ever been +placed on her labor in the household, to which she gives all her time, +thought, and strength, the absolute sacrifice of herself, mind and +body, all possibility of self-development and self-improvement being +in most cases out of the question. Mr. Folger in saying the repeal of +section eleven affected man as much as woman, falls into the same +mistake, assuming that the joint earnings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_752" id="Page_752">[Pg 752]</a></span> belong to man. We say that +the wife who surrenders herself wholly to domestic life, foregoing all +opportunities for pecuniary independence and personal distinction in +the world of work, or the higher walks of literature and art, in order +to make it possible for the husband to have home and family ties, and +at the same time, his worldly successes and ambitions, richly earns +the place of an equal partner. In their joint accumulations, her labor +and economy should be taken into account.</p> + +<p>This is <i>the vital point</i> of interest to the vast majority of married +women, since it is only the <i>few</i> who ever possess anything through +separate earnings or inheritance. A law securing to the wife the +absolute right to one-half the joint earnings, and at the death of the +husband, the same control of property and children that he has when +she dies, might make some show of justice; but it is a provision not +yet on the statute-books of any civilized nation on the globe.</p> + +<p>The seeming sophistry of Judge Folger may be traced to the universal +fact that man does not appreciate the arduous and unremitting labors +of the wife in the household, or her settled dissatisfaction in having +no pecuniary recompense for her labors. No man with cultured brain and +skilled hands would consider himself recompensed for a life of toil in +being provided with shelter, food, and clothes while his employer was +living, to be cut down in his old age to a mere pittance; yet such is +the fate of the majority of wives and widows under the most beneficent +provisions of our statutes in this favored republic. True, the law +says "the husband shall maintain the wife in accordance with his +circumstances"; he being judge, jury, executive. Though she may toil +incessantly, and her duties be far more exhaustive than his, yet he is +supposed to maintain her, and the joint property is always disposed of +on that basis. Legislation for woman proceeds on the assumption, that +all she needs is a bare support; and that she is destitute of the +natural human desire to accumulate, possess, and control the results +of her own labor.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 389px;"> +<a name="v1_1753" id="v1_1753"> +<img src="images/v1_1753.png" width="389" height="500" +alt="Matilda Joslyn Gage (with autograph)." title="" /></a> +</div> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> +Jerry McHenry was an athletic mulatto, a cooper by +trade, who had been living in Syracuse for many years, since his +escape from slavery. On the 13th of October, 1850, there was an +attempt to kidnap him, but the Abolitionists, with such men as Samuel +J. May and Gerrit Smith at their head, succeeded in rescuing him by a +<i>coup d'état</i>, from the officers of the law, which involved several +trials in Auburn, Canandaigua, Buffalo, and Albany. As this occurred +soon after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, the leading +Abolitionists were determined to test its constitutionality in the +courts. It was so systematically and universally violated, that it +soon became a dead letter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> <span class="smcap"> +A Heroic Woman.</span>—Mrs. Margaret Freeland, of Syracuse, +was recently arrested upon a warrant issued on complaint of Emanuel +Rosendale, a rum-seller, charging her with forcing an entrance to his +house, and with stones and clubs smashing his doors and windows, +breaking his tumblers and bottles, and turning over his whisky barrels +and spilling their contents. Great excitement was produced by this +novel case. It seems that the husband of Mrs. Freeland was a +drunkard—that he was in the habit of abusing his wife, turning her +out of doors, etc., and this was carried so far that the police +frequently found it necessary to interfere to put a stop to his +ill-treatment of his family. Rosendale, the complainant, furnished +Freeland with the liquor which turned him into a demon. Mrs. Freeland +had frequently told him of her sufferings and besought him to refrain +from giving her husband the poison. But alas! she appealed to a heart +of stone. He disregarded her entreaties and spurned her from his door. +Driven to desperation she armed herself, broke into the house, drove +out the base-hearted landlord and proceeded upon the work of +destruction. +</p><p> +She was brought before the court and demanded a trial. The citizens +employed Charles B. Sedgwick, Esq., as her counsel, and prepared to +justify her assault upon legal grounds. Rosendale, being at once +arrested on complaint of Thomas L. Carson for selling liquor +unlawfully, and feeling the force of the storm that was gathering over +his head, appeared before the Justice, withdrew his complaint against +Mrs. Freeland, paid the costs, and gave bail on the complaint of Mr. +Carson, to appear at the General Sessions, and answer to an indictment +should there be one found. +</p><p> +Mrs. Freeland is said to be "the pious mother of a fine family of +children, and a highly respectable member of the Episcopal Church." +</p><p> +The <i>Carson League</i> commenting on this affair says: +</p><p> +"The rum-seller cowered in the face of public feeling. This case shows +that public feeling will justify a woman whose person or family is +outraged by a rum-seller, for entering his grocery or tavern and +destroying his liquor. If the law lets loose a tiger upon her, she may +destroy it. She has no other resort but force to save herself and her +children. Were the women of this city to proceed in a body and destroy +all the liquor of all the taverns and groceries, they would be +justified by law and public opinion. Women should take this war into +their hands, when men take side with the murderers of their peace. +</p><p> +"A tavern or grocery which makes the neighbors drunken and insane is a +public nuisance, and may be pulled down and destroyed by the neighbors +who are injured by it. It is worse than the plague. And if men will +not put hands on it, then should the women do it. Tell us not it is +property. It ceases to be property when it is employed to destroy the +people. If a man lights his torch and sets about putting fire to the +houses about him, any person may seize the torch and destroy it. So if +a man takes a pistol and passes through the streets shooting the +people, the pistol ceases to be property and may be taken from him by +force and destroyed by any person who can do it. We sincerely hope +that the women of the State will profit by this example, and go to +destroying the liquor vessels; and their contents." To all of which we +respond <span class="smcap">amen</span>. +</p> +<p class="right"><i>The Lily</i>, June, 1853.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> Mrs. Thompson, of Albany; Mrs. Cushman, of New York, +<i>Vice-Presidents</i>. Mrs. Fowler and Miss Anthony, <i>Secretaries</i>. Lydia +Mott, of Albany; Phebe Hoag Jones, of Troy; Eliza Hoxie Shove, of +Easton; and Elizabeth Van Alstine, of Canajoharie, <i>Business +Committee</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> The following citizens of Rochester concur in the above +call: Samuel Richardson, Rev. Wm. H. Goodwin, Samuel Chipman, Geo. A. +Avery, James P. Fogg, J. O. Bloss, Wm. K. Hallowell, James Vick, Jr., +E. C. Williams, Daniel Anthony.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> <i>Vice-Presidents</i>.—Mary C. Vaughan, Olivia Fraser, +Frances Stanton Avery, Rhoda De Garmo, Sarah D. Fish, and Mrs. D. C. +Ailing. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries</i>.—Amelia Bloomer and Susan B. Anthony. +</p><p> +<i>Resolutions</i>.—Amy Post, Elizabeth Monroe, Rachel Van Lew. +</p><p> +<i>Finance</i>.—Susan B. Anthony, Mary H. Hallowell, H. Attilia Albro.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> <i>Vice-Presidents</i>—Mrs. Gerrit Smith, Peterboro; Mrs. E. +C. Delevan, Ballston Spa; Mrs. D. C. Alling, Rochester; Lydia F. +Fowler, Mrs. J. T. Coachman, Mary S. Rich, New York; Julia Clark +Lewis, Oswego; Olivia Fraser, Elmira; Emily Clark, Le Roy; Mrs. A. N. +Cole, Belfast; Betsy Hawks, Bethany Centre; Antoinette L. Brown, +Henrietta. +</p><p> +<i>Recording Secretaries</i>—Susan B. Anthony, Rochester; Mary C. Vaughan, +Oswego. +</p><p> +<i>Corresponding Secretary</i>—Amelia Bloomer, Seneca Falls. +</p><p> +<i>Treasurer</i>—Elvira Marsh, Rochester. +</p><p> +<i>Executive Committee</i>—Sarah T. Gould, Mary H. Hallowell, and Mrs. +Samuel Richardson, Rochester.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> <i>The Lily</i> was a temperance paper started in Seneca +Falls, N. Y., in 1849. It was owned and edited by Mrs. Amelia Bloomer. +Though starting as the organ of a society, it soon became her +individual property. She carried it successfully six years, her +subscription list reaching 4,000. It was as pronounced on woman's +rights as temperance, and did good service in both reforms. We are +indebted to <i>The Lily</i> for most of our facts on the temperance +movement in New York.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <i>Nomination</i>—Lemira Kedzie, Lydia F. Fowler, Amy Post, +Mary H. Hallowell, Frederick Douglass, Lydia Jenkins. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee</i>—Emily Clark, W. H. Channing, Mary H. Hallowell, +Rev. S. J. May, Mrs. Robie, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols. +</p><p> +<i>Finance</i>—Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Bloomer, H. Attilia Albro. Also, on +motion, the President was added to the Business Committee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Throughout this protracted, disgraceful assault on +American womanhood, the clergy baptized each new insult and act of +injustice in the name of the Christian religion, and uniformly asked +God's blessing on proceedings that would have put to shame an assembly +of Hottentots.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> <i>Vice-Presidents</i>—Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Mass.; Charles +C. Burliegh, Ct.; Edward M. Davis, Pa.; Frances Dana Gage, Mo.; Ashby +Pierce, Oregon; Rowland T. Robinson, Vt.; Melissa J. Driggs, Ind.; +Thomas Garrett, Del.; Angelina Grimké Weld, N. J.; Hannah Tracy +Cutler, Ill.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> See page <a href="#Page_152">152</a>—Cleveland Convention—for the full +description of this mob by Miss Brown herself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> <i>The Binghamton Daily Republican</i> said: Miss Anthony +vindicated her resolutions with great eloquence, spirit, and dignity, +and showed herself a match, at least, in debate, for any member of the +Convention. She was <i>equal</i> if not <i>identical</i>. Whatever may be +thought of her notions, or sense of propriety in her bold and +conspicuous positions, personally, intellectually, and socially +speaking, there can be but one opinion as to her superior ability, +energy, and moral courage; and she may well be regarded as an evangel +and heroine by her sex; especially by the "Strong Minded" portion of +them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> <i>The Daily Standard</i>, Sept. 8th, 1852, said: The +Woman's Rights Convention will assemble at the City Hall this morning. +Some of the most able women of the country will be present, and the +discussion can not fail to be particularly interesting. +</p><p> +<i>The Daily Star</i>, a pro-slavery paper of the most pronounced and +reckless character, said: The women are coming! They flock in upon us +from every quarter, all to hear and talk about Woman's Rights. The +blue stockings are as thick as grasshoppers in hay-time, and mighty +will be the force of "jaw-logic" and "broom-stick ethics" preached by +the females of both sexes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a></p> +<p class="heading">THE NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.</p> +<p> +The friends of equality, justice, and truth are earnestly invited to +meet in Syracuse, N. Y., Sept. 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1852, to discuss +the important question of "Woman's Rights." We propose to review not +only the past and consider the present, but to mark out new and +broader paths for the future. +</p><p> +The time has come for the discussion of woman's social, civil, and +religious rights, and also for a thorough and efficient organization; +a well-digested plan of operation whereby these social rights, for +which our fathers fought, bled, and died, may be secured by us. Let +woman no longer supinely endure the evils she may escape, but with her +own right hand carve out for herself a higher, nobler destiny than has +heretofore been hers. Inasmuch as through the folly and imbecility of +woman, the race is what it is, dwarfed in mind and body; and as +through her alone it can yet be redeemed, all are equally interested +in the objects of this Convention. +</p><p> +We therefore solemnly urge those men and women who desire the +elevation of humanity, to be present at the coming Convention, and aid +us by their wisdom. Our platform will be free to all who are capable +of discussing the subject with candor and truth. On behalf of the +Central Committee, +</p> +<p class="author"> +Elizabeth Cady Stanton,<br /> +Paulina Wright Davis,<br /> +William Henry Channing,<br /> +Lucy Stone,<br /> +Samuel J. May.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> <i>President.</i>—Lucretia Mott, Philadelphia. +</p><p> +<i>Vice-Presidents.</i>—Paulina Wright Davis, Rhode Island; Caroline M. +Severance, Ohio; Elizabeth Oakes Smith, New York; Clarina I. H. +Nichols, Vermont; Gerrit Smith, Peterboro; Sarah L. Miller, +Pennsylvania. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries.</i>—Susan B. Anthony, Martha C. Wright, Samuel J. May, +Lydia F. Fowler. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee.</i>—Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Lucy Stone, Caroline M. +Severance, Harriot K. Hunt, Jane Elizabeth Jones, James Mott, +Ernestine L. Rose, Elizabeth W. Phillips, Pliny Sexton, Benjamin S. +Jones. +</p><p> +<i>Committee on Finance.</i>—Rosa Smith, Joseph Savage, Caroline M. +Severance. +</p><p> +Many earnest friends beside the officers were present and took part in +the discussions; among them Amy Post, Mary and Sarah Hallowell, +Catharine A. F. Stebbins, Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock, Elizabeth +Smith Miller, Rev. Lydia Ann Jenkins, Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, Lydia +Mott, Phebe H. Jones, Mary A. Springstead, Abby H. Price, Rev. Abraham +Pryne, Eliza A. Aldrich, editor <i>Genius of Liberty</i>; Dr. Cutcheon, of +McGrawville College; Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lydia P. Savage, Sarah +Hallock, Griffith M. Cooper.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> See Pennsylvania Chapter, page <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> <i>The Syracuse Journal</i> said: "Miss Anthony has a +capital voice and deserves to be made clerk of the Assembly."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> When Gerrit Smith was in Congress, elected on account +of his anti-slavery principles, his power to make friends even among +foes was fully illustrated. At his elegant dinners distinguished +Southerners were frequent guests. Hence it was said of him that he +dined with slaveholders, and would have wined with them but for his +temperance principles.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> This noble man was among the first to append his name +to the declaration of rights issued at Seneca Falls, and he did not +withdraw it when the press began to ridicule the proceedings of the +Convention.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Rev. Mr. Hatch gave his idea of female loveliness. It +consisted in that shrinking delicacy which, like the modest violet, +hid itself until sought; that modesty which led women to blush, to +cast down their eyes when meeting men, or walking up the aisle of a +church to drop the veil; to wear long skirts, instead of imitating the +sun-flower, which lifted up its head, seeming to say: "Come and admire +me." He repeated the remarks made near the door on some of the +speakers. The President hoped he would keep in order, and not relate +the vulgar conversation of his associates. He went on in a similar +strain until the indignation of the audience became universal, when he +was summarily stopped. +</p><p> +In the midst of his remarks Miss Anthony suggested that the Reverend +gentleman doubtless belonged to the pin-cushion ministry, educated by +women's sowing societies! which, on inquiry, proved true. It was +almost always the case that the "poor but pious" young man, who had +studied his profession at the expense of women, proved most narrow and +bigoted in his teachings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> The Jewish.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> See Appendix for comments of <i>Syracuse Star</i> and <i>New +York Herald</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> This sermon was reviewed by Matilda Joslyn Gage, and a +newspaper controversy between Mr. Sunderland, Mrs. Gage, and others +inaugurated. For several months the press of the city was enlivened by +these supplementary debates.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> <i>President.</i>—Lucretia Mott. +</p><p> +<i>Vice-Presidents.</i>—Ernestine L. Rose, New York; Paulina W. Davis, +Rhode Island; Clarina I. H. Nichols, Vermont; Mary Jackson, England; +Caroline M. Severance, Ohio; S. M. Booth, Wisconsin; Wm. Lloyd +Garrison, Massachusetts; Mrs. J. B. Chapman, Indiana; Charlotte +Hubbard, Illinois; Ruth Dugdale, Pennsylvania; C. C. Burleigh, +Connecticut; Angelina G. Weld, New Jersey; Mathilde Franceska Anneké, +Germany. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries.</i>—Lydia F. Fowler, Sidney Peirce, Oliver Johnson. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee.</i>—Lucy Stone, Antoinette L. Brown, James Mott, +Harriot K. Hunt, Mariana Johnson, Lydia Mott, Wendell Phillips, Sarah +Hallock, Wm. H. Channing, Ruth Dugdale, Martha J. Tilden, Ernestine L. +Rose, Elizabeth Oakes Smith. +</p><p> +<i>Finance Committee.</i>—Susan B. Anthony, Lydia A. Jenkins, Edward A. +Stansbury.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> Fanny Ellsler danced for the Bunker Hill monument.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> See p. <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> The Committee were: Lueretia Mott, Ernestine L. Rose, +Marion C. Houghton, Lucy Stone, Caroline H. Dall, Paulina Wright +Davis, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Mathilde Franceska Anneké, Dr. Elizabeth +Blackwell.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> +</p> +<div class='center'> +<table summary="Undersigned"> +<tr><td align='left'>Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Seneca Falls;</td><td align='left'>James M'Cune Smith, New York;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary Cheney Greeley, New York;</td><td align='left'>S. G. Love, Randolph;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ernestine L. Rose, New York;</td><td align='left'>Mary F. Love, Randolph;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Samuel J. May, Syracuse;</td><td align='left'>C. M. Crowley, Randolph;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>George W. Jonson, Buffalo;</td><td align='left'>R. T. Trail, New York;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Antoinette L. Brown, South Butler;</td><td align='left'>Emily S. Trail, New York;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Frederick Douglass, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>Oliver Johnson, New York;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Hiram Corliss, Greenwich;</td><td align='left'>Mariana W. Johnson, New York;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lydia A. Jenkins, Geneva;</td><td align='left'>Sydney Howard Gay, New York:</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William H. Channing, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>Catharine E. Welling, Elmira;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William Hay, Saratoga Springs;</td><td align='left'>Mrs. Holbrook, Elmira;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Amy Post, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>H. A. Zoller, Little Falls;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary H. Hallowell, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>Stephen Haight, Dutchess County;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Susan B; Anthony, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>Sarah A. Burtis, Rochester;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William R. Hallowell, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>Lydia P. Savage, Syracuse;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Isaac Post, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>Lydia Mott, Albany;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary B. F. Curtis, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>J. B. Sands, Canandaigua;</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lemira Kedzie, Rochester;</td><td align='left'>Catharine H. Sands, Canandaigua.</td></tr> +</table></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> <i>Vice-Presidents.</i>—Ernestine L. Rose, New York; S. C. +Cuyler, Wayne; Amy Post, Rochester; Mary F. Love, Randolph; Amelia +Bloomer, Seneca Falls; Caroline Keese, Cayuga; Griffith M. Cooper, +Wayne.; Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, South Butler; Matilda Joslyn Gage, +Manlius; Rev. J. W. Loguin, Syracuse; Sarah A. Burtis, Rochester; Emma +R. Coe, Buffalo. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries.</i>—Susan B. Anthony, Sarah Pellet, Wm. J. Watkins, and +Sarah Willis. +</p><p> +<i>Finance Committee.</i>—Mary S. Anthony, Mary H. Hallowell, E. J. +Jenkins, Lucy Colman, and Mary Cooper. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee.</i>—Ernestine L. Rose, William Henry Channing, +Antoinette L. Brown, Frederick Douglass, Amy Post, and Samuel J. +Love.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Mr. Hopkins further stated that, tenancy by the +courtesy operates in favor of the husband, not of the wife. It is the +husband's right during his life to the use of the wife's real estate +from her death, in case of a child or children born of the marriage. +It is defeasible now by the wife's will.—Cow. Rep. 74, 2 K. S., 4th +Ed. 331. Tenancy by right of dower is the wife's right during her life +to the use of one-third of the husband's real estate from his death. +It operates in favor of the wife and not in favor of the husband, and +is indefeasible by the husband's will or the husband's acts while +living, and does not depend upon the birth of a child by the marriage. +</p><p> +The order of distribution of the husband's personal property on his +death is as follows, viz.: 1st, the widow of a family takes articles +exempt from execution as hers, also $150 worth of property besides. +2d, she has one-third of the personal property, absolutely—if there +be no children, one-half, and if there be no parent or descendant, she +is entitled, of the residue, to $2,000, and if also no brother, +sister, nephew, or niece, all the residue. This order may be varied or +defeated by his will. +</p><p> +The order of distribution of the wife's personal property on her death +without will is as follows: It goes, after paying her debts, to her +husband, if living; if not, then 1st, to her children, 2d to her +father, 3d to her mother, 4th to her collateral relatives. This order +may be varied or defeated by her will. She may devise it as she may +please. +</p><p> +His property before marriage continues his after marriage, subject to +her inchoate rights of dower. +</p><p> +Her property before marriage continues hers absolutely. +</p><p> +Upon marriage he is liable to support her, and may be compelled to do +it if he prove refractory. +</p><p> +She is not liable to support him, however wealthy she may be, or poor +he may be. +</p><p> +He is liable to support the children. She is not so liable, though +possessed of millions. +</p><p> +The husband is the guardian of the wife, as against third persons. +(Page 488). But he has no power to preserve, retain, or regain the +custody of her against her will. (Page 47). +</p><p> +He may maintain his action against third persons for enticing her away +or harboring her. But this harboring, to be actionable, must be more +than a mere permission to her to stay with such third person. (4 Barb. +225). +</p><p> +If the husband seek to take away his wife by force, it is an assault +and battery upon her. If a third person, resists such force at her +request he is not liable to any action. (Barb. 156). +</p><p> +The wife is not the husband's guardian, but if he will desert her he +may be put under bonds for her support and the support of her children +by him. (2 Rev. Stat., 4th Ed., pp. 53, 54). +</p><p> +The husband is liable for the debts of the wife contracted before +marriage, but only now to the extent of her property received by him. +(7 W. R. 237, 1st Chitty Pl., 66 to 68, laws of 1853). And he is +liable for her debts contracted during marriage, if permitted by him, +or if for necessaries which he neglected to provide. +</p><p> +The wife is not liable for her husband's debts contracted at any time. +</p><p> +The law casts the custody of the minor children upon the father and +not upon the mother. But if this custody is abused, it is by the Court +to the mother. +</p><p> +The father may appoint a guardian for his infant children. (2 Rev. +Stat. 33.) But the Court will not allow such guardian to take the +children out of the State against the mother's will, much less to +separate them unjustly from the mother even though the father's will +command it. (5, page 596). +</p><p> +During the separation of husband and wife, it is for the court now to +decide, under the circumstances of each case, whether father or mother +has such custody. (2 R. S. 330, 332). +</p><p> +When both seek such custody, and both are equally qualified for it, +that of daughters and young children is usually given to the mother, +and that of the sons to the father, but this is in the discretion of +the Court. +</p><p> +The earnings of the husband are his. The earnings of the wife are his, +if she live with him and he support her. +</p><p> +But he can not compel her to work for him. And if she separate from +him for cause, he may be restrained for intermeddling with her +earnings. +</p><p> +The husband's abandonment and his refusal or neglect to provide for +her, are good causes of separation. (2 R. S. 329, sec. 53, sub. 3). +</p><p> +For the husband's torts the wife is not liable. For the wife's torts, +committed by her before marriage or during marriage the husband is +liable jointly with the wife. If committed by the wife and husband, or +committed by the wife in his presence and without objecting, the +husband is liable alone. (1 Chitty Pl., 105, 7th American edition). +Nay, even felonies (excepting murder, manslaughter, treason, and +robbery), are excusable in the wife if committed in the husband's +presence and by his coercion—and such coercion is presumed from his +presence. For this he must suffer and she must be spared. (Barb. Crim. +Law, 247 and 348, and cases there cited). +</p><p> +In actions or lawsuits between men and women, the law in theory claims +to be impartial, but in practice it has not been impartial. Before a +Court of male judges or a jury of men the bias is in favor of the +woman; and if she is pleasing, in person and manners, such bias is +sometimes pretty strong. +</p><p> +If the man and woman between whom litigation arises are husband and +wife, the Court may accord an allowance to be advanced by her husband, +to enable her to defray the expenses of the litigation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Woman's Rights</span>.—<i>Circulate the Petitions</i>.—The design +of the Convention held last week in Rochester, was to bring the +subject of Woman's legal and civil disabilities, in a dignified form, +before the Legislature of New York. Convinced, as the friends of the +movement are, that in consistency with the principles of +Republicanism, females, equally with males, are entitled to Freedom, +Representation, and Suffrage, and confident as they are that woman's +influence will be found to be as refining and elevating in public as +all experience proves it to be in private, they claim that one-half of +the people and citizens of New York should no longer be governed by +the other half, without consent asked and given. Encouraged by reforms +already made, in the barbarous usages of common law, by the statutes +of New York, the advocates of woman's just and equal rights demand +that this work of reform be carried on, until every vestige of +partiality is removed. It is proposed, in a carefully prepared address +to specify the remaining legal disabilities from which the women of +this State suffer; and a hearing is asked before a joint committee of +both Houses, specially empowered to revise and amend the statutes. Now +is this movement right in principle? Is it wise in policy? Should the +females of New York be placed on a level of equality with males before +the law? If so, let us petition for impartial justice to Women. In +order to ensure this equal justice should the females of New York, +like the males, have a voice in appointing the law-makers and +law-administrators? If so let us petition for Woman's right to +Suffrage. Finally, what candid man will be opposed to a reference of +the whole subject to the Representatives of New York, whom the men of +New York themselves elected. Let us then petition for a hearing before +the Legislature. A word more, as to the petitions, given below. They +are two in number; one for the Just and Equal Rights of Woman; one for +Woman's Right to Suffrage. It is designed that they should be signed +by men and women, of lawful age—that is, of twenty-one years and +upwards. The following directions are suggested: 1. Let persons, ready +and willing, sign each of the petitions; but let not those, who desire +to secure Woman's Just and Equal Rights, hesitate to sign that +petition because they have doubts as to the right or expediency of +women's voting. The petitions will be kept separate, and offered +separately. All fair-minded persons, of either sex, ought to sign the +first petition. We trust that many thousands are prepared to sign the +second also. 2. In obtaining signatures, let men sign in one column, +and women in another parallel column. 3. Let the name of the town and +county, together with the number of signatures, be distinctly entered +on the petitions before they are returned. 4. Let every person, man or +woman, interested in this movement, instantly and energetically +circulate the petitions in their respective neighborhoods. We must +send in the name of every person in the State, who desires full +justice to woman, so far as it is possible. Up then, friends, and be +doing, to-day. 5. Let no person sign either petition but once. As many +persons will circulate petitions in the same town and county, it is +important to guard against this possible abuse. 6. Finally, let every +petition be returned to Rochester, directed to the Secretary of the +Convention, Susan B. Anthony, on the first of February, without fail. +In behalf of the Business Committee. +</p> +<p class="author">William Henry Channing.</p> +<p><span class="sc">Rochester</span>, <i>Dec. 8, 1853</i>. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Petition for the Just and Equal Rights of Women</span>.—The Legislature of +the State of New York have, by the Acts of 1848 and 1849, testified +the purpose of the people of this State to place married women on an +equality with married men, in regard to the holding, conveying, and +devising of real and personal property. We, therefore, the undersigned +petitioners, inhabitants of the State of New York, male and female, +having attained to the legal majority, believing that women, alike +married and single, do still suffer under many and grievous legal +disabilities, do earnestly request the Senate and Assembly of the +State of New York to appoint a Joint Committee of both Houses, to +revise the Statutes of New York, and to propose such amendments as +will fully establish the legal equality of women with men; and we +hereby ask a hearing before such Committee by our accredited +Representatives. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Petition for Woman's Right to Suffrage</span>.—Whereas, according to the +Declaration of our National Independence, governments derive their +just powers from the consent of the governed, we earnestly request the +Legislature of New York to propose to the people of the State such +amendments of the Constitution of the State as will secure to females +an equal right to the Elective Franchise with males; and we hereby ask +a hearing before the Legislature by our accredited Representatives. +</p><p> +N. B.—Editors throughout the State in favor of this movement are +respectfully requested to publish this address and the petitions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> <i>President</i>.—Elizabeth Cady Stanton. +</p><p> +<i>Vice-Presidents</i>.—Rev. S. J. May, Ernestine L. Rose, New York; Hon. +William Hay Saratoga; William H. Topp, Albany; Lydia A. Jenkins, +Geneva; Lydia Mott, Albany; Mary F. Love, Randolph. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee</i>.—Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, South Butler; W. H. +Channing, Rochester; Mrs. Catherine A. F. Stebbins, Mrs. Phebe H. +Jones, Troy. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries</i>.—Susan B. Anthony, Sarah Pellet. +</p><p> +<i>Finance Committee</i>.—Mary S. Anthony, Rochester; Anna W. Anthony, +Cayuga.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> <span class="smcap">An Act Relative to the Rights of Married Women</span>:—<i>The +People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, +do enact as follows</i>: +</p><p> +1. Any married woman whose husband, from drunkenness, profligacy, or +any other cause, shall neglect and refuse to provide for her support +and education, or the support and education of her children, and any +married woman who may be deserted by her husband, shall have the +right, by her own name, to receive and collect her own earnings, and +apply the same for her own support, and the support and education of +her children, free from the control and interference of her husband, +or from any person claiming to be released from the same by and +through her husband. +</p><p> +2. Hereafter it shall be necessary to the validity of any indenture of +apprenticeship executed by the father, that the mother of such child, +if she be living, shall, in writing, consent to such indentures; nor +shall any appointment of a general guardian of the person of a child +by the father be valid, unless the mother of such child, if she be +living, shall, in writing, consent to such appointment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> See Appendix.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Ernestine L. Rose, Francis D. Gage, Hannah Tracy +Cutler, Lucy N. Coleman, Antoinette L. Brown, Matilda Joslyn Gage, +Marietta Richmond, Sarah Pellet, Carrie D. Filkins, Lydia A. Jenkins, +Susan B. Anthony, dividing their time and forces, held conventions in +nearly every county of the State, traversing some new section each +year. In 1859, Miss Anthony and Miss Brown made a successful tour of +the fashionable resorts and the northern counties. All this work the +State Committee assigned to its General Agent, giving her all honor +and power, without providing one dollar. But Miss Anthony with rare +executive ability, accomplished the work and paid all expenses.—E. C. +S.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> It is pleasant to record that a few years later Mr. +Beecher's vision was clear on the whole question, and he was often +found on the woman's rights platform, not only speaking himself, but +his sister, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, also. On one occasion he +conducted Miss Kate Field to the platform in Plymouth Church as +gracefully as he ever handed a lady out to dinner, introduced her to +the audience, and presided during her address. Sitting there he seemed +to feel as much at his ease as if Col. Robert G. Ingersoll had been +the speaker.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> As this meeting was hastily decided upon, there was no +call issued; it was merely noticed in the county papers. <i>The Saratoga +Whig</i>, August 18, 1854, says: +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Women's Rights</span>.—The series of conventions that have been holding +sessions in the village during the week, will close this day with a +meeting for the discussion of the social, legal, and political rights +of women, at which Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, +and Miss Sarah Pellet will appear. The meetings will be held at St. +Nicholas Hall this afternoon at 3 and a half o'clock, and in the +evening at 8 o'clock.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Any one but the indomitable Susan B. Anthony would have +abandoned all idea of a meeting, but, as it was advertised, she felt +bound to make it a fact. This decision may seem the more remarkable in +view of other facts, that Miss Anthony had but little experience as a +speaker, and was fully aware of her deficiencies in that line; her +forte lay in planning conventions, raising money, marshalling the +forces, and smoothing the paths for others to go forward, make the +speeches, and get the glory. Having listened in St. Nicholas Hall for +several days to some of the finest orators in the country, it was with +great trepidation that she resolved to attempt to hold such audiences +as had crowded all the meetings during the week, and would no doubt +continue to do so. However, she had one written speech, which she +decided to divide, giving the industrial disabilities of women in the +afternoon, and their political rights in the evening, supplementing +each with whatever extemporaneous observations might strike her mind +as she proceeded. With Mrs. Gage to speak at one session and Miss +Pellet at the other, Miss Anthony rounded out both meetings to the +general satisfaction. It was thus she always stood ready for every +emergency; when nobody else would or could speak she did; when +everybody wished to speak she was silent.—E. C. S.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> <i>The Daily Saratogian</i>. August 19th, said: Mrs. Matilda +Joslyn Gage, a medium-sized, lady-like looking woman, dressed in a +tasty plum-colored silk with two flounces, made the first address upon +some of the defects in the marriage laws, quoting Story, Kent, and +Blackstone. She closed by speaking of Mrs. Marcet, an able writer on +political economy, her book much used in schools. She referred to Miss +Pinckney, of South Carolina, who in nullification times, wrote +powerfully on that subject. It was said that party was consolidated by +the nib of a lady's pen. She was the first woman in the United States +who was honored with a public funeral.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> <i>President</i>.—Martha C. Wright, of Auburn. +</p><p> +<i>Vice-Presidents</i>.—Rev. Samuel J. May, Syracuse; Lydia Mott, Albany; +Ernestine L. Rose, New York; Antoinette L. Brown, New York; Susan B. +Anthony, Rochester; Augusta A. Wiggins, Saratoga Springs. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries</i>.—Emily Jaques, Nassau; Aaron M. Powell, Ghent; Mary L. +Booth, Williamsburgh. +</p><p> +<i>Finance Committee</i>.—Susan B. Anthony, Marietta Richmond, Mary S. +Anthony, Phebe H. Jones. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee</i>.—Antoinette L. Brown, Ernestine L. Rose, T. W. +Higginson, Charles F. Hovey, of Boston; Phebe Merritt, of Michigan; +Hon. William Hay, of Saratoga Springs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Now the successful editor of <i>Harper's Bazar</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> This year Miss Anthony canvassed the State, holding +conventions in fifty-four counties, organizing societies, getting +signatures to petitions, and subscribers to <i>The Una</i>. At some of +these meetings Mrs. Rose, Miss Brown, and Miss Filkins assisted by +turn, but the chief part she carried through alone. She had posters +for the entire State printed in Rochester, her father, brother +Merritt, and Mary Luther folding and superscribing to all the +postmasters and the sheriff of every county. The sheriffs, with but +few exceptions, opened the Court Houses for the meetings, posted the +bills, and attended to the advertising. Miss Anthony entered on this +work without the pledge of a dollar. But with free meetings and +collections in the afternoon, and a shilling admission in the evening, +she managed to cover the entire expenses of the campaign.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a></p> +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Women's Rights Petition</span>. +</p><p> +<i>To the Honorable, the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York</i>: +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, the women of the State of New York are recognized as citizens +by the Constitution, and yet are disfranchised on account of sex; we +do respectfully demand the right of suffrage; a right which involves +all other rights of citizenship, and which can not be justly withheld, +when we consider the admitted principles of popular government, among +which are the following: +</p><p> +1st. That all men are born free and equal. +</p><p> +2d. That government derives its just powers from the consent of the +governed. +</p><p> +3d. That taxation and representation should go together. +</p><p> +4th. That those held amenable to laws should have a share in framing +them. +</p><p> +We do, therefore, petition that you will take the necessary steps so +to revise the Constitution of our State, as that all her citizens may +enjoy equal political privileges.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> The committee were Susan B. Anthony, Ernestine L. Rose, +Antoinette L. Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha C. Wright, Lydia +Mott.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> At the close of this Convention, Charles F. Hovey, as +was his usual custom, planned an excursion for those who had taken +part in the meetings. He invited them to take a drive to the lake, a +few miles out of Saratoga, gave them a bountiful repast, and together +they spent a day rich in pleasant memories. Listening day after day to +the wrongs perpetrated on woman by law and Gospel of man's creation, +Mr. Hovey always seemed to feel that he was in duty bound to throw +what sunshine and happiness he could into the lives of women, and thus +in a measure atone for the injustice of his sex, and most royally he +did this whenever an opportunity offered, not only while he lived, but +by bequests at his death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> Twenty years after this Mrs. Stanton met a lady in +Texas, who told her about this Saratoga Convention. She said her +attention was first called to the subject of woman's rights by some +tracts a friend of hers, then living in Georgia, brought home at that +time, and that we could form but little idea of the intense interest +with which they were read and discussed by quite a circle of ladies, +who plied her aunt with innumerable questions about the Convention and +the appearance and manners of the ladies who led the movement.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> It is now over forty years that the various branches of +the Hutchinson family have been singing the liberal ideas of their day +on the anti-slavery, temperance, and Woman's Rights platforms, and +they are singing still (1881) with the infusion of some new blood in +the second and third generation. Only one year ago traveling in +Kansas, on a dreary night train, with no sleeping car attached, I had +worried through the weary hours until three o'clock in the morning, +when the cars stopped at Fort Scott. I was slowly pacing up and down +the aisle, when in came Asa Hutchinson, violin in hand, and a troop of +boys and girls behind him. There we stood face to face, both well on +the shady side of sixty-five, our locks as white as snow, each +thinking the other was too old for such hard journeys, he still +singing, I still preaching "equal rights to all." "Well," said I, +"Asa, this is a very unchristian hour for you to be skylarking over +the prairies of Kansas." "Ah!" said he, dolorously, "this is no +skylarking; we sung last night until near eleven o'clock, shook hands, +and talked until twelve; arose about two, waited an hour at a cold +depot, and we all feel as cross as bears." "I can sympathize with +you," I replied; "I spent the hours until twelve as you did, +entertaining my countrymen and women, and have been trying to rest +ever since." In talking over old times until the day dawned we forgot +our fatigue, and as I left the cars they gave me a parting salute with +the "good time coming." How well I remember the power of the young +Hutchinsons in the old mob days; four brothers and one sister standing +side by side on the platform in Faneuil Hall, Boston. So hated were +the Abolitionists and their doctrines, that not even Wendell Phillips +or Abby Kelly could get a hearing, but when the sweet singers from the +old Granite State came forward silence reigned, to be broken, however, +the moment the last notes of harmony died upon their lips. E. C. S.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Saratoga, Niagara, and Trenton Falls; Clifton, Avon, +Sharon, and Ballston Springs, Lake George, etc. In making the tour In +1859, Miss Brown and Miss Anthony had some recherché out-door meetings +in the groves of Clifton and Trenton that were highly praised by the +press and the people, and in the long summer days most charming to +themselves.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> The speakers were Samuel J. May, Ernestine L. Rose, +Antoinette L. Brown, Carrie D. Filkins, Lydia A. Jenkins, Aaron M. +Powell, Hon. Wm. Hay, Susan B. Anthony.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> If the intestate be a married man living, and having +lived with his wife daring marriage, or if the intestate be a married +woman living or having lived with her husband during marriage, and +shall die without lawful descendants, born or to be born of such +marriage, or a prior marriage, the inheritance shall descend to the +surviving husband or wife, as the case may be, during his or her +natural life, whether the inheritance came to the intestate on the +part of the mother or father or otherwise.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> <i>President</i>.—Lucy Stone. +</p><p> +<i>Vice-Presidents</i>.—Lucretia Mott, of Pennsylvania; Elizabeth Jones, +of Ohio; Rev. T. W. Higginson, of Massachusetts; Cornelia Moore, of +New Jersey; A. Bronson Alcott, of New Hampshire; Sarah H. Hallock, of +New York. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries</i>.—Martha C. Wright, of New York; Oliver Johnson, of New +York; Henrietta Johnson, of New Jersey. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee</i>.—Ernestine L. Rose, Susan B. Anthony, Wendell +Phillips, James Mott, Mariana Johnson, T. W. Higginson, William Green, +Jr. +</p><p> +<i>Treasurer</i>.—Wendell Phillips. +</p><p> +<i>Finance</i>.—Susan B. Anthony.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> At the close of chapter on Indiana, p. <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> John C. Fremont's campaign.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> 1. <i>Resolved</i>, That the close of a Presidential +election affords a peculiarly appropriate occasion to renew the +demands of woman for a consistent application of Democratic +principles. +</p><p> +2. <i>Resolved</i>, That the Republican Party, appealing constantly, +through its orators, to female sympathy, and using for its most +popular rallying cry a female name, is peculiarly pledged by +consistency, to do justice hereafter in those States where it holds +control. +</p><p> +3. <i>Resolved</i>, That the Democratic Party must be utterly false to its +name and professed principles, or else must extend their application +to both halves of the human race. +</p><p> +4. <i>Resolved</i>, That the present uncertain and inconsistent position of +woman in our community, not fully recognized either as a slave or as +an equal, taxed but not represented, authorized to earn property but +not free to control it, permitted to prepare papers for scientific +bodies but not to read them, urged to form political opinions but not +allowed to vote upon them, all marks a transitional period in human +history which can not long endure. +</p><p> +5. <i>Resolved</i>, That the main power of the woman's rights movement lies +in this: that while always demanding for woman better education, +better employment, and better laws, it has kept steadily in view the +one cardinal demand for the right of suffrage; in a democracy the +symbol and guarantee of all other rights. +</p><p> +6. <i>Resolved</i>, That the monopoly of the elective franchise, and +thereby all the powers of legislative government by man, solely on the +ground of sex, is a usurpation, condemned alike by reason and +common-sense, subversive of all the principles of justice, oppressive +and demoralizing in its operation, and insulting to the dignity of +human nature. +</p><p> +7. <i>Resolved</i>, That while the constant progress of law, education, and +industry prove that our efforts for women in these respects are not +wasted, we yet proclaim ourselves unsatisfied, and are only encouraged +to renewed efforts, until the whole be gained.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> During the struggle to extend slavery into that free +State.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Jeannette Brown Heath, daughter of Nathan Brown, of +Montgomery County, New York. She traveled with Abby Kelly at one time +as a companion. Jeannette was a famous horsewoman; the young ladies of +the county thought themselves well off when they could purchase a +steed that she had trained for the saddle. I remember many an escapade +in my youth on a full-blooded black horse from Jeannette's equery, as +I lived in her neighborhood; she is now residing with two sons and one +daughter in Rochester, N. Y., enjoying the needed rest after such an +eventful life.—E. C. S.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> She gave $100,000 to the Observatory in Albany.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a></p> +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Extracts From The Will Of The Late Charles F. Hovey, +Esq</span>. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Article</span> 16. After setting aside sufficient funds to pay all legacies +and bequests herein made, I direct my said Trustees to hold all the +rest and residue of my estate, real, personal and mixed, in special +trust for the following purposes, namely; to pay over, out of the +Interest and principal of said special trust, a sum of not less than +eight thousand dollars annually, until the same be all exhausted, to +said Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Stephen S. Foster, Abby +K. Foster, Parker Pillsbury, Henry C. Wright, Francis Jackson and +Charles K. Whipple, and their survivors and survivor, for them to use +and expend, at their discretion, without any responsibility to any +one, for promotion of the Anti-Slavery cause and other reforms, such +as Woman's Rights, Non-Resistance, Free Trade and Temperance, at their +discretion; and I request said Wendell Phillips and his said +associates to expend not less than eight thousand dollars annually, by +the preparation and circulation of books, newspapers, employing +agents, and the delivery of lectures that will, in their judgment, +change public opinion, and secure the abolition of Slavery in the +United States, and promote said other reforms. Believing that the +chain upon four millions of slaves, with tyrants at one end and +hypocrites at the other, has become the strongest bond of the Union of +the States, I desire said Phillips and his associates to expend said +bequest by employing such agents as believe and practice the doctrine, +of "No union with slaveholders, religiously or politically"; and by +circulating such publications as tend to destroy every pro-slavery +institution. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Article</span> 17. In case chattel slavery should be abolished in the United +States before the expenditure of the said residue of my estate, as +stated in said sixteenth article of this Will; then, in that case, I +desire that the unexpended part of said residue be applied by said +Phillips and his associates, in equal proportions, for the promotion +of Non-Resistance, Woman's Rights and Free Trade; requesting that no +agents be employed by them for the promotion of said causes, except +such as believe it wrong to have any voluntary connection with any +government of violence, and such as believe that the natural rights of +men and women are equal. Whether slavery be abolished or not, I desire +that a part of the said residue of my estate may be applied to the +promotion of the kindred causes of Temperance, Woman's Rights, +Non-Resistance and Free Trade, at the discretion of the said Phillips +and his associates. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Article</span> 22. I particularly request that no prayers be solicited from +any person, and that no priest be invited to perform any ceremony +whatever, over or after my body. The Priesthood are an order of men, +as I believe, falsely assuming to be reverend and divine, pretending +to be called of God; the great body of them in all countries have been +on the side of power and oppression; the world has been too long +cheated by them; the sooner they are unmasked, the better for +humanity. As I have heretofore borne my testimony against slavery, +intemperance, war, tariffs and all indirect taxation, banks and all +monopolies, I desire to leave on record my abhorrence of them all. The +fear of being buried before I am dead is slight, nevertheless it is +greater than the fear of death itself. I therefore request my +executors not to bury my body until at least three days after my +decease. In witness whereof, I have hereto set my hand and seal, this +twenty-eighth day of March, in the year eighteen hundred and +fifty-nine. +</p> +<p class="author">CHARLES F. HOVEY.</p> +<p> +Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said Testator to be his +last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who, at his request, and +in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereto +subscribed our names as witnesses. +</p> +<p class="author"> +George L. Lovett.<br /> +Thomas Mack.<br /> +William W. Howe.</p> +<p> +I do prove, approve and allow the same, and order it to be recorded. +Given under my hand and seal of office, the day and year above +written. +</p> +<p class="author">Isaac Ames,</p> +<p class="ltr-title"><i>Judge of Probate and Insolvency.</i></p> +<p class="nobreak"><i>May 30, 1859</i>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> George William Curtis, Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham, Parker +Pillsbury, Sarah Hallock, Mrs. Sidney Howard Gay, Sarah M. Grimké, +Charles Lenox Remond, Lucy A. Coleman, Sarah P. Remond, and the +Hutchinson family, consisting of Jessie, his wife, and two children, +and Abby, who sung among many other sweet ballads, "The Good Time +Coming."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Frederick Douglas, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, +Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, Frances Dana Gage, Wendell Phillips, +Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, Susan B. Anthony, Caroline H. +Dall, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown, Aaron M. Powell.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> Eliza Farnham was in many respects a remarkable woman. +As matron of the Sing Sing prison at one time, she introduced many +humane improvements in the occupation and discipline of the women +under her charge. She had a piano in the corridor, and with sweet +music touched the tender chords in their souls. Instead of tracts on +hell-fire and an angry God, she read aloud to them from Dickens' most +touching stories. In every way, assisted by Mariana Johnson and +Georgiana Bruce, she treated them as women, and not as criminals.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Caroline H. +Dall, Caroline M. Severance, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette Brown +Blackwell, Thomas W. Higginson, Susan B. Anthony.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> <i>Resolved</i>, That while every newspaper in the land +carries on its face the record of woman's dishonor, the women who seek +to elevate their sex are bound to inquire into its causes and save +from its paralysis. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That while we have no daughters too tender and pure, no +sons too innocent, to escape from the influence of such tragedies as +those at North Adams and Washington, the true modesty of every mother, +the true dignity of every wife, should forbid her to put aside the +questions they involve. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That the dishonor of single women proceeds in great +measure from destitution, and the dishonor of married women as much +from their own want of education and utter absence of purpose in life +as from the inability of their husbands to inspire them with true +respect and help them to true living: therefore, +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That it is our bounden duty to open, in every possible +way, new vocations to women, to raise their wages by every advisable +means, and to secure to them an education which shall be less a +decoration to their persons than a tool to their hands. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That while courts adjourn in honor of a man like Philip +Barton Key, while the whole Bar of the District of Columbia pass +resolutions in his honor, and vote to attend his funeral, as a mark of +respect, while the public opinion of a whole community sustains a man +who could not defend his murderous indignation by the witness of an +unspotted life, it is our duty to rate public opinion as a corrupting +power, and to bring up our children in the knowledge and sanction of a +higher law.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> +</p> +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Form of Petition</span>.</p> +<p> +<i>To the Senate and Assembly of the Slate of New York:</i> +</p><p> +The undersigned, citizens of ——, New York, respectfully ask that you +will take measures to submit to the people an amendment of the +Constitution, allowing women to vote and hold office. And that you +will enact laws securing to married women the full and entire control +of all property originally belonging to them, and of their earnings +during marriage; and making the rights of the wife over the children +the same as a husband enjoys, and the rights of a widow, as to her +children, and as to the property left by her husband, the same that a +husband has in the property and over the children of his deceased +wife.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> Lydia Mott, in writing to a friend, says: "I have heard +but one opinion about the merits of the address and the manner of its +delivery, and the press is very complimentary. It was better that one +like Mrs. Stanton should speak on the occasion than two, unless the +other might have been Wendell Phillips. Mr. Mayo expressed himself +thoroughly satisfied; the whole effect was grand. Even old Father +Woolworth stood the whole time, and very often he would nod assent at +certain points. The House was packed, but so still that not one word +was lost. It was worth as much to our cause as our whole Convention, +though we could not have spared either."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a></p> +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">AN ACT<br /> +concerning the rights and liabilities of husband and wife.</span><br /> +Passed March 20, 1860.</p> +<p> +<i>The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and +Assembly, do enact as follows:</i> +</p><p> +<span class="sc">Section</span> 1. The property, both real and personal, which any married +woman now owns, as her sole and separate property; that which comes to +her by descent, devise, bequest, gift, or grant; that which she +acquires by her trade, business, labor, or services, carried on or +performed on her sole or separate account; that which a woman married +in this State owns at the time of her marriage, and the rents, issues, +and proceeds of all such property, shall notwithstanding her marriage, +be and remain her sole and separate property, and may be used, +collected, and invested by her in her own name, and shall not be +subject to the interference or control of her husband, or liable for +his debts, except such debts as may have been contracted for the +support of herself or her children, by her as his agent. +</p><p> +§ 2. A married woman may bargain, sell, assign, and transfer her +separate personal property, and carry on any trade or business, and +perform any labor or services on her sole and separate account, and +the earnings of any married woman from her trade, business, labor, or +services shall be her sole and separate property, and may be used or +invested by her in her own name. +</p><p> +§ 3. Any married woman possessed of real estate as her separate +property may bargain, sell, and convey such property, and enter into +any contract in reference to the same; but no such conveyance or +contract shall be valid without the assent, in writing, of her +husband, except as hereinafter provided. +</p><p> +§ 4. In case any married woman possessed of separate real property, as +aforesaid, may desire to sell or convey the same, or to make any +contract in relation thereto, and shall be unable to procure the +assent of her husband as in the preceding section provided, in +consequence of his refusal, absence, insanity, or other disability, +such married woman may apply to the County Court in the county where +she shall at the time reside, for leave to make such sale, conveyance, +or contract, without the assent of her husband. +</p><p> +§ 5. Such application may be made by petition, verified by her, and +setting forth the grounds of such application. If the husband be a +resident of the county and not under disability from insanity or other +cause, a copy of said petition shall be served upon him, with a notice +of the time when the same will be presented to the said court, at +least ten days before such application. In all other cases, the County +Court to which such application shall be made, shall, in its +discretion, determine whether any notice shall be given, and if any, +the mode and manner of giving it. +</p><p> +§ 6. If it shall satisfactorily appear to such court, upon +application, that the husband of such applicant has willfully +abandoned his said wife, and lives separate and apart from her, or +that he is insane, or imprisoned as a convict in any state prison, or +that he is an habitual drunkard, or that he is in any way disabled +from making a contract, or that he refuses to give his consent without +good cause therefor, then such court shall cause an order to be +entered upon its records, authorizing such married woman to sell and +convey her real estate, or contract in regard thereto without the +assent of her husband, with the same effect as though such conveyance +or contract had been made with his assent. +</p><p> +§ 7. Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued in all +matters having relation to her property, which may be her sole and +separate property, or which may hereafter come to her by descent, +devise, bequest, or the gift of any person except her husband, in the +same manner as if she were sole. And any married woman may bring and +maintain an action in her own name, for damages against any person or +body corporate, for any injury to her person or character, the same as +if she were sole; and the money received upon the settlement of any +such action, or recovered upon a judgment, shall be her sole and +separate property. +</p><p> +§ 8. No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to +her sole and separate property, or any property which may hereafter +come to her by descent, devise, bequest, or gift of any person except +her husband, and no bargain or contract entered into by any married +woman in or about the carrying on of any trade or business under the +statutes of this State, shall be binding upon her husband, or render +him or his property in any way liable therefor. +</p><p> +§ 9. Every married woman is hereby constituted and declared to be the +joint guardian of her children, with her husband, with equal powers, +rights, and duties in regard to them, with the husband. +</p><p> +§ 10. At the decease of husband or wife, leaving no minor child or +children, the survivor shall hold, possess, and enjoy a life estate in +one-third of all the real estate of which the husband or wife died +seized. +</p><p> +§ 11. At the decease of the husband or wife intestate, leaving minor +child or children, the survivor shall hold, possess, and enjoy all the +real estate of which the husband or wife died seized, and all the +rents, issues, and profits thereof during the minority of the youngest +child, and one-third thereof during his or her natural life.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> On the final passage of the bill the following +Senators, as <i>The Journal</i> shows, voted in favor of the measure, viz: +Senators Abell, Bell, Colvin, Conally, Fiero, Goss, Hillhouse, Kelly, +Lapham, Sessions, Manierre, Montgomery, Munroe, P. P. Murphy, Truman, +Prosser, Ramsey, Robertson, Rotch, Warner, Williams—21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> <i>President.</i>—Martha Wright, of Auburn, New York. +</p><p> +<i>Vice-Presidents.</i>—Abby Hopper Gibbons, of New York; Asa Fairbanks, +of Rhode Island; Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, of New Jersey; +Thomas Garrett, of Delaware; Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts; +Robert Purvis, of Pennsylvania; J. Elizabeth Jones, of Ohio; Giles B. +Stebbins, of Michigan. +</p><p> +<i>Secretaries.</i>—Ellen Wright and Mary L. Booth. +</p><p> +<i>Finance Committee.</i>—Susan B. Anthony, Lucy N. Colman, and Marietta +Richmond. +</p><p> +<i>Business Committee.</i>—Ernestine L. Rose, A. L. B. Blackwell, Wm. +Lloyd Garrison, E. Cady Stanton, Mary Grew, and Wendell Phillips.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> In the Scotch Presbyterian Church at Johnstown, N. Y., +there was great excitement at one time on the question of temperance, +the pastor being a very active friend to that movement. The opposition +were determined to get rid of him, and called a church meeting for +that purpose. To the surprise of the leading men of the congregation, +the women came in force, armed with ballots, to defeat their proposed +measures. When the time came to vote, according to arrangement, my +mother headed the line marching up to the altar, where stood the +deacon, hat in hand, to receive the ballots. As soon as he saw the +women coming, he retreated behind the railing in the altar, closing +the little door after him, which the women deliberately opened, and +soon filled the space, completely surrounding the <i>inspector of +election</i>, and, whichever way he turned, the ballots were thrown into +the hat; and, when all had voted, my mother put her hand into the hat +and stirred them up with the men's votes, so that it would be +impossible to separate them. The pastor, representing the interests of +temperance, had a large majority for his retention. But the men +declared the election void because of the illegal voting, and, +barricading the women out, with closed doors, voted their own measures +the next day. Rev. Jeremiah Wood presided on the occasion, and whilst +the women were contending for their rights under the very shadow of +the altar, he recited various Scriptural texts on woman's sphere, to +which these rebellious ones paid not the slightest attention. One +dignified Scotch matron, looking him steadily in the face, indignant, +at the behavior of the men, said with sternness and emphasis: "I +protest against such high-handed proceedings." The result of this +outbreak, was a decree by the Judicature of the Church, "that the +women of the congregation should have the right to vote in all +business matters," which they have most judiciously done ever since. +E. C. S.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, J. Elizabeth +Jones, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Lucy N. Colman, and Susan B. +Anthony.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> Mrs. Roberts and her daughters in Niagara County.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> <i>Resolved</i>, That inasmuch as man, in the progress of +his development, found that at each advancing step new wants demanded +new rights, and naturally walked out of those places, customs, creeds, +and laws that in any way crippled and trammeled his freedom of +thought, word, or action, it is his duty to stand aside and leave to +woman the same rights—to grow up into whatever the laws of her being +demand. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That inasmuch as on woman are imposed by her Creator the +duties of self-support and self-defense, and by government the +responsibilities of taxation and penalties of violated law, she should +be protected in her natural, inalienable rights, and secured in all +the privileges of citizenship. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That we demand a full recognition of our equal rights, +civil and political—no special legislation can satisfy us—the +enjoyment of a right to-day is no security that it will be continued +to-morrow, so long as it is granted to us by a privileged class, and +not secured to us as a sacred right. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, the essence of republican liberty is the principle that no +class shall depend for its rights on the mercy or justice of any other +class, therefore, +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That woman demands her right to the jury-box and the +ballot, that she may have, as man has, the means of her own protection +in her own hands. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That woman, in consenting to remain in any organization or +church where she has no voice in the choice of officers, trustees, or +pastor—no right of protest against false doctrines or action—is +wanting in a proper self-respect, in that dignity which, as a +philanthropist and a Christian, she should ever manifest. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That we from this platform instruct our legal +representatives to make no more appropriations to colleges for boys +exclusively. Now that we are large property holders and tax-payers, we +protest against the injustice of being compelled to build and endow +colleges into which we are forbidden to enter. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That we advise women to apply to the trustees and heads of +public libraries, galleries of art, and similar institutions, for +employment as clerks and attendants, thus securing to themselves, when +admitted, a more liberal means of support, and furnishing a +stepping-stone to other occupations. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That we return thanks to the Legislature of New York for +its acts of justice to woman during the last session. But the work is +not yet done. We still claim the ballot, the right of trial by a jury +of our own peers, the control and custody of our persons in marriage, +and an equal right to the joint earnings of the co-partnership. The +geographical position and political power of New York make her example +supreme; hence we feel assured that when she is right on this +question, our work is done.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> 1. <i>Resolved</i>, That, in the language (slightly varied) +of John Milton, "Those who marry intend as little to conspire their +own ruin, as those who swear allegiance, and as a whole people is to +an ill government, so is one man or woman to an ill marriage. If a +whole people, against any authority, covenant, or statute, may, by the +sovereign edict of charity, save not only their lives, but honest +liberties, from unworthy bondage, as well may a married party, against +any private covenant, which he or she never entered, to his or her +mischief, be redeemed from unsupportable disturbances, to honest peace +and just contentment." +</p><p> +2. <i>Resolved</i>, That all men are created equal, and all women, in their +natural rights, are the equals of men, and endowed by their Creator +with the same inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. +</p><p> +3. <i>Resolved</i>, That any constitution, compact, or covenant between +human beings, that failed to produce or promote human happiness, could +not, in the nature of things, be of any force or authority; and it +would be not only a right, but a duty, to abolish it. +</p><p> +4. <i>Resolved</i>, That though marriage be in itself divinely founded, and +is fortified as an institution by innumerable analogies in the whole +kingdom of universal nature, still, a true marriage is only known by +its results; and, like the fountain, if pure, will reveal only pure +manifestations. Nor need it ever be said, "What God hath joined +together, let no man put asunder," for man could not put it asunder; +nor can he any more unite what God and nature have not joined +together. +</p><p> +5. <i>Resolved</i>, That of all insulting mockeries of heavenly truth and +holy law, none can be greater than that physical impotency is cause +sufficient for divorce, while no amount of mental or moral or +spiritual imbecility is ever to be pleaded in support of such a +demand. +</p><p> +6. <i>Resolved</i>, That such a law was worthy those dark periods when +marriage was held by the greatest doctors and priests of the Church to +be a work of the flesh only, and almost, if not altogether, a +defilement; denied wholly to the clergy, and a second time, forbidden +to all. +</p><p> +7. <i>Resolved</i>, That an unfortunate or ill-assorted marriage is ever a +calamity, but not ever, perhaps never, a crime—and when society or +government, by its laws or customs, compels its continuance, always to +the grief of one of the parties, and the actual loss and damage of +both, it usurps an authority never delegated to man, nor exercised by +God himself. +</p><p> +8. <i>Resolved</i>, That observation and experience daily show how +incompetent are men, as individuals, or as governments, to select +partners in business, teachers for their children, ministers of their +religion, or makers, adjudicators, or administrators of their laws; +and as the same weakness and blindness must attend in the selection of +matrimonial partners, the dictates of humanity and common sense alike +show that the latter and most important contract should no more be +perpetual than either or all of the former. +</p><p> +9. <i>Resolved</i>, That children born in these unhappy and unhallowed +connections are, in the most solemn sense, of unlawful birth—the +fruit of lust, but not of love—and so not of God, divinely descended, +but from beneath, whence proceed all manner of evil and uncleanliness. +</p><p> +10. <i>Resolved</i>, That next to the calamity of such a birth to the +child, is the misfortune of being trained in the atmosphere of a +household where love is not the law, but where discord and bitterness +abound; stamping their demoniac features on the moral nature, with all +their odious peculiarities—thus continuing the race in a weakness and +depravity that must be a sure precursor of its ruin, as a just penalty +of long-violated law.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Thurlow Weed, editor of <i>The Albany Evening Journal</i>, +opposed the passage of the Divorce Bill before the New York +Legislature in 1860.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> <i>Resolved</i>, That marriage is the voluntary alliance of +two persons of opposite sexes into one family, and that such an +alliance, with its possible incidents of children, its common +interests, etc., must be, from the nature of things, as permanent as +the life of the parties. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That if human law attempts to regulate marriage at all, it +should aim to regulate it according to the fundamental principles of +marriage; and that as the institution is inherently as continuous as +the life of the parties, so all laws should look to its control and +preservation as such. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That as a parent can never annul his obligations towards +even a profligate child, because of the inseparable relationship of +the parties, so the married partner can not annul his obligations +towards the other, while both live, no matter how profligate that +other's conduct may be, because of their still closer and alike +permanent relationship; and, therefore, that all divorce is naturally +and morally impossible, even though we should succeed in annulling all +legalities. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That gross fraud and want of good faith in one of the +parties contracting this alliance, such as would invalidate any other +voluntary relation, are the only causes which can invalidate this, and +this, too, solely upon the ground that the relation never virtually +existed, and that there are, therefore, no resulting moral +obligations. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, however, That both men and women have a first and +inviolable right to themselves, physically, mentally, and morally, and +that it can never be the duty of either to surrender his personal +freedom in any direction to his own hurt. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That the great duty of every human being is to secure his +own highest moral development, and that he can not owe to society, or +to an individual, any obligation which shall be degrading to himself. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That self-devotion to the good of another, and especially +to the good of the sinful and guilty, like all disinterestedness, must +redound to the highest good of its author, and that the husband or +wife who thus seeks the best interests of the other, is obedient to +the highest law of benevolence. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That this is a very different thing from the culpable +weakness which allows itself to be immolated by the selfishness of +another, to the hurt of both; and that the miserable practice, now so +common among wives, of allowing themselves, their children and family +interests, to be sacrificed to a degraded husband and father, is most +reprehensible. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That human law is imperatively obligated to give either +party ample protection to himself, to their offspring, and to all +other family interests, against wrong, injustice, and usurpation on +the part of the other, and that, if it be necessary to this, it should +grant a legal separation; and yet, that even such separation can not +invalidate any real marriage obligation. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That every married person is imperatively obligated to do +his utmost thus to protect himself and all family interests against +injustice and wrong, let it arise from what source it may. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That every woman is morally obligated to maintain her +equality in human rights in all her relations in life, and that if she +consents to her own subjugation, either in the family, Church or +State, she is as guilty as the slave is in consenting to be a slave. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That a perfect union can not be expected to exist until we +first have perfect units, and that every marriage of finite beings +must be gradually perfected through the growth and assimilation of the +parties. +</p><p> +<i>Resolved</i>, That the permanence and indissolubility of marriage tend +more directly than anything else toward this result.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> Francis Jackson. This fund was drawn upon by several of +the States. $1,993.66 was expended in the campaigns in New York, the +publication of 60,000 tracts, and the appropriation of several hundred +to a series of sermons by the Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, +delivered in Hope Chapel, New York; $1,000 was expended in the Ohio +canvass of 1860, and tracts in large numbers were also sent there. +Both money and tracts were contributed to the Kansas campaign of 1859. +Lucy Stone had $1,500 to expend in Kansas in 1867, and thus in various +ways the fund was finally expended, Lucy Stone drawing out the last +$1,000 in 1871. So careful had been the management of this fund, that +the accumulation of the interest had greatly increased the original +sum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Lydia Mott was one of the quiet workers who kept all +things pertaining to the woman's rights reform in motion at the +capital. Living in Albany, she planned conventions and hearings before +the Legislature. She knew a large number of the members and men of +influence, who all felt a profound respect for that dignified, +judicious Quaker woman. Her home was not only one of the depots of the +underground railroad, where slaves escaping to Canada were warmed and +fed, but it was the hospitable resort for all reformers. Everything +about the house was clean and orderly, and the table always bountiful, +and the food appetizing. As such men as Seward and Marcy, leaders from +opposite political parties, Gerrit Smith, Garrison, Phillips, +Pillsbury, Remond, Foster, Douglass, representing all the reforms, met +in turn at Miss Mott's dinner-table, she had the advantage of hearing +popular questions discussed from every standpoint. And Miss Mott was +not merely hostess at her table, but on all occasions took a leading +part in the conversation. All of us who enjoyed her friendship and +hospitality deeply feel her loss in that conservative city.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> [Introduced, on notice, by Mr. Ramsey; read twice, and +referred to the Committee on the Judiciary; reported from said +Committee for the consideration of the Senate, and committed to the +Committee of the Whole]. +</p> +<p class="heading"> +AN ACT IN REGARD TO DIVORCES DISSOLVING THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. +</p><p> +<i>The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and +Assembly, do enact as follows:</i> +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Section</span> 1. In addition to the cases in which a divorce, dissolving the +marriage contract, may now be decreed by the Supreme Court, such a +divorce may be decreed by said court in either of the cases following: +</p><p> +1. Where either party to the marriage shall, for the period of three +years next preceding the application for such divorce, have willfully +deserted the other party to the marriage, and neglected to perform to +such party the duties imposed by their relation. +</p><p> +2. Where there is and shall have been for the period of one year next +preceding the application for such divorce, continuous and repeated +instances of cruel and inhuman treatment by either party, so as +greatly to impair the health or endanger the life of the other party, +thereby rendering it unsafe to live with the party guilty of such +cruelty or inhumanity. +</p><p> +§2. The foregoing sections shall not apply to any person who shall not +have been an actual resident of this State for the period of five +years next preceding such application for such divorce. +</p><p> +§3. Specifications one, two, and three of original section +thirty-eight, of article three, of title one, of chapter eight, of +part two of the Revised Statutes, shall apply to these causes for +divorce as they now apply to the cause of adultery. +</p><p> +§4. The other provisions of the Revised Statutes relating to the +granting of divorces for adultery, and regulating the form and manner +of proceedings and decrees, and the effects thereof, and the +restrictions and defences to the application thereof, shall be +applicable to the granting of divorces for causes hereinabove +specified, and all proceedings therefor and therein, so far and in +such manner as the same may be capable of such application. +</p><p> +§5. This act shall take effect immediately.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> Published at the close of Mr. Greeley's "Recollections +of a Busy Life."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a></p> +<p class="heading">Passed April 10, 1862.</p> +<p> +<span class="smcap">Sect</span>. 3. Any married woman, possessed of real estate as her separate +property, may bargain, sell, and convey such property, and enter into +any contract in reference to the same, with the like effect in all +respects as if she were unmarried; and she may in like manner enter +into such covenant or covenants for title as are usual in conveyances +of real estate, which covenants shall be obligatory to bind her +separate property, in case the same or any of them be broken. +</p><p> +§2. The fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh sections of +the said Act are hereby repealed. +</p><p> +7th. Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued, in all +matters having relation to her sole and separate property, or which +may hereafter come to her by descent, devise, bequest, purchase, or +the gift or grant of any person, in the same manner as if she were +sole; and any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her +own name, for damages, against any person or body corporate, for any +injury to her person or character, the same as if she were sole; and +the money received upon the settlement of any such action, or +recovered upon a judgment, shall be her sole and separate property. In +case it shall be necessary in the prosecution or defense of any action +brought by or against a married woman, to enter into any bond or +undertaking, such bond or undertaking may be executed by such married +woman, with the same effect in all respects as if she were sole; and +in case the said bond or undertaking shall become broken or forfeited, +the same may be enforced against her separate estate. +</p><p> +8th. No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to +her sole and separate property, or any property which may hereafter +come to her by descent, devise, bequest, purchase, or the gift or +grant of any person (except her husband), and no bargain or contract +entered into by any married woman, in or about the carrying on of any +trade or business, under any statute of this State, shall be binding +upon her husband, or render him or his property in any way liable +therefor. +</p><p> +5th. In an action brought or defended by any married woman in her +name, her husband shall not, neither shall his property, be liable for +the costs thereof, or the recovery therein. In an action brought by +her for an injury to her person, character, or property, if judgment +shall pass against her for costs, the court in which the action is +pending shall have jurisdiction to enforce payment of such judgment +out of her separate estate, though the sum recovered be less than one +hundred dollars. +</p><p> +6th. No man shall bind his child to apprenticeship or service, or part +with the control of such child or create any testamentary guardian +therefor, unless the mother, if living, shall in writing signify her +assent thereto. +</p><p> +7th. A married woman may be sued in any of the courts of this State, +and whenever a judgment shall be recovered against a married woman, +the same may be enforced by execution against her sole and separate +estate in the same manner as if she were sole.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a></p> +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">The Guardianship Law, passed April 25, 1871</span>. +</p><p> +6th. The Surrogate, to whom application may be made under either of +the preceding sections, shall have the same power to allow and appoint +guardians as is possessed by the Supreme Court, and may appoint a +guardian for a minor whose father is living, upon personal service of +notice of the application for such appointment upon such father, at +least ten days prior thereto; and in all cases the Surrogate shall +inquire into the circumstances of the minor and ascertain the amount +of his personal property, and the value of the rents and profits of +his real estate, and for that purpose may compel any person to appear +before him and testify in relation thereto.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> See law of 1860.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_753" id="Page_753">[Pg 753]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3>WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.<br /> +<small>BY MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.</small></h3> + + +<div class="chapter-summary"> +<p>Woman under old religions—Woman took part in offices of early +Christian Church Councils—Original sin—Celibacy of the +clergy—Their degrading sensuality—Feudalism—Marriage—Debasing +externals and debasing ideas—Witchcraft—Three striking points +for consideration—Burning of Witches—Witchcraft in New +England—Marriage with devils—Woman's Right of property not +recognized—Wife ownership—Women legislated for as +slaves—Marriage under the Greek Church—The Salic +law—Cromwellian era—The Reformation—Woman under monastic rules +in the Protestant home—Polygamy taught by Luther and other +Protestant Divines—The Mormon doctrine regarding woman its +logical result—Milton responsible for many existing views in +regard to woman—Woman's subordination taught to-day—The See +trial—Right Rev. Dr. Cox—Rev. +Knox-Little—Pan-Presbyterians—Quakers not as liberal as they +have been considered—Restrictive action of the Methodist +Church—Offensive debate upon ordaining Miss Oliver—The +Episcopal Church and its restrictions—Sunday-school +teachings—Week-day-school teachings—Sermon upon woman's +subordination by the President of a Baptist Theological +Seminary—Professor Christlieb of Germany—"Dear, will you bring +me my shawl?"—Female sex looked upon as a degradation—A +sacrilegious child—Secretary Evarts, in the Beecher-Tilton +trial, upon woman's subordination—Women degraded in science and +literature—Large-hearted men upon woman's degradation—Wives +still sold in the market-place as "mares," led by a halter around +their necks—Degrading servile labor performed by woman in +Christian countries—A lower degradation—"Queen's +women"—"Government women"—Interpolations in the Bible—Letter +from Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D—What is Truth?</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="sc">Woman</span> is told that her present position in society is entirely due to +Christianity, and this assertion is then made the basis of opposition +to her demands for exact equality with man in all the relations of +life. Knowing that the position of every human being keeps pace with +the religion and civilization of his country, and that in many ancient +nations woman had secured a good degree of respect and power, as +compared even with that she has in the present era, it has been +decided to present this subject from a historical standpoint, and to +show woman's position under the Christian Church for the last 1,500 +years.</p> + +<p>If in so doing we shall help to show man's unwarranted usurpation over +woman's religious and civil rights, and the very great difference +between true religion and theology, this chapter will not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_754" id="Page_754">[Pg 754]</a></span> have been +written in vain, as it will prove that the most grievous wound ever +inflicted upon woman has been in the teaching that she was not created +equal with man, and the consequent denial of her rightful place and +position in Church and State.</p> + +<p>Woman had acquired great liberty under the old civilizations. In Rome +she had not only secured remarkable personal and property rights,<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> +but she officiated as priestess in the most holy offices of religion. +Not only as Vestal Virgin did she guard the Sacred Fire, upon whose +preservation the welfare of Rome was held to depend, but at the end of +every consular period women officiated in private worship and +sacrifice to the <i>Bono Dea</i>, with mystic ceremonies which no man's +presence was suffered to profane. The Eleusinian mysteries were +attributed to Ceres herself, and but few men had the courage to dare +initiation into their most secret rites. In ancient Egypt, woman +bought and sold in the markets, was physician, colleges for her +instruction in medicine existing 1,200 years before Christ; she +founded its literature, the "Sacred Songs" of Isis being deemed by +Plato literally 10,000 years old; as priestess she performed the most +holy offices of religion, holding the Sacred Sistrum and offering +sacrifices to the gods; she sat upon its throne and directed the +civilization of this country at the most brilliant period of its +history; while in the marriage relation she held more than equality; +the husband at the ceremony promising obedience to the wife in all +things, a rule which according to Wilkinson, wrought no harm, but, on +the contrary, was productive of lasting fidelity and regard, the +husband and wife sitting together upon the same double chair in life, +and lying together in the same tomb after death. Crimes against women +were rare in olden Egypt, and were punished in the most severe manner. +In Persia, woman was one of the founders of the ancient Parsee +religion, which taught the existence of but a single God, thus +introducing monotheism into that rare old kingdom. The Germans endowed +their wives upon marriage with a horse, bridle, and spear, emblematic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_755" id="Page_755">[Pg 755]</a></span> +of equality, and they held themselves bound to chastity in the marital +relation. The women of Scandinavia were regarded with respect, and +marriage was held as sacred by both men and women. These old +Berserkers reverenced their Alruna, or Holy Women, on earth, and +worshiped goddesses in heaven.</p> + +<p>All Pagandom recognized a female priesthood, some making their +national safety to depend upon them, like Rome; sybils wrote the Books +of Fate, and oracles where women presided were consulted by many +nations. The proof of woman's also taking part in the offices of the +Christian Church at an early date is to be found in the very +restrictions which were at a later period placed upon her. The Council +of Laodicea, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 365, in its eleventh canon<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> forbade the +ordination of women to the ministry, and by its forty-fourth canon +prohibited them from entering into the altar.</p> + +<p>The Council of Orleans, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 511, consisting of twenty-six bishops and +priests, promulgated a canon declaring that on account of their +frailty, women must be excluded from the deaconship.</p> + +<p>Nearly five hundred years later than the Council of Laodicea, we find +the Council of Paris (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 824) bitterly complaining that women serve +at the altar, and even give to the people the body and blood of Jesus +Christ. The Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, only eight years previously, +had forbidden abbesses from taking upon themselves any priestly +function. Through these canons we have the negative proof that for +many hundred years women preached, baptized,<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> administered the +sacrament, and filled various offices of the Church, and that men took +it upon themselves to forbid them from such functions through +prohibitory canons.</p> + +<p>A curious old black-letter volume published in London in 1632, +entitled "The Lawes and Resolutions of Women's Rights," says,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_756" id="Page_756">[Pg 756]</a></span> "the +reason why women have no control in Parliament, why they make no laws, +consent to none, abrogate none, is their Original Sin."</p> + +<p>This doctrine of her original sin lies at the base of the religious +and political disqualifications of woman. Christianity, through this +doctrine, has been interpreted as sustaining man's rights alone. The +offices held by her during the apostolic age, she has been gradually +deprived of through ecclesiastical enactments. To Augustine, whose +early life was spent in company with the most degraded of woman-kind, +is Christianity indebted for the full development of the doctrine of +Original Sin, which, although to be found in the religious systems of +several ancient nations, was not a primitive one of the Christian +Church.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> Taught as one of the most sacred mysteries of religion, +which to doubt or to question was to hazard eternal damnation, it at +once exerted a most powerful and repressing influence upon woman, +fastening upon her a bondage which the civilization of the nineteenth +century has not been able to cast off.</p> + +<p>To this doctrine of woman's created inferiority we can trace those +irregularities which for many centuries filled the Church with shame, +for practices more obscene than the orgies of Babylon or Corinth, and +which dragged Christendom to a darkness blacker than the night of +heathendom in pagan countries—a darkness upon which the most +searching efforts of historians cast scarcely one ray of light—a +darkness so profound that from the seventh to the eleventh century no +individual thought can be traced. All was sunk in superstition; men +were bound by Church dogmas, and looked only to aggrandizement through +her. The priesthood, which alone possessed a knowledge of letters, +prostituted their learning to the basest uses; the nobility spent +their lives in warring upon each other; the peasantry were the sport +and victim by turns of priest and noble, while woman was the prey of +all; her person and her rights possessing no consideration only as +they could be made to advance the interest or serve the pleasure of +noble, husband, father, or priest—some man-god to whose lightest +desire all her wishes were made to bend. The most pronounced doctrine +of the Church during this period was, that through woman sin had been +introduced into the world; that woman's whole tendency was toward +evil, and that had it not been for the unfortunate oversight of her +creation, man would be dwelling in the paradisical innocence and +happiness of Eden blessed with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_757" id="Page_757">[Pg 757]</a></span> immortality. The Church looking upon +woman as under a curse, considered man as God's divinely appointed +agent for its enforcement, and that the restrictions she suffered +under Christianity were but parts of a just punishment for having +caused the fall of man. Christian theology thus at once struck a blow +at these old beliefs in woman's equality, broadly inculcating the +doctrine that woman was created for man, was subordinate to him and +under obedience to him. It bade woman stand aside from sacerdotal +offices, forbidding her to speak in the church, commanding her to ask +her husband at home for all she wished to know, at once repressing all +tendency toward her freedom among those who adopted the new religion, +and by various decretals taught her defilement through the physical +peculiarities of her being. It placed the legality of marriage under +priestly control, secured to husbands a right of divorce for causes +not freeing the wife, and so far set its ban upon this relation as to +hold single women above the wife and mother in holiness. After having +forbidden woman the priestly office, it forbade her certain benefits +to be derived therefrom, thus unjustly punishing her for an +ineligibility of its own creation; offices in the Church, learning, +and property rights, freedom of thought and action, all were held as +improper for a being secondary to man, who came into the world, not as +part of the great original plan, but as an afterthought of the +Creator.</p> + +<p>While it took many hundred years to totally exclude woman from the +priesthood, the strict celibacy of the male clergy was during the same +period the constant effort of the Church. At first its restrictions +were confined to a single marriage with a woman who had never before +entered that relation. A Council of <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 347, consisting of twenty-one +bishops, forbade the ordination of those priests who had been twice +married, or who had married a widow. A Council of <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 395, ruled that +a bishop who had children after ordination, should be excluded from +the major orders. The Council of <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 444, deposed Chelidonius, Bishop +of Besancon, for having married a widow; while the Council of Orleans, +<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 511, consisting of thirty-two bishops, decided that any monk who +married should be expelled from the ecclesiastical order.</p> + +<p>In the sixth century a Council was held at Macon (585), consisting of +forty-three bishops with sees, sixteen bishops without sees, and +fifteen envoys. At this Council the celebrated discussion took place +of which it has often been said, the question was whether woman had a +soul. It arose in this wise. A certain bishop insisted that woman +should not be called "homo"; but the contrary was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_758" id="Page_758">[Pg 758]</a></span> argued by others +from the two facts that the Scriptures say that God created man, male +and female, and that Jesus Christ, son of a woman, is called the son +of man. Woman was, therefore, allowed to remain a human being in the +eyes of the clergy, even though considered a very weak and bad one.</p> + +<p>The Church held two entirely opposing views of marriage. Inasmuch as +it taught that the fall came through marriage, this relation was +regarded by many priests with holy horror as a continuance of the evil +which first brought sin into the world. It was declared that God would +have found some method of populating the world outside of marriage, +and that condition was looked upon as one of peculiar temptation and +trial. Another class taught its necessity, though in it woman was +under complete subordination to man. These views can be traced to the +early fathers; through clerical contempt of marriage, the conditions +of celibacy and virginity were regarded as those of highest virtue. +Jerome respected marriage as chiefly valuable in that it gave virgins +to the Church, while Augustine, although he admitted the possibility +of salvation to the married, yet spoke of a mother and daughter in +heaven, the mother shining as a dim star, the daughter as one of the +first magnitude.</p> + +<p>In the "Apostolic Constitutions," held by the Episcopal Church as +regulations established by the apostles themselves, and which are +believed by many to be among the earliest Christian records, there are +elaborate directions for the places of all who attend church, the +unmarried being most honored. The virgins and widows and elder women +stood, or sat first of all. The Emperor Honorius banished Jovinius for +asserting the possibility of a man being saved who lived with his +wife, even though he obeyed all the ordinances of the Church and lived +a good life.</p> + +<p>St. Chrysostom, whose prayer is repeated at every Sunday morning +service of the Episcopal church, described woman as "a necessary evil, +a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly +fascination, and a painted ill." The doctrine of priestly celibacy +which was early taught, though not thoroughly enforced until the +eleventh century, and the general tenor of the Church against +marriage, together with its teaching woman's greater sinfulness, were +the great causes of undermining the morals of the Christian world for +fifteen hundred years. With these doctrines was also taught the duty +of woman to sacrifice herself in every way to man. The loss of +chastity in a woman was held as a light sin in comparison to the +degradation that marriage would bring upon the priesthood, and young +girls ruined by some candidate or priest, considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_759" id="Page_759">[Pg 759]</a></span> themselves as +doing God service by refusing a marriage that would cause the +expulsion of their lovers from this order. With woman's so-called +divine self-sacrifice, Heloise chose to remain Abelard's mistress +rather than destroy his prospects of advancement in the Church.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p> + +<p>To the more strict enforcement of priestly celibacy, the barons were +permitted to make slaves of the wives and children of married priests. +While by common law children were held as following the condition of +their fathers, under Church legislation they were held to follow the +condition of their mothers. Serf mothers have thus borne serf children +to free-born fathers, and slave mothers have borne slave children to +their masters; while unmarried mothers still bear bastard children to +unknown fathers, the Church thus throwing the taint of illegitimacy +upon the innocent. The relations of man and woman to each other, the +sinfulness of marriage, and the license of illicit relations employed +most of the thought of the Church.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> The duty of woman to obey, not +only her husband, but all men by virtue of their sex, was sedulously +inculcated. She was trained to hold her own desires and even her own +thoughts in complete abeyance to those of man; father, husband, +brother, son, priest, alike held themselves as her rightful masters, +and every holy principle of her nature was subverted in this most +degrading assumption. A great many important effects followed the full +establishment of priestly celibacy. The doctrine of woman's inherent +wickedness took new strength; a formal prohibition of the Scriptures +to the laity was promulgated from Toulouse in the twelfth century; the +canon law gained control of the civil law; the absolute sinfulness of +divorce, which had been maintained in councils, yet allowed by the +civil law, was established; the Inquisition arose; the persecution of +woman for witchcraft took on a new phase, and a tendency to suicide +was developed. The wives of priests rendered homeless, and with their +children suddenly ranked among the vilest of the earth, were powerless +and despairing, and not a few of them shortened their agony by death +at their own hands. For all these crimes the Church was directly +responsible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_760" id="Page_760">[Pg 760]</a></span></p> + +<p>Priestly celibacy did not cause priestly purity of life,<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a> but +looking upon themselves as especially sanctified and set apart by +virtue of that celibacy, priests made their holy office the cover of +the most degrading sensuality.<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> Methods were taken to debauch the +minds of women as well as their bodies. As late as the seventeenth +century it was taught that a priest could commit no sin. This was an +old doctrine, but received new strength from the Illumines. It was +said that "The devout, having offered up and annihilated their own +selves, exist no longer but in God. Thenceforth they can do no wrong. +The better part of them is so divine that it no longer knows what the +other is doing." The doctrine of some Protestant sects, "Once in +grace, always in grace," is of the same character. The very +incarnation was used as a means of weakening woman's virtue. An +enforcement of the duty of an utter surrender of the soul and the will +was taught by the example of the Virgin, "who obeyed the angel Gabriel +and conceived, without risk of evil, for impurity could not come of a +spirit."<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> Another lesson, of which the present century has some +glimpse, was "that sin could be killed by sin, as the better way of +becoming innocent again." The result of this doctrine was seen in the +mistresses of the priests, known as "The Hallowed Ones."</p> + +<p>Under such religious teaching as to woman, naught could be expected +but that the laity would closely imitate the priesthood. Although +Church and State may not be legally united, it is impossible for any +religious opinion to become widely prevalent without its influencing +legislation. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the priesthood possessed great +influence; but after the Norman Conquest, ecclesiasticism gained +greater control in England. Previous to this, a man was compelled by +law to leave his wife one-third of his property,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_761" id="Page_761">[Pg 761]</a></span> and could leave her +as much, more as he pleased. Under ecclesiastical law he was not +permitted to will her more than one-third, and could leave her as much +less as he pleased. Glanville laid it down as a law of the kingdom +that no one was compelled to leave another person any portion of his +property, and that the part usually devised to wives was left them at +the dictate of affection and not of law.</p> + +<p>Women were not permitted to testify in court unless on some question +especially concerning themselves. It is but twenty years since this +law was annulled in Scotland, and but three years since, that by the +influence of Signor Morelli,<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> the Parliament of Italy repealed the +old restriction upon woman's testimony.</p> + +<p>Sisters were not allowed to inherit with brothers, the property, +according to old ecclesiastical language, going "to the worthiest of +blood." Blackstone acknowledges that this distinction between brothers +and sisters reflects shame upon England, and was no part of the old +Roman law, where the children of a family inherited equally without +distinction of sex. It is but two years since the old law of +inheritance of sons alone was repealed in one of the Swiss Cantons. +Even in this enlightened age its repeal met much opposition, men +piteously complaining that they would be ruined by this act of justice +done their sisters.</p> + +<p>The minds of people having been corrupted through centuries by Church +doctrines regarding woman, it was an easy step for the State to aid in +her degradation. The system of Feudalism rising from the theory of +warfare as the normal condition of man, still further oppressed woman +by bringing into power a class of men accustomed to deeds of violence, +and finding their chief pleasure in the sufferings of others. To be a +woman, appealed to no instinct of tenderness in this class. To be a +woman was not to be protected even, unless she held power in her own +right, or was acting in place of some feudal lord. The whole body of +villeins and serfs were under absolute dominion of the Feudal Lords. +They were held as possessing no rights of their own: the Priest had +control of their souls, the Lord of their bodies. But it was not upon +the male serfs that the greatest oppression fell.</p> + +<p>Although the tillage of the soil, the care of swine and cattle was +theirs, the masters claiming the half or more of everything even to +one-half the wool shorn from the flock,<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> and all exactions upon +them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_762" id="Page_762">[Pg 762]</a></span> were great while their sense of security was slight, it was upon +their wives and daughters that the greatest outrages were inflicted. +It was a pastime of the castle retainers to fall upon peaceful +villages to the consternation of its women, who were struck, tortured, +were great, while their sense of security was slight, it was upon and +made the sport of the ribald soldiery, "Serfs of the Body," they had +no protection. The vilest outrages were perpetrated by the Feudal +Lords under the name of Rights. Women were taught by Church and State +alike, that the Feudal Lord or Seigneur had a right to them, not only +as against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. +The law known as <i>Marchetta</i>, or Marquette, compelled newly-married +women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the +rightful prey of the Feudal Lord from one to three days after their +marriage, and from this custom, the oldest son of the serf was held as +the son of the lord, "as perchance it was he who begat him." From this +nefarious degradation of woman, the custom of Borough-English arose, +in which the youngest son became the heir. The original signification +of the word borough being to make secure, the peasant through +Borough-English made secure the right of his own son to what +inheritance he might leave, thus cutting off the claim of the possible +son of his hated lord. France, Germany, Prussia, England, Scotland, +and all Christian countries where feudalism existed, held to the +enforcement of Marquette. The lord deemed this right as fully his as +he did the claim to half the crops of the land, or to the half of the +wool sheared from the sheep. More than one reign of terror arose in +France from the enforcement of this law, and the uprisings of the +peasantry over Europe during the twelfth century, and the fierce +Jacquerie, or Peasant War, of the fourteenth century in France owed +their origin, among other causes, to the enforcement of these claims +by the lords upon the newly-married wife. The Edicts of Marly securing +the Seigneural Tenure in Lower Canada, transplanted that claim to +America when Canada was under the control of France.</p> + +<p>To persons not conversant with the history of feudalism, and of the +Church for the first fifteen hundred years of its existence, it will +seem impossible that such foulness could ever have been part of +Christian civilization. That the crimes they have been trained to +consider the worst forms of heathendom could have existed in Christian +Europe, upheld by both Church and State for more than a thousand five +hundred years, will strike most people with incredulity. Such, +however, is the truth; we can but admit well-attested facts of history +how severe a blow soever they strike our preconceived beliefs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_763" id="Page_763">[Pg 763]</a></span></p> + +<p>Marquette was claimed by the Lords Spiritual<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> as well as by the +Lords Temporal. The Church, indeed, was the bulwark of this base +feudal claim. With the power of penance and excommunication in its +grasp, this feudal demand could neither have originated nor been +sustained unless sanctioned by the Church.</p> + +<p>In Scotland, Margaret, wife of Malcolm Conmore, generally known, from +her goodness, as St. Margaret,<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> exerted her royal influence in +1057, against this degradation of her sex, but despite the royal +prohibition and the substitution of the payment of a merk in money +instead, the custom had such a foothold and appealed so strongly to +man's licentious appetite it still continued, remaining in existence +nearly seven hundred years after the royal edict against its practice. +These customs of feudalism were the customs of Christianity during +many centuries.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> These infamous outrages upon woman were enforced +under Christian law by both Church and State.<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a></p> + +<p>The degradation of the husband at this infringement of the lord +spiritual and temporal upon his marital right, has been pictured by +many writers, but history has been quite silent upon the despair and +shame of the wife. No hope appeared for woman anywhere. The Church, +which should have been the great conserver of morals, dragged her to +the lowest depths, through the vileness of its priestly customs. The +State, which should have defended her civil rights, followed the +example of the Church in crushing her to the earth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_764" id="Page_764">[Pg 764]</a></span> God Himself +seemed to have forsaken woman. Freedom for the peasants was found +alone at night. Known as the Birds of the Night, Foxes and Birds of +Prey, it was only at these night assemblages they enjoyed the least +happiness or security. Here, with wives and daughters, they met +together to talk, of their gross outrages. Out of these foul wrongs +grew the sacrifice of the "Black Mass," with woman as officiating +priestess, in which the rites of the Church were travestied in solemn +mockery, and defiance cast at that heaven which seemed to permit the +priest and lord alike to trample upon all the sacred rights of +womanhood in the names of religion and law.</p> + +<p>During this mocking service a true sacrifice of wheat was offered to +the Spirit of the Earth who made wheat to grow, and loosened birds +bore aloft to the God of Freedom the sighs and prayers of the serfs +asking that their descendants might be free. We can not do otherwise +than regard this sacrifice as the most acceptable offering made in +that day of moral degradation, a sacrifice and prayer more holy than +all the ceremonials of the Church. This service, where woman, by +virtue of her greater despair, acted both as altar and priest, opened +by the following address and prayer: "I will come before Thine altar, +but save me, O Lord, from the faithless and violent man!" (from the +priest and the baron).<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a> From these assemblages, known as "Sabbat," +or "the Sabbath," from the old Pagan Midsummer-day sacrifice to +"Bacchus Sabiesa," rose the belief in the "Witches' Sabbath," which +for several hundred years formed a new source of accusation against +women, and sent tens of thousands of them to the most horrible death.</p> + +<p>Not until canon or Church law had become quite engrafted upon the +civil law, did the full persecutions for witchcraft arise. A witch was +held to be a woman who had deliberately sold her soul to the Evil One, +who delighted in injuring others, and who chose the Sabbath day for +the enactment of her impious rites, and who was especially connected +with black animals; the black cat being held as her familiar in many +countries.</p> + +<p>In looking at the history of witchcraft, we see three striking points +for consideration:</p> + +<p><i>First.</i> That women were chiefly accused, a wizard being seldom +mentioned.</p> + +<p><i>Second.</i> That man, believing in woman's inherent wickedness, and +understanding neither the mental nor the physical peculiarities of her +being, ascribed all her idiosyncrasies to witchcraft.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_765" id="Page_765">[Pg 765]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Third.</i> That the clergy inculcated the idea that woman was in league +with the devil, and that strong intellect, remarkable beauty, or +unusual sickness, were in themselves a proof of that league.</p> + +<p>Catholic and Protestant countries alike agreed in holding woman as the +chief accessory of the devil. Luther said, "I would have no compassion +for a witch; I would burn them all." As late as 1768, John Wesley +declared the giving up of witchcraft to be in effect giving up the +Bible. James I., on his accession to the throne, ordered the learned +work of Reginald Scot against witchcraft, to be burned in compliance +with the act of Parliament of 1603, which ratified a belief in +witchcraft over the three kingdoms. Under Henry VIII., from whose +reign the Protestant Reformation in England dates, an act of +Parliament made witchcraft felony; this act was again confirmed under +Elizabeth. To doubt witchcraft was as heretical under Protestantism as +under Catholicism.</p> + +<p>Even the widely extolled Pilgrim Fathers brought this belief with them +when they stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock. With the "Ducking-Stool" +and the "Scarlet Letter" of shame for woman, while her companion in +sin went free, they also brought with them a belief in witches. +Richard Baxter, the "greatest of the Puritans," condemned those who +disbelieved in witchcraft as "wicked Sadducees," his work against it +adding intensity to the persecution. Cotton Mather was active in +fomenting a belief in this doctrine.</p> + +<p>So convinced were those in power of the tendency of woman to diabolism +that the learned Sir Matthew Hale condemned two women without even +summing up the evidence. Old women, for no other reason than that they +were old, were held as most susceptible to the assaults of the devil, +and most especially endowed with supernatural powers for evil, to +doubt which was equivalent to doubting the Bible. We see a reason for +this hatred of old women, in the fact that woman was chiefly viewed +from a sensual stand-point, and when by reason of age or debility, she +no longer attracted the physical admiration of man, he looked upon her +as of no farther use to the world, and as possessing no right to life. +At one period it was very unusual for an old woman in the north of +Europe to die peaceably in her bed. The persecution against them raged +with special virulence in Scotland, where upon the act of the British +Parliament in 17—, abolishing the burning and hanging of witches, the +assembly of the Calvinistic Church of Scotland "confessed" this act of +Parliament "as a great national sin." Looked upon as a sin rather than +a crime, the Church sought its control, and when coming under its +power, witchcraft was punished with much greater severity than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_766" id="Page_766">[Pg 766]</a></span> when +falling under lay tribunals. It proved a source of great emolument to +the Church, which was even accused of fostering it for purposes of +gain. A system of "witch finders" or "witch persecutors" arose. +Cardan, a famous Italian physician, said of them: "In order to obtain +forfeit property, the same persons acted as accusers and judges, and +invented a thousand stories as proof."</p> + +<p>Witchcraft was as a sin almost confined to woman; a wizard was rare, +one writer saying: to every 100 witches, we find but one wizard. In +the time of Louis XIII. this proportion was greatly increased; "to one +wizard, 10,000 witches," another person declared there were 100,000 +witches in France alone. Sprenger, the great Inquisitor, author of +"The Witch Hammer,"<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> through whose persecutions many countries +were flooded with victims, said, "Heresy of witches, not of wizards, +must we call it, for these latter are of very small account." No class +or condition escaped Sprenger; we read of witches of fifteen years, +and two "infernally beautiful"<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> of seventeen years.</p> + +<p>The Parliament of Toulouse burned 400 witches at one time. Four +hundred women at one hour on the public square, dying the horrid death +of fire, for a crime which never existed save in the imagination of +those persecutors, and which grew in their imagination from a false +belief in woman's extraordinary wickedness, based upon a false theory +as to original sin. Not a Christian country but was full of the +horrors of witch persecution and violent death. Remy, Judge of Nancy, +acknowledged to having himself burnt 800 in sixteen years. Many women +were driven to suicide in fear of the torture in store for them. In +1595 sixteen of those accused by Remy, destroyed themselves rather +than fall into his terrible hands. Six hundred were burnt in one small +bishopric in one year; 900 during the same period in another. Seven +thousand lost their lives at Treves; 1,000 in the province of Como in +Italy in a single year; 500 were executed at Geneva in a single month. +Under the reign of Francis I. more than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_767" id="Page_767">[Pg 767]</a></span> 100,000 witches are said to +have been put to death, and for hundreds of years this superstition +controlled the Church. In Scotland the most atrocious tortures were +invented, and women died "shrieking to heaven for that mercy denied +them by Christian men." One writer casually mentions seeing nine +burning in a single day's journey.</p> + +<p>When for "witches" we read "women," we shall gain a more direct idea +of the cruelties inflicted by the Church upon woman. Friends were +encouraged to cast accusations upon friends, and rewards were offered +for conviction. From the pulpit people were exhorted to bring the +witch to justice. Husbands who had ceased to care for their wives, or +in any way found them a burden, or who for any reason wished to +dissolve the marriage tie, now found an easy method. They had but to +accuse them of witchcraft, and the marriage was dissolved by the death +of the wife at the stake. Mention is made of wives dragged by their +husbands before the arch-Inquisitor, Sprenger, by ropes around their +necks. In Protestant, as in Catholic countries, the person accused was +virtually dead. She was excommunicated from humanity; designated and +denounced as one whom all must shun, with whom none must buy or sell, +to whom no one must give food or lodging or speech or shelter; life +was not worth the living.</p> + +<p>Besides those committing suicide, others brought to trial, tired of +life amid so many horrors, falsely accused themselves, preferring a +death by the torture of fire to a life of endless isolation and +persecution. An English woman on her way to the stake, with a +greatness of soul all must admire, freed her judges from +responsibility by saying to the people, "Do not blame my judges, I +wished to put an end to my own self. My parents kept aloof from me; my +husband had denied me. I could not live on without disgrace. I longed +for death, and so I told a lie."</p> + +<p>Of Sir George Mackenzie, the eminent Scotch advocate, it was said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>He went to examine some women who had confessed,<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> and one of +them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_768" id="Page_768">[Pg 768]</a></span> told him "under secrecie" that she had not confessed +because she was guilty, but being a poor wretch who wrought for +her meat, and being defined for a witch, she knew she would +starve, for no person thereafter would give her either meat or +lodging, and that all men would beat her and hound dogs at her, +and therefore she desired to be out of the world, whereupon she +wept most bitterly, and upon her knees called upon God to witness +what she said.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The death these poor women chose to suffer rather than accept a chance +of life with the name of witch clinging to them,<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> was one of the +most painful of which we can conceive,<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> although in the diversity +of torture inflicted upon "the witch," it is scarcely possible to say +which was the least agonizing.</p> + +<p>Not only was the persecution for witchcraft brought to New England by +the Puritans, but it has been considered and treated as a capital +offense by the laws of both Pennsylvania and New York. Trials took +place in both colonies not long before the Salem tragedy; the peaceful +Quaker, William Penn, presiding upon the bench at the time of the +trial of two Swedish women accused of witchcraft. The Grand Jury +acting under instruction given in a charge delivered by him, found +bills against them, and his skirts were only saved from the guilt of +their blood by some technical irregularity in the indictment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_769" id="Page_769">[Pg 769]</a></span></p> + +<p>Marriage with devils was long one of the most ordinary accusations in +witch trials. The knowledge of witches was admitted, as is shown in +the widely extended belief of their ability to work miracles. A large +part of the women termed witches were in reality the profoundest +thinkers, the most advanced scientists of those ages. For many hundred +years the knowledge of medicine, and its practice among the poorer +classes was almost entirely in their hands, and many discoveries in +this science are due to them; but an acquaintance with herbs soothing +to pain, or healing in their qualities, was then looked upon as having +been acquired through diabolical agency. Even those persons cured +through the instrumentality of some woman were ready when the hour +came to assert their belief in her indebtedness to the devil for that +knowledge. Not only were the common people themselves ignorant of all +science, but their brains were filled with superstitious fears, and +the belief that knowledge had been first introduced to the world +through woman's obedience to the devil. Thus the persecution which for +ages raged against witches, was in reality an attack upon science at +the hands of the Church.</p> + +<p>The entire subordination of the common law to ecclesiasticism, dates +in England to the reign of Stephen, who ascended the throne in 1135. +Its new growth of power must be ascribed to avarice, as it then began +to take cognizance of crimes, establishing an equivalent in money for +every species of wrong-doing. The Church not only remitted penalties +for crimes already perpetrated, but sold indulgences for the +commission of new ones. Its touch upon property soon extended to all +the relations of life. Marriages within the seventh degree were +forbidden by the Church as incestuous, but those who could buy +indulgence were enabled to get a dispensation. No crime so great that +it could not be condoned for money.</p> + +<p>Canon law gained its greatest power in the family relation in its +control over wills, the guardianship of orphans, marriage and divorce. +Under ecclesiastical law, marriage was held as a sacrament, was +performed at the church door, the wife being required to give up her +name, her person, her property, her own sacred individuality, and to +promise obedience to her husband in all things. Certain hours of the +day were even set aside as canonical after which no marriage could be +celebrated.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> Wherever it became the basis of legislation, the laws +of succession and inheritance, and those in regard to children, +constantly sacrificed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_770" id="Page_770">[Pg 770]</a></span> interests of wives and daughters to those +of husbands and sons. Ecclesiastical law ultimately secured such a +hold upon family property and became so grasping in its demands, that +the civil law interfered, not, however, in the interests of wives and +children, but in the interests of creditors. Canon law had its largest +growth through the pious fictions of woman's created inferiority.</p> + +<p>To the credit of humanity it must be said that the laity did not +readily yield to priestly power, but made many efforts to wrest their +temporal concerns from ecclesiastical control. But in the general +paucity of education, together with the abnegation of the will, +sedulously taught by the Church, which brought all its dread power to +bear in threats of excommunication and future eternal torment, the +rights of the people were gradually lost. The control of the +priesthood over all things of a temporal, as well as of a spiritual +nature, tended to make them a distinct body from the laity, and rights +were divided into those pertaining to persons and things, the rights +of persons belonging to the priesthood alone; but inasmuch as every +man, whatever his condition, could become a priest, and no woman, +however learned or pious or high in station, could, the whole tendency +of ecclesiastical law was to separate man and woman into a holy or +divine sex, and an unholy or impious sex, creating an antagonism +between those whose interests are by nature the same. Thus canon law, +bearing upon the business of ordinary life between man and man, fell +with its greatest weight upon woman; it not only corrupted the common +law in England, but perverted the civil law of other countries. The +denial under common law of the right of woman to make a contract, grew +out of the denial of her right of ownership. Not possessing control +over her own property or her future actions, she was held as legally +unable to make a binding contract.</p> + +<p>Property is a delicate test of the condition of a nation. It is a +singular fact of history that the rights of property have everywhere +been recognized before the rights of persons, and wherever the rights +of any class to property are attacked, it is a most subtle and +dangerous assault upon personal rights. The chief restrictive element +of slavery was the denial to the slave of the proceeds of his own +labor. As soon as a slave was allowed to hire his time, the door of +freedom began to open to him. The enslavement of woman has been much +increased from the denial of the rights of property to her, not merely +to the fruits of her own labor, but to the right of inheritance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_771" id="Page_771">[Pg 771]</a></span></p> + +<p>The great school of German jurists<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> teach that ownership increases +both physical and moral capacity, and that as owner, actual or +possible, man is a more capable and worthy being than he would +otherwise be. Inasmuch as under canon law woman was debarred from +giving testimony in courts of law, sisters were prohibited from taking +an inheritance with brothers, and wives were deprived of property +rights, it is entirely justifiable to say ecclesiastical law injured +civilization by its destruction of the property rights of women.<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a></p> + +<p>The worst features of canon law, as Blackstone frankly admits, are +those touching upon the rights of woman. These features have been made +permanent to this day by the power the Church gained over common +law,<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> between the tenth and sixteenth centuries, since which +period the complete inferiority and subordination of the female sex +has been as fully maintained by the State as by the Church. The +influence of canon law upon the criminal codes of England and America +has but recently attracted the attention of legal minds. Wharton, +whose "Criminal Law" has for years been a standard work, did not +examine their relation until his seventh edition, in which he gave a +copious array of authors, English, German, and Latin, from whom he +deduced proof that the criminal codes of these two countries are +pre-eminently based upon ecclesiastical law.</p> + +<p>Canon law gave to the husband the power of compelling the wife's +return if, for any cause, she left him. She was then at once in the +position of an outlaw, branded as a run-away who had left her master's +service, a wife who had left "bed and board" without consent, and whom +all persons were forbidden "to harbor" or shelter "under penalty of +the law." The absconding wife was in the position of an excommunicate +from the Catholic Church, or of a woman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_772" id="Page_772">[Pg 772]</a></span> condemned as a witch. Any +person befriending her was held accessory to the wife's theft of +herself from her husband, and rendered liable to fine and other +punishment for having helped to rob the husband (master) of his wife +(slave).</p> + +<p>The present formula of advertising a wife, which so frequently +disgraces the press, is due to this belief in wife-ownership.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Whereon my wife ... has left my bed and board without just cause +or provocation, I hereby forbid all persons from harboring or +trusting her on my account.</p></blockquote> + +<p>By old English law, in case the wife was in danger of perishing in a +storm, it was allowable "to harbor" and shelter her.</p> + +<p>It is less than thirty years since the dockets of a court in New York +city, the great metropolis of our nation, were sullied by the suit of +a husband against parties who had received, "harbored" and sheltered +his wife after she left him, the husband recovering $10,000 damages.</p> + +<p>Although England was Christianized in the fourth century, it was not +until the tenth that a daughter had a right to reject the husband +selected for her by her father;<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> and it was not until this same +century that the Christian wife of a Christian husband acquired the +right of eating at table with him. For many hundred years the law +entered families, binding out to servile labor all unmarried women +between the ages of eleven and forty.</p> + +<p>For more than a thousand years women in England were legislated for as +slaves. They were imprisoned for crimes that, if committed by a man, +were punished by simple branding in the hand; and other crimes which +he could atone for by a fine, were punished in her case by burning +alive. Down to the end of the eighteenth century the punishment of a +wife who had murdered her husband was burning<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> alive; while if the +husband murdered the wife, his was hanging, "the same as if he had +murdered any stranger." Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_773" id="Page_773">[Pg 773]</a></span> crime was petit treason, and her +punishment was the same as that of the slave who had murdered her +master. For woman there existed no "benefit of clergy," which in a man +who could read, greatly lessened his punishment; this ability to read +enabling him to perform certain priestly functions and securing him +immunity in crime. The Church having first made woman ineligible to +the priesthood, punished her on account of the restrictions of its own +making. We who talk of the burning of wives upon the funeral pyres of +husbands in India, may well turn our eyes to the records of Christian +countries.</p> + +<p>Where marriage is wholly or partially under ecclesiastical law, +woman's degradation surely follows; but in Catholic and Protestant +countries a more decent veil has been thrown over this sacrifice of +woman than under some forms of the Greek Church, where the wife is +delivered to the husband under this formula: "Here, wolf, take thy +lamb!" and the bridegroom is presented with a whip, giving his bride a +few blows as part of the ceremony, and bidding her draw off his boots +as a symbol of her subjugation to him. With such an entrance ceremony, +it may well be surmised that the marriage relation permits of the most +revolting tyranny. In Russia, until recently, the wife who killed her +husband while he was chastising her, was buried alive, her head only +being left above ground. Many lingered for days before the mercy of +death reached them.</p> + +<p>Ivan Panim, a Russian exile, now a student in Harvard College, made +the following statement in a speech at the Massachusetts Woman +Suffrage Convention, held in February, 1881:</p> + +<blockquote><p>A short time ago the wife of a well-to-do peasant came to a +justice of one of the district courts in Russia and demanded +protection from the cruelty of her husband. She proved +conclusively by the aid of competent witnesses, that he had bound +her naked to a stake during the cold weather, on the street, and +asked the passers-by to strike her; and whenever they refused, he +struck her himself. He fastened her, moreover, to the ground, put +heavy stones and weights on her and broke one of her arms. The +court declared the husband "not guilty." "It cannot afford," it +said, "to teach woman to disobey the commands of her husband." +This is by no means an extreme or isolated case. Few, indeed, +become known to the public through the courts or through the +press.<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_774" id="Page_774">[Pg 774]</a></span></p> + +<p>Canon law made its greatest encroachments at the period that chivalry +was at its height; the outward show of respect and honor to woman +keeping pace in its false pretense with the destruction of her legal +rights. Woman's moral degradation was at this time so great that a +community of women was even proposed, and was sustained by Jean de +Meung, the "Poet of Chivalry," in his Roman de la Rose. Christine of +Pisa, the first strictly literary woman of Western Europe, took up her +pen in defense of her sex against the general libidinous spirit of the +age, writing in opposition to Meung.</p> + +<p>Under Feudalism, under Celibacy, under Chivalry, under the +Reformation, under the principles of new sects of the nineteenth +century—the Perfectionists and Mormons alike—we find this one idea +of woman's inferiority, and her creation as a subject of man's +passions openly or covertly promulgated.</p> + +<p>The Salic law not only denied to women the right to reign, but to the +inheritance of houses and lands. One of its famous articles was: +"Salic land shall not fall to women; the inheritance shall devolve +exclusively on the males." The fact of sex not only prohibited woman's +inheritance of thrones and of lands, but there were forms in this law +by which a man might "separate himself from his family, getting free +from all obligations of relationship and entering upon an entire +independence." History does not tell us to what depths of degradation +this disseverance of all family ties reduced the women of his +household, who could neither inherit house or land. The formation of +the Salic code is still buried in the mists of antiquity; it is, +however, variously regarded as having originated in the fourth and in +the seventh century, many laws of its code being, like English common +law, unwritten, and others showing "double origin." But our interest +does not so greatly lie in its origin, as in the fact that after the +conversion of the Franks to Christianity the law was revised, and all +parts deemed inconsistent with this religion were revoked. The +restrictions upon woman were retained.</p> + +<p>Woman's wrongs under the Reformation, we discover by glancing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_775" id="Page_775">[Pg 775]</a></span> at +different periods. The Cromwellian era exhibited an increase of piety. +Puritanism here had its birth, but brought no element of toleration to +woman. Lydia Maria Child, in her "History of Woman," says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Under the Commonwealth society assumed a new and stern aspect. +Women were in disgrace; it was everywhere reiterated from the +pulpit that woman caused man's expulsion from Paradise, and ought +to be shunned by Christians as one of the greatest temptations of +Satan. "Man," said they, "is conceived in sin and brought forth +in iniquity; it was his complacency to woman that caused his +first debasement; let him not, therefore, glory in his shame; let +him not worship the fountain of his corruption." Learning and +accomplishments were alike discouraged; and women confined to a +knowledge of cooking, family medicines, and the unintelligible +theological discussions of the day.</p></blockquote> + +<p>A writer about this period, said: "She that knoweth how to compound a +pudding is more desirable than she who skillfully compoundeth a poem."</p> + +<p>At the time of the Reformation, Luther at first continued celibate, +but thinking "to vex the Pope," he suddenly, at the age of forty-two, +gave his influence against celibacy by marriage with Catherine Von +Bora, a former nun. But although thus becoming an example of priestly +marriage under the new order of things, Luther's whole course shows +that he did not believe in woman's equality with man. He took with him +the old theory of her subordination. It was his maxim that "no gown or +garment worse becomes a woman than that she will be wise." Although +opposing monastic life, the home under the reformation was governed by +many of its rules for woman.</p> + +<p><i>First</i>. She was to be under obedience to the masculine head of the +household.</p> + +<p><i>Second</i>. She was to be constantly employed for his benefit.</p> + +<p><i>Third</i>. Her society was strictly chosen for her by her master and +head.</p> + +<p><i>Fourth</i>. This masculine family head was a general father confessor, +to whom she was held responsible in thought and deed.</p> + +<p><i>Fifth</i>. Neither genius nor talent could free woman from such control, +without consent.</p> + +<p>Luther, though free from the lasciviousness of the old priesthood, was +not monogamic in principle. When applied to by the German Elector, +Philip,<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, for permission to marry a +second wife, while his first, Margaret of Savoy, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_776" id="Page_776">[Pg 776]</a></span> still living, +Luther called a synod of six of the principal reformers, who in joint +consultation decided that as the Bible nowhere condemned polygamy, and +as it had been invariably practiced by the highest dignitaries of the +Church, the required permission should be granted. History does not +tell us that the wife was consulted in the matter. She was held as in +general subordination to the powers that be, as well as in special +subordination to her husband; but more degrading than all else is the +fact that the doctrine of unchastity for man was brought into the +Reformation, as not inconsistent with the principles of the +Gospel.<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a></p> + +<p>Many Protestant divines have written in favor of polygamy. John Lyser, +a Lutheran minister, living in the latter part of the seventeenth +century, defended it strongly in a work entitled "Polygamia +Triumphatrix." A former general of the Capuchin Order, converted to +the Protestant faith, published, in the sixteenth century, a book of +"Dialogues in Favor of Polygamy." Rev. Mr. Madan, a Protestant divine, +in a treatise called "Thalypthora," maintained that Paul's injunctions +that bishops should be the husbands of one wife, signified that laymen +were permitted to marry more than one. The scholarly William Ellery +Channing could find no prohibition of polygamy in the New Testament. +In his "Remarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton," he +says: "We believe it to be an indisputable fact, that although +Christianity was first preached in Asia, which had been from the +earliest days the seat of polygamy, the apostles never denounced it as +a crime, and never required their converts to put away all wives but +one. No express prohibition of polygamy is found in the New +Testament." The legitimate result of such views is seen in Mormonism, +the latest Protestant sect, which claims its authority from the Bible +as well as from the Book of Mormon. We give the remarks recently made +in defence of polygamy by Bishop Lunt of the Mormon Church, to a +reporter of <i>The San Francisco Chronicle</i>:</p> + +<blockquote><p>God revealed to Joseph Smith the polygamous system. It is quite +true that his widow declared that no such revelation was ever +made, but that was because she had lost the spirit. God commanded +the human race to multiply and replenish the earth. Abraham had +two wives, and the Almighty honored the second one by a direct +communication, Jacob had Leah and Zilpah. David had a plurality +of wives, and was a man after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_777" id="Page_777">[Pg 777]</a></span> God's own heart. God gave him +Saul's wives, and only condemned his adulteries. Moses, Gideon, +and Joshua had each a plurality of wives. Solomon had wives and +concubines by hundreds, though we do not believe in the concubine +system. We leave that to the Gentiles. Virtue and chastity wither +beneath the monogamic institution, which was borrowed from the +pagan nations by the early Christians. It was prophesied that in +the latter days seven women would lay hold of one man and demand +to bear his name, that they might not be held in dishonor. The +Protestants and Catholics assail us with very poor grace when it +is remembered that the first pillars of the religion they claim +to profess were men like the saints of Utah—polygamists. The +fact can not be denied. Polygamy is virtually encouraged and +taught by example by the Old Testament. It may appear shocking +and blasphemous to Gentiles for us to say so, but we hold that +Jesus Christ himself was a polygamist. He was surrounded by women +constantly, as the Scriptures attest, and those women were His +polygamous wives. The vast disparity between the sexes in all +settled communities is another argument in favor of polygamy, to +say nothing of the disinclination among young male Gentiles to +marrying. The monogamic system condemns millions of women to +celibacy. A large proportion of them stray from the path of +right, and these unfortunates induce millions of men to forego +marriage. As I have said, virtue and chastity wither under the +monogamic system.</p> + +<p>There are no illegitimate children in Utah; there are no +libertines; there are no brothels, excepting where the presence +of Gentiles creates the demand for them. Even then our people do +what they can to root out such places. There is a positive +advantage in having more than one wife. It is impossible to find +a Gentile home, where comforts and plenty prevail, in which there +is only one woman. No one woman can manage a household. She must +have assistance. Hence we claim that when a man marries a second +wife, he actually benefits the first one, and contributes to her +ease, and relieves her of a large burden of care. The duties of +the household are divided between the two women, and everything +moves on harmoniously and peacefully. The whole thing is a matter +of education. A girl reared under the monogamic system may look +with abhorrence on ours; our young women do not do so. They +expect, when they marry a man, that he will some day take another +wife, and they consider it quite natural that he should do so. In +wealthy Gentile communities the concubine system largely takes +the place of the polygamous system. Any man of intelligence, +observation, and travel, knows that such is the case. The fact is +ignored by general consent, and little is said about it, and +nothing is written about it. It is not regarded as a proper +subject of conversation or of publication. How much better to +give lonely women a home while they are uncontaminated, and honor +them with your name, and perpetually provide for them, and before +the world recognize your own offspring! The polygamous system is +the only natural one, and the time rapidly approaches when it +will be the most conspicuous and beneficent of American +institutions. It will be the grand characteristic feature of +American society. Our women are contented with it—more, they are +the most ardent defenders of it to be found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_778" id="Page_778">[Pg 778]</a></span> in Utah. If the +question were put to a vote to-morrow, nine-tenths of the women +of Utah would vote to perpetuate polygamy.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The Mormons claim that polygamy is countenanced by the New Testament +as well as by the Old. They interpret Paul's teaching in regard to +bishops, while commanding them to marry one wife, as also not +prohibiting them from marrying more than one; their interpretation of +this passage slightly varying from that of Rev. Mr. Madan.</p> + +<p>Rev. C. P. Lyford, of the Methodist Church, long a resident of Utah, +in a letter of February 19, 1881, to <i>The Northern Christian +Advocate</i>, a Methodist paper published in Syracuse, says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>We read of the stories of India and China, and the wonder of +their existence is lost in their antiquity. Mohammedanism, with +its 1,200 years of existence, amazes us that it should have +obtained such a footing. But here, in our day, surrounded with +all the advantages of the nineteenth century, that a people +should have come up from nothing; that a man of low family, +himself a worthless character, should have come up with a lie in +his mouth and a stolen manuscript in his hand, and be found +dictating terms to a strong government, and become an absolute +despot in a republic, is the most amazing fact of history. It +took the Methodist Church forty years to get a membership of +138,000. Mormonism in forty-four years counted 250,000. It seems +incredible, nevertheless it is a fact. In this brief space of +time it has also been able to nullify our laws, oppose our +institutions, openly perpetrate crimes, be represented in +Congress, boast of the helplessness of the nation to prevent +these things, and give the Church supremacy over the State and +the people. Bills introduced in Congress adequate to their +overthrow have been year after year allowed to fall to the ground +without action upon them.</p> + +<p>Our public men can only pronounce against the crime of polygamy; +the press can see only polygamy in Utah; the public mind is +impressed with only the heinousness of polygamy. Back of polygamy +is the tree that produces it and many kindred evils more dear to +the Mormon rulers. They do not care for all the sentiment or law +against this one fruit of the tree, if the tree itself is left to +stand. The tree—the prolific cause of so many and so great evils +in Utah, the greatest curse of the territory, the strength of +Mormonism, and its impregnable wall of defence against +Christianity and civilization, is that arbitrary, despotic, and +absolute hierarchy known as the Mormon Priesthood.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Lyford has partial insight into the truth when he says "back of +polygamy is the tree that produces it and many kindred evils"; but in +defining that tree as the hierarchy—the priesthood—he has not +reached the entire truth. He does not touch the ground which supports +the tree. Polygamy is but one development of the doctrine of woman's +created inferiority, the constant tendency of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_779" id="Page_779">[Pg 779]</a></span> which is to make her a +mere slave, under every form of religion extant, and of which the +complex marriage of the Oneida Community was but another logical +result.</p> + +<p>When woman interprets the Bible for herself, it will be in the +interest of a higher morality, a purer home. Monogamy is woman's +doctrine, as polygamy is man's. Backofen, the Swiss jurist, says that +the regulation of marriage by which, in primitive times, it became +possible for a woman to belong only to one man, came about by a +religious reformation, wherein the women, in armed conflict, obtained +a victory over men.</p> + +<p>In Christian countries to-day, the restrictions on woman in the +married relation are much greater than upon man.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> Adultery, which +is polygamy outside of the married relation, is everywhere held as +more venial in man than in woman. In England, while the husband can +easily obtain a divorce from his wife, upon the ground of adultery, it +is almost impossible for the wife to obtain a divorce upon the same +ground. Nothing short of the husband's bringing another woman into the +house, to sustain wifely relations to him, at all justifies her in +proceeding for a separation; and even then, the husband retains +control of the wife's property. A trial<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> in England is scarcely +ended in which a husband willed his wife's property to his mistress +and illegitimate children. The courts not only decided in his favor, +but to this legal robbery of the wife, added the insult of telling her +that a part of her own money was enough for her, and that she ought to +be willing that her husband's mistress and illegitimate children +should share it with her.</p> + +<p>Milton's "Paradise Lost" is responsible for many existing views in +regard to woman. After the Reformation, as women began to waken to +literature, came Milton, a patriot of patriots—as patriots were held +in those days, a man who talked of liberty for men—but who held man +to stand in God's place toward woman. Although it has been affirmed +that in his blindness Milton dictated his great epic to his daughters, +and a Scotch artist has painted the scene (a picture recently +purchased by the Lenox Library), yet this is one of the myths men call +history, and amuse themselves in believing. This tale of blind Milton +dictating "Paradise Lost" to his daughters, is a trick<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> designed +to play upon our sympathies. Old Dr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_780" id="Page_780">[Pg 780]</a></span> Johnson said of Milton, that he +would not allow his daughters<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> even to learn to write. Between +Milton and his wives, we know there was tyranny upon one side and +hatred on the other. He could not gain the love of either wife or +daughter, and yet he is the man who did so much to popularize the idea +of woman's subordination to man. "He, for God; she, for God in +him"—as taught in the famous line: "God thy law, thou mine."</p> + +<p>That the clerical teaching of woman's subordination to man was not +alone a doctrine of the dark ages, is proven by the most abundant +testimony of to-day. The famous See trial of 1876, which shook not +only the Presbytery of Newark, but the whole Synod of New Jersey, and +finally, the General Presbyterian Assembly of the United States, was +based upon the doctrine of the divinely appointed subordination of +woman to man, and arose simply because Dr. See admitted two +ladies<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> to his pulpit to speak upon temperance; which act, Rev. +Dr. Craven, the prosecutor, declared to have been "an indecency in the +sight of Jehovah." He expressed the general clerical and Church view, +when he said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I believe the subject involves the honor of my God. I believe the +subject involves the headship and crown of Jesus. Woman was made +for man and became first in the transgression. My argument is +that subordination is natural, the subordination of sex. Dr. See +has admitted marital subordination, but this is not enough; there +exists a created subordination; a divinely arranged and appointed +subordination of woman as woman, to man as man. Woman was made +for man and became first in the transgression. The proper +condition of the adult female is marriage; the general rule for +ladies is marriage. Women without children, it might be said, +could preach, but they are under the general rule of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_781" id="Page_781">[Pg 781]</a></span> +subordination. It is not allowed women to speak in the Church. +Man's place is on the platform. It is positively base for a woman +to speak in the pulpit; it is base in the sight of Jehovah. The +whole question is one of subordination.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus, before a large audience composed mainly of women, Dr. Craven +stood, and with denunciatory manner, frequently bringing his fists or +his Bible emphatically down, devoted a four hours' speech to proving +that the Bible taught woman's subordination; one of his statements +being that "in every country, under every clime, from the peasant +woman of Naples with a handkerchief over her hair, to the women before +him with bonnets, every one wore something upon her head in token of +her subordination." Dr. Craven's position was fully sustained by many +brother clergymen, some of whom enthusiastically shouted "Amen!"</p> + +<p>Dr. Ballantine considered the subject too simple for an argument. Dr. +Few Smith, although he admired Miss Smiley, more than almost any other +orator he had ever listened to, did not want her or any other woman to +permanently occupy the Presbyterian pulpit. Dr. Wilson rejoiced to see +so many women crowding in the lecture-room; but Brother See should not +take all the glory to himself. He was glad to see the women take so +deep an interest in the subject under discussion; but as he looked at +them he asked himself, "What will all the little children do, while +these women are away from home?"<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p> + +<p>The Christianity of to-day thus continues to teach the existence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_782" id="Page_782">[Pg 782]</a></span> of a +superior and an inferior sex within the Church, possessing different +rights, and held accountable to a different code of morals, when even +woman's dress is held as typical of her inferiority. Not alone did Dr. +Craven express this idea, but the Right Rev. Dr. Coxe refused the +sacrament to the lady patients at the Clifton Springs Sanitarium in +1868, whose heads were uncovered. This same Right Rev. Dr. Coxe, in a +speech at his installation as first President of Ingham Seminary for +young ladies, declared "the laws of God to be plainly Salic."</p> + +<p>Rev. Knox-Little, a High-Church clergyman of England, spent a few +weeks in the United States during the fall of 1880. In the course of +his stay in Philadelphia he preached a "Sermon to Women," in the large +church of St. Clements. The following extract from the report in the +Times of that city shows its teachings:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"God made himself to be born of a woman to sanctify the virtue of +endurance; loving submission is an attribute of woman; men are +logical, but women lacking this quality, have an intricacy of +thought. There are those who think women can be taught logic; +this is a mistake. They can never by any power of education +arrive at the same mental status as that enjoyed by men, but they +have a quickness of apprehension, which is usually called leaping +at conclusions, that is astonishing. There, then, we have +distinctive traits of a woman, namely, endurance, loving +submission, and quickness of apprehension. Wifehood is the +crowning glory of a woman. In it she is bound for all time. To +her husband she owes the duty of unqualified obedience. There is +no crime which a man can commit which justifies his wife in +leaving him or applying for that monstrous thing, divorce. It is +her duty to subject herself to him always, and no crime that he +can commit can justify her lack of obedience. If he be a bad or +wicked man she may gently remonstrate with him, but refuse him +never. Let divorce be anathema; curse it; curse this accursed +thing, divorce; curse it, curse it! Think of the blessedness of +having children. I am the father of many children and there have +been those who have ventured to pity me, 'Keep your pity for +yourself,' I have replied. 'They never cost me a single pang.' In +this matter let woman exercise that endurance and loving +submission which with intricacy of thought are their only +characteristics."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such a sermon as the above, preached to woman, under the fall blaze of +nineteenth century civilization, needs few comments. In it woman's +inferiority and subordination are as openly asserted as at any time +during the dark ages. According to Rev. Knox-Little, woman possesses +no responsibility; she is deprived of conscience, intelligent thought, +self-respect, and is simply an appendage to man, a thing. As the +clergy in the middle ages divided rights into those of persons and +things, themselves being the persons, the laity, things, so the Rev. +Knox-Little and his ilk of to-day divide the world into persons and +things,—men being the persons and women the things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_783" id="Page_783">[Pg 783]</a></span></p> + +<p>It should require but little thought upon woman's part to see how +closely her disabilities are interwoven with present religious belief +as to her inferiority and pre-destined subordination. If she needs aid +to thought, the Knox-Littles will help her. Have protests against his +blasphemous doctrine been made by his brother clergymen? Not one. Has +a single church denied his degrading theory? Not one. He has been +allowed in this sermon to stand as the representative, not only of +High-Church theology in regard to woman, but as expressing the belief +of all churches in her creation and existence as an inferior and +appendage to man.</p> + +<p>There is scarcely a Protestant sect that has not, within a few years, +in some way, placed itself upon record in regard to woman's +subordination. The Pan-Presbyterian Council that assembled in +Edinburgh a few years since, refused to admit a woman even as a +listener to its proceedings, although women constitute at least +two-thirds of the membership of that Church. A solitary woman who +persisted in remaining to listen to the discussions of this body, was +removed by force; "six stalwart Presbyterians" lending their ungentle +aid to her ejection. The same Pan-Presbyterian body when in session in +Philadelphia in the summer of 1880, laughed to scorn the suggestion of +a liberal member, that the status of woman in the Church should +receive some consideration. The speaker referred to the Sisters of +Charity in the Catholic Church, and to the position of woman among the +Quakers; but although the question was twice introduced, it was as +often met with derisive laughter, and no action was taken upon it. A +vote of the New England Society of Friends at their meeting in +Newport, 1878, proves that as liberal as they have been considered +toward woman, even they have not in the past held her as upon a plane +of perfect equality. This body voted that hereafter "women shall be +eligible to office in the management of the Society, shall sign all +conveyances of real estate made by the Society, and shall be +considered equal to the opposite sex."</p> + +<p>The Congregational Church is placed upon record through laws governing +certain of its bodies:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"By the word 'church' is meant the adult males duly admitted and +retained in the First Evangelical Congregational Church in +Cambridgeport, present at any regular meeting of said church and +voting by a majority."<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a></p></blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_784" id="Page_784">[Pg 784]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the Unitarian and Universalist churches, which ordain women to +preach and administer the ordinances, these women pastors are made to +feel that the innovation is not universally acceptable.</p> + +<p>The Methodist Church, professing to stand upon a broad basis, still +refuses to ordain its most influential women preachers, and, within +the year, has even deprived them of license, though one of them<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> +has brought more converts to the Church than a dozen of its most +influential bishops during the same period. To such bitter lengths has +the opposition to woman's ordination been carried, that a certain +reverend gentlemen, in debating the subject, declared that he would +oppose the admission of the mother of our Lord into the ministry, the +debate taking on a most unseemly form. The <i>Syracuse Sunday Morning +Courier</i> of March 4, 1877, reported this debate as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="heading">WOMEN AS PREACHERS.</p> + +<p>The subject of permitting women to preach in Methodist pulpits +was incidentally, but rather racily discussed at the Methodist +ministers' meeting in New York city a few days since. A Miss +Oliver—a more or less reverend lady—had been invited to preach +to the ministers at their next meeting, and the question was +raised, by what authority she was invited? Thereupon Brother +Buckley took the floor and gave expression to his dissent in the +following terms:</p> + +<p>I am opposed to inviting any woman to preach before this meeting. +If the mother of our Lord were on earth I should oppose her +preaching here. [Sensation and murmurs of disapproval]. Oh, I do +not mind that, I like at the beginning of a speech to find that +there are two sides to my question. There is no power in the +Methodist Church by which a woman can be licensed to preach; this +is history, this is the report made at the last General +Conference. It is, therefore, not legal for any quarterly +conference to license a woman to preach, nevertheless here is a +woman who claims to have such a license, and we are asked to +invite her to preach.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Brother</span>: We have the right!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Brother Buckley</span>: Oh, you have the right to believe the moon is +made of green cheese, but yet have no right to commit the +ministers of this city on an unsettled Church question. [Laughter +and applause]. The tendency of men—now here is a chance to +hiss—the tendency of men to endeavor to force female preachers +on the Church, and the desire to run after female preachers, is, +as Dr. Finney said to the students at Oberlin, an aberration of +amativeness. [Roars of laughter and applause]. When men are moved +by women, then by men under the same circumstances, it is +certainly due to an aberration of amativeness. [Applause and +more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_785" id="Page_785">[Pg 785]</a></span> laughter]. For some time the male and female students at +Oberlin used to have their prayer-meetings together, but after a +time they divided, and the young men complained to Dr. Finney +that the Holy Ghost no longer came with equal force. Dr. Finney +said this showed amativeness, or that the men were back-sliding. +[Applause].</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Brother Dickinson</span>: As to the talk of amativeness, what about our +holiness meetings and seaside meetings, where we go to hear +woman, and to be moved by her words and her personality? +[Applause]. Why are there so many women in the Church? It must be +amativeness which urges them to go and hear men preach. +[Laughter].</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Roach</span>: If this meeting has any dignity, has any Christian +intelligence, has any weight of character, it ought not to take +this action. [Laughter]. What wildness, what fanaticism, what +strange freaks will we not take on next? [Laughter and applause].</p> + +<p>Brother McAllister and others took part in the discussion, and +finally, amid cries of "Motion," "Question," points of order, and +the utmost confusion, the question was put, and the meeting +refused to invite Miss Oliver to preach by a vote of 46 to 38. +The result was received with ejaculations of "Amen" and "Thank +God" and "God bless Brother Buckley." The Chair announced that +Brother Kittrell will preach next Monday on "Entire +Satisfaction," and the meeting adjourned.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Miss Oliver appealed to the General Conference of the Methodist +Episcopal Church in session in Cincinnati, May, 1880, for full +installment and ordination. In this appeal she said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I am so thoroughly convinced that the Lord has laid commands upon +me in this direction, that it becomes with me a question of my +own soul's salvation. I have passed through tortures to which the +flames of martyrdom would be nothing, for they would end in a +day; and through all this time, and to-day, I could turn off to +positions of comparative ease and profit. I ask you, fathers and +brethren, tell me what you would do in my place? Tell me what you +would wish the Church to do toward you, were you in my place? +Please apply the golden rule, and vote in Conference accordingly.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As answer to this appeal, and in reply to all women seeking the +ministry of that Church, the Conference passed the following +resolution:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That women have already all the rights and privileges +in the Methodist Church that are good for them, and that it is +not expedient to make any change in the books of discipline that +would open the doors for their ordination to the ministry.<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></p></blockquote> + +<p>An Episcopal Church Convention meeting in Boston in the summer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_786" id="Page_786">[Pg 786]</a></span> of +1877, busied itself in preparing canons upon marriage and divorce, +thus aiming to reach the finger of the Protestant Church down to a +control of this most private family relation. The Diocesan Convention +of South Carolina, in the spring of 1878, denied women the right to +vote upon Church matters, although some churches in the diocese +counted but five male members.</p> + +<p>Not alone in her request for ordination has woman met with opposition, +but in her effort for any separate church work. The formation of +woman's foreign missionary societies was bitterly opposed by the +different evangelical denominations, although they have raised more +money than the male societies have ever been able to do—even helping +them pay old debts—and have reached large classes of their own sex +whom the male societies were powerless to touch. By thus supplementing +men's work, they have made themselves acceptable.</p> + +<p>Not only do councils, convocations, conferences, conventions, synods, +and assemblies proclaim woman's inferiority, but Sunday-schools teach +the same doctrine. A letter from a correspondent of <i>The National +Citizen and Ballot-Box</i> (Syracuse, N. Y.), in August, 1880, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Our Sunday-schools here have just finished the lesson on the +creation and fall of man, and those of us who are capable of +feeling, felt keenly the thrusts at woman for her infidelity to +God's laws, and her overpowering influence in dragging man from +his exalted position in life into a bondage of sin and death, and +that she is to be held responsible for all the accumulated sins +of the ages. One man said that "had not Eve been <i>lurking</i> around +where she had no business, the devil would never have tempted +her." Another said, "Had it not been for woman, we might to-day +be living in ease and splendor," and I listened to hear them say +the fallen angel was a woman.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This same doctrine is taught in the public schools. <i>The Republican</i>, +of Havre de Grace, Maryland, in its issue of August 6, 1880, gave the +following report of a speech at that time:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Thus spoke Master Showell at the Berlin (Wicomico County) +High-School commencement: "By woman was Eden lost and man cursed. +If you trust her, give up all hopes of heaven. She can not love, +because she is too selfish. She may have a fancy, but that is +fleeting. Her smiles are deceit; her vows are traced in sand. She +is a thread of candor with a web of wiles. Her charity is +hypocrisy; she is deception every way—hair, teeth, complexion, +heart, tongue, and all. Oh, I hate you, ye cold composition of +art!"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Sermons are frequently preached in opposition to woman's demand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_787" id="Page_787">[Pg 787]</a></span> for +equality of right in Church and State. On the Sunday following the +Thirtieth Anniversary Woman Suffrage Convention, held in Rochester, +1878, the Rev. A. H. Strong, D.D., President of the Baptist +Theological Seminary of that city, preached upon "Woman's Place and +Work," saying:</p> + +<blockquote><p>In the very creation of mankind in the garden of beauty, God +ordained the subordination of woman.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This president of a theological seminary, where Christian theology is +taught to embryo Christian ministers, said that woman's subordination +would be most perfectly seen in the "Christian humility and gentleness +and endurance of her character, and in her indisposition to assume the +place or do the work of man," forgetting, apparently, that +subordination, humility, and endurance are precisely the qualities +which tend to destroy nobleness of character.</p> + +<p>The sermon was especially directed against the following resolutions +of this Convention, which throughout the country met much clerical +criticism and opposition:</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That as the duty of every individual is +self-development, the lessons of self-sacrifice and obedience +taught women by the Christian Church have been fatal, not only to +her own highest interests, but through her have also dwarfed and +degraded the race.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the fundamental principle of the Protestant +Reformation, the right of individual conscience and judgment in +the interpretation of Scripture, heretofore conceded to and +exercised by man alone, should now be claimed by woman, and that +in her most vital interests she should no longer trust authority, +but be guided by her own reason.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That it is through the perversion of the religious +element in woman, cultivating the emotions at the expense of her +reason, playing upon her hopes and fears of the future, holding +this life, with all its high duties, forever in abeyance to that +which is to come, that she, and the children she has trained, +have been so completely subjugated by priestcraft and +superstition.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Professor Christlieb, a distinguished German clergyman who was in +attendance upon the Evangelical Alliance in New York, a few years +since, expressed severe condemnation of the marriage relation as he +saw it in this country. His criticism is a good exemplification of the +general religious view taken of woman's relation to man. After his +return to Germany, a young American student called, it is related, +upon the professor with a note of introduction, and was cordially +received by the German, who, while he praised this country, expressed +much solicitude about its future. On being asked his reasons, he +frankly expressed his opinion that "the Spirit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_788" id="Page_788">[Pg 788]</a></span> Christ" was not +here, and proceeded to illustrate his meaning. He seriously declared +that on more than one occasion he had heard an American woman say to +her husband, "Dear, will you bring me my shawl?" and the husband had +brought it! Worse than this, he had seen a husband, returning home at +evening, enter the parlor where his wife was sitting—perhaps in the +very best chair in the room—and the wife not only did not go and get +his slippers and dressing-gown, but she even remained seated, and left +him to find a chair as he could. In the view of this noted German +clergyman, the principles of the wife's equality with the husband, as +shown in the American home, is destructive of Christian +principles.<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a></p> + +<p>Clerical action to-day, proves woman to hold the same place in the +eyes of the Church that she did during the dark ages. Woman is as +fully degraded, taking into consideration our civilization, as she +ever was. The form alone has changed. She is no longer burned at the +stake as a witch; she is no longer prostituted to feudal lords. The +age has outgrown a belief in the supernatural, and feudalism is dead; +yet the same principle which degraded her five hundred or a thousand +years since, still exists, even though its manifestation is not the +same. The feminine principle is still looked upon as secondary and +inferior,<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> though all the facts of nature and science prove it to +extend throughout creation.</p> + +<p>It is through the Church idea of woman that the press of the world is +filled with scandals like the one that recently agitated the Romish +Church, in which the dead Cardinal Antonelli's name was bandied about +in courts of law. It is through Church interpretation of woman's +position that the suit of his putative daughter, the Countess +Lambertina, for his property, was decided against her on the ground +that she was "a sacrilegious child." The person who commits sacrilege +steals sacred things. "Sacrilegious" means violating sacred things. "A +sacrilegious child" is a child who "violated sacred things" by coming +into existence. Her father was holy; he did not violate holy things +when he violated and ruined a woman's life. He committed no sacrilege +in the eyes of the Church. His sin was nothing; but the unfortunate +result of his sin was a violation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_789" id="Page_789">[Pg 789]</a></span> of holy things by the mere fact of +her coming into existence. What irony of all that is called holy!</p> + +<p>It is because the Church has taught that woman was created solely for +man, that in tearing asunder a recent will in New York, it was proven +that the husband, indebted though he was to his wife for the beginning +of his vast fortune, incarcerated her while sane in a lunatic asylum, +because she objected to his practical polygamy by his introduction of +a mistress into the family.</p> + +<p>Political despotism has now its strongest hold in the theory of +woman's created subordination. Woman has been legislated for as a +class, and not as a human being upon a basis of equality with man, but +as an inferior to whom a different code was applicable.</p> + +<p>Our recent Secretary of State, William M. Evarts, when counsel in the +Beecher-Tilton trial, defined woman's legal and theological position +as that of subordination to man, declaring that notwithstanding +changing customs and the amenities of modern life, women were not +free, but were held in the hollow of man's hand, to be crushed at his +will.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Then Mr. Evarts read from various legal authorities instances and +opinions bearing upon the subjugation of weak wives by strong +husbands, the gist of them being that confessions of guilt +obtained by such husbands from such wives are not entitled to +great weight. He continued:</p> + +<p class="heading">RECOGNIZING THE PRINCIPLES OF MARRIAGE.</p> + +<p>This institution of marriage, framed in our nature, built up in +our civilization, studied, contemplated, understood by the +jurisprudence of ages, is a solid and real institution, and for +its great benefits, and as a necessary part of them, it carries +not only the fact of the wife's subordination to the husband, but +of the merciful interpretation of that subordination<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> which +sensible, instructed men ever accord in practical life, and which +the judges pronounce from the bench, and the juries confirm by +their verdicts. Now, gentlemen, you may think that is our +advanced civilization, when so much of independence is assumed +for women, and such entire equality is accorded to them in +feeling and in sentiment by their husbands and by the world, that +the old rule of the common law interpreting this institution of +marriage, by which a wife was never held responsible to the law, +or subject to punishment for any crime committed in the presence +or under the influence of her husband, was one of those traits of +human nature belonging to ruder ages and to past times; but, +gentlemen, in our own Court of Appeals, and in the highest +tribunals of England,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_790" id="Page_790">[Pg 790]</a></span> within the last few years, there is an +explicit recognition of these principles.</p> + +<p>Mr. Evarts cited an English case in which a wife, who +participated in a robbery under the guidance of her husband, was +acquitted on the ground that she was irresponsible; and he added +an argument that the principle of law involved was correct. Then +he called attention to a recent case in this State, which he held +was a confirmation of the same sound theory.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The teachings of the Church that it was sinful for woman to use her +own reason, to think for herself, to question authority, thus +fettering her will, together with a false interpretation of Scripture, +have been the instruments to hold her, body and soul, in a slavery +whose depths of degradation can never be fathomed, whose indescribable +tortures can never be understood by man.</p> + +<p>Not only has woman suffered in the Church, in society, under the laws, +and in the family by this theological degradation of her sex, but in +science and literature she has met a like fate. Hypatia, who succeeded +her father, Theon, in the government of the Alexandrian school, and +whose lectures were attended by the wisest men of Europe, Asia, and +Africa, was torn in pieces by a Christian mob afraid of her learning.</p> + +<p>A monument erected to Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay, as "Patroness of +Liberty," was removed from the Church by order of its rector. Harriet +Martineau met the most strenuous opposition from bishops in her effort +to teach the poor; her day-schools and even her Sunday-schools were +broken up by clerical influence. Madam Pepe-Carpentier, founder of the +French system of primary instruction, of whom Froebel caught his +kindergarten idea, found her labors interrupted, and her life harassed +by clerical opposition.</p> + +<p>Mary Somerville, the most eminent English mathematician of this +century, was publicly denounced in church by Dean Cockburn, of York; +and when George Eliot died a few weeks since, her lifeless remains +were refused interment in Westminster Abbey, where so many inferior +authors of the privileged sex lie buried; the grave even not covering +man's efforts toward the degradation of woman.</p> + +<p>When Susannah Wesley dared to conduct religious services in her own +house, and to pray for the king, contrary to her husband's wishes, he +separated from her in consequence. The husband of Annie Besant left +her because she dared to investigate the Scriptures for herself, and +was sustained by the courts in taking from her the control of her +little daughter, simply because the mother thought best not to train +her in a special religious belief, but to allow her to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_791" id="Page_791">[Pg 791]</a></span> wait until her +reason developed, that she might decide her religious views for +herself. A woman writing in the "Woman's Kingdom" department of The +<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean</i>, says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The orthodox Church has been almost suicidal in its treatment of +women (and I write as one whose name still stands on the +membership list of the Presbyterian Church). Persons who have not +walked with wounded, lacerated hearts through the terrible +realities, can form no idea of the suffering occasioned young +women whose conscience summoned them to speak for temperance and +woman suffrage, by the persecutions encountered in the Church. We +have known clergymen come straight from the pulpit where they +have talked eloquently of "moral courage," of the heroism of +Martin Luther and Calvin and Wesley, and even of Garrison and +Harriet Beecher Stowe, to meet with a sneer some brave young +woman, who, with the same moral courage was proclaiming the truth +as revealed unto her. Our young women have been denied admittance +into theological schools; they have been compelled to go out into +the by-ways and hedges; they have been persecuted for +righteousness' sake. The Church has decreed that two-thirds of +its members shall be governed by the masculine one-third; but +despite this decision, woman will preach and the world will +listen.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Not only has woman recognized her own degradation, but the +largest-hearted men have also seen it. Thomas W. Higginson, in an +address at the anniversary of the Young Men's Christian Union, in New +York City, as long ago as 1858, in an address upon women in Christian +civilization, said:</p> + +<blockquote><p>No man can ever speak of the position of woman so mournfully as +she has done it for herself. Charlotte Bronté, Caroline Norton, +and indeed the majority of intellectual women, from the beginning +to the end of their lives, have touched us to sadness even in +mirth, and the mournful memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, looking back +upon years when she had been the chief intellectual joy of +English society, could only deduce the hope, "that there might be +some other world hereafter, where justice would be done to +woman."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The essayist, E. P. Whipple, in a recent speech before the Papyrus +Club of Boston, said of George Eliot:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The great masculine creators and delineators of human character, +Homer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Göethe, Scott, and the rest, cheer +and invigorate us even in the vivid representation of our common +humanity in its meanest, most stupid, most criminal forms. Now +comes a woman endowed not only with their large discourse of +reason, their tolerant views of life, and their intimate +knowledge of the most obscure recesses of the human heart and +brain, but with a portion of that rich, imaginative humor which +softens the savageness of the serious side of life by a quick +perception of its ludicrous side, and the result of her survey of +life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_792" id="Page_792">[Pg 792]</a></span> is, that she depresses the mind, while the men of genius +animate it, and that she saddens the heart, while they fill it +with hopefulness and joy. I do not intend to solve a problem so +complicated as this, but I would say, as some approach to an +explanation, that this remarkable woman was born under the wrath +and curse of what our modern philosophers call "heredity." She +inherited the results of man's dealings with woman during a +thousand generations of their life together.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Contempt for woman, the result of clerical teaching, is shown in +myriad forms. Wife-beating is still so common, even in America, that a +number of the States have of late introduced bills especially directed +to the punishment of the wife-beater. Great surprise is frequently +shown by these men when arrested. "Is she not my wife?" is cried in +tones proving the brutal husband had been trained to consider this +relationship a sufficient justification for any abuse.</p> + +<p>In England, wives are still occasionally led to the market by a halter +around the neck to be sold by the husband to the highest bidder.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> +George Borrow, in his singular narrative, "The Rommany Rye," says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The sale of a wife with a halter around her neck is still a legal +transaction in England. The sale must be made in the cattle +market, as if she were a mare, "all women being considered as +mares by old English law, and indeed called 'mares' in certain +counties where genuine old English is still preserved."</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is the boast of America and Europe that woman holds a higher +position in the world of work under Christianity than under pagandom. +Heathen treatment of woman in this respect often points the moral and +adorns the tale of returned missionaries, who are apparently forgetful +that servile labor<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> of the severest and most degrading character +is performed by Christian women in highly Christian countries. In +Germany, where the Reformation had its first inception, woman carries +a hod of mortar up steep ladders to the top of the highest buildings; +or, with a coal basket strapped to her back, climbs three or four +flights of stairs, her husband remaining at the foot, pipe in mouth, +awaiting her return to load the hod or basket, that she may make +another ascent, the payment for her work going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_793" id="Page_793">[Pg 793]</a></span> into the husband's +hands for his uncontrolled use. Or mayhap this German wife works in +the field harnessed by the side of a cow, while her husband-master +holds the plough and wields the whip. Or perhaps, harnessed with a +dog, she serves the morning's milk, or drags her husband home from +work at night.</p> + +<p>In France women act as porters, carrying the heaviest burdens and +performing the most repulsive labors at the docks, while eating food +of so poor a quality that the lessening stature of the population +daily shows the result. In Holland and Prussia women drag barges on +the canal, and perform the most repulsive agricultural duties. On the +Alps<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> husbands borrow and lend their wives, one neighbor not +scrupling to ask the loan of another's wife to complete some farming +task, which loan is readily granted, with the understanding that the +favor is to be returned in kind. In England, scantily clothed women +work by the side of nude men in coal pits, and, harnessed to trucks, +perform the severe labor of dragging coal up inclined planes to the +mouth of the pit, a work testing every muscle and straining every +nerve, and so severe that the stoutest men shrink from it; while their +degradation in brick-yards and iron mines has commanded the attention +of philanthropists and legislators.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a></p> + +<p>A gentleman recently travelling in Ireland blushes for his sex when he +sees the employments of women, young and old. They are patient +drudges, staggering over the bogs with heavy creels of turf on their +backs, or climbing the slopes from the seashore, laden like beasts of +burden with the heavy sand-dripping seaweed, or undertaking long +journeys on foot into the market towns, bearing weighty hampers of +farm produce. In Montenegro, women form the beasts of burden in war, +and are counted among the "animals" belonging to the prince. In Italy, +that land which for centuries led the world in art, women work in +squalor and degradation under the shadow of St. Peter's and the +Vatican for four-pence a day; while in America, under the Christianity +of the nineteenth century, until within twenty years, she worked on +rice and cotton plantations waist-deep in water, or under a burning +sun performed the tasks demanded by a cruel master, at whose hands she +also suffered the same kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_794" id="Page_794">[Pg 794]</a></span> of moral degradation exacted of the serf +under feudalism. In some portions of Christendom the "service"<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> of +young girls to-day implies their sacrifice to the Moloch of man's +unrestrained passions.</p> + +<p>Augustine, in his work, "The City of God," taunts Rome with having +caused her own downfall. He speaks of her slaves, miserable men, put +to labors only fit for the beasts of the field, degraded below them; +their condition had brought Rome to its own destruction. If such +wrongs contributed to the overthrow of Rome, what can we not predict +of the Christian civilization which, in the twentieth century of its +existence, degrades its Christian women to labors fit only for the +beasts of the field; harnessing them with dogs to do the most menial +labors; which drags them below even this, holding their womanhood up +to sale, putting both Church and State sanction upon their moral +death; which, in some places, as in the city of Berlin, so far +recognizes the sale of women's bodies for the vilest purposes as part +of the Christian religion, that license for this life is refused until +they have partaken of the Sacrament; and which demands of the "10,000 +licensed women of the town" of the city of Hamburg, certificates +showing that they regularly attend church and also partake of the +sacrament?</p> + +<p>A civilization which even there has not reached its lowest depths, but +which has created in England, as a result of its highest Christian +civilization, a class of women under the protection of the State, +known as "Queen's women," or "Government women," with direct purpose +of more fully protecting man in his departure from the moral law, and +which makes woman the hopeless slave of man's lowest nature; a system +not confined to England, but already in practice in France, in Italy, +in Switzerland, in Germany, and nearly every country in Europe. A +system of morality which declares "the necessity" of woman's +degradation, and which annually sends its tens of thousands down to a +death from which society grants no resurrection.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_795" id="Page_795">[Pg 795]</a></span></p> + +<p>In a letter to the National Woman's Suffrage Convention, held at St. +Louis, May, 1879, upon this condition of Licensed Vice, from Josephine +E. Butler, Hon. Secretary of the Federation and the Ladies' National +Association for the Protection of Women; a society which has its +branches over Europe, and has for years been actively at work against +this last most hideous form of slavery for women, Mrs. Butler says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>England holds a peculiar position in regard to the question. She +was the last to adopt this system of slavery, and she adopted it +in that thorough manner which characterizes the actions of the +Anglo-Saxon race. In no other country has prostitution been +regulated by law. It has been understood by the Latin races, even +when morally enervated, that the law could not without risk of +losing its majesty and force sanction illegality and violate +justice. In England alone the regulations are law.</p> + +<p>This legalization of vice, which is the endorsement of the +"necessity" of impurity for man and the institution of the +slavery of woman, is the most open denial which modern times have +seen of the principle of the sacredness of the individual human +being. An English high-class journal dared to demand that women +who are unchaste shall henceforth be dealt with "not as human +beings, but as foul sewers," or some such "material nuisance" +without souls, without rights, and without responsibility. When +the leaders of public opinion in a country have arrived at such a +point of combined skepticism and despotism as to recommend such a +manner of dealing with human beings, there is no crime which that +country may not presently legalize, there is no organization of +murder, no conspiracy of abominable things that it may not, and +in due time will not—have been found to embrace in its guilty +methods. Were it possible to secure the absolute physical health +of a whole province or an entire continent by the destruction of +one, only one poor and sinful woman, woe to that nation which +should dare, by that single act of destruction, to purchase this +advantage to the many! It will do it at its peril. God will take +account of the deed not in eternity only, but in time, it may be +in the next or even in the present generation.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The fact of governments lending their official aid to the +demoralization of woman by the registration system, shows an utter +debasement of law. This system is directly opposed to the fundamental +principle of right, that of holding the accused innocent until proven +guilty, which until now has been recognized as a part of modern law. +Under the registration or license system, all women within the radius +of its action are under suspicion; all women are held as morally +guilty until they prove themselves innocent. Where this law is in +force, all women are under an irresponsible police surveillance, +liable to accusation, arrest, examination, imprisonment, and the +entrance of their names upon the list of the lewd women of a town. +Upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_796" id="Page_796">[Pg 796]</a></span> this frightful infraction of justice, we have the sentiments of +Sheldon Amos, Professor of Jurisprudence in the Law College of London +University. In "The Science of Law," he says, in reference to this +very wrong:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The loss of liberty to the extent to which it exists, implies a +degradation of the State, and, if persisted in, can only lead to +its dissolution. No person or class of persons must be under the +cringing fear of having imputed to them offences of which they +are innocent, and of being taken into custody in consequence of +such imputation. They must not be liable to be detained in +custody without so much as a <i>prima facie</i> case being made out, +such as in the opinion of a responsible judicial officer leaves a +presumption of guilt. They must not be liable to be detained for +an indefinite time without having the question of their guilt or +innocence investigated by the best attainable methods. When the +fact comes to be inquired into, the best attainable methods of +eliciting the truth must be used. In default of any one of these +securities, <i>public liberty</i> must be said to be proportionately +at a very low ebb.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Great effort has been made to introduce this system into the United +States, and a National Board of Health, created by Congress in 1879, +is carefully watched in its action, lest its irresponsible powers lead +to its encroachment upon the liberties and personal rights of woman. A +resolution adopted March 2, 1881, at a meeting of the New York +Committee appointed to thwart the effort to license vice in this +country, shows the need of its watchful care.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Resolved</i>, That this committee has learned with much regret and +apprehension of the action of the American Public Health +Association, at its late annual meeting in New Orleans, in +adopting a sensational report commending European governmental +regulation of prostitution, and looking to the introduction in +this country, with modifications, through the medium of State +legislative enactments and municipal ordinances, of a kindred +immoral system of State-regulated social vice.</p></blockquote> + +<p>From all these startling facts in Church and State we see that our +government and religion are alike essentially masculine in their +origin and development. All the evils that have resulted from +dignifying one sex and degrading the other may be traced to this +central error: a belief in a trinity of masculine Gods in One, from +which the feminine element is wholly eliminated.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> And yet in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_797" id="Page_797">[Pg 797]</a></span> +Scriptural account of the simultaneous creation of man and woman, the +text plainly recognizes the feminine as well as the masculine element +in the Godhead, and declares the equality of the sexes in goodness, +wisdom, and power. Genesis i. 26, 27: "And God said: let us make man +<i>in our own, image, after our own likeness</i>.... So God created man in +His own image; in the image of God created He him; <i>male</i> and <i>female</i> +created He <span class="smcap">them</span>.... And gave them dominion over the fish of the sea, +and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth +upon the earth."</p> + +<p>While woman's subordination is taught as a Scriptural doctrine, the +most devout and learned biblical scholars of the present day admit +that the Bible has suffered many interpolations in the course of the +centuries. Some of these have doubtless occurred through efforts to +render certain passages clearer, while others have been forged with +direct intention to deceive. Disraeli says that the early English +editions contain 6,000 errors, which were constantly introduced, and +passages interpolated for sectarian purposes, or to sustain new +creeds. Sometimes, indeed, they were added for the purpose of +destroying all Scriptural authority by the suppression of texts. <i>The +Church Union</i> says of the present translation, that there are more +than 7,000 variations from the received Hebrew text, and more than +150,000 from the received Greek text.</p> + +<p>These 7,000 variations in the Old Testament and 150,000 in the New +Testament, are very significant facts. The oldest manuscripts of the +New Testament are the Alexandrine Codex, known since the commencement +of the seventeenth century, and believed to date back to the middle of +the fifth century, the Sinaitic, and the Vatican Codices, each +believed to have been executed about the middle of the fourth century. +The Sinaitic Codex was discovered by Professor Tischendorf, a German +scholar, at a monastery upon Mt. Sinai, in fragments, and at different +periods from 1848 to 1859, a period of eleven years elapsing from his +discovery of the first fragment until he secured the last one. The +Vatican Codex has been in the Vatican library since its foundation, +but it has been inaccessible to scholars until very recently. It is +not known from whence it came or by whom executed, but is deemed the +oldest and most authentic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_798" id="Page_798">[Pg 798]</a></span> copy of the Bible extant. As these oldest +codices only date to the middle of the fourth century, we have no +record of the New Testament, in its present form, for the first three +hundred and fifty years of this era.</p> + +<p>A commission of eminent scholars has been engaged for the past eleven +years upon a revision of the Bible. The New Testament portion is now +about ready for the public, but so great and so many are its +diversities from the old version, that it is prophesied the orthodox +church will be torn by disputes between adherents of the old and the +new, while those anxious for the truth, touch where it may, will be +honestly in doubt if either one is to be implicitly trusted. Various +comments and inquiries in regard to this revision have already +appeared in the press.<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> The oldest codices do not contain many +texts we have learned to look upon as especially holy. Portions of the +Sermon on the Mount are not in these old manuscripts, a proof of their +interpolation to serve the purpose of some one at a later date. In the +same way additions have been made to the Lord's Prayer. Neither of +these manuscripts contain the story of the woman taken in adultery, as +narrated John viii. 1-11, so often quoted as proof of the divine mercy +of Jesus. A letter upon this so long accepted story, from the eminent +scholar, Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., a member of the revisory +commission, will be read with interest:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Mrs. M. J. Gage</span>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madame</span>:—The passage in John viii. 1-11, is <i>not</i> in the +Alexandrian, nor is it in the Sinaitic, Vatican, and Ephraim +Codices. It is found in twelve uncials (though marked <i>doubtful</i> +in five of these) and in over 300 cursives.</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">Yours very truly,</p> +<p class="ltr-from">Howard Crosby.</p> +<p class="ltr-to">116 East 19th, N. Y., <i>March 14, '81</i>.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The world still asks, What is Truth? A work has recently been +published entitled, "The Christian Religion to <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 200." It is the +fruit of several-years' study of a period upon which the Church has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_799" id="Page_799">[Pg 799]</a></span> +but little record. It finds no evidence of the existence of the New +Testament in its present form during that time; neither does it find +evidence that the Gospels in their present form date from the lives of +their professed authors. All Biblical scholars acknowledge that the +world possesses no record or tradition of the original manuscripts of +the New Testament, and that to attempt to reestablish the old text is +hopeless. No reference by writers to any part of the New Testament as +authoritative is found earlier than the third century (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 202). The +first collection, or canon, of the New Testament was prepared by the +Synod or Council of Laodicea in the fourth century (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 360). It +entirely omitted the Book of Revelation from the list of sacred works. +This book has met a similar fate from many sources, not being printed +in the Syriac Testament as late as 1562.</p> + +<p>Amid this vast discrepancy in regard to the truth of the Scriptures +themselves; with no Hebrew manuscript older than the twelfth century; +with no Greek one older than the fourth; with the acknowledgment by +scholars of 7,000 errors in the Old Testament, and 150,000 in the New; +with assurance that these interpolations and changes have been made by +men in the interest of creeds, we may well believe that the portions +of the Bible quoted against woman's equality are but interpolations of +an unscrupulous priesthood, for the purpose of holding her in +subjection to man.</p> + +<p>Amid this conflict of authority over texts of Scripture we have been +taught to believe divinely inspired, destroying our faith in doctrines +heretofore declared essential to salvation, how can we be sure that +the forthcoming version of the Bible from the masculine revisers of +our day will be more trustworthy than those which have been accepted +as of Divine origin in the past?</p> + +<blockquote><p class="break">This chapter is condensed from the writer's forthcoming work, +"<span class="smcap">Woman, Church, and State.</span>"</p></blockquote> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Maine (Gaius) says of the position of woman under Roman +law before the introduction of Christianity: "The juriconsulists had +evidently at this time assumed the equality of the sexes as a +principle of the code of equity. The situation of the Roman woman, +whether married or single, became one of great personal and property +independence ... but Christianity tended somewhat, from the very +first, to narrow this remarkable liberty. The prevailing state of +religious sentiment may explain why modern jurisprudence has adopted +these rules concerning the position of woman which belong peculiarly +to an imperfect civilization.... No society which preserves any +tincture of Christian institutions, is likely to restore to married +women the personal liberty conferred on them by middle Roman law. +Canon law has deeply injured civilization."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Canon law is the whole body of Church decrees enacted +by councils, bulls, decretals, etc., and is recognized as a system of +laws primarily established by the Christian Church, and enforced by +ecclesiastical authority. It took cognizance first merely of what were +considered spiritual duties, but ultimately extended itself to +temporal rights. It was collected and embodied in the ninth century, +since which period numerous additions have been made.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> The women claimed the right to baptize their own sex. +But the bishops and presbyters did not care to be released from the +pleasant duty of baptizing the female converts.—<i>Hist. of Christian +Religion from <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> to 200</i>, <i>p. 23, Waite</i>. The Constitution of the +Church of Alexandria, which is thought to have been established about +the year 200, required the applicant for baptism to be divested of +clothing, and after the ordinance had been administered, to be +anointed with oil.—<i>Ibid.</i>, <i>p. 384-5</i>. The converts were first +exorcised of the evil spirits that were supposed to inhabit them; +then, after undressing and being baptized, they were anointed with +oil.—<i>Bunsen's Christianity of Mankind</i>, <i>Vol. VII.</i>, <i>p. 386-393</i>; +<i>3d Vol. Analecta</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> All, or at least the greater part of the fathers of the +Greek Church before Augustine, denied any real, original +sin.—"Augustinism and Pelagianism," p. 43, Emerson's Translations +(Waite). The doctrine had a gradual growth, and was fully developed by +Augustine, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 420.—<i>Hist. Christian Religion to <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 200 (Waite)</i>, +<i>p. 382</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Milman says that Heloise sacrificed herself on account +of the impediments the Church threw in the way of the married clergy's +career of advancement. As his wife she would close the ascending +ladder of ecclesiastical honors, priory, abbacy, bishopric, +metropolitane, cardinalade, and even that which was above and beyond +all.—"<i>Latin Christianity</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> The Christian Church was swamped by hysteria from the +third to the sixteenth century.—<i>Rev. Charles Kingsley's Life and +Letters</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> In 1874 an Old Catholic priest of Switzerland, about to +follow Père Hyacinth's example in abandoning celibacy, announced his +betrothal in the following manner: "I marry because I wish to remain +an honorable man. In the seventeenth century it was a proverbial +expression, 'As corrupt as a priest,' and this might be said to-day. I +marry, therefore, because I wish to get out of the Ultramontane +slough."—<i>Galignani's Messenger</i>, <i>September 19, 1874</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> The abbot elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, in +1171 was found, on investigation, to have seventeen illegitimate +children in a single village. An abbot of St. Pelayo in Spain in 1130 +was proved to have kept no less than seventy mistresses. Henry 3d, +Bishop of Liege, was deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five +illegitimate children.—<i>Lecky</i>, "<i>Hist. of European Morals</i>," <i>p. +350</i>. This same bishop boasted in a public banquet, that in twenty-two +months, fourteen children had been born to him. A tax called +"Cullagium," which was, in fact, a license to clergymen to keep +concubines, was during several centuries systematically levied by +princes.—<i>Ibid</i>, <i>Vol. 2</i>, <i>p. 349</i>. It was openly attested that +100,000 women in England were made dissolute by the clergy.—<i>Draper's +"Intellectua. Development of Europe</i>," <i>p. 498</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> "<i>Le Sorcerie</i>," p. 259, <i>Michelet</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>Died in 1880</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> In the dominion of the Count de Foix the lord had right +once in his lifetime to take, without payment, a certain quantity of +goods from the stores of each tenant.—"<i>Histoire Universelle</i>," +<i>Cesar Cantu</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> In days to come people will be slow to believe that the +law among Christian nations went beyond anything decreed concerning +the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most +grievous outrage that could ever wound man's heart. The Lord Spiritual +had this right no less than the Lord Temporal. The parson being a +lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing +to sell his rights to the husband. The Courts of Berne openly maintain +that this right grew up naturally.—"<i>La Sorcerie</i>," <i>Michelet</i>, p. +62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> Margaret was canonized in 1351, and made the patron +saint of Scotland in 1673. Several of the Scotch feudalry, despite +royal protestation, kept up the infamous practice till a late date. +One of the Earls of Crawford, a truculent and lustful anarch, +popularly known and dreaded as "Earl Brant," in the sixteenth century, +was probably among the last who openly claimed leg-right (the literal +translation of <i>droit de jambage</i>).—<i>Sketches of Feudalism</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> At the beginning of the Christian era, Corinth +possessed a thousand women who were devoted to the service of its +idol, the Corinthian Venus. "To Corinthianize" came to express the +utmost lewdness, but Cornith, as sunken as she was in sensual +pleasure, was not under the pale of Christianity. She was a heathen +city, outside of that light which, coming into the world, is held to +enlighten every man that accepts it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> Les Cuisiniers et les marmitons de l'arehevêques de +Vienne avaient imposé un tribut sur les mariages; on croit que +certains feuditaires extgeaient un droit obscène de leur vassaux qui +se marienient, quel fut transformé ensuite en droit de <i>cuissage</i> +consistant, de la part du seigneur, à mettre une jambe nue dans le lit +des nouveaux époux. Dans d'autres pays l'homme ne pouvait couche avec +sa femme les trois premières nuits sans le consentement de l'evêque ou +du seigneur du feif.—<i>Cesar Cantu</i>, "<i>Histoire Universelle</i>," <i>Vol. +IX.</i>, p. 202-3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> <i>Le Michelet</i>, "<i>Le Sorcerie</i>," <i>p. 151</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> The very word <i>femina</i> (woman) means one wanting in +faith; for <i>fe</i> means faith, and <i>minus</i>, less.—<i>Witch Hammer</i>. This +work was printed in 18mo, an unusually small size for that period, for +the convenience of carrying it in the pocket, where its assertions, +they could not be called arguments, could be always within reach, +especially for those traveling witch inquisitors, who proceeded from +country to country, like Sprenger himself, to denounce witches. This +work bore the sanction of the Pope, and was followed, even in +Protestant countries, until the eighteenth century. It based its +theories upon the Bible, and devoted thirty-three pages to a proof +that women were especially addicted to sorcery.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> It was observed they (devils) had a peculiar attachment +to women with beautiful hair, and it was an old Catholic belief that +St. Paul alluded to this in that somewhat obscure passage in which he +exhorts women to cover their heads because of the angels.—<span class="smcap">Sprangler</span>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> One of the most powerful incentives to confession was +systematically to deprive the suspected witch of her natural sleep.... +Iron collars, or witches' bridles, are still preserved in various +parts of Scotland, which had been used for such iniquitous purposes. +These instruments were so constructed that by means of a loop which +passed over the head, a piece of iron having four points or prongs, +was forcibly thrust into the mouth, two of these being directed to the +tongue and palate, the others pointing outward to each cheek. This +infernal machine was secured by a padlock. At the back of the collar +was fixed a ring, by which to attach the witch to a staple in the wall +of her cell. Thus equipped, and day and night waked and watched by +some skillful person appointed by her inquisitors, the unhappy +creature, after a few days of such discipline, maddened by the misery +of her forlorn and helpless state, would be rendered fit for +confessing anything, in order to be rid of the dregs of her wretched +life. At intervals fresh examinations took place, and they were +repeated from time to time until her "<i>contumacy</i>," as it was termed, +was subdued. The clergy and Kirk Sessions appear to have been the +unwearied instruments of "purging the land of witchcraft," and <i>to +them, in the first instance, all the complaints and informations were +made</i>.—<i>Pitcairn</i>, Vol. I., Part 2, p. 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> The following is an account of the material used, and +the expenses attending the execution of two witches in Scotland:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table summary="Account"> +<tr><td class='center'>For</td><td class='left'>10 loads of coal to burn the witches</td><td class='right'>£3 06 8</td></tr> +<tr><td class='center'> "</td><td class='left'>a tar barrel</td><td class='right'>0 14 0</td></tr> +<tr><td class='center'> "</td><td class='left'>towes</td><td class='right'>0 06 0</td></tr> +<tr><td class='center'> "</td><td class='left'>hurdles to be jumps for them</td><td class='right'>3 10 0</td></tr> +<tr><td class='center'> "</td><td class='left'>making of them</td><td class='right'>0 08 0</td></tr> +<tr><td class='center'> "</td><td class='left'>one to go to Tinmouth for the lord to sit upon the assize as judge</td><td class='right'>0 06 0</td></tr> +<tr><td class='center'> "</td><td class='left'>the executioner for his pains</td><td class='right'>8 14 0</td></tr> +<tr><td class='center'> "</td><td class='left'>his expenses there</td><td class='right'>0 16 4</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" class='center'><i>—Lectures on Witchcraft in Salem, Charles W. Upham</i>.</td></tr> +</table></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> See an account of the tortures and death of Alison +Balfour, in which not only she, but her husband and her young children +were also grievously tortured in order to wring confession from the +wife and mother. This poor woman bore everything applied to herself, +nor did the sufferings of her husband and son compel a confession of +guilt. Not until her little daughter of seven or eight years was put +to the torture in her presence did the constancy of the mother give +way. To spare the innocent child, the equally innocent mother +confessed she was a witch. After enduring all the agonies applied to +herself, and all she was made to bear in the persons of her innocent +family, she was still made to undergo the frightful suffering of death +at the stake. She was one of those who died calling upon God for that +mercy she could not find at the hands of Christian men.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> No marriage could take place after 12 <span class="smcap">m.</span>, which is even +now the rule of the established Church of England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Science of Law.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> Gerard say the doctrines of the Canon Law most +favorable to the power of the clergy, are founded on ignorance, or +supported by fraud and forgery.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> Whoever wishes to gain insight into that great +institution, Canon Law, can do so most effectively by studying Common +Law, in regard to woman.—<span class="smcap">Blackstone.</span>. +</p><p> +I have arrived at conclusions which I keep to myself as yet, and only +utter as Greek φωναντα, συνετοτσι, +the principle of which is +that there will never be a good world for woman till the last monk, +and therewith the last remnant of the monastic idea of, and +legislation for, woman, <i>i.e.</i>, the Canon Law, is civilized off the +face of the earth. Meanwhile all the most pure and high-minded women +in England and in Europe, have been brought up under the shadow of the +Canon Law, and have accepted it with the usual divine self-sacrifice, +as their destiny by law of God and nature, and consider their own +womanhood outraged when it, their tyrant, is meddled with.—<i>Charles +Kingsley</i>, <i>Life and Letters. Letter to John Stuart Mill, of June 17, +1849</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Wives in England were bought from the fifth to the +eleventh century (<i>Descriptive Sociology</i>, <i>Herbert Spencer</i>). By an +ancient law of India, a father was forbidden to sell his daughter in +marriage. <i>Keshub Chunder Sen</i>, who recently spent a few years in +England, objected, after his return home, to the introduction of +English customs in regard to woman into India, on account of their +degradation of the female sex.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man's +rights; society exists for men only; for women, merely in so far as +they are represented by some man, are in the <i>mundt</i>, or keeping of +some man (<i>Descriptive Sociology, England, Herbert Spencer</i>). In +England, as late as the seventeenth century, husbands of decent +station were not ashamed to beat their wives. Gentlemen arranged +parties of pleasure to Bridewell, for the purpose of seeing the +wretched women who beat hemp there whipped. It was not until 1817 that +the public whipping of woman was abolished in England.—<i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Wives in Russia</span>.—A peasant in the village of Zelova +Baltia, having reason to doubt the fidelity of his spouse, +deliberately harnessed her to a cart in company with a mare—a species +of double harness for which the lady was probably unprepared when she +took the nuptial vow. He then got into the cart in company with a +friend, and drove the ill-assorted team some sixteen versts (nearly +eleven English miles), without sparing the whip-cord. When he returned +from his excursion he shaved the unlucky woman's head, tarred and +feathered her, and turned her out of doors. She naturally sought +refuge and consolation from her parish priest; but he sent her back to +her lord and master, prescribing further flagellation. An appeal to +justice by the poor woman and her relatives resulted in a non-suit, +and any recourse to a higher court will probably terminate in the same +manner. +</p><p> +<span class="smcap">Woman's Lot in Russia</span>.—Here and there the popular songs hear traces +of the griefs which in the rough furrows of daily life the Russian +woman finds it prudent to conceal. "Ages have rolled away," says the +poet Nekrasof; "the whole face of the earth has brightened; only the +sombre lot of mowjik's wife God forgets to change." And the same poet +makes one of his village heroines say, <i>apropos</i> of the +enfranchisement of the serfs, "God has forgotten the nook where He hid +the keys of woman's emancipation."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> One of the powerful German Electors, who formerly made +choice of the Emperor of Germany</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> Even as late as the sixteenth century a plurality of +wives was allowed in some of the Christian countries of Europe, and +the German reformers were inclined to permit bigamy as not +inconsistent with the principles of the Gospel.—"<i>Woman in all +Countries and Nations</i>," Nichols</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> See report of the Seney trial in Ohio, 1879, in which +the judge decided against the prosecuting wife, upon the ground of her +lack of the same ownership over the husband that the husband possessed +over the wife.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> The Birchall case.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> "History," says Voltaire, "is only a parcel of tricks +we play with the dead."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> <span class="smcap">John Milton and His Daughters</span>.—Milton's Oriental views +of the function of women led him not only to neglect, but to +positively prevent the education of his daughters. They were sent to +no school at all, but were handed over to a schoolmistress in the +house. He would not allow them to learn any language, saying, with a +sneer, that "for a woman one tongue was enough." The Nemesis, however, +that follows selfish sacrifice of others is so sure of stroke that +there needs no future world of punishment to adjust the balance. The +time came when Milton would have given worlds that his daughters had +learned the tongues. He was blind, and could only get at his precious +book—could only give expression to his precious verses—through the +eyes and hands of others. Whose hands and whose eyes so proper for +this as his daughters? He proceeded to train them to read to him, +parrot-like, in five or six languages, which he (the schoolmaster) +could at one time have easily taught them; but of which they could not +now understand a word. He turned his daughters into reading-machines. +It is appalling to think of such a task. That Mary should revolt, and +at last, after repeated contests with her taskmaster, learn to hate +her father—that she should, when some one spoke in her presence of +her father's approaching marriage, make the dreadful speech that "it +was no news to hear of his wedding, but if she could hear of his +death, that were something"—is unutterably painful, but not +surprising.—<i>The Athenæum</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> Mrs. Robinson, of Indiana, and Mrs. E. S. Whitney, of +New York.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> While in the midst of correcting proof, March 22d, the +New York press comes with an article showing how generally women are +rousing to their rights. It is headed: +</p><p> +"<span class="smcap">Women at the Church Poll</span>—<i>What Came of Reviving an Old Statute in +Portchester</i>.—The trustees of the Presbyterian Church in Portchester, +although elected on the 24th of February last, did not organize until +about ten days ago. The reason for this delay lies in the claim made +by some of the congregation that the election was irregular, owing to +women having been allowed to vote. Some of the trustees who held over +were at first inclined to resign, and the matter has been much +discussed. When opposition was made to women voting, H. T. Smith +produced the statute of 1818, which says that any member of the church +at full age shall have a right to vote for trustees. There is nothing +in the act prohibiting women from voting. There are, I believe, +statutes forbidding women to vote in the Dutch Reformed and Episcopal +Churches; but this is a regular Presbyterian Church. It seems to me +that the women have worked hard for this church, and that they ought +to have a vote at the election of trustees and other officers. A Sun +reporter called upon the ladies for their version of the troubles. +Miss Pink, who is a school teacher, said: 'We women do four-fifths of +the work, and contribute more than one-half the money to support the +church. Two years ago we were allowed to vote for a minister, and we +don't see why we shouldn't vote for trustees and at other elections.' +Miss Camp gave similar reasons for voting. Mrs. Montgomery Lyon said: +'If the old trustees didn't know that we had a right to vote, it isn't +our fault. We women do all the work, and why shouldn't we vote!' Women +will vote for President, soon."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> The above is article xiv. of the by-laws of the society +connected with the aforesaid church. Thus the society undertakes to +dictate to the church who shall have a voice in the selection of a +pastor. It is a matter of gratitude that the society, if it forbids +females to vote in the church, yet allows them to pray and to help the +society raise money.—<i>Independent</i>, <i>N. Y.</i>, <i>Feb. 24, 1881</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Broken Down</span>.—Mrs. Van Cott, the woman evangelist, has +retired from the field, probably forever. Her nervous system is broken +down. During the fourteen years of her ministry she has traveled +143,417 miles, has preached 4,294 sermons, besides conducting 9,333 +other religious meetings, and writing 9,853 letters.—<i>Ex</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> But this Conference, which could not recognize woman's +equality of rights in the Church, adjourned in a body to Chicago, +before its business was completed, by its presence there to influence +the Republican Nominating Convention in favor of General Grant's name +for the Presidency.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> A professor of theology said a while ago, how sorry he +should be to have the law recognize that one-half of the income of the +family belonged to his wife, "it would establish such a mine-and-thine +relation." It evidently seemed to him, somehow, more harmonious, less +of the earth, earthy, that he could say, "All mine, my love," and that +she could sweetly respond, "All thine, dearest."—<i>State +Prohibitionist</i>, <i>Des Moines, Ia.</i>, <i>Jan. 28, 1881</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> The great botanist, Linnæus, was persecuted when he +first presented his sexual system in vegetation to the world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong +in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; +it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting +no powers or privileges on the one side or disability on the +other.—<i>Subjection of Woman, John Stuart Mill</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> The <i>Worcester Chronicle</i> of recent date gives an +account of a wife sale in England. Thomas Middleton delivered up his +wife Mary M. to Philip Rostius, and sold her for one shilling and a +quart of ale, and parted from her solely and absolutely for life, "not +to trouble one another for life." Philip Rostius made his mark as a +witness. A second witness was S. H. Shore, Crown Inn, Trim street.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> In the peace made by the Sabines with the Romans, after +the forcible abduction of the Sabine maidens, one of the provisions +was that no labor, except spinning, should be required of these Roman +wives.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> <span class="smcap">The Fair Sex in the Alps</span>.—The farmers In the Upper +Alps, though by no means wealthy, live like lords in their houses, +while the heaviest portion of agricultural labors devolves on the +wife. It is no uncommon thing to see a woman yoked to the plough with +an ass, while her husband guides it. An Alpine farmer accounts it an +act of politeness to lend his wife to a neighbor who has too much +work, and the neighbor in return lends his wife for a few days' labor +whenever requested.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> Lord Shaftesbury bringing the subject before +Parliament.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> <span class="smcap">A Story of Ireland in 1880</span>.—Recently, a young girl +named Catherine Cafferby, of Belmullet, in County Mayo—the pink of +her father's family—fled from the "domestic service" of a landlord as +absolute as Lord Leitrim, the moment the poor creature discovered what +that "service" customarily involved. The great man had the audacity to +invoke the law to compel her to return, as she had not given +statutable notice of her flight. She clung to the door-post of her +father's cabin; she told aloud the story of her terror, and called on +God and man to save her. Her tears, her shrieks, her piteous pleadings +were all in vain. The Petty Sessions Bench ordered her back to the +landlord's "service," or else to pay £5, or two weeks in jail. This is +not a story of Bulgaria under Murad IV., but of Ireland in the reign +of the present sovereign. That peasant girl went to jail to save her +chastity. If she did not spend a fortnight in the cells, it was only +because friends of outraged virtue, justice, and humanity paid the +fine when the story reached the outer world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> The son of the late William Ellery Channing, in a +recent letter to a friend on this point, says: "Religions like the +Jewish and Christian, which make God exclusively <i>male</i>, consign woman +logically to the subordinate position which is definitely assigned to +her in Mahometanism. History has kept this tradition. The subjection +of woman has existed as an invariable element in Christian +civilization. It could not be otherwise. If God and Christ were both +represented as male (and the Holy Ghost, too, in the pictures of the +old masters), it stood to reason and appealed to fanaticism that the +male form was the Godlike. Hence, logically, intellect and physical +force were exalted above the intuition of conscience and attractive +charm. The male religion shaped government and society after its own +form. Theodore Parker habitually addressed God as our Father and +Mother. What we call God is the infinite ideal of humanity. The +preposterous, ridiculous absurdity of supposing God so defined to be +of the male sex, and to call God 'him,' does not need a word to make +it apparent. This ideal which we all reverence, and for which we +yearn, necessarily enfolds in <i>One</i> the attributes which, separated in +our human race, express themselves in Manhood and Womanhood."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> Some person, over the signature of "A Bible Reader," +writing in the <i>Sun</i> of March 16, says: "I would be sincerely glad to +know what guarantee we have that ere long we shall not have another +revision of Scripture? It is not so long ago since the discovery of +Tischendorf of an important manuscript of the New Testament, which +gave a number of new readings. There may be in existence other and +older manuscripts of the Bible than any we now have, from which may be +omitted the narratives of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Should +we then have to give these up? If the revisers act consistently they +would certainly have to do so. +</p><p> +"It appears that already the Calvinists and the Trinitarians have been +deprived by the revisers of the texts they relied upon to uphold their +peculiar doctrines. It remains to be seen how the Universalists, +Baptists, and other Christian sects will fare."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_801" id="Page_801">[Pg 801]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX.</h2> + +<div class="appendix"> +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>PRECEDING CAUSES.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Margaret Fuller</span> possessed more influence upon the thought of America, +than any woman previous to her time. Men of diverse interests and +habits of thought, alike recognized her power and acknowledged the +quickening influence of her mind upon their own. Ralph Waldo Emerson +said of her: "The day was never long enough to exhaust her opulent +memory; and I, who knew her intimately for ten years, never saw her +without surprise at her new powers."</p> + +<p>William R. Channing, in her "Memoirs," says: "I have no hope of +conveying to my readers my sense of the beauty of our relation, as it +lies in the past, with brightness falling on it from Margaret's risen +spirit. It would be like printing a chapter of autobiography, to +describe what is so grateful in memory—its influence upon oneself."</p> + +<p>Rev. James Freeman Clarke says: "Socrates without his scholars, would +be more complete than Margaret without her friends. The insight which +Margaret displayed in finding her friends; the magnetism by which she +drew them toward herself; the catholic range of her intimacies; the +influence which she exerted to develop the latent germ of every +character; the constancy with which she clung to each when she had +once given and received confidence; the delicate justice which kept +every intimacy separate, and the process of transfiguration which took +place when she met any one on this mountain of friendship, giving a +dazzling lustre to the details of common life—all these should be at +least touched upon and illustrated, to give any adequate view of these +relations." Horace Greeley, in his "Recollections of a Busy Life," +said: "When I first made her acquaintance she was mentally the best +instructed woman in America."</p> + +<p>When Transcendentalism rose in New England, drawing the brightest +minds of the country into its faith, Margaret was accepted as its +high-priestess; and when <i>The Dial</i> was established for the expression +of those views, she was chosen its editor, aided by Ralph Waldo +Emerson and George Ripley. Nothing could be more significant of the +place Margaret Fuller held in the realm of thought than the fact, that +in this editorship she was given precedence over the eminent +philosopher and eminent scholar, her associates.</p> + +<p>She sought to unveil the mysteries of life and enfranchise her own sex +from the bondage of the past, and while still under thirty planned a +series of conversations (in Boston) for women only, wherein she took a +leading part. The general object of these conferences, as declared in +her programme, was to supply answers to these questions: "What are we +born to do?" and "How shall we do it?" or, as has been stated, "Her +three special aims in those conversations were, To pass in review the +departments of thought and knowledge, and endeavor to place them in +one relation to one another in our minds. To systematize thought and +give a precision and clearness in which our sex are so deficient, +chiefly, I think, because they have so few inducements to test and +classify what they receive. To ascertain what pursuits are best suited +to us, in our time and state of society, and how we may make the best +use of our means of building up the life of thought upon the life of +action."</p> + +<p>These conversations continued for several successive winters, and were +in reality a vindication of woman's right to think. In calling forth +the opinions of her sex upon Life, Literature, Mythology, Art, +Culture, and Religion, Miss Fuller was the precursor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_802" id="Page_802">[Pg 802]</a></span> of the Woman's +Rights agitation of the last thirty-three years. Her work, "The Great +Lawsuit; or, Man <i>vs.</i> Woman, Woman <i>vs.</i> Man," was declared by Horace +Greeley to be the loftiest and most commanding assertion made of the +right of woman to be regarded and treated as an independent, +intelligent, rational being, entitled to an equal voice in framing and +modifying the laws she is required to obey, and in controlling and +disposing of the property she has inherited or aided to acquire. In +this work Margaret said: "It is the fault of <span class="smcap">Marriage</span> and of the +present relation between the sexes, that the woman <i>belongs</i> to the +man, instead of forming a whole with him.... Woman, self-centered, +would never be absorbed by any relation; it would only be an +experience to her, as to Man. It is a vulgar error that love—<i>a</i> +love—is to Woman her whole existence; she is also born for Truth and +Love in their universal energy. Would she but assume her inheritance, +Mary would not be the only virgin mother."</p> + +<p>Margaret Fuller was the first woman upon the staff of <i>The New York +Tribune</i>, a position she took in 1844, when she was but thirty-four. +Mrs. Greeley having made Margaret's acquaintance, attended her +conversations and accepted her leading ideas, planned to have her +become a member of the Greeley family, and a writer for <i>The Tribune</i>; +a position was therefore offered her by Mr. Greeley upon his wife's +judgment. It required but a short time, however, for the great editor +to feel her power, although he failed to fully comprehend her +greatness. It has been declared not the least of Horace Greeley's +services to the nation, that he was willing to entrust the literary +criticisms of <i>The Tribune</i> to one whose standard of culture was so +far above that of his readers or his own.</p> + +<p>Margaret Fuller opened the way for many women, who upon the editorial +staff of the great New York dailies, as literary critics and as +reporters, have helped impress woman's thought upon the American mind.</p> + +<p>Theodore Parker, who knew her well, characterized her as a critic, +rather than a creator or seer. But whether we look upon her as critic, +creator, or seer, she was thoroughly a woman. One of her friends wrote +of her, "She was the largest woman, and not a woman who wanted to be a +man." Woman everywhere, to-day, is a critic. Enthralled as she has +been for ages, by both religious and political despotism, no sooner +does she rouse to thought than she necessarily begins criticism. The +hoary wrongs of the past still fall with heavy weight upon +woman—their curse still exists. Before building society anew, she +seeks to destroy the errors and injustice of the past, hence we find +women critics in every department of thought.</p> + + +<hr class="short" /> + + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<p class="heading">NEW YORK.</p> + +<p class="heading"><i>Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions.</i></p> + +<h4>Women Out of their Latitude.</h4> + +<p>We are sorry to see that the women in several parts of this State are +holding what they call "Woman's Rights Conventions," and setting forth +a formidable list of those Rights in a parody upon the Declaration of +American Independence.</p> + +<p>The papers of the day contain extended notices of these Conventions. +Some of them fall in with their objects and praise the meetings +highly; but the majority either deprecate or ridicule both.</p> + +<p>The women who attend these meetings, no doubt at the expense of their +more appropriate duties, act as committees, write resolutions and +addresses, hold much correspondence, make speeches, etc., etc. They +affirm, as among their rights, that of unrestricted franchise, and +assert that it is wrong to deprive them of the privilege to become +legislators, lawyers, doctors, divines, etc., etc.; and they are +holding Conventions and making an agitatory movement, with the object +in view of revolutionizing public opinion and the laws of the land, +and changing their relative position in society in such a way as to +divide with the male sex the labors and responsibilities of active +life in every branch of art, science, trades, and professions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_803" id="Page_803">[Pg 803]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, it requires no argument to prove that this is all wrong. Every +true hearted female will instantly feel that this is unwomanly, and +that to be practically carried out, the males must change their +position in society to the same extent in an opposite direction, in +order to enable them to discharge an equal share of the domestic +duties which now appertain to females, and which must be neglected, to +a great extent, if women are allowed to exercise all the "rights" that +are claimed by these Convention-holders. Society would have to be +radically remodelled in order to accommodate itself to so great a +change in the most vital part of the compact of the social relations +of life; and the order of things established at the creation of +mankind, and continued <i>six thousand years</i>, would be completely +broken up. The organic laws of our country, and of each State, would +have to be licked into new shapes, in order to admit of the +introduction of the vast change that it contemplated. In a thousand +other ways that might be mentioned, if we had room to make, and our +readers had patience to hear them, would this sweeping reform be +attended by fundamental changes in the public and private, civil and +religious, moral and social relations of the sexes, of life, and of +the Government.</p> + +<p>But this change is impracticable, uncalled for, and unnecessary. <i>If +effected</i>, it would set the world by the ears, make "confusion worse +confounded," demoralize and degrade from their high sphere and noble +destiny, women of all respectable and useful classes, and prove a +monstrous injury to all mankind. It would be productive of no positive +good, that would not be outweighed tenfold by positive evil. It would +alter the relations of females without bettering their condition. +Besides all, and above all, it presents no remedy for the <i>real</i> evils +that the millions of the industrious, hard-working, and much suffering +women of our country groan under and seek to redress.—<i>Mechanic's</i> +(Albany, N. Y.) <i>Advocate</i>.</p> + + +<h4>Insurrection among the Women.</h4> + +<p>A female Convention has just been held at Seneca Falls, N. Y., at +which was adopted a "declaration of rights," setting forth, among +other things, that "all men and <i>women</i> are created equal, and endowed +by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." The list of +grievances which the <i>Amazons</i> exhibit, concludes by expressing a +determination to insist that woman shall have "immediate admission to +all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the +United States." It is stated that they design, in spite of all +misrepresentations and ridicule, to employ agents, circulate tracts, +petition the State and National Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist +the pulpit and the press in their behalf. This is <i>bolting</i> with a +vengeance.—<i>Worcester</i> (Mass.) <i>Telegraph</i>.</p> + + +<h4>The Reign of Petticoats.</h4> + +<p>The women in various parts of the State have taken the field in favor +of a petticoat empire, with a zeal and energy which show that their +hearts are in the cause, and that they are resolved no longer to +submit to the tyrannical rule of the <i>heartless</i> "lords of creation," +but have solemnly determined to demand their "natural and inalienable +right" to attend the polls, and assist in electing our Presidents, and +Governors, and Members of Congress, and State Representatives, and +Sheriffs, and County Clerks, and Supervisors, and Constables, etc., +etc., and to unite in the general scramble for office. This is right +and proper. It is but just that they should participate in the +beautiful and feminine business of politics, and enjoy their +proportion of the "spoils of victory." Nature never designed that they +should be confined exclusively to the drudgery of raising children, +and superintending the kitchens, and to the performance of the various +other household duties which the cruelty of men and the customs of +society have so long assigned to them. This is emphatically the age of +"democratic progression," of <i>equality</i> and <i>fraternization</i>—the age +when all colors and sexes, the bond and free, black and white, male +and female, are, as they by right ought to be, all tending downward +and upward toward the common level of equality.</p> + +<p>The harmony of this great movement in the cause of freedom would not +be perfect if women were still to be confined to petticoats, and men +to breeches. There must be an "interchange" of these "commodities" to +complete the system. Why should it not be so? Can not women fill an +office, or cast a vote, or conduct a campaign, as judiciously and +vigorously as men? And, on the other hand, can not men "nurse" the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_804" id="Page_804">[Pg 804]</a></span> +babies, or preside at the wash-tub, or boil a pot as safely and as +well as women? If they can not, the evil is in that arbitrary +organization of society which has excluded them from the practice of +these pursuits. It is time these false notions and practices were +changed, or, rather, removed, and for the political millennium +foreshadowed by this petticoat movement to be ushered in. Let the +women keep the ball moving, so bravely started by those who have +become tired of the restraints imposed upon them by the antediluvian +notions of a Paul or the tyranny of man.—<i>Rochester</i> (N. Y.) <i>Daily +Advertiser</i>, Henry Montgomery, Editor.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Progress</span>," is the grand bubble which is now blown up to balloon bulk +by the windy philosophers of the age. The women folks have just held a +Convention up in New York State, and passed a sort of "bill of +rights," affirming it their right to vote, to become teachers, +legislators, lawyers, divines, and do all and sundries the "lords" +may, and of right now do. They should have resolved at the same time, +that it was obligatory also upon the "lords" aforesaid, to wash +dishes, scour up, be put to the tub, handle the broom, darn stockings, +patch breeches, scold the servants, dress in the latest fashion, wear +trinkets, look beautiful, and be as fascinating as those blessed +morsels of humanity whom God gave to preserve that rough animal man, +in something like a reasonable civilization. "Progress!" Progress, +forever!—<i>Lowell</i> (Mass.) <i>Courier</i>.</p> + +<p>To us they appear extremely dull and uninteresting, and, aside from +their novelty, hardly worth notice.—<i>Rochester Advertiser</i>.</p> + +<p>This has been a remarkable Convention. It was composed of those +holding to some one of the various <i>isms</i> of the day, and some, we +should think, who embraced them all. The only practical good +proposed—the adoption of measures for the relief and amelioration of +the condition of indigent, industrious, laboring females—was almost +scouted by the leading ones composing the meeting. The great effort +seemed to be to bring out some new, impracticable, absurd, and +ridiculous proposition, and the greater its absurdity the better. In +short, it was a regular <i>emeute</i> of a congregation of females gathered +from various quarters, who seem to be really in earnest in their aim +at revolution, and who evince entire confidence that "the day of their +deliverance is at hand." Verily, this is a progressive +era!—<i>Rochester Democrat</i>.</p> + + +<h4>The Women of Philadelphia.</h4> + +<p>Our Philadelphia ladies not only possess beauty, but they are +celebrated for discretion, modesty, and unfeigned diffidence, as well +as wit, vivacity, and good nature. Whoever heard of a Philadelphia +lady setting up for a reformer, or standing out for woman's rights, or +assisting to man the election grounds, raise a regiment, command a +legion, or address a jury? Our ladies glow with a higher ambition. +They soar to rule the hearts of their worshipers, and secure obedience +by the sceptre of affection. The tenure of their power is a law of +nature, not a law of man, and hence they fear no insurrection, and +never experience the shock of a revolution in their dominions. But all +women are not as reasonable as ours of Philadelphia. The Boston ladies +contend for the rights of women. The New York girls aspire to mount +the rostrum, to do all the voting, and, we suppose, all the fighting +too.... Our Philadelphia girls object to fighting and holding office. +They prefer the baby-jumper to the study of Coke and Lyttleton, and +the ball-room to the Palo Alto battle. They object to having a George +Sand for President of the United States; a Corinna for Governor; a +Fanny Wright for Mayor; or a Mrs. Partington for Postmaster.... Women +have enough influence over human affairs without being politicians.</p> + +<p>Is not everything managed by female influence? Mothers, grandmothers, +aunts, and sweethearts manage everything. Men have nothing to do but +to listen and obey to the "of course, my dear, you will, and of +course, my dear, you won't." Their rule is absolute; their power +unbounded. Under such a system men have no claim to rights, especially +"equal rights."</p> + +<p>A woman is nobody. A wife is everything. A pretty girl is equal to ten +thousand men, and a mother is, next to God, all powerful.... The +ladies of Philadelphia, therefore, under the influence of the most +serious "sober second thoughts," are resolved to maintain their rights +as Wives, Belles, Virgins, and Mothers, and not as Women."—<i>Public +Ledger and Daily Transcript</i>.</p> + + +<h4>Woman's Rights Convention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_805" id="Page_805">[Pg 805]</a></span></h4> + +<p>This is the age of revolutions. To whatever part of the world the +attention is directed, the political and social fabric is crumbling to +pieces; and changes which far exceed the wildest dreams of the +enthusiastic Utopians of the last generation, are now pursued with +ardor and perseverance. The principal agent, however, that has +hitherto taken part in these movements has been the rougher sex. It +was by man the flame of liberty, now burning with such fury on the +continent of Europe, was first kindled; and though it is asserted that +no inconsiderable assistance was contributed by the gentler sex to the +late sanguinary carnage at Paris, we are disposed to believe that such +a revolting imputation proceeds from base calumniators, and is a libel +upon woman.</p> + +<p>By the intelligence, however, which we have lately received, the work +of revolution is no longer confined to the Old World, nor to the +masculine gender. The flag of independence has been hoisted, for the +second time, on this side of the Atlantic; and a solemn league and +covenant has just been entered into by a Convention of women at Seneca +Falls, to "throw off the despotism under which they are groaning, and +provide new guards for their future security." Little did we expect +this new element to be thrown into the cauldron of agitation which is +now bubbling around us with such fury. We have had one Baltimore +Convention, one Philadelphia Convention, one Utica Convention, and we +shall also have, in a few days, the Buffalo Convention. But we never +dreamed that Lucretia Mott had convened a fifth Convention, which, if +it be ratified by those whom it purposes to represent, will exercise +an influence that will not only control our own Presidential +elections, but the whole governmental system throughout the world.... +The declaration is a most interesting document. We published it in +<i>extenso</i> the other day. The amusing part is the preamble, where they +assert their equality, and that they have certain inalienable rights, +to secure which governments, deriving their just powers from the +consent of the governed, are instituted; and that after the long train +of abuses and usurpations to which they have been subjected, evincing +a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, +it is their duty, to throw off such government.</p> + +<p>The declaration is, in some respects, defective. It complains of the +want of the elective franchise, and that ladies are not recognized as +teachers of theology, medicine, and law.... These departments, +however, do not comprise the whole of the many avenues to wealth, +distinction, and honor. We do not see by what principle of right the +angelic creatures should claim to compete with the preacher, and +refuse to enter the lists with the merchant. A lawyer's brief would +not, we admit, sully the hands so much as the tarry ropes of a +man-of-war; and a box of Brandreth's pills are more safely and easily +prepared than the sheets of a boiler, or the flukes of an anchor; but +if they must have competition in one branch, why not in another? There +must be no monopoly or exclusiveness. If they will put on the +inexpressibles, it will not do to select those employments only which +require the least exertion and are exempt from danger. The laborious +employments, however, are not the only ones which the ladies, in right +of their admission to all rights and privileges, would have to +undertake. It might happen that the citizen would have to doff the +apron and buckle on the sword. Now, though we have the most perfect +confidence in the courage and daring of Miss Lucretia Mott and several +others of our lady acquaintances, we confess it would go to our hearts +to see them putting on the panoply of war, and mixing in scenes like +those at which, it is said, the fair sex in Paris lately took +prominent part.</p> + +<p>It is not the business, however, of the despot to decide upon the +rights of his victims; nor do we undertake to define the duties of +women. Their standard is now unfurled by their own hands. The +Convention of Seneca Falls has appealed to the country. Miss Lucretia +Mott has propounded the principles of the party. Ratification meetings +will no doubt shortly be held, and if it be the general impression +that this lady is a more eligible candidate for the Presidential chair +than McLean or Cass, Van Buren or old "Rough and Ready," then let the +Salic laws be abolished forthwith from this great Republic. We are +much mistaken if Lucretia would not make a better President than some +of those who have lately tenanted the White House.—<i>New York Herald</i>, +James Gordon Bennett, Proprietor.</p> + + +<h4>Mrs. Stanton's Reply.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_806" id="Page_806">[Pg 806]</a></span></h4> + +<p>In answer to all the newspaper objections, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in +an article published in the <i>National Reformer</i>, Rochester, N. Y., +Geo. G. Cooper, Editor, Sept. 14, 1848, said as follows:</p> + +<p>There is no danger of this question dying for want of notice. Every +paper you take up has something to say about it, and just in +proportion to the refinement and intelligence of the editor, has this +movement been favorably noticed. But one might suppose from the +articles that you find in some papers, that there were editors so +ignorant as to believe that the chief object of these recent +Conventions was to seat every lord at the head of a cradle, and to +clothe every woman in her lord's attire. Now, neither of these points, +however important they be considered by humble minds, were touched +upon in the Conventions.... For those who do not yet understand the +real objects of our recent Conventions at Rochester and Seneca Falls, +I would state that we did not meet to discuss fashions, customs, or +dress, the rights or duties of man, nor the propriety of the sexes +changing positions, but simply our own inalienable rights, our duties, +our true sphere. If God has assigned a sphere to man and one to woman, +we claim the right to judge ourselves of His design in reference to +<i>us</i>, and we accord to man the same privilege. We think a man has +quite enough in this life to find out his own individual calling, +without being taxed to decide where every woman belongs; and the fact +that so many men fail in the business they undertake, calls loudly for +their concentrating more thought on their own faculties, capabilities, +and sphere of action. We have all seen a man making a jackass of +himself in the pulpit, at the bar, or in our legislative halls, when +he might have shone as a general in our Mexican war, captain of a +canal boat, or as a tailor on his bench. Now, is it to be wondered at +that woman has some doubts about the present position assigned her +being the true one, when her every-day experience shows her that man +makes such fatal mistakes in regard to himself?</p> + +<p>There is no such thing as a sphere for a sex. Every man has a +different sphere, and one in which he may shine, and it is the same +with every woman; and the same woman may have a different sphere at +different times. The distinguished Angelina Grimké was acknowledged by +all the anti-slavery host to be in her sphere, when, years ago, she +went through the length and breadth of New England, telling the people +of her personal experience of the horrors and abominations of the +slave system, and by her eloquence and power as a public speaker, +producing an effect unsurpassed by any of the highly gifted men of her +day. Who dares to say that in thus using her splendid talents in +speaking for the dumb, pleading the cause of the poor friendless +slave, that she was out of her sphere? Angelina Grimké is now a wife +and the mother of several children. We hear of her no more in public. +Her sphere and her duties have changed. She deems it her first and her +most sacred duty to devote all her time and talents to her household +and to the education of her children. We do not say that she is not +<i>now</i> in her sphere. The highly gifted Quakeress, Lucretia Mott, +married early in life, and brought up a large family of children. All +who have seen her at home agree that she was a pattern as a wife, +mother, and housekeeper. No one ever fulfilled all the duties of that +sphere more perfectly than did she. Her children are now settled in +their own homes. Her husband and herself, having a comfortable +fortune, pass much of their time in going about and doing good. +Lueretia Mott has now no domestic cares. She has a talent for public +speaking; her mind is of a high order; her moral perceptions +remarkably clear; her religious fervor deep and intense; and who shall +tell us that this divinely inspired woman is out of her sphere in her +public endeavors to rouse this wicked nation to a sense of its awful +guilt, to its great sins of war, slavery, injustice to woman and the +laboring poor. As many inquiries are made about Lucretia Mott's +husband, allow me, through your columns, to say to those who think he +must be a <i>nonentity</i> because his wife is so distinguished, that James +Mott is head and shoulders above the greater part of <i>his sex</i>, +intellectually, morally, and physically. As a man of business, his +talents are of the highest order. As an author, I refer you to his +interesting book of travels, "Three Months in Great Britain." In +manners he is a gentleman; in appearance, six feet high, and +well-proportioned, dignified, and sensible, and in every respect +worthy to be the companion of Lueretia Mott.</p> + + +<h4>Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_807" id="Page_807">[Pg 807]</a></span></h4> + +<p>Miss Barber, of <i>The Madison</i> (Ga.) <i>Visitor</i>, promises to "sit in the +corner and be a good girl," if we will admit her to our next +"editorial <i>soirée</i>." Indeed we will, and brother Lamb, of <i>The +Greenfield Democrat</i>, shall sit in the other corner and "cast sheep's +(Lamb's) eyes" at her; for he copies her naughty declaration of +inferiority, and adds that she "is just the editress for him"; that he +"don't like Mrs. Swisshelm, Mrs. Pierson, and that class." We will let +him off with a whispered reminder that there is a <i>Mr.</i> Swisshelm, +<i>Mr.</i> Pierson, and more of the same sort for "<i>that class</i>." He has +nobody on his side but the musty, fusty old bachelors of the ——, and +----, and ——, who, never having wanted for anything but <i>puddings</i> +and <i>shirts</i>, imagine, as Mrs. Pierson says, that "a shirt and a +pudding are the two poles of woman's sphere."</p> + +<p>But we can not let Miss Barber off so lightly. She says "it is written +in the volume of inspiration, as plainly as if traced in sunbeams, +that man, the creature of God's own image, is superior to woman, who +was afterward created to be his companion. He has a more stately form, +stronger nerves and muscles, and, in nine cases out of ten, a more +vigorous intellect."</p> + +<p>In the first place, it is paying no great compliment to man to suppose +that God created an inferior to be his companion. But a man, "<i>the</i> +creature of God's own image!" And was the material for God's image all +worked up in creating Adam? And if so, whose images are the men of +to-day, who can't possibly lay claim to more of the original stock +than mother Eve, who set up existence with an <i>entire rib</i>! And what +has it to do with the question of her intellectual equality, that she +was created <i>afterward</i>? If precedence in creation gave any advantage +intellectually, the inferior animals may claim superiority of +intellect over both man and woman. It would be quite as sound logic to +maintain, as some do, that, as last in the series which commenced in +nothing (?) and rose by gradations to image God, woman's superiority +to all that preceded her in the creation, is probable.... Again, if +women have less nerves and muscles, the ox and the ass have a great +deal more—while God and angels and disembodied spirits have none at +all; so that nerves and muscles are of no more significance in this +question of the intellectual equality or inequality of the sexes, than +is the beard that grows on a man's face and not on a woman's. And +arguments drawn from such premises always remind us of the profound +logic of a gentleman we once met in a stage coach, and who is now +holding a high office under Government at Washington. He professed to +set great store by whiskers and mustaches—he had none himself—and +gave as a reason why the beard should be tenderly cherished, that "it +was given to man as a badge of his superiority over woman." We were +young and mischievous then, and so we told him, most complacently, +that the ladies would readily concede the point, and give him the full +benefit of his argument and of his beard, since men shared their +"badge of superiority" with goats, monkeys, and many other inferior +animals. Some fifteen years have passed, but we never think of the +honorable gentleman or see his name attached to official reports, +without a laugh.</p> + +<p>Miss Barber assumes woman's entire intellectual equality, in claiming +that she "may mould the mind of the future statesman into <i>whatsoever</i> +she will—that "through him she <i>can</i> and <i>will</i> make the laws." And +we only regret that she should speak so lightly of "depositing a +little strip of paper in the ballot-box." To us it is a serious thing, +that the depositing of that strip of paper gives and takes the rights, +whose possession is the means of the highest intellectual and moral +culture and enjoyment.—<i>Windom County Democrat</i>, Brattleboro, +Vermont.</p> + + +<h4>Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Mistake</span>.—<i>Dear Brother Wright</i>:—In printing my former letter, +there was a mistake made which I intended to let pass; but as some of +your cotemporaries have taken an agony over the letter, it may be as +well to set it right. The last sentence reads, "Now, I move Grace be +let alone, and her moral power be no longer invoked by those who have +set her and all the rest of her sex, down on a stool mid-way between +free negroes and laborers." I wrote it "between free negroes and +<i>baboons</i>," and meant just what I said. Man, in his code of laws, has +assigned woman a place somewhere between the rational and irrational +creation. Our Constitutions provide that all "free white male +citizens" of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_808" id="Page_808">[Pg 808]</a></span> a certain age shall have a right to vote. Here Indians, +negroes, and women stand side by side. Our gallant legislators +excluded the "inferior races" from the elective franchise because of +their inferiority; and just threw their wives and mothers into the +same heap, because of their great superiority! One was excluded +because they hated them, the other because they loved them so very +well. Yet one sentence covers both cases. Women and negroes stand side +by side in this case, and also in that of exclusion from our colleges. +A negro can not be admitted into one of our colleges or seminaries of +the highest class. Neither can a woman. Witness the refusal of some +half dozen of your medical colleges to admit Miss Blackwell.</p> + +<p>But free negroes can acquire property, can sell it, keep it, give it +away, or divide it. A baboon has no such rights; neither has a woman +in her highest state of existence here. The right to acquire and hold +property is a distinguishing trait between mankind and the brute +creation. Woman is deprived of that distinction; for all that she has +and all she can acquire, belongs to her master. Custom says she should +be fed and clothed, dandled and fondled, her freaks borne with and her +graces admired; it awards the same attentions, in a little different +degree, to a pet monkey. So woman has been "set down mid-way between +free negroes and baboons."</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Jane G. Swisshelm.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Your good-tempered friend and sister,</p> + +<p class="ltr-to ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">Borders of Monkeydom</span>, <i>Sept. 28, 1848</i>.</p> + +<p>P. S.—There is a man who edits <i>The Sunday Age</i> of New York—H. P. +Grattan—who appears to be in a peck of trouble about "Blue-Stocking +Effusions" in general, and my letter to you in particular. He says, +"We love woman. We bow down to them in adoration. But they have their +proper place; but the moment they step from the pedestal upon which +heaven stood them, they fail to elicit our admiration," etc. Then, to +show what the pedestal is on which he adores them, he adds, "If they +gave evidence of a knowledge of puddings and pies, how much happier +they might be," in the sunlight of his admiration, of course. Well, +freedom of conscience in this free land! The Faithful may bow to his +prophet; the Persian adore his sun; the Egyptian may kneel to his +crocodile; and why should not Mr. Grattan go into rhapsodies before +his cook, as the dispenser of the good things of this life? The good +book speaks of "natural brute beasts who make a god of their bellies," +and it might be natural to transfer the homage to her who ministers to +the stomach. I can see his chosen divinity now, mounted on her +"pedestal," a kitchen stool, her implements before her, crowned with a +pudding-pan, her sceptre a batter spoon, and Mr. Grattan down, in rapt +adoration, with eyes upturned, and looks of piteous pleading! Poor +fellow! Do give him his dinner! J. G. S.—<i>Saturday Visitor</i>, +Pittsburg, Penn.</p> + +<p>Here are some of the titles of editorials and communications in +respectable papers all over the country: "Bolting among the Ladies," +"Women Out of their Latitude," "Insurrection among the Women," "The +Reign of Petticoats," "Office-Seeking Women," "Petticoats <i>vs.</i> +Boots." The reader can judge, with such texts for inspiration, what +the sermons must have been.</p> + + +<h4>Resolutions at Rochester.</h4> + +<p>The following resolutions, which had been separately discussed, were +again read. Amy Post moved their adoption by the meeting, which was +carried with but two or three dissenting voices:</p> + +<p>1. <i>Resolved</i>, That we petition our State Legislature for our right to +the elective franchise, every year, until our prayer be granted.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Resolved</i>, That it is an admitted principle of the American +Republic, that the only just power of the Government is derived from +the consent of the governed; and that taxation and representation are +inseparable; and, therefore, woman being taxed equally with man, ought +not to be deprived of an equal representation in the Government.</p> + +<p>3. <i>Resolved</i>, That we deplore the apathy and indifference of woman in +regard to her rights, thus restricting her to an inferior position in +social, religious, and political life, and we urge her to claim an +equal right to act on all subjects that interest the human family.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_809" id="Page_809">[Pg 809]</a></span></p> + +<p>4. <i>Resolved</i>, That the assumption of law to settle estates of men who +die without wills, having widows, is an insult to woman, and ought to +be regarded as such by every lover of right and equality.</p> + +<p>5. <span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The husband has the legal right to hire out his wife to +service, collect her wages, and appropriate it to his own exclusive +and independent benefit; and,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, This has contributed to establish that hideous custom, the +promise, of obedience in the marriage contract, effectually, though +insidiously, reducing her almost to the condition of a slave, whatever +freedom she may have in these respects being granted as a privilege, +not as a right; therefore,</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we will seek the overthrow of this barbarous and +unrighteous law; and conjure women no longer to promise obedience in +the marriage covenant.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the universal doctrine of the inferiority of woman +has ever caused her to distrust her own powers, and paralyzed her +energies, and placed her in that degraded position from which the most +strenuous and unremitting effort can alone redeem her.</p> + +<p>Only by faithful perseverance in the practical exercise of those +talents, so long "wrapped in a napkin and buried under the earth," she +will regain her long-lost equality with man.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in the persevering and independent course of Miss +Blackwell, who recently attended a series of medical lectures in +Geneva, and has now gone to Europe to graduate as a physician, we see +a harbinger of the day when woman shall stand forth "redeemed and +disenthralled," and perform those important duties which are so truly +within her sphere.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That those who believe the laboring classes of women are +oppressed, ought to do all in their power to raise their wages, +beginning with their own household servants.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That it is the duty of woman, whatever her complexion, to +assume, as soon as possible, her true position of equality in the +social circle, the Church, and the State.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we tender our grateful acknowledgment to the Trustees +of the Unitarian Church, who have kindly opened their doors for the +use of this Convention.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we, the friends who are interested in this cause, +gratefully accept the kind offer from the Trustees of the use of +Protection Hall, to hold our meetings whenever we wish.</p> + + +<h4>Signatures to the Declaration adopted at Seneca Falls.</h4> + +<p>Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do +this day affix our signatures to this Declaration:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table summary="Signers"> +<tr><td align='left'>Lucretia Mott,</td><td align='left'>Hannah Plant,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Harriet Cady Eaton,</td><td align='left'>Lucy Jones,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Margaret Pryor,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Whitney,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Elizabeth Cady Stanton,</td><td align='left'>Mary H. Hallowell,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Eunice Newton Foote,</td><td align='left'>Elizabeth Conklin,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary Ann McClintock,</td><td align='left'>Sally Pitcher,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Margaret Schooley,</td><td align='left'>Mary Conklin,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Martha C. Wright,</td><td align='left'>Susan Quinn,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Jane C. Hunt,</td><td align='left'>Mary S. Mirror,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Amy Post,</td><td align='left'>Phebe King,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Catharine F. Stebbins,</td><td align='left'>Julia Ann Drake,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary Ann Frink,</td><td align='left'>Charlotte Woodward,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lydia Mount,</td><td align='left'>Martha Underhill,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Delia Matthews,</td><td align='left'>Dorothy Matthews,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Catharine C. Paine,</td><td align='left'>Eunice Barker,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Elizabeth W. McClintock,</td><td align='left'>Sarah K. Woods,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Malvina Seymour,</td><td align='left'>Lydia Gild,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Phebe Mosher,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Hoffman,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Catherine Shaw,</td><td align='left'>Elizabeth Leslie,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Deborah Scott,</td><td align='left'>Martha Ridley,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sarah Hallowell,</td><td align='left'>Rachel D. Bonnel,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary McClintock,</td><td align='left'>Betsy Tewksbury,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary Gilbert,</td><td align='left'>Rhoda Palmer,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sophronie Taylor,</td><td align='left'>Margaret Jenkins</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cynthia Davis,</td><td align='left'>Cynthia Fuller,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary Martin,</td><td align='left'>Eliza Martin,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>P. A. Culvert,</td><td align='left'>Maria E. Wilbur,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Susan R. Doty,</td><td align='left'>Elizabeth D. Smith,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Rebecca Race,</td><td align='left'>Caroline Barker,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sarah A. Mosher,</td><td align='left'>Ann Porter,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary E. Vail,</td><td align='left'>Experience Gibbs,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lucy Spalding,</td><td align='left'>Antoinette F. Segur,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lavinia Latham,</td><td align='left'>Hannah J. Latham,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sarah Smith,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Sisson.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>The following are the names of the gentlemen present in favor of the +movement:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table summary="Gentlemen"> +<tr><td align='left'>Richard P. Hunt,</td><td align='left'>Charles L. Hoskins,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Samuel D. Tilman,</td><td align='left'>Thomas McClintock,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Justin Williams,</td><td align='left'>Saron Phillips,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Elisha Foote,</td><td align='left'>Jacob Chamberlain,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Frederick Douglass,</td><td align='left'>Jonathan Metcalf,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Henry W. Seymour,</td><td align='left'>Nathan J. Milliken,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Henry Seymour,</td><td align='left'>S. E. Woodworth,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>David Spalding,</td><td align='left'>Edward F. Underhill,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William G. Barker,</td><td align='left'>George W. Pryor,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Elias J. Doty,</td><td align='left'>Joel Bunker,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>John Jones,</td><td align='left'>Isaac Van Tassel,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William S. Dell,</td><td align='left'>Thomas Dell,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>James Mott,</td><td align='left'>E. W. Capron,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William Burroughs,</td><td align='left'>Stephen Shear,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Robert Smalldridge</td><td align='left'>Henry Hatley,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Jacob Matthews,</td><td align='left'>Azaliah Schooley.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Many persons signed the Declaration at Rochester, among them Daniel +Anthony, Lucy Read Anthony, Mary S. Anthony, the officers of the +Convention, and others.</p> + + +<hr class="short" /> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<p class="heading">OHIO.</p> + +<p class="heading"><i>Salem Convention</i>, <i>April 19, 20, 1850</i>.</p> + +<h4>Letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Seneca Falls</span>, N. Y., <i>April 7</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mariana</span>:—How rejoiced I am to hear that the women of Ohio have +called a Convention preparatory to the remodeling of their State +Constitution. The remodeling of a Constitution, in the nineteenth +century, speaks of progress, of greater freedom, and of more enlarged +views of human rights and duties. It is fitting that, at such a time, +woman, who has so long been the victim of ignorance and injustice, +should at length throw off the trammels of a false education, stand +upright, and with dignity and earnestness manifest a deep and serious +interest in the laws which are to govern her and her country. It needs +no argument to teach woman that she is interested in the laws which +govern her. Suffering has taught her this already. It is important now +that a change is proposed, that she speak, and loudly too. Having +decided to petition for a redress of grievances, the question is, <i>for +what shall you first petition?</i> For the exercise of your right to the +elective franchise—nothing short of this. The grant to you of this +right will secure all others; and the granting of every other right, +whilst this is denied, is a mockery. For instance: What is the right +to property without the right to protect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_811" id="Page_811">[Pg 811]</a></span> it? The enjoyment of that +right to-day is no security that it will be continued to-morrow, so +long as it is granted to us as a favor, and not claimed by us as a +right. Woman must exercise her right to the elective franchise, and +have her own representatives in our National councils, for two good +reasons:</p> + +<p>1st. Men can not represent us. They are so thoroughly educated into +the belief that woman's nature is altogether different from their own, +that they have no idea that she can be governed by the same laws of +mind as themselves. So far from viewing us like themselves, they seem, +from their legislation, to consider us their moral and intellectual +antipodes; for whatever law they find good for themselves, they +forthwith pass its opposite for us, and express the most profound +astonishment if we manifest the least dissatisfaction. For example: +our forefathers, <i>full of righteous indignation</i>, pitched King George, +his authority, and his tea-chests, all into the sea, and because, +forsooth, they were forced to pay taxes without being represented in +the British Government. "Taxation without representation," was the +text for many a hot debate in the forests of the New World, and for +many an eloquent oration in the Parliament of the Old. Yet, in forming +our new Government, they have taken from us the very rights which they +fought and bled and, died to secure to themselves. They not only tax +us, but in many cases they strip us of all we inherit, the wages we +earn, the children of our love; and for such grievances we have no +redress in any court of justice this side of Heaven. They tax our +property to build colleges, then pass a special law prohibiting any +woman to enter there. A married woman has no legal existence; she has +no more absolute rights than a slave on a Southern plantation. She +takes the name of her master, holds nothing, owns nothing, can bring +no action in her own name; and the principle on which she and the +slave is educated is the game. The slave is taught what is considered +best for him to know—which is nothing; the woman is taught what is +best for her to know—which is little more than nothing, man being the +umpire in both cases. A woman can not follow out the impulses of her +own mind in her sphere, any more than the slave can in his sphere. +Civilly, socially, and religiously, she is what man chooses her to be, +nothing more or less, and such is the slave. It is impossible for us +to convince man that we think and feel exactly as he does; that we +have the same sense of right and justice, the same love of freedom and +independence. Some men regard us as devils, and some as angels; hence, +one class would shut us up in a certain sphere for fear of the evil we +might do, and the other for fear of the evil that <i>might be done to +us</i>; thus, except for the sentiment of the thing, for all the good +that it does us, we might as well be thought the one as the other. But +we ourselves have to do with what we are and what we <i>shall</i> be.</p> + +<p>2d. Men can not legislate for us. Our statute books and all past +experience teach us this fact. His laws, where we are concerned, have +been, without one exception, unjust, cruel, and aggressive. Having +denied our identity with himself, he has no data to go upon in judging +of our wants and interests. If we are alike in our mental structure, +then there is no reason why we should not have a voice in making the +laws which govern us; but if we are not alike, most certainly we must +make laws for ourselves, for who else can understand what we need and +desire? If it be admitted in this Government that all men and women +are free and equal, then must we claim a place in our Senate Chamber +and House of Representatives. But if, after all, it be found that even +here we have classes and caste, not "Lords and Commons," but lords and +women, then must we claim a lower House, where our Representatives can +watch the passage of all bills affecting our own welfare, or the good +of our country. Had the women of this country had a voice in the +Government, think you our national escutcheon would have been stained +with the guilt of aggressive warfare upon such weak, defenceless +nations as the Seminoles and Mexicans? Think you we should cherish and +defend, in the heart of our nation, such a wholesale system of piracy, +cruelty, licentiousness, and ignorance as is our slavery? Think you +that relic of barbarism, the gallows, by which the wretched murderer +is sent with blood upon his soul, uncalled for, into the presence of +his God, would be sustained by law? Verily, no, or I mistake woman's +heart, her instinctive love of justice, and mercy, and truth!</p> + +<p>Who questions woman's right to vote? We can show our credentials to +the right of self-government; we get ours just where man got his; they +are all Heaven-descended,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_812" id="Page_812">[Pg 812]</a></span> God-given. It is our duty to assert and +reassert this right, to agitate, discuss, and petition, until our +political equality be fully recognized. Depend upon it, this is the +point to attack, the stronghold of the fortress—<i>the one</i> woman will +find the most difficult to take, <i>the one</i> man will most reluctantly +give up; therefore let us encamp right under its shadow; there spend +all our time, strength, and <i>moral</i> ammunition, year after year, with +perseverance, courage, and decision. Let no sallies of wit or ridicule +at our expense; no soft nonsense of woman's beauty, delicacy, and +refinement; no promise of gold and silver, bank stock, road stock, or +landed estate, seduce us from our position until that one stronghold +totters to the ground. This done, the rest they will surrender <i>at +discretion</i>. Then comes equality in Church and State, in the family +circle, and in all our social relations.</p> + +<p>The cause of woman is onward. For our encouragement, let us take a +review of what has occurred during the last few years. Not two years +since the women of New York held several Conventions. Their meetings +were well attended by both men and women, and the question of woman's +true position was fully and freely discussed. The proceedings of those +meetings and the Declaration of Sentiments were all published and +scattered far and near. Before that time, the newspapers said but +little on that subject. Immediately after, there was scarcely a +newspaper in the Union that did not notice these Conventions, and +generally in a tone of ridicule. Now you seldom take up a paper that +has not something about woman; but the tone is changing—ridicule is +giving way to reason. Our papers begin to see that this is no subject +for mirth, but one for serious consideration. Our literature is also +assuming a different tone. The heroine of our fashionable novel is now +a being of spirit, of energy, of will, with a conscience, with high +moral principle, great decision, and self-reliance.</p> + +<p>Contrast Jane Eyre with any of Bulwer's, Scott's, or Shakespeare's +heroines, and how they all sink into the shade compared with that +noble creation of a woman's genius! The January number of <i>The +Westminster Review</i> contains an article on "Woman," so liberal and +radical, that I sometimes think it must have crept in there by +mistake. Our fashionable lecturers, too, are now, instead of the +time-worn subjects of "Catholicism," "The Crusades," "St. Bernard," +and "Thomas à Becket," choosing Woman for their theme. True, they do +not treat this new subject with much skill or philosophy; but enough +for us that the great minds of our day are taking this direction. Mr. +Dana, of Boston, lectured on this subject in Philadelphia. Lucretia +Mott followed him, and ably pointed out his sophistry and errors. She +spoke to a large and fashionable audience, and gave general +satisfaction. Dana was too sickly and sentimental for that meridian. +The women of Massachusetts, ever first in all moral movements, have +sent, but a few weeks since, to their Legislature, a petition +demanding their right to vote and hold office in their State. Woman +seems to be preparing herself for a higher and holier destiny. That +same love of liberty which burned in the hearts of our sires, is now +being kindled anew in the daughters of this proud Republic. From the +present state of public sentiment, we have every reason to look +hopefully into the future. I see a brighter, happier day yet to come; +but woman must say how soon the dawn shall be, and whether the light +shall first shine in the East or the West. By her own efforts the +change must come. She must carve out her future destiny with her own +right hand. If she have not the energy to secure for herself her true +position, neither would she have the force or stability to maintain +it, if placed there by another. Farewell!</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">E. C. Stanton.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours sincerely,</p> + + + +<h4>Letter from Lucretia Mott.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—The call for this Convention, so numerously signed, is +indeed gratifying, and gives hope of a large attendance. The letter of +invitation was duly received, and I need scarcely say how gladly I +would be present if in my power. Engagements in another direction, as +well as the difficulty to travel at this season of the year, will +prevent my availing myself of so great a privilege. You will not, +however, be at a loss for speakers in your midst, for among the +signers to the call are the names of many whose hearts "believe unto +righteousness"; out of their abundance, therefore, the mouth will make +"confession unto salvation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_813" id="Page_813">[Pg 813]</a></span></p> + +<p>The wrongs of woman have too long slumbered. They now begin to cry for +redress. Let them be clearly pointed oat in your Convention; and then, +not <i>ask</i> as <i>favor</i>, but <i>demand</i> as <i>right</i>, that every civil and +ecclesiastical obstacle be removed out of the way.</p> + +<p>Rights are not dependent upon equality of mind; nor do we admit +inferiority, leaving that question to be settled by future +developments, when a fair opportunity shall be given for the equal +cultivation of the intellect, and the stronger powers of the mind +shall be called into action.</p> + +<p>If, in accordance with your call, you ascertain "the bearing which the +circumscribed sphere of woman has on the great political and social +evils that curse and desolate the land," you will not have come +together in vain.</p> + +<p>May you, indeed, "gain strength" by your contest with "difficulty!" +May the whole armor of "Right, Truth, and Reason" be yours; Then will +the influence of the Convention be felt in the assembled wisdom of +<i>men</i> which is to follow; and the good results, as well as your +example, will ultimately rouse other States to action in this most +important cause.</p> + +<p>I herewith forward to you a "Discourse on Woman," which, though +brought out by local circumstances, may yet contain principles of +universal application.</p> + +<p>Wishing you every success in your noble effort,</p> + +<p class="ltr-closing">I am yours, for woman's redemption and consequent elevation,</p> +<p class="ltr-right sc">Lucretia Mott.</p> + +<p class="ltr-left0"><span class="smcap">Philadelphia</span>, <i>4th mo., 13, 1850</i>.</p> + + +<h4>Letter from Lucy Stone.</h4> + +<p><i>For the Woman's Rights Convention:</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—The friends of human freedom in Massachusetts rejoice +that a Woman's Rights Convention is to be held in Ohio. We hail it as +a sign of progress, and deem it especially fitting that such a +Convention should be held <i>now</i>, when a State Constitution is to be +formed.</p> + +<p>It is easier, when the old is destroyed, to build the <i>new</i> right, +than to right it <i>after</i> it is built.</p> + +<p>The statute books of every State in the Union are disgraced by an +article which limits the right to the elective franchise to "male +citizens of twenty-one years of age and upwards," thus excluding +one-half the population of the country from all political influence, +subjecting woman to laws in the making of which she has neither vote +nor voice. The lowest drunkard may come up from wallowing in the +gutter, and, covered with filth, <i>reel</i> up to the ballot-box and +deposit his vote, and his right to do so is not questioned. The +meanest foreigner who comes to our shores, who can not speak his +mother-tongue correctly, has secured for him the right of suffrage. +The negro, crushed and degraded, as if he were not a brother man, made +the lowest of the law, even he, in some of the States, can vote; but +woman, in every State, is politically plunged in a degradation lower +than <i>his</i> lowest depths.</p> + +<p>Woman is taxed under laws made by those who profess to believe that +taxation and representation are inseparable, while, in the use and +imposition of the taxes, as in representation, she is absolutely +without influence. Should she hint that the profession and practice do +not agree, she is gravely told that "Women should not talk politics." +In most of the States the married woman loses, by her marriage, the +control of her person and the right of property, and, if she is a +mother, the right to her children also: while she secures what the +town paupers have—the right to be maintained. The legal disabilities +under which women labor have no end: I will not attempt to enumerate +them. Let the earnest women who speak in your Convention enter into +the detail of this thing, nor stop to "patch fig-leaves for the naked +truth," but "before all Israel and the sun," expose the atrocities of +the laws relative to women, until the ears of those who hear shall +tingle. So that the men who meet in Convention to form the new +Constitution for Ohio, shall, for very shame's sake, make haste to put +away the last remnant of the barbarism which your statute book (in +common with other States) retains in its inequality and injustice to +woman. We know too well the stern reform spirit of those who have +called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_814" id="Page_814">[Pg 814]</a></span> this Woman's Eights Convention, to doubt for a moment that +what can be done by you to secure equal rights for all, will be done.</p> + +<p>Massachusetts <i>ought</i> to have taken the lead in the work you are now +doing, but if she chooses to linger, let her young sisters of the West +set her a worthy example; and if the "Pilgrim spirit is not dead," +<i>we'll pledge Massachusetts to follow her</i>.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Lucy Stone.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, for Justice and Equal Rights,</p> + +<p class="ltr-to ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">Southampton</span>, <i>April 10, 1850</i>.</p> + + +<h4>Letter from Sarah Pugh.</h4> + +<p>"Lawrencian Villa is extremely beautiful; the grounds full of +shrubbery and flowers; the splendid dairy, the green-houses and +conservatories—four or five of them appropriated to fruit, flowers, +and rare plants in large numbers—the whole presenting great taste and +skill. Mrs. Lawrence's improvements are not completed; she is +extending her shrubbery and walks. She is undoubtedly one of the most +skillful cultivators and florists in the country (a country abounding +with them), and carries off more prizes at the horticultural +exhibitions than almost any one else. I am told Mr. Lawrence is an +eminent surgeon in London, and that the whole of the country place is +under Mrs. Lawrence's management."—<i>Colman's Letters from Europe</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—As I finished reading this paragraph, your letter, +inviting me to your Convention, to be held on the 19th inst., was +received. I can not, as I gladly would, be with you. That my mite may +not be wanting in aid of the cause, taking the above extract for my +text, I would add as a commentary, that, according to the laws and +usages of a large portion of Christendom, in the event of the death of +Mr. Lawrence, Mrs. Lawrence, the one whose skill and taste has formed +this elegant establishment, would be left by the will of Mr. Lawrence +an income from a part of the estate, and the "privilege" of occupying +"during her natural life," two or three rooms in the large mansion, +but powerless as a stranger in the beautiful demesne made valuable by +her industry and skill! This is not "supposing" a case, only in the +application of it to Mrs. L. In this country, where, as a general +rule, women take their full share of the labor and responsibility of a +household, and thus by their constant assiduity contribute their full +proportion to the means by which a comfortable competence is secured, +do we not see the disposal of it assumed as a matter of right by the +male partner of the firm?</p> + +<p>That women contribute their full share in the building-up of an estate +by <i>labor</i>—the only rightful mode—no one that is capable of taking +an enlightened view of the prevailing condition of things will deny. +True, she may not wield the axe or guide the plough, braced by the +invigorating air, for hers is the wearisome task, and the one which +requires the most skill to attend to the complicated machinery within +doors; she may not handle the awl or the plane for "ten hours a day," +with but a small tax on the intellectual, but by her <i>perpetual</i> +oversight and unvarying labor she may make one dollar, two, or more.</p> + +<p>This is one form of the many grievances to which women are subjected, +all arising from the false assumption of their inferiority by nature +and by the "ordination of Providence." May your Convention aid in +dispelling this delusion from the minds of men, but chiefly from the +minds of women; for to themselves, in a great degree, is their +degraded position owing. Rouse them to a belief in their natural +equality, and to a desire to sustain it by cultivation of their +noblest powers.</p> + +<p>There is much that crowds on me for utterance, but there will be those +among you that will be able to give a fuller and fitter expression to +the thoughts that cluster around this all-important question, the +"Rights and Duties of Women"—her rights equal to those of men—she +alone the judge of her duties.</p> + +<p>May your Convention hasten the day when these rights shall be +acknowledged as equal to those of man and independent of him, and when +men and women shall equally co-operate for the good of all mankind.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Sarah Pugh.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">With great interest, your friend,</p> + +<p class="ltr-to ltr-clear"><i>To the Ohio Convention of Women, Phila., April 15, 1850.</i></p> + + +<h4>Resolutions of the Salem (Ohio) Convention, 1850.</h4> + +<p>6th. <i>Resolved</i>, That in those laws which confer on man the power to +control the property and person of woman, and to remove from her at +will the children of her affection,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_815" id="Page_815">[Pg 815]</a></span> we recognize only the modified +code of the slave plantation; and that thus we are brought more nearly +in sympathy with the suffering slave, who is despoiled of all his +rights.</p> + +<p>16th. <i>Resolved</i>, That we regard those women who content themselves +with an idle, aimless life, as involved in the guilt as well as the +suffering of their own oppression; and that we hold those who go forth +into the world, in the face of the frowns and the sneers of the +public, to fill larger spheres of labor, as the truest preachers of +the cause of Woman's Rights.</p> + +<p>19th. <i>Resolved</i>, That, as woman is not permitted to hold office, nor +have any voice in the Government, she should not be compelled to pay +taxes out of her scanty wages to support men who get eight dollars a +day for <i>taking</i> the right to <i>themselves</i> to enact laws <i>for</i> her.</p> + +<p>20th. <i>Resolved</i>, That we, the women of Ohio, will hereafter meet +annually in Convention, to consult upon and adopt measures for the +removal of the various disabilities—political, social, religious, +legal, and pecuniary—to which women, as a class, are subjected, and +from which results so much misery, degradation, and crime.</p> + +<p>After the Akron Convention in 1851, <i>The New York Sunday Mercury</i> +published a woodcut covering a whole page, representing the +Convention. Every woman in coat and breeches and high-heeled boots, +sitting cross-legged smoking cigars (truly manly arguments for equal +political rights). There was not a Bloomer present.</p> + + +<h4>Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</h4> + +<p><i>To the Woman's Convention, held at Akron, Ohio, May 25, 1851:</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>:—It would give me great pleasure to accept your +invitation to attend the Convention, but as circumstances forbid my +being present with you, allow me, in addressing you by letter, to +touch on those points of this great question which have, of late, much +occupied my thoughts. It is often said to us tauntingly, "Well, you +have held Conventions, you have speechified and resolved, protested +and appealed, declared and petitioned, and now, what next? Why do you +not do something?" I have as often heard the reply, "We know not what +to do."</p> + +<p>Having for some years rehearsed to the unjust judge our grievances, +our legal and political disabilities and social wrongs, let us glance +at what we may do, at the various rights of which we may, even now, +quietly take possession. True, our right to vote we can not exercise +until our State Constitutions are remodelled; but we can petition our +legislators every session, and plead our cause before them. We can +make a manifestation by going to the polls, at each returning +election, bearing banners, with inscriptions thereon of great +sentiments handed down to us by our revolutionary fathers—such as, +"No Taxation without Representation," "No just Government can be +formed without the consent of the Governed," etc. We can refuse to pay +all taxes, and, like the English dissenters, suffer our goods to be +seized and sold, if need be. Such manifestations would appeal to a +class of minds that now take no note of our Conventions or their +proceedings; who never dream, even, that woman thinks herself +defrauded of a single right. The trades and professions are all open +to us; let us quietly enter and make ourselves, if not rich and +famous, at least independent and respectable. Many of them are quite +proper to woman, and some peculiarly so. As merchants, postmasters, +and silversmiths, teachers, preachers, and physicians, woman has +already proved herself fully competent. Who so well fitted to fill the +pulpits of our day as woman? All admit her superior to man in the +affections, high moral sentiments, and religious enthusiasm; and so +long as our popular theology and reason are at loggerheads, we have no +need of acute metaphysicians or skillful logicians in our pulpits. We +want those who can make the most effective appeals to our +imaginations, our hopes and fears.</p> + +<p>Again, as physicians. How desirable are educated women in this +profession! Give her knowledge commensurate with her natural +qualifications, and there is no position woman could assume that would +be so pre-eminently useful to her race at large, and her own sex in +particular, as that of ministering angel to the sick and afflicted; an +angel, not capable of sympathy merely, but armed with the power to +relieve suffering and prevent disease. The science of Obstetrics is a +branch of the profession which should be monopolized by woman. The +fact that it is now almost wholly in the hands of the male<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_816" id="Page_816">[Pg 816]</a></span> +practitioner, is an outrage on common decency that nothing but the +tyrant <i>custom</i> can excuse. "From the earliest history down to 1568, +it was practiced by women. The distinguished individual first to make +the innovation on this ancient, time-sanctified custom, was no less a +personage than a court prostitute, the Duchess of Villiers, a favorite +mistress of Louis XIV. of France." This is a formidable evil, and +productive of much immorality, misery, and crime. But now that some +colleges are open to woman, and the "Female Medical College of +Pennsylvania" has been established for our sex exclusively, I hope +this custom may be abolished as speedily as possible, for no excuse +can be found for its continuance, in the want of knowledge and skill +in our own sex. It seems to me, the existence of this custom argues a +much greater want of delicacy and refinement in woman, than would the +practice of the profession by her in all its various branches.</p> + +<p>But the great work before us is the education of those just coming on +the stage of action. Begin with the girls of <i>to-day</i>, and in twenty +years we can revolutionize this nation. The childhood of woman must be +free and untrammeled. The girl must be allowed to romp and play, +climb, skate, and swim; her clothing must be more like that of the +boy—strong, loose-fitting garments, thick boots, etc., that she may +be out at all times, and enter freely into all kinds of sports. Teach +her to go alone, by night and day, if need be, on the lonely highway, +or through the busy streets of the crowded metropolis. The manner in +which all courage and self-reliance is educated <i>out</i> of the girl, her +path portrayed with dangers and difficulties that never exist, is +melancholy indeed. Better, far, suffer occasional insults or die +outright, than live the life of a <i>coward</i>, or never move without a +protector. The best protector any woman can have, one that will serve +her at all times and in all places, is <i>courage</i>; this she must get by +her own experience, and experience comes by exposure. Let the girl be +thoroughly developed in body and soul, not modeled, like a piece of +clay, after some artificial specimen of humanity, with a body like +some plate in Godey's book of fashion, and a mind after the type of +Father Gregory's pattern daughters, loaded down with the traditions, +proprieties, and sentimentalities of generations of silly mothers and +grandmothers, but left free to be, to grow, to feel, to think, to act. +Development is one thing, that system of cramping, restraining, +torturing, perverting, and mystifying, called education, is quite +another. We have had women enough befooled under the one system, pray +let us try the other. The girl must early be impressed with the idea +that she is to be "a hand, not a mouth"; a worker, and not a drone, in +the great hive of human activity. Like the boy, she must be taught to +look forward to a life of self-dependence, and early prepare herself +for some trade or profession. Woman has relied heretofore too entirely +for her support on the <i>needle</i>—that one-eyed demon of destruction +that slays its thousands annually; that evil genius of our sex, which, +in spite of all our devotion, will never make us healthy, wealthy, or +wise.</p> + +<p>Teach the girl it is no part of her life to cater to the prejudices of +those around her. Make her independent of public sentiment, by showing +her how worthless and rotten a thing it is. It is a settled axiom with +me, after much examination and reflection, that public sentiment is +false on every subject. Yet what a tyrant it is over us all, woman +especially, whose very life is to please, whose highest ambition is to +be approved. But once outrage this tyrant, place yourself beyond his +jurisdiction, taste the joy of free thought and action, and how +powerless is his rule over you! his sceptre lies broken at your feet; +his very babblings of condemnation are sweet music in your ears; his +darkening frown is sunshine to your heart, for they tell of your +triumph and his discomfort. Think you, women <i>thus</i> educated would +long remain the weak, dependent beings we now find them? By no means. +Depend upon it, they would soon settle for themselves this whole +question of Woman's Rights. As educated capitalists and skillful +laborers, they would not be long in finding their true level in +political and social life.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">E. C. Stanton.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0"><span class="smcap">Seneca Falls</span>, <i>May 1861.</i></p> + + +<h4>Resolutions of the Massilon (Ohio) Convention, 1852.</h4> + +<p>1st. <i>Resolved</i>, That in the proposition affirmed by the nation to be +self-evidently true, that "all men are created equal," the word "<span class="smcap">men</span>" +is a general term, including the whole race, without distinction of +sex.</p> + +<p>2d. <i>Resolved</i>, That this equality of the sexes must extend, and does +extend, to rights personal, social, legal, political, industrial, and +religious, including, of course, representation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_817" id="Page_817">[Pg 817]</a></span> in the Government, +the elective franchise, free choice in occupations, and an impartial +distribution of the reward of effort; and in reference to all these +particulars, woman has the same right to choose <i>her</i> sphere of +action, as man to choose <i>his</i>.</p> + +<p>3d. <i>Resolved</i>, That since every human being has an individual sphere, +and that is the largest he or she can fill, no one has the right to +determine the proper sphere of another.</p> + +<p>4th. <i>Resolved</i>, That the assertion of these rights for woman, equally +with man, involves the doctrine that she, equally with him, should be +<i>protected in their exercise</i>.</p> + +<p>5th. <i>Resolved</i>, That we do not believe any legal or political +restriction necessary to preserve the distinctive character of woman, +and that in demanding for women equality of rights with their fathers, +husbands, brothers, and sons, we neither deny that distinctive +character, nor wish them to avoid any duty, or to lay aside that +feminine delicacy which legitimately belongs to them as mothers, +wives, sisters, and daughters.</p> + +<p>6th. <i>Resolved</i>, That to perfect the marriage union and provide for +the inevitable vicissitudes of life, the individuality of both parties +should be equally and distinctively recognised by the parties +themselves, and by the laws of the land; and, therefore, justice and +the highest regard for the interests of society require that our laws +be so amended, that married women may be permitted to conduct business +on their own account; to acquire, hold, invest, and dispose of +property in their own separate and individual right, subject to all +corresponding and appropriate obligations.</p> + +<p>7th. <i>Resolved</i>, That the clause of the Constitution of the State of +Ohio, which declares that "all men have the right of acquiring and +possessing property," is violated by the judicial doctrine that the +labor of the wife is the property of the husband.</p> + +<p>8th. <i>Resolved</i>, That in the general scantiness of compensation of +woman's labor, the restrictions imposed by custom and public opinion +upon her choice of employments, and her opportunities of earning +money, and the laws and social usages which regulate the distribution +of property as between men and women, have produced a pecuniary +dependence of woman upon man, widely and deeply injurious in many +ways; and not the least of all in too often perverting marriage, which +should be a holy relation growing out of spiritual affinities, into a +mere bargain and sale—a means to woman of securing a subsistence and +a home, and to man of obtaining a kitchen drudge or a parlor ornament.</p> + +<p>9th. <i>Resolved</i>, That sacred and inestimable in value as are the +rights which we assert for woman, their possession and exercise are +not the ultimate end we aim at; for rights are not ends, but only +means to ends, implying duties, and are to be demanded in order that +duties may be performed.</p> + +<p>10th. <i>Resolved</i>, That God, in constituting woman the mother of +mankind, made her a living Providence, to produce, nourish, guard, and +govern His best and noblest work from helpless infancy to adult years. +Having endowed her with faculties ample, but no more than sufficient, +for the performance of her great work, He requires of her, as +essentially necessary to its performance, the full development of +those faculties.</p> + +<p>11th. <i>Resolved</i>, That we do not charge woman's deprivation of her +rights upon man alone, for woman also has contributed to this result; +and as both have sinned together, we call on both to repent together, +that the wrong done by both may, by the united exertions of both, be +undone.</p> + + +<h4>Fifth National Woman's Rights Convention, Cleveland, Ohio 1853.</h4> + +<p>1st. <i>Resolved</i>, That by Human Rights, we mean natural Rights, in +contradistinction to conventional usages, and that because Woman is a +Human being, she, <i>therefore</i>, has Human Rights.</p> + +<p>2d. <i>Resolved</i>, because woman is a human being, and man is no more, +she has, by virtue of her constitutional nature, equal rights with +man; and that state of society must necessarily be wrong which does +not, in its usages and institutions, afford equal opportunities for +the enjoyment and protection of these Rights.</p> + +<p>4th. <i>Resolved</i>, the common law, by giving the husband the custody of +the wife's person, does virtually place her on a level with criminals, +lunatics, and fools, since these are the only classes of adult persons +over which the law-makers have thought it necessary to place keepers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_818" id="Page_818">[Pg 818]</a></span></p> + +<p>5th. <i>Resolved</i>, That if it be true, in the language of John C. +Calhoun, that "he who digs the money out of the soil, has a right to +it against the universe," then the law which gives to the husband the +power to use and control the earnings of the wife, makes robbery +legal, and is as mean as it is unjust.</p> + +<p>6th. <i>Resolved</i>, That woman will soonest free herself from the legal +disabilities she now suffers, by securing the right to the elective +franchise, thus becoming herself a lawmaker; and that to this end we +will petition our respective State Legislatures to call conventions to +amend their Constitutions, so that the right to the elective franchise +shall not be limited by the word "male."</p> + +<p>7th. <i>Resolved</i>, That there is neither justice nor sound policy in the +present arrangements of society, restricting women to so comparatively +a narrow range of employments; excluding them from those which are +most lucrative; and even in those to which they are admitted, awarding +them a compensation less, generally by one-half or two-thirds, than is +paid to men for an equal amount of service rendered.</p> + +<p>8th. <i>Resolved</i>, That, although the question of the intellectual +strength and attainments of woman has nothing to do with the +settlement of their rights, yet in reply to the oft-repeated inquiry, +"Have women, by nature, the same force of intellect with men?" we will +reply, that this inquiry can never be answered till women shall have +such training as shall give their physical and intellectual powers as +full opportunities for development, by being as heavily taxed and all +their resources as fully called forth, as are now those of man.</p> + +<p>Mr. Garrison, on being called for, replied that the resolutions would +do for his speech to-night, and read as follows:</p> + +<p>1st. <i>Resolved</i>, That the natural rights of one human being, are those +of every other, in all cases equally sacred and inalienable; hence the +boasted "Rights of Man," about which we hear so much, are simply the +"Rights of Woman," of which we hear so little; or, in other words, +they are the Rights of Humanity, neither affected by, nor dependent +upon, sex or condition.</p> + +<p>2d. <i>Resolved</i>, That those who deride the claims of woman to a full +recognition of her civil rights and political equality, exhibit the +spirit which tyrants and usurpers have displayed in all ages toward +the mass of mankind; strike at the foundation of all truly free and +equitable government; contend for a sexual aristocracy, which is as +irrational and unjust in principle, as that of wealth and hereditary +descent, and show their appreciation of liberty to be wholly one-sided +and supremely selfish.</p> + +<p>3d. <i>Resolved</i>, That for the men of this land to claim for themselves +the elective franchise, and the right to choose their own rulers and +enact their own laws, as essential to their freedom, safety, and +welfare, and then to deprive all the women of all these safeguards, +solely on the ground of a difference of sex, is to evince the pride of +self-esteem, the meanness of usurpation, and the folly of a +self-assumed superiority.</p> + +<p>4th. <i>Resolved</i>, That woman, as well as man, has a right to the +highest mental and physical development; to the most ample educational +advantages; to the occupancy of whatever position she can reach, in +Church and State, in science and art, in poetry and music, in painting +and sculpture, in civil jurisprudence and political economy, and in +all the varied departments of human industry, enterprise, and skill; +to the elective franchise, and to a voice in the administration of +justice, and the passage of laws for the general welfare.</p> + +<p>5th. <i>Resolved</i>, That to pretend that the granting of these claims +would tend to make woman less amiable and attractive, less regardful +of her peculiar duties and obligations as wife and mother, a wanderer +from her proper sphere, bringing confusion into domestic life, and +strife into the public assembly, is the cant of Papal Rome as to the +discordant and infidel tendencies of the right of private judgment in +matters of faith; is the outcry of legitimacy as to the incapacity of +the people to govern themselves; is the false allegations which +selfish and timid conservatism is ever making against every new +measure of reform, and has no foundation in reason, experience, fact, +or philosophy.</p> + +<p>6th. <i>Resolved</i>, That the consequences arising from the exclusion of +woman from the possession and exercise of her natural rights and the +cultivation of her mental faculties, have been calamitous to the whole +human race; making her servile, dependent, unwomanly; the victim of a +false gallantry on the one hand, and of tyrannous subjection on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_819" id="Page_819">[Pg 819]</a></span> +other; obstructing her mental growth, crippling her physical +development, and incapacitating her for general usefulness; and thus +inflicting an injury upon all born of woman, and cultivating in man a +lordly and arrogant spirit, a love of dominion, a disposition to +lightly regard her comfort and happiness, all which have been indulged +to a fearful extent, to the curse of his own soul and the desecration +of her nature.</p> + +<p>7th. <i>Resolved</i>, That so long as the most ignorant, degraded, and +worthless men are freely admitted to the ballot-box, and practically +acknowledged to be competent to determine who shall be in office and +how the Government shall be administered, it is preposterous to +pretend that women are not qualified to use the elective franchise, +and that they are fit only to be recognized, politically speaking, as +<i>non compos mentis</i>.</p> + + +<h4>Rebecca M. Sanford To The Cleveland Convention.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New London, Huron Co.</span>, O., <i>October 3, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Friends Of Reform</span>:—Not being present at the Convention, I can but +express my interest by a few lines.</p> + +<p>The mere question of woman's civil rights is not a deep one, for it is +a natural one, and closely follows her mission in this world. She was +not created anything else than a helpmeet to man, and where to limit +that assistance there is no rule in nature, except her physical +functions; <i>there is a limit in law</i>, but whether the law has the +right to place her where she is, is the question. It must be conceded +that the law has drawn too great an inference from her ancient social +attitude, and from present custom and prejudice. But has the law the +right to be prejudiced—ought it not to stand pure, and noble, and +magnanimous, founded on the natural rights of the human soul? The law +grants woman protection; it also grants negroes, animals, and property +protection in their certain spheres. It gives no more to woman.</p> + +<p>Woman's sphere is her capability of performing her duty to herself, +her family, and to society, taking self-preservation as the first law +of her nature. At present she does not fully act in her sphere. The +lid of the ballot-box shuts out more than one-half of her duty to +herself, family, and society. The eye of the law is diseased, and +woman must be made assistant occulist, to render that eye pure and +single-sighted. Let not this Convention close until some way and means +are decided upon to secure woman's vote at the polls. The propriety or +impropriety of the same place and box and other objections, can be +disposed of in a short time, as occasion requires.</p> + +<p>This done, the monster evils of society, Intemperance, etc., can be +handled with ungloved hands.</p> + +<p>At this time, as far as custom, made potent by law, permits woman to +lead her sons on in the journey of life, she keeps them pure and +unspotted from the world; but where she leaves off, hell's avenues are +opened, and man too often leads them through.</p> + +<p>Allow me, as one who has been obliged to look upon our Conventions +from many points of observation, and to note their effects upon the +community by actual communication with that community; as one who +feels identified in principle and purpose, to suggest perfect unity +and but few resolutions, and those well-digested and fully acted upon. +Beware of <i>ultraisms</i>. Give a high tone and elevation to your +deliberations; bring out the true, the beautiful, the divine of your +own souls, to meet the true, the grand, the divine inspirations of +this agitation.</p> + +<p>One thing else I would strongly recommend. Let no gentleman be +appointed to office in the Convention, or by the Convention. You will +then secure yourselves from outside coarseness, and secure to +yourselves greater respect from the public at large. If you do not +come to this <i>now</i>, you will be obliged to come to it before you +receive the credit for a <i>wisdom</i> you justly deserve.</p> + +<p>May God guide you and bless you.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Rebecca M. Sanford.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, strong in the right,</p> + + +<h4>Sixth National Woman's Rights Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1856.</h4> + +<p class="heading allsc">OFFICERS:</p> + +<p><i>President</i>—Martha C. Wright, New York.</p> + +<p><i>Vice-Presidents</i>—Ernestine L. Rose, New York; James Mott, +Pennsylvania; Frances D. Gage, Missouri; Hannah Tracy Cutler, Emily +Robinson, Ohio; Euphemia Cochrain, Michigan; Paulina Wright Davis, +Rhode Island.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_820" id="Page_820">[Pg 820]</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Business Committee</i>—Lucy Stone Blackwell, Ohio; Lucretia Mott, +Pennsylvania; Josephine S. Griffing, Adelaide Swift, Henry B. +Blackwell, Ohio.</p> + +<p><i>Secretaries</i>—Rebecca Plumly, Pennsylvania; Wm. Henry Smith, editor +of <i>The Type of the Times</i>.</p> + +<p class="heading allsc">RESOLUTIONS.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, All men are created equal and endowed with certain +inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the +pursuit of happiness; and,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, To secure these rights governments are instituted among them, +deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; therefore</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the legislators of these United States are +self-convicted of the grossest injustice and of inconsistency with +their own admitted principles, while they refuse these rights to +women.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That taxation without representation is tyranny.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in accordance with an universally admitted and +self-evident truth, woman should possess the elective franchise, as a +basis of all legal and political rights, as the only effective +protection of their interests, as a remedy against present oppression, +and as a school for character.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the right to acquire knowledge should be limited only +by the capacity of the individual; and, therefore, we deprecate, +especially, that social usage, inexorable as a written statute, which +excludes woman from all our best colleges, universities, schools of +law, medicine, and divinity, and that we demand equal scholastic +advantages for our daughters and our sons; that while only three out +of the one hundred and fifty American colleges are open to women, and +while every avenue to scientific and professional culture is closed +against her, it is unfair to judge woman by the same intellectual +standard as man, and impossible to define a limit to her capacities +and talents.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the inadequate compensation which the labor of women +now commands, is the source of inexpressible individual misery and +social demoralization; that inasmuch as the law of supply and demand +will always regulate the remuneration of labor, the diversity of +female employments and her free access to every branch of business, +are indispensable to the virtue, happiness, and well-being of society.</p> + + +<hr class="short" /> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<p class="heading">MASSACHUSETTS.</p> + +<p class="heading"><i>First Worcester Convention, 1850.</i></p> + +<h4>Names of Persons who Signed the Call of 1850.</h4> + + +<div class='center'> +<table class="smallprint" summary="Signers of Call of 1850"> +<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>MASSACHUSETTS.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lucy Stone,</td><td align='left'>B. S. Treanor,</td><td align='left'>Dr. Seth Rogers,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wm. H. Channing,</td><td align='left'>Mary M. Brooks,</td><td align='left'>Eliza F. Taft,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Harriot K. Hunt,</td><td align='left'>T. W. Higginson,</td><td align='left'>Dr. A. C. Taft,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A. Bronson Alcott,</td><td align='left'>Mary E. Higginson,</td><td align='left'>Charles K. Whipple,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Nathaniel Barney,</td><td align='left'>Emily Winslow,</td><td align='left'>Mary Bullard,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Eliza Barney,</td><td align='left'>R. Waldo Emerson,</td><td align='left'>Emma C. Goodwin,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wendell Phillips,</td><td align='left'>William L. Garrison,</td><td align='left'>Abby Price,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ann Greene Phillips,</td><td align='left'>Helen E. Garrison,</td><td align='left'>Thankful Southwick,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Adin Ballou,</td><td align='left'>Charles F. Hovey,</td><td align='left'>Eliza J. Kenney,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Anna Q. T. Parsons,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Earle</td><td align='left'>Louisa M. Sewall,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary H. L. Cabot,</td><td align='left'>Abby K. Foster</td><td align='left'>Sarah Southwick.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>RHODE ISLAND.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sarah H. Whitman,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Brown,</td><td align='left'>George Clarke,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Thomas Davis,</td><td align='left'>Elizabeth B. Chace,</td><td align='left'>Mary Adams,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Paulina W. Davis,</td><td align='left'>Mary Clarke,</td><td align='left'>George Adams.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Joseph A. Barker,</td><td align='left'>John L. Clarke,</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>NEW YORK</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Gerrit Smith,</td><td align='left'>Charlotte G. Coffin,</td><td align='left'>Joseph Savage,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Nancy Smith,</td><td align='left'>Mary G. Taber,</td><td align='left'>L. N. Fowler,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Elizabeth C. Stanton,</td><td align='left'>Elizabeth S. Miller,</td><td align='left'>Lydia Fowler,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Catharine Wilkinson,</td><td align='left'>Elizabeth Russell,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Smith,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Samuel J. May,</td><td align='left'>Stephen Smith,</td><td align='left'>Charles D. Miller.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Charlotte C. May,</td><td align='left'>Rosa Smith,</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>PENNSYLVANIA.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William Elder,</td><td align='left'>Jane G. Swisshelm,</td><td align='left'>Myra Townsend,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sarah Elder,</td><td align='left'>Charlotte Darlington,</td><td align='left'>Mary Grew,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sarah Tyndale,</td><td align='left'>Simon Barnard,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Lewis,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Warner Justice,</td><td align='left'>Lucretia Mott,</td><td align='left'>Sarah Pugh,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Huldah Justice,</td><td align='left'>James Mott,</td><td align='left'>Hannah Darlington,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>William Swisshelm,</td><td align='left'>W. S. Pierce,</td><td align='left'>Sarah D. Barnard.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>MARYLAND.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>Mrs. Eliza Stewart.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3" align='center'>OHIO.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Elizabeth Wilson,</td><td align='left'>Mary Cowles,</td><td align='left'>Benjamin S. Jones,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary A. Johnson,</td><td align='left'>Maria L. Giddings,</td><td align='left'>Lucius A. Hine,</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oliver Johnson,</td><td align='left'>Jane Elizabeth Jones,</td><td align='left'>Sylvia Cornell.</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p class="heading allsc">RESOLUTIONS.</p> + +<p>Wendell Phillips presented, from the Business Committee, the following +resolutions:</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That every human being of full age, and resident for a +proper length of time on the soil of the nation, who is required to +obey law, is entitled to a voice in its enactments; that every such +person, whose property or labor is taxed for the support of the +government, is entitled to a direct share in such government; +therefore,</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That women are clearly entitled to the right of suffrage, +and to be considered eligible to office; the omission to demand which +on her part, is a palpable recreancy to duty, and the denial of which +is a gross usurpation, on the part of man, no longer to be endured; +and that every party which claims to represent the humanity, +civilization, and progress of the age, is bound to inscribe on its +banners, "Equality before the law, without distinction of sex or +color."</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That political rights acknowledge no sex, and, therefore, +the word "male" should be stricken from every State Constitution.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the laws of property, as affecting married parties, +demand a thorough revisal, so that all rights may be equal between +them; that the wife may have, during life, an equal control over the +property gained by their mutual toil and sacrifices, be heir to her +husband precisely to the same extent that he is heir to her, and +entitled at her death to dispose by will of the same share of the +joint property as he is.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That since the prospect of honorable and useful +employment, in after life, for the faculties we are laboring to +discipline, is the keenest stimulus to fidelity in the use of +educational advantages, and since the best education is what we give +ourselves in the struggles, employments, and discipline of life; +therefore, it is impossible that woman should make full use of the +instruction already accorded to her, or that her career should do +justice to her faculties, until the avenues to the various civil and +professional employments are thrown open to arouse her ambition and +call forth all her nature.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That every effort to educate woman, until you accord to +her her rights, and arouse her conscience by the weight of her +responsibilities, is futile, and a waste of labor.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the cause we have met to advocate—the claim for +woman of all her natural and civil rights—bids us remember the two +millions of slave women at the South, the most grossly wronged and +foully outraged of all women; and in every effort for an improvement +in our civilization, we will bear in our heart of hearts the memory of +the trampled womanhood of the plantation, and omit no effort to raise +it to a share in the rights we claim for ourselves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_822" id="Page_822">[Pg 822]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>From Mildred A. Spoford.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Paulina Wright Davis</span>.—<i>Dear Madam</i>:—I take the liberty of enclosing +you an extract from a long epistle I have just received from Helene +Marie Weber. It speaks of matter interesting to us all, and I ask of +you the favor to submit it to the Convention. Miss Weber, as a +literary character, stands in the front rank of essayists in France. +She has labored zealously in behalf of her sex, as her numerous tracts +on subjects of reform bear testimony. No writer of the present age, +perhaps, has done more to exalt woman than she has by her powerful +essays. My personal knowledge of Miss Weber enables me to speak +confidently of her private character. It is utterly false that she is +a masculine woman. Her deportment is strictly lady-like, modest, and +unassuming, and her name is beyond reproach. She is a Protestant of +the Lutheran order; exemplary in all her religious duties, and +unaffectedly pious and benevolent.</p> + +<p>She is, as you are doubtless aware, a practical agriculturist. The +entire business of her farm is conducted by herself, and she has been +eminently successful. She has proved the capacity of woman for +business pursuits. Her success in this vocation is a practical +argument worth a thousand theories. I find no difficulty with her +because she dresses like a man. Her dress has not changed her nature. +Those who censure her for abandoning the female dress, make up their +judgment without proper reflection. She has violated no custom of her +own country, and has merely acted according to the honest dictates of +her mind—"<i>Honi soit qui mal y pense.</i>"</p> + +<p>Miss Weber is now about twenty-five years of age. She is a ripe +scholar, and has a perfect command of the English language. I am +decidedly of the opinion that her visit among us will do a vast deal +of good to our cause, and we ought to give her a hearty welcome when +she comes. I can assure our most rigid friends that they will all be +reconciled to her attire on five minutes' acquaintance....</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Mildred A. Spoford.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">I remain, dear madam, yours sincerely,</p> + + + +<h4 class="normal"><i>Extract from a Letter of</i> <span class="smcap">H. M. Weber</span>.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">La Pelouse</span>, <i>August 8, 1850</i>.</p> + +<p>.... Circumstances place it out of my power to visit America during +the present season.... The newspapers, both of England and America, +have done me great injustice. While they have described my apparel +with the minute accuracy of professional tailors, they have seen fit +to charge me with a disposition to undervalue the female sex, and to +identify myself with the other. Such calumnies are annoying to me. I +have never wished to be an Iphis—never for a moment affected to be +anything but a woman. I do not think any one ever mistook me for a +man, unless it may have been some stranger who slightly glanced at me +while passing along the street or the highway. I adopted male attire +as a measure of convenience in my business, and not through any wish +to appear eccentric or to pass for one of the male sex; and it has +ever been my rule to dress with the least possible ostentation +consistent with due neatness. I have never had cause to regret my +adoption of male attire, and never expect to return to a female +toilette. I am fully aware, however, that my dress will probably +prejudice the great body of our friends in America against me, while +present impressions on that subject exist; and it was with the view of +allaying this feeling that I wished to address the assembly at +Worcester.</p> + +<p>By this means I think I could satisfy any liberal-minded person, of +either sex, that there is no moral or political principle involved in +this question, and that a woman may, if she like, dress in male +habiliments without injury to herself or others.... Those who suppose +that woman can be "the political, social, pecuniary, religious equal +of man" without conforming to his dress, deceive themselves, and +mislead others who have no minds of their own. While the superiority +of the male dress for all purposes of business and recreation is +conceded, it is absurd to argue that we should not avail ourselves of +its advantages.</p> + +<p>There are no well-founded objections to women dressing, as we term it, +<i>en cavalier</i>. The only two I ever heard are these: "To do so is +contrary to law, both human and divine," and, "The male dress is +<i>outre</i> and less graceful than our own." These objections<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_823" id="Page_823">[Pg 823]</a></span> may be +answered in a few words. The human statutes on this subject should be +repealed, as they surely will be in due time, or be regarded as they +now are in European States—as dead letters. The practice is not +contrary to divine law. The alleged prohibition, as contained in the +fifth book of Moses, had reference to a religious custom of the +Amorites, and was limited in its application to the children of +Israel, who had by Divine command dispossessed that pagan nation of +their territory, and destroyed their temples of idolatrous worship.</p> + +<p>The context will show two other prohibitions on this subject. In the +11th and 12th verses of the same chapter (Deut, xxii.) it is forbidden +to "wear garments of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together," +and to wear fringes on the vesture. These prohibitions are all of the +same character, and had an obvious reference to the ceremonies used by +the pagans in their worship of idols. If one of these prohibitions be +binding upon nations of the present age, the others are not less so. +To the second objection, it may be said that beauty and grace in +matters of dress are determined by no rules, and if the fashion of +men's clothes be awkward it can easily be improved.</p> + +<p>Women who prefer the gown should, of course, consult their own +pleasure by continuing to wear it; while those whose preference is a +male dress, ought not to be blamed for adopting it. I close this +homily by recording my prediction, that in ten years male attire will +be generally worn by the women of most civilized countries, and that +it will precede the consummation of many great measures which are +deemed to be of paramount importance. I hope to visit America next +year. Thanks to the invention of steam, a voyage across the ocean is +now a mere <i>bagatelle</i>. I have not much of the spirit of travel +remaining. My agricultural pursuits confine me at home nearly the +whole year, but my captivity is a delightful one.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">H. M. Weber.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Affectionately yours,</p> + + +<p class="ltr-clear">William Henry Channing, from the Business Committee, suggested a plan +for organization, and the principles which should govern the movement +for establishing woman's co-sovereignty with man, and reported the +following:</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That as women alone can learn by experience and prove by +works, what is their rightful sphere of duty, we recommend, as <i>next +steps</i>, that they should demand and secure:</p> + +<p>1st. <i>Education</i> in primary and high-schools, universities, medical, +legal, and theological institutions, as comprehensive and exact as +their abilities prompt them to seek and their capabilities fit them to +receive.</p> + +<p>2d. <i>Partnership</i> in the labors, gains, risks, and remunerations of +productive industry, with such limits only as are assigned by taste, +intuitive judgment, or their measure of spiritual and physical vigor, +as tested by experiment.</p> + +<p>3d. A <i>co-equal share</i> in the formation and administration of law, +Municipal, State, and National, through legislative assemblies, +courts, and executive offices.</p> + +<p>4th. <i>Such unions</i> as may become the guardians of pure morals and +honorable manners—a high court of appeal in cases of outrage which +can not be, and are not touched by civil or ecclesiastical +organizations, as at present existing, and a medium for expressing the +highest views of justice dictated by human conscience and sanctioned +by holy inspiration.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That a Central Committee be appointed by this Convention, +empowered to enlarge its numbers, on (1st) Education; (2d) Industrial +Avocations; (3d) Civil and Political Rights and Regulations; (4th) +Social Relations; who shall correspond with each other and with the +Central Committee, hold meetings in their respective neighborhoods, +gather statistics, facts, and incidents to illustrate, raise funds for +the movement; and through the press, tracts, books, and the living +agent, guide public opinion upward and onward in the grand social +reform of establishing woman's co-sovereignty with man.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the Central Committee be authorized to call +Conventions at such times and places as they see fit, and that they +hold office until the next Annual Convention.</p> + +<p>To carry out the plan suggested by Mr. Channing, the following +Committees were appointed:</p> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Members Of Committees</span>.</p> + +<p><i>Central Committee</i>.—Paulina W. Davis, Chairman; Sarah H. Earle, +Secretary; Wendell Phillips, Treasurer; Mary A. W. Johnson, Wm. H. +Channing, Gerrit Smith, John G. Forman, Martha H. Mowry, Lucy Stone, +Abby K. Foster, Pliny Sexton, J. Elizabeth Jones, William Elder, +William Stedman, Emily Robinson, Abby H. Price, William Lloyd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_824" id="Page_824">[Pg 824]</a></span> +Garrison, Lucretia Mott, Ernestine L. Rose, Elizabeth C. Stanton, +Angelina Grimké Weld, Antoinette L. Brown, Harriot K. Hunt, Emma R. +Coe, Clarina I. H. Nichols, Charles C. Burleigh, Adin Ballou, Sarah H. +Hallock, Joseph A. Dugdale.</p> + +<p><i>Educational Committee</i>.—Eliza Barney, Chairman; Marian Blackwell, +Secretary; Elizabeth C. Stanton, Eliza Taft, Clarina I. H. Nichols, +Calvin Fairbanks, Hannah Darlington, Ann Eliza Brown, Elizabeth Oakes +Smith.</p> + +<p><i>Industrial Committee</i>.—Elizabeth Blackwell, Harriot K. Hunt, +Benjamin S. Treanor, Ebenezer D. Draper, Phebe Goodwin, Alice Jackson, +Maria Waring, Sarah L. Miller.</p> + +<p><i>Committee on Civil and Political Functions</i>.—Ernestine L. Rose, Lucy +Stone, Wendell Phillips, Hannah Stickney, Sarah Hallock, Abby K. +Foster, Charles C. Burleigh, Elizabeth C. Stanton, William L. +Garrison.</p> + +<p><i>Committee on Social Relations</i>.—Lucretia Mott, William H. Channing, +Anna Q. T. Parsons, William H. Fish, Rebecca Plumley, Elizabeth B. +Chace, John G. Forman, Henry Fish, Mary Grew.</p> + +<p><i>Committee on Publication</i>.—Wm. Henry Channing, Chairman; Ernestine +L. Rose, Charlotte Fowler Wells.</p> + + +<h4>MEMBERS WORCESTER CONVENTION, 1850.</h4> + +<p><i>Massachusetts</i>.—James N. Buffam, W. A. Alcott, A. H. Johnson, W. H. +Harrington, E. B. Briggs, A. C. Lackey, Ora Ober, Olive W. Hastings, +Thomas Provan, Rebecca Provan, A. W. Thayer, M. M. Munyan, W. H. +Johnson, G. W. Benson, Mrs. C. M. Carter, H. S. Brigham, E. A. Welsh, +Mrs. J. H. Moore, Margaret S. Merritt, Martha Willard, A. N. Lamb, +Mrs. Chaplin, N. B. Hill, K. H. Parsons, C. Jillson, L. Wait, Chas. +Bigham, J. T. Partridge, Eliza C. Clapp, Daniel Steward, Sophia Foord, +E. A. Clarke, E. H. Taft, Mrs. E. J. Henshaw, Edward Southwick, E. A. +Merrick, Mrs. C. Merrick, Lewis Ford, J. T. Everett, Loring Moody, +Sojourner Truth, E. Jane Alden, Elizabeth Dayton, Lima H. Ober, Thomas +Hill, Elizabeth Frail, Eli Belknap, M. M. Frail, Valentine Belknap, +Mary R. Metcalf, R. H. Ober, D. A. Mundy, Dr. S. Rogers, Elizabeth +Earle, G. D. Williams, Dorothy Whiting, Emily Whiting, Abigail Morgan, +Susan Fuller, Thomas Earle, Allen C. Earle, Martha B. Earle, Anne H. +Southwick, Joseph A. Howland, Adeline H. Howland, O. T. Harris, Julia +T. Harris, John M. Spear, E. D. Draper, D. R. P. Hewitt, L. C. +Wilkins, J. H. Binney, Mary Adams, Anna Goulding, E. A. Parrington, +Mrs. Parrington, Harriot K. Hunt, Chas. F. Hovey, Mrs. J. G. Hodgden, +C. M. Shaw, Ophelia D. Hill, Mrs. P. Allen, Anna Q. T. Parsons, C. D. +McLane, W. H. Channing, Wendell Phillips, Abby K. Foster, S. S. +Foster, Effingham L. Capron, Frances H. Drake, E. M. Dodge, Eliza +Barney, Lydia Barney, Wm. D. Cady, C. S. Dow, E. Goddard, Mary F. +Gilbert, Josiah Henshaw, Andrew Wellington, Louisa Gleason, Paulina +Gerry, Lucy Stone, Mary Abbot, Anna E. Fish, C. G. Munyan, Maria L. +Southwick, F. H. Underwood, J. B. Willard, Perry Joslin, Elizabeth +Johnson, Seneth Smith, Marian Hill, Wm. Coe, E. T. Smith, S. Aldrich, +M. A. Maynard, S. P. R., J. M. Cummings, Nancy Fay, M. Jane Davis, D. +R. Crandell, E. M. Burleigh, Sarah Chafee, Adeline Perry, Lydia E. +Chase, J. A. Fuller, Sarah Prentice, Emily Prentice, H. N. Fairbanks, +Mrs. A. Crowl, Dwight Tracy, J. S. Perry, Isaac Norcross, Julia A. +McIntyre, Emily Sanford, H. M. Sanford, C. D. M. Lane, Elizabeth +Firth, S. C. Sargeant, C. A. K. Ball, M. A. Thompson, Lucinda Safford, +S. E. Hall, S. D. Holmes, Z. W. Harlow, N. B. Spooner, Ignatius +Sargent, A. B. Humphrey, M. R. Hadwen, J. H. Shaw, Olive Darling, M. +A. Walden, Mrs. Chickery, Mrs. F. A. Pierce, C. M. Trenor, R. C. +Capron, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Emily Loveland, Mrs. S. Worcester, Phebe +Worcester, Adeline Worcester, Joanna R. Ballou, Abby H. Price, B. +Willard, T. Pool, M. B. Kent, E. H. Knowlton, G. Valentine, A. Prince, +Lydia Wilmarth, J. G. Warren, Mrs. E. A. Stowell, Martin Stowell, Mrs. +E. Stamp, C. M. Barbour, Annie E. Ruggles, T. B. Elliot, A. H. +Metcalf, Eliza J. Kenney, Rev. J. G. Forman, Andrew Stone, M.D., +Samuel May, Jr., Sarah R. May, M. S. Firth, A. P. B. Rawson, Nathaniel +Barney, Sarah H. Earle, F. C. Johnson.</p> + +<p><i>Maine</i>.—Anna R. Blake, Ellen M. Prescott, Oliver Dennett, Lydia +Dennett.</p> + +<p><i>New York</i>.—Frederick Douglass, Lydia Mott, S. H. Hallock, Ernestine +L. Rose, Joseph<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_825" id="Page_825">[Pg 825]</a></span> Carpenter, Pliny Sexton, J. C. Hathaway, Lucy N. +Colman, Antoinette L. Brown, Edgar Hicks.</p> + +<p><i>New Hampshire.</i>—P. B. Cogswell, Julia Worcester, Parker Pillsbury, +Sarah Pillsbury, Asa Foster.</p> + +<p><i>Vermont.</i>—Clarina I. Howard Nichols. Mrs. A. E. Brown.</p> + +<p><i>Pennsylvania.</i>—Hannah M. Darlington, Sarah Tyndale, Emma Parker, +Lucretia Mott, S. L. Miller, Isaac L. Miller, Alice Jackson, Janette +Jackson, Anna R. Cox, Jacob Pierce, Lewis E. Capen, Olive W. Hastings, +Rebecca Plumley, S. L. Hastings, Phebe Goodwin.</p> + +<p><i>Connecticut.</i>—C. C. Burleigh, Martha Smith, Lucius Holmes, Benj. +Segur, Buel Picket, Asa Cutler, Lucy T. Dike, C. M. Collins, Anna +Cornell, S. Monroe, Anna E. Price, M. C. Monroe, Gertrude R. Burleigh.</p> + +<p><i>Rhode Island.</i>—Betsy F. Lawton, Paulina W. Davis, Cynthia P. Bliss, +Rebecca C. Capron, Martha Mowry, Mary Eddy, Daniel Mitchell, G. Davis, +Susan Sisson, Dr. S. Mowry, Elizabeth B. Chase, Rebecca B. Spring, +Susan R. Harris, A. Barnes.</p> + +<p><i>Iowa.</i>—Silas Smith.</p> + +<p><i>Ohio.</i>—Mariana Johnson, Oliver Johnson, Ellen Blackwell, Marian +Blackwell, Diana W. Ballou.</p> + +<p><i>California.</i>—Mrs. Mary G. Wright.</p> + +<p>Asenath Fuller, Denney M. F. Walker, Eunice D. F. Pierce, Elijah +Houghton, L. H. Ober, A. Wyman, Silence Bigelow, Adeline S. Greene, +Josephine Reglar, Anna T. Draper, E. J. Alden, Sophia Taft, Alice H. +Easton, Calvin Fairbanks, D. H. Knowlton, E. W. K. Thompson, Caroline +Farnum, Mary R. Hubbard.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<h4>Second Worcester Convention, 1851.</h4> + +<p class="heading allsc">resolutions.</p> + +<p>1. <i>Resolved</i>, That while we would not undervalue other methods, the +Right of Suffrage for Women is, in our opinion, the corner-stone of +this enterprise, since we do not seek to protect woman, but rather to +place her in a position to protect herself.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Resolved</i>, That it will be woman's fault if, the ballot once in +her hand, all the barbarous, demoralizing, and unequal laws relating +to marriage and property, do not speedily vanish from the +statute-book; and while we acknowledge that the hope of a share in the +higher professions and profitable employments of society is one of the +strongest motives to intellectual culture, we know, also, that an +interest in political questions is an equally powerful stimulus; and +we see, beside, that we do our best to insure education to an +individual when we put the ballot into his hands; it being so clearly +the interest of the community that one upon whose decisions depend its +welfare and safety, should both have free access to the best means of +education, and be urged to make use of them.</p> + +<p>3. <i>Resolved</i>, That we do not feel called upon to assert or establish +the equality of the sexes, in an intellectual or any other point of +view. It is enough for our argument that natural and political +justice, and the axioms of English and American liberty, alike +determine that rights and burdens—taxation and representation—should +be co-extensive; hence women, as individual citizens, liable to +punishment for acts which the laws call criminal, or to be taxed in +their labor and property for the support of government, have a +self-evident and indisputable right, identically the same right that +men have, to a direct voice in the enactment of those laws and the +formation of that government.</p> + +<p>4. <i>Resolved</i>, That the democrat, or reformer, who denies suffrage to +women, is a democrat only because he was not born a noble, and one of +those levelers who are willing to level only down to themselves.</p> + +<p>5. <i>Resolved</i>, That while political and natural justice accords civil +equality to woman; while great thinkers of every age, from Plato to +Condorcet and Mill, have supported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_826" id="Page_826">[Pg 826]</a></span> their claim; while voluntary +associations, religious and secular, have been organized on this +basis, still, it is a favorite argument against it, that no political +community or nation ever existed in which women have not been in a +state of political inferiority. But, in reply, we remind our opponents +that the same fact has been alleged, with equal truth, in favor of +slavery; has been urged against freedom of industry, freedom of +conscience, and the freedom of the press; none of these liberties +having been thought compatible with a well-ordered state, until they +had proved their possibility by springing into existence as facts. +Besides, there is no difficulty in understanding why the subjection of +woman has been a <i>uniform custom</i>, when we recollect that we are just +emerging from the ages in which <i>might</i> has been always right.</p> + +<p>6. <i>Resolved</i>, That, so far from denying the overwhelming social and +civil influence of women, we are fully aware of its vast extent; +aware, with Demosthenes, that "measures which the statesman has +meditated a whole year may be overturned in a day by a woman"; and for +this very reason we proclaim it the very highest expediency to endow +her with full civil rights, since only then will she exercise this +mighty influence under a just sense of her duty and responsibility; +the history of all ages bearing witness, that the only safe course for +nations is to add open responsibility wherever there already exists +unobserved power.</p> + +<p>7. <i>Resolved</i>, That we deny the right of any portion of the species to +decide for another portion, or of any individual to decide for another +individual what is and what is not their "proper sphere"; that the +proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest to which +they are able to attain; what this is, can not be ascertained without +complete liberty of choice; woman, therefore, ought to choose for +herself what sphere she will fill, what education she will seek, and +what employment she will follow, and not be held bound to accept, in +submission, the rights, the education, and the sphere which man thinks +proper to allow her.</p> + +<p>8. <i>Resolved</i>, That we hold these truths to be self-evident: That all +men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with +certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and +the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments +are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent +of the governed; and we charge that man with gross dishonesty or +ignorance, who shall contend that "men," in the memorable document +from which we quote, does not stand for the human race; that "life, +liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," are the "inalienable rights" +of half only of the human species; and that, by "the governed," whose +consent is affirmed to be the only source of just power, is meant that +<i>half</i> of mankind only who, in relation to the other, have hitherto +assumed the character of <i>governors</i>.</p> + +<p>9. <i>Resolved</i>, That we see no weight in the argument that it is +<i>necessary</i> to exclude women from civil life because domestic cares +and political engagements are incompatible; since we do not see the +fact to be so in the case of men; and because, if the incompatibility +be real, it will take care of itself, neither men nor women needing +any law to exclude them from an occupation when they have undertaken +another incompatible with it. Second, we see nothing in the assertion +that women, themselves, do not desire a change, since we assert that +superstitious fears and dread of losing men's regard, smother all +frank expression on this point; and further, if it be their real wish +to avoid civil life, laws to keep them out of it are absurd, no +legislator having ever yet thought it necessary to compel people by +law to follow their own inclination.</p> + +<p>10. <i>Resolved</i>, That it is as absurd to deny all women their civil +rights because the cares of household and family take up all the time +of some, as it would be to exclude the whole male sex from Congress, +because some men are sailors, or soldiers in active service or +merchants, whose business requires all their attention and energies.</p> + + +<p class="ltr-date break"><span class="smcap">Glen Haven</span>, <i>Feb. 18, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Paulina Wright Davis</span>.—<i>My Dear Friend</i>:—Bless you for <i>The Una</i>, and +for sending me a copy. I am pleased with its appearance and with the +heartiness of your correspondents. Would you find room for some of my +lucubrations? If so, I will drive my quill a little for you some of +these evenings. Perhaps I might utter something readable.</p> + +<p>I do not ask you to send me <i>The Una</i>, for the dollar must go with the +request, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_827" id="Page_827">[Pg 827]</a></span> dollar has yet to be earned by <i>quill-work</i>, a task +quite as hard as was work when a child at the <i>quill-wheel</i>, winding +yarn from the reel.</p> + +<p>Drop me a line if you would like my assistance as a correspondent, and +what I can do, I will cheerfully.</p> + + +<p class="ltr-right sc">J. C. Jackson, M.D.<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a></p> +<p class="ltr-left">Very truly, your friend,</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> At present the head of the water-cure establishment, +Dansville, New York. Dr. Jackson has been identified with all the +leading reforms of his generation—Anti-slavery, Temperance, Woman +Suffrage—and an earnest advocate for a new dress for woman that shall +give freedom to her lungs and powers of locomotion.</p></div> +</div> + +<h4>Petition of Harriot K. Hunt to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention.</h4> + +<p><i>To the Constitutional Convention now sitting in Boston</i>:</p> + +<p>Your petitioner respectfully prays your honorable body to insert into +the Constitution a clause securing to females paying town, county, and +States taxes upon property held in their own right, and who have no +husbands or other guardians to represent and act for them, the same +right of voting possessed by male tax-paying citizens; or, should your +honorable body not deem such females capable of exercising the right +of suffrage with due discretion, at least excuse them from the paying +of taxes, in the appropriation of which they have no voice, thus +carrying out the great principle on which the American Revolution was +based—that taxation and representation ought to go together. All of +which your petitioner will ever pray.</p> + + +<h4>Paulina Wright Davis</h4> + +<p>Died August 24, 1876, after two years of great suffering. A large +circle of friends gathered at her elegant residence near Providence, +Rhode Island, to pay their last tributes of friendship and respect. +The chief speaker on the occasion was, at her request, Elizabeth Cady +Stanton. She left her noble husband, Hon. Thomas Davis, and two +adopted daughters, to mourn her loss. It was a soft, balmy day, just +such as our friend would have chosen, when she was laid in her last +resting-place. Dr. and Mrs. Channing, Theodore Tilton, and Joaquin +Miller, were among those who followed in the funeral <i>cortège</i>.</p> + + +<hr class="short" /> + + +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<p class="heading">INDIANA.</p> + + +<h4 class="normal"><i>Dublin Convention, October, 1851.</i></h4> + +<p class="heading allsc">RESOLUTIONS.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That all laws and customs having for their perpetuation +the only plea that they are time-honored, which in any way infringe on +woman's equal rights, cramp her energies, cripple her efforts, or +place her before the eyes of her family or the world as an inferior, +are wrong, and should be immediately abolished.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the avenues to gain, in all their varieties, should +be as freely opened to woman as they now are to man.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the rising generation of boys and girls should be +educated together in the same schools and colleges, and receive the +same kind and degree of education.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That woman should receive for equal labor, equal pay with +man.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That as the qualification for citizenship in this country +is based on capacity and morality, and as the sexes in their mental +condition are equal, therefore woman should enjoy the same rights of +citizenship with man.</p> + +<p>An association was organized and a constitution was adopted, to which +the following names were appended: Amanda M. Way, Minerva Maulsby, +Jane Morrow, Agnes Cook, Rebecca Shreves, Rebecca Williams, Wilson D. +Schooley, Samuel Mitchell, Elda Ann Smith, Dr. O. P. Baer, Mrs. O. P. +Baer, Hannah Birdsall, Melissa J. Diggs, Hannah<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_828" id="Page_828">[Pg 828]</a></span> Hiatt, Jas. P. Way, +B. F. Diggs, Mary B. Birdsall, Fanny Hiatt, Henry Hiatt, Thomas +Birdsall, Elizabeth Hoover, Elijah C. Wright, Elizabeth Wright, A. W. +Pruyne, Dr. Mary F. Thomas, Dr. Owen Thomas, Emi B. Swank, Joel P. +Davis. Lydia P. Davis, Thursey A. Way, Rebecca A. C. Murray.</p> + + +<hr class="short" /> + + +<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3> + +<p class="heading">PENNSYLVANIA.</p> + +<h4>Saxe, Dana, and Grace Greenwood.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Saxe</span> not long since, in a poem, satirized literary women very +keenly, upon which Grace Greenwood wrote a severe criticism on his +volume, which was published in <i>The Evening Post</i>. Mr. Saxe, after +seeing the criticism, wrote a note to the editor of the <i>Post</i>, in +which he makes an exception in favor of Grace. This calls forth +another letter from her, from which we make the following extract:</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New Brighton</span>, <i>Jan. 22, 1850</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>:—....At the time of my writing, I was feeling peculiarly +sensitive in regard to my womanly, as well as literary position. The +grandpapaish lectures of Mr. Dana had troubled and discouraged me. I +said, "If so speak and write our poets, surely the age is on the +backward line of march." I had become impatient and indignant for my +sex, thus lectured to, preached at, and satirized eternally. I had +grown weary of hearing woman told that her sole business here, the +highest, worthiest aims of her existence were to be loving, lovable, +feminine, to win thus a lover and a lord whom she might glorify abroad +and make comfortable at home.</p> + +<p>We have had enough of this. Man is not best qualified to mark out +woman's life-path. He knows, indeed, what he desires her to be, but he +does not yet understand all that God and nature require of her. Woman +should not be made up of love alone, the other attributes of her being +should not be dwarfed that this may have a large, unnatural growth. +Hers should be a distinct individuality, an independent moral +existence—or, at least, the dependence should be mutual. Woman can +best judge of woman, her wants, capacities, aspirations, and powers. +She can best speak to her on the life of the affections, on the loves +of her heart, on the peculiar joys and sorrows of her lot. She can +best teach her to be true to herself, to her high nature, to her brave +spirit; and then, indeed, shall she be constant in her love and +faithful to her duties, all, even to the most humble. Woman can +strengthen woman for the life of self-sacrifice, of devotion, of +ministration, of much endurance which lies before her.</p> + +<p>A woman of intellect and right feeling would never dream of pointing +out the weak and unfilial Desdemona as an example to her sex in this +age; would never dare to hold up as "our destined end and aim," a one +love, however romantic and poetical, which might be so selfishly +sought and so unscrupulously secured.</p> + +<p>Thank Heaven, woman herself is awaking to a perception of the causes +which have hitherto impeded her free and perfect development, which +have shut her out from the large experiences, the wealth and fullness +of the life to which she was called. She is beginning to feel, and to +cast off the bonds which oppress her—many of them, indeed, +self-imposed, and many gilded and rarely wrought, covered with flowers +and delicate tissues, but none the less bonds—bonds upon the speech, +upon the spirit, upon the life.</p> + +<p>There surely is a great truth involved in this question of "Woman's +Rights," and agitated as it may be, with wisdom and mildness, or with +rashness and the bold, high spirit which shocks and startles at the +first, good will come out of it eventually, great good, and the women +of the next age will be the stronger and the freer, aye, and the +happier, for the few brave spirits who stood up fearlessly for +unpopular truth against the world.</p> + +<p>I know that I expose myself to the charge of being unfeminine in +feeling, of ultraism. Well, better that than conservatism, though +conservatism were safer and more respectable. Senselessness is always +safety, and a mummy is a thoroughly respectable personage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_829" id="Page_829">[Pg 829]</a></span></p> + +<p>But to return to Mr. Saxe. Our poet satirized rather keenly literary +women, as a class, in the poem on which I remarked, but afterwards, in +his communication to the <i>Post</i>, most politely intimates that he +excepts me as one of the "women of real talent." But I will not be +excepted. I stand in the ranks, liable to all the penalties of the +calling—exposed to the hot shot of satire and the stinging arrows of +ridicule. I will not be received as an exception, where full justice +is not done to the class to which I belong.</p> + +<p>Suppose, now, that I should write a poem to deliver before some +"Woman's Rights Convention" or "Ladies' Literary Association," on "The +Times," which should come down sharp and heavy on the literary men of +the day, for usurping the delicate employ by right and nature the +peculiar province of woman, "the weaker vessel"; for neglecting their +shops, their fields, their counting-houses, and their interesting +families, and wasting their precious time in writing love-tales, +"doleful ditties," and "distressful strains," for the magazines; for +flirting with the muse, while their wives are wanting shoes, or +perpetrating puns, while their children cry for "buns"! Suppose that, +pointing every line with wit, I should hold them up to contempt as +careless, improvident lovers of pleasure, given to self-indulgence; +taking their Helicon more than dashed with gin; seekers after +notoriety, eccentric in their habits and unmanly in all their tastes! +After this, should I very handsomely make an exception in favor of Mr. +Saxe, would he feel complimented?</p> + +<p>As far as I have known literary women, and as far as they have been +made known to us in literary biography, the unwomanly and unamiable, +the poor wives, and daughters, and sisters, have been the rare +exceptions. I mean not alone "women of genius," but would include +those of mere talent, of mediocre talent even, devoted to letters as a +profession, and who, by their estimable characters and blameless +lives, are an honor to their calling.</p> + +<p>I believe that for one woman whom the pursuits of literature, the +ambition of authorship, and the love of fame have rendered unfit for +home-life, a thousand have been made thoroughly undomestic by poor +social strivings, the follies of fashion, and the intoxicating +distinction which mere personal beauty confers.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Grace Greenwood.</p> + + +<h4>Westchester Convention, June 2 and 3, 1852.</h4> + +<h4>Letter From Mary Mott.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Auburn, De Kalb County, Indiana,</span> <i>May 17, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sisters</span>:—You have called another Convention, and all who are the +friends of equal rights are invited to attend and participate in the +deliberations. The invitation will probably meet the eye of thousands +who would gladly encourage you by their presence, did circumstances +permit them to do so. Your aim is the moral, physical, and +intellectual elevation of woman, and through her to benefit the whole +human race. Can a Convention be called for a nobler purpose? Have men +ever aimed so high? They have had Conventions without stint; old men +and young men, Whigs, Democrats, Abolitionists, and Slaveholders, all +have had Conventions; but how few have aimed at anything higher than +political power for themselves and party. We have looked upon their +contests without personal interest in their result. Some benefits +might come to our husbands and brothers, but none to us. We are +permitted to talk about liberty, but we may not enjoy it. We may water +the tree with our tears, while our husbands pluck and enjoy the fruit. +Of what advantage is it to us to live in a Republic? Our social +position is no better than it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Men +have made great progress since that day; from being subjects they have +become sovereigns, ruling, as she professed to rule, by <i>divine +right</i>. True, many of these sovereigns have not a foot of ground, and +but one subject, a wife; but then he has absolute control over that +one. Yes, they have made progress; but for that progress they are much +indebted to men who, being in possession of power, were only anxious +to retain and extend it. The Great Charter was extorted from King John +by the barons in order to consolidate their power; they attended to +the interests of the common people (who then were in a state of +villanage) just so far as they could clearly see would be for their +own interest, and no further. The world is much indebted to those +sturdy barons; they did more good than they ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_830" id="Page_830">[Pg 830]</a></span> thought of doing. +There were germs in that charter that have borne excellent fruit since +that day.</p> + +<p>Error delights in obscurity; surrounded with clouds and darkness, it +is comparatively secure; but let these clouds be scattered, let the +light of reason fall upon it, and it is dangerous no longer. Any act +that causes men to think, is so far an advantage to society. The ideas +will not be lost. When King James I talked and wrote upon the doctrine +of the divine right of kings, he little thought it would result in the +beheading of his son Charles, and the expulsion of his son James from +the throne. Shrouded in mystery, it was approached with reverence, and +seldom critically examined, until he lifted the veil and invited +others to behold its beauty. What had been a mystery was a mystery no +longer. He forgot what others remembered—that it might have different +aspects for the sovereign and subject. It was judged unworthy of +national homage, but very desirable as a household god. And men who +thought Paul was in the dark when he wrote, "Let every soul be subject +unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers +that be are ordained of God. Whosoever resisteth the powers resisteth +the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves +damnation;" the men, I say, who could not and would not receive such +doctrine from Paul, found him worthy of all praise when he said, +"wives, obey your husbands." After a while England proposed taxing the +Colonies. One party held that protection gave them the right of +taxation. The other said the British Constitution gave the Government +no power to tax, unless the persons were represented in Parliament. +They declared their resolution to pay no taxes without representation. +Much was said about the rights of man. And when at last a three-penny +tax was laid upon tea, the men, being brimful of patriotism, cared +nothing for the tax; it was the principle they cared for, and they +would fight for their principles. How very sincere they were, let the +millions of wives answer, whose very existence is ignored in law. +There was one thing women gained by that contest; they gained a +clearer knowledge of their rights, a better understanding of their +wrongs, which, according to Blackstone, are a deprivation of rights. A +knowledge of these has produced a strong desire to seek a remedy. +Hence the call for a Woman's Convention. We must expect some +difference of opinion as to the extent of the reforms proposed; but +none who have carefully examined the subject will see reason to doubt +that our rights run parallel with the rights of man. That being +granted, we may then inquire into their expediency. Many things we +have a right to do which are inexpedient; but it is for us to say what +rights we will waive and what we will enjoy.</p> + +<p>We claim that the professions should be open to woman, believing she +can preach as acceptably, study the law as thoroughly, and practice +medicine as successfully, as man. The business of a clerk seems to us +to be peculiarly feminine, and we claim the right to choose any trade +or business for which we have strength and capacity. If it is true +that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the +governed, we would respectfully ask by what authority men legislate +for us, and who gave them that authority? If the power is a just one, +from what source did they derive it? Certainly not from the consent of +the governed. We presume neither men nor women care for the privilege +of voting, except as a means of securing the enjoyment of the rights +with which they have been endowed by their Creator, and for the +protection of which "Governments were first instituted among men." The +rights of women have been long in abeyance, but no lapse of time can +deprive her of them; they are not transferable. She does not ask the +law to confer upon her new rights. She only asks to have her just +rights recognized and protected. A glance at the present position of +women will show that the law does not effect this. It places minors, +idiots, insane persons, and married women in the same category. Man +takes all that the wife has to his own use, and such robberies are so +common that they excite no indignation in the breasts of his +fellow-men. He can spend all she has at the gaming-table, and who can +hinder him? He can spend it in dissipation, while his deceived wife is +suffering at home for the necessaries of life. The law gives him the +property, and with that he can usually find tools to work out his +designs. The law interposes no barriers between him and his victim. If +a married woman had equal protection with her husband, she would be +ambitious to acquire property by her own industry, and the habit of +industry and forethought thus acquired, would be found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_831" id="Page_831">[Pg 831]</a></span> valuable in +the marriage relation, and she would not be compelled to enter +matrimony as a house of refuge. But we are told that marriage is a +contract, voluntarily entered into by competent parties, and by this +contract the rights of the woman are transferred to the man. But +<i>marriage is not a contract</i>, it is an union instituted by God +Himself, anterior to any contract whatever. Man was not pronounced +good until woman was created, and God said, Let us make man in our +image after our own likeness, and let them <i>have dominion</i>. But some +one may meet us here with the question, did He not say to the woman, +after the fall, "Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule +over thee?" Yes, the Bible says so; and in the next chapter we are +told that Adam and Eve had two sons, the eldest called Cain, the +youngest Abel; and God said to Cain when speaking of Abel, "Unto thee +shall be his desire, and <i>thou shalt rule over him</i>." You see they are +the very words used to Eve; therefore, if dominion was taken from the +woman and given to the man, it was taken from all younger brothers and +given to the first-born. If marriage be a contract, why is it not +governed by the same rules that govern other contracts? A +consideration is necessary to the existence of a contract. In +marriage, the man offers love for love and hand for hand, but what is +the consideration for those personal rights of which he dispossesses +her? If a contract, why is there no remedy for its violation either in +law or equity, as is the case with other contracts? The bridegroom +says in the marriage service, "With all my worldly goods I thee +endow." Those who framed that impressive service no doubt considered +it but just that he who received all by the courtesy of England, +should endow her as liberally, and they thus reminded every bridegroom +of his duty, even before the altar; and what honest man will say he +should not keep his word?</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Mary Mott.</p> + + +<h4>Letter from Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>May 27, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Darlington</span>.—<i>Dear Madam</i>:—-I thank you cordially for your very +kind invitation, and would willingly attend your Convention did not my +duties in New York prevent my leaving the city.</p> + +<p>The Convention could not choose a more important subject than +education for discussion, and great good will be done if public +attention is roused to the imperfection of our present system, in +which the <i>physical nature</i> and the <i>duties of life</i> are equally +neglected. I believe that the chief source of the false position of +women is, the <i>inefficiency of women themselves</i>—the deplorable fact +that they are so often careless mothers, weak wives, poor +housekeepers, ignorant nurses, and frivolous human beings. If they +would perform with strength and wisdom the duties which lie +immediately around them, every sphere of life would soon be open to +them. They might be priests, physicians, rulers, welcome everywhere, +for all restrictive laws and foolish customs would speedily disappear +before the spiritual power of strong, good women.</p> + +<p>In order to develop such women, our present method of educating girls, +which is an injurious waste of time, must be entirely remodeled, and I +shall look forward with great interest to any plan of action that may +be suggested by your Convention.</p> + +<p>With hearty sympathy in every aspiration, and the right hand of +fellowship to every conscientious worker, believe me,</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Elizabeth Blackwell.</p> + +<p class="ltr-left">Very truly yours,</p> + + +<h4>Letter from Paulina Wright Davis.</h4> + +<p>It is also often asked if women want more rights, why do they not take +them? Let us see how that may be. Does a woman desire a <i>thorough</i> +medical education, where is the institution fully and property endowed +to receive her? Two women, it is true, have made their way through two +separate colleges, and when they had honorably won their diplomas, and +even the voice of scandal could not cast a shadow upon them, they were +publicly insulted by having the doors of those institutions closed +upon all others of their sex. If she desires a course of thorough +disciplinary study for any purpose whatsoever, where is she to find +means or the institution to receive her? The academic shades are +forbidden ground to her, while their massive doors turn with no harsh +grating sound at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_832" id="Page_832">[Pg 832]</a></span> the magic word of man for man. If we did not feel +too deeply the injustice of this, we might comfort ourselves with the +idea that our brains are so superior that we do not need the same +amount of study and discipline as the other sex....</p> + +<p>When Socrates was advocating the equal education of women for +governmental offices, he was met by ridicule. His words in +consideration of it are full of wisdom. Says the sage, "The man who +laughs at women going through their exercises, reaps the unripe fruit +of a ridiculous wisdom, and seems not rightly to know at what he +laughs, or why he does it, for that ever was and will be deemed a +noble saying, that the profitable is beautiful and the hurtful +base."....</p> + +<p>The harmony, unity, and oneness of the race, can not be secured while +there is class legislation; while one half of humanity is cramped +within a narrow sphere and governed by arbitrary power. This +unrecognized half desires these factitious restraints removed, and to +be placed side by side with the other, simply that there may be full, +free, and equal development in the future. The moral life which urges +this claim is the God within us. The force which opposes it, it +matters not whence it comes, "is of the earth, earthy."....</p> + + +<h4>Letter from Wm. H. and Mary Johnson.</h4> + +<p>The influence of woman as a wife and a mother has been so often +portrayed, that it would be difficult to find a moral writer who has +not indulged in the fruitful theme, but we can not omit the occasion +of quoting the sentiments of the eloquent Wm. Wirt on this subject: +"Is not <i>our</i> conduct toward this sex ill-advised and foolish in +relation to our own happiness? Is it not to reject a boon which +Providence kindly offers to us, and which, were we to embrace and +cultivate it with skill, would refine and enlarge the sources of our +own enjoyment, and purify, raise, and ennoble our own character beyond +the power of human calculation?</p> + +<p>"As the companion of a man of sense and virtue, as an instrument and +partner of his earthly happiness, what is the most beautiful woman in +the world without a mind—without a cultivated mind, capable of an +animated correspondence with his own, and of reciprocating all his +thoughts and feelings?</p> + +<p>Is not our conduct on this head ungenerous and ignoble to the other +sex? Do we not deprive them of the brightest and most angelic portion +of their character, degrade them from the rank of intelligence which +they are formed to hold; and instead of making them the partners of +our souls, attempt to debase them into mere objects of sense?</p> + +<p>"Is not our conduct mean and dastardly? Does it not look as if we were +afraid that, with equal opportunities, they would rival us in +intelligence, and examine and refute our pretended superiority?"</p> + +<p>We congratulate the Convention on the selection of the place for +holding their deliberations. In no part of the State could a community +be found better qualified to appreciate the objects of such a meeting, +or the means for their accomplishment. Chester has undoubtedly taken +the lead of all her sister counties in educational movements, as may +be witnessed in her numerous flourishing schools for both sexes, which +are attracting, as to a common focus, pupils from all parts of the +country. And it affords us unmingled pleasure to observe the numerous +female schools that have been established in this quarter, and the +patronage that has been extended toward them. These are sure +indications of an improved public sentiment in relation to the +development of the female mind.</p> + +<p>But there are other indications of advancement in this particular +still more encouraging, because they exhibit fruits of the most +ennobling powers of the human understanding. We allude to those +benevolent associations particularly for promoting temperance, in +which the females of Chester County have borne such a conspicuous and +effective part. The reflection is, indeed, animating, that at a period +when almost all kindred associations in the State, among the other +sex, had languished, and intemperance seemed likely once more to +overwhelm the land with more desolating evils than had ever yet been +known, there was yet to be found in Chester County an association of +females who were nobly bearing the standard of total abstinence, and +by their well-timed labors giving evidence that there was yet vitality +in the cause! Thus we have seen not only in this, but in other fields +of moral reform, that the progress has uniformly been commensurate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_833" id="Page_833">[Pg 833]</a></span> +with the intellectual and moral culture of the female mind. Let the +sex, then, give their influence in promoting a system of education +that will, if carried out, secure to every woman in the land the +blessings of thorough practical instruction. May the deliberations of +the Convention tend to the promotion of this most desirable object. +With such developments as must result from the more general diffusion +of knowledge, not only rights, but duties that have been hidden by the +suggestions of ignorance and bigotry will be brought to light, and the +sex will realize the noble sentiment of one of New England's gifted +sons, that</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"New occasions teach new duties—Time makes ancient good uncouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth!"<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Desiring that your discussions may be guided by that spirit which has +heretofore characterized them, we remain your friends,</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Wm. H. Johnson And Mary Johnson.</p> + + +<h4>Resolutions Of The Westchester Convention, 1852.</h4> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That every party which claims to represent the humanity, +the civilization, or the progress of the age, is bound to inscribe on +its banner, "Equality before the laws, without distinction of sex."</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the science of government is not necessarily +connected with the violence and intrigue which are now frequently +practised by party politicians, neither does the exercise of the +elective franchise, or the <i><span class="smcap">proper</span></i> discharge of governmental duties +necessarily involve the sacrifice of the refinement or sensibilities +of true womanhood.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in demanding for women that equal station among their +brethren to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, +we do not urge the claim in the spirit of an adverse policy, or with +any idea of separate advantages, or in any apprehension of conflicting +interests between the sexes.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That while we regret the antagonism into which we are +necessarily brought to some of the laws, customs, and monopolies of +society, we have cause to rejoice that the exposure of the great +wrongs of woman has been so promptly met by a kind spirit, and a +disposition to redress these wrongs, to open avenues for her +elevation, and to co-operate for her entire enfranchisement.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the greatest and most varied development of the human +mind, and the widest sphere of usefulness, can be obtained only by the +highest intellectual culture of the whole people, and that all +obstructions should be removed which tend to prevent women from +entering, as freely as men, upon the study of the physical, mental, +and moral sciences.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we can not appreciate the justice or generosity of +the laws which require women to pay taxes, and thus enable legislators +richly to endow colleges and universities for their own sex, from +which the female sex is entirely excluded.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the growing liberality of legislation and judicial +construction, in regard to the property rights of married women, +affords gratifying evidence of the equity of our demands and of their +progress in public sentiment.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the disposition of property by law as affecting +married parties, ought to be the same for the husband and the wife, +"that she should have, during life, an equal control over the property +gained by their mutual toil and sacrifices; and be heir to her +husband, precisely to the extent that he is heir to her."</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the mother being as much the natural guardian of the +child as the father, ought so to be recognized in law, and if it is +justly the province of the court to appoint guardians for minors, want +of qualification in the surviving parent should be the required +condition of the appointment.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the inequality of the remuneration paid for woman's +labor compared with that of man, is unjust and degrading, for so long +as custom awards to her smaller compensation for services of equal +value, she will be held in a state of dependence, not by any order of +nature, but by an arbitrary rule of man.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the distinctive traits of female character, like its +distinct physical organism, having its foundation in nature, the +widest range of thought and action, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_834" id="Page_834">[Pg 834]</a></span> highest cultivation and +development of all its varied powers, will only make more apparent +those sensibilities and graces which are considered its peculiar +charm.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in claiming for woman all the rights of human beings +we are but asserting her humanity, leaving the differences actually +existing in the male and female constitutions to take care of +themselves, these differences furnishing no reason for subjecting one +sex to the other.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That a Committee be appointed to prepare and circulate +petitions, asking of our Legislature such a change in the Constitution +and laws of this State, as shall extend to woman the privilege of the +elective franchise, and equality in the division and inheritance of +property.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That said Committee be instructed to collect information +upon the rights acknowledged and privileges guaranteed to women by +other States and Governments, publishing it in such way as by them +shall be deemed best for promoting political and legal equality +between the sexes.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That H. M. Darlington, P. E. Gibbons, Hannah Wright, Mary +Ann Fulton, Sarah E. Miller, Lea Pusey, and Ruth Dugdale be the +Committee.</p> + +<p>Oliver Johnson offered a resolution expressing the satisfaction +afforded to the members of the Convention by the presence and labors +of those friends who had come from their distant homes in other States +to be with us on this occasion. It was unanimously adopted.</p> + +<p>The Convention adjourned <i>sine die</i>.</p> + + +<h4>Fourth National W. R. Convention, Philadelphia, October 18, 19, 20, 1854.</h4> + +<p class="heading allsc">RESOLUTIONS.</p> + + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we congratulate the true friends of woman upon the +rapid progress which her cause has made during the year past, in spite +of the hostility of the bad and the prejudices of the good.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That woman's aspiration is to be the only limit of woman's +destiny.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That so long as woman is debarred from an equal education, +restricted in her employments, denied the right of independent +property if married, and denied in all cases the right of controlling +the legislation which she is nevertheless bound to obey, so long must +the woman's rights agitation be continued.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in perfect confidence that what we desire will one +day be accomplished, we commit the cause of woman to God and to +humanity.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in demanding the educational rights of woman, we do +not deny the natural distinctions of sex, but only wish to develop +them fully and harmoniously.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in demanding the industrial rights of woman, we only +claim that she should have "a fair day's wages for a fair day's work," +which is, however, impossible while she is restricted to few ill-paid +avocations, and unable (if married) to control her own earnings.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That in demanding the political rights of woman, we simply +assert the fundamental principle of democracy—that taxation and +representation should go together, and that, if this principle is +denied, all our institutions must fall with it.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That our present democracy is an absurdity, since it +deprives woman even of the political power which is allowed to her in +Europe, and abolishes all other aristocracy only to establish a new +aristocracy of sex, which includes <i>all</i> men and excludes all women.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That it is because we recognize the beauty and sacredness +of the family, that we demand for woman an equal position there, +instead of her losing, as now, the control of her own property, the +custody of her own children, and, finally, her own legal existence, +under laws which have all been pronounced by jurists "a disgrace to a +heathen nation."</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That we urge it upon the women of every American State: +First, to petition the legislatures for universal suffrage and a +reform in the rights of property; second, to use their utmost efforts +to improve female education; third, to open as rapidly as possible new +channels for female industry.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tracy Cutler made an address upon the objects of the movement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_835" id="Page_835">[Pg 835]</a></span></p> + + +<hr class="short" /> + + +<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3> + + +<h4>Lucretia Mott's Funeral.</h4> + +<p>Lueretia Mott died at her quiet home, "Roadside," near Philadelphia, +Nov. 11, 1880. Notwithstanding the Associated Press dispatch said, +"Funeral strictly private by special request," the attendance on that +occasion was large. <i>The Philadelphia Times</i> thus describes it: The +funeral of Lucretia Mott, attended by an immense concourse of people, +at her residence as well as in the cemetery, was an impressive scene +not soon to be forgotten. A handsome stone house, standing in +tastefully laid out and carefully kept grounds studded with forest +trees, just west of the old fork road in Cheltenham township, +Montgomery County, was the home of Lucretia Mott. On this occasion the +road and grounds were densely packed with carriages, people on +horseback and on foot, coming from many miles about to pay their last +tributes of respect to this noble woman.</p> + +<p>The funeral was conducted according to the custom of the Society of +Friends, and was in all its appointments simple and unostentatious, in +keeping with the character of the noble woman who had passed away. No +set forms were observed.</p> + +<p>The body, in her usual Quaker costume, lay in a room adjoining the +library, in a plain, unpolished walnut coffin, padded and lined with +some white material, but without any ornamentation whatever. There +were no flowers and no uttered demonstrations of grief, but a profound +sadness seemed to pervade the house, and for half an hour no sound was +heard in the densely thronged rooms save the muffled tread over the +thick carpets of fresh arrivals and the whispered directions of a +servant, pointing the way to the room where a last look at the dead +might be had.</p> + +<p>At half-past 12 o'clock Deborah Wharton arose from her seat in the +parlor, and made a brief but touching address on the life and +character of the deceased. She began by a quotation from the Bible: +"This day a mighty prince has fallen in Israel." She then contrasted +the condition in life of Lucretia Mott and that of a prince, and +showed how she had accomplished more for humanity than the most +powerful princes, but without noise and tumult and the shedding of +blood.</p> + +<p>Dr. Furness paid a beautiful tribute to the dead. He quoted the +beatitudes from the the fifth chapter of Matthew, and applied them to +her. "We are accustomed," he said, "to speak of the dead as having +gone to their reward, but Lucretia Mott had her reward here, and she +shall have it hereafter a hundred fold." Dr. Furness closed with an +eloquent prayer that the example of the beautiful life ended upon +earth might not be lost upon the living.</p> + +<p>Phoebe Couzins paid a tender and loving tribute that touched every +heart. Then loving hands took up the little coffin—it looked hardly +larger than a child's—and bore it to the gravelled drive in front of +the house. The route was down York road to Fairhill, the Friends' +cemetery, at Germantown Avenue and Cambria Street, in this city, which +was reached about three o'clock. Here several hundred people were +already gathered to witness the interment. Fairhill is a little +cemetery, about the size of a city square. It is mound-shaped, sloping +up from all sides to the center. It is filled with trees and +shrubbery, but does not contain a single monument, the graves being +simply marked with little marble blocks, which do not rise more than +six inches above the ground. In the highest part of the grounds was +the open grave, by the side of the husband, James Mott, who was buried +about twelve years ago. Above the grave spread the branches of an +aspen tree, and near it is a weeping willow. While thousands stood +about, the coffin was reverently, solemnly, and silently lowered. The +grave was then filled up, the friends turned away, and slowly the +cemetery was deserted.</p> + +<p>Memorial services were held the same day and hour by Liberal Germans +in Milwaukie, Wisconsin, and by the City Suffrage Association in New +York. Dr. Clement Lozier, president of the society, presided. Charles +G. Ames, of Philadelphia; Frederick Hinckley, of Providence; Robert +Collyer, of New York, gave memorial sermons in their respective +churches.</p> + + +<hr class="short" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_836" id="Page_836">[Pg 836]</a></span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + +<h4 class="allsc">MRS. STANTON'S REMINISCENCES.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Peterboro</span>, <i>December 1, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Elizabeth C. Stanton</span>.—<i>My Dear Friend</i>:—The "Woman's Rights +Movement" has deeply interested your generous heart, and you have ever +been ready to serve it with your vigorous understanding. It is, +therefore, at the risk of appearing somewhat unkind and uncivil, that +I give my honest answer to your question. You would know why I have so +little faith in this movement. I reply, that it is not in the proper +hands; and that the proper hands are not yet to be found. The present +age, although in advance, of any former age, is, nevertheless, very +far from being sufficiently under the sway of reason to take up the +cause of woman, and carry it forward to success. A much stronger and +much more widely diffused common sense than has characterized any of +the generations, must play its mightiest artillery upon the stupendous +piles of nonsense, which tradition and chivalry and a misinterpreted +and superstitious Christianity have reared in the way of this cause, +ere woman can have the prospect of the recognition of her rights and +of her confessed equality with man.</p> + +<p>The object of the "Woman's Rights Movement" is nothing less than to +recover the rights of woman—nothing less than to achieve her +independence. She is now the dependent of man; and, instead of rights, +she has but privileges—the mere concessions (always revocable and +always uncertain) of the other sex to her sex. I say nothing against +this object. It is as proper as it is great; and until it is realized, +woman can not be half herself, nor can man be half himself. I rejoice +in this object; and my sorrow is, that they, who are intent upon it, +are not capable of adjusting themselves to it—not high-souled enough +to consent to those changes and sacrifices in themselves, in their +positions and relations, essential to the attainment of this vital +object.</p> + +<p>What if a nation in the heart of Europe were to adopt, and uniformly +adhere to, the practice of cutting off one of the hands of all their +new-born children? It would from this cause be reduced to poverty, to +helpless dependence upon the charity of surrounding nations, and to +just such a measure of privileges as they might see fit to allow it, +in exchange for its forfeited rights. Very great, indeed, would be the +folly of this strange nation. But a still greater folly would it be +guilty of, should it, notwithstanding this voluntary mutilation, claim +all the wealth, and all the rights, and all the respect, and all the +independence which it enjoyed before it entered upon this systematic +mutilation.</p> + +<p>Now, this twofold folly of this one-hand nation illustrates the +similar twofold folly of some women. Voluntarily wearing, in common +with their sex, a dress which imprisons and cripples them, they, +nevertheless, follow up this absurdity with the greater one of +coveting and demanding a social position no less full of admitted +rights, and a relation to the other sex no less full of independence, +than such position and relation would naturally and necessarily have +been, had they scorned a dress which leaves them less than half their +personal power of self-subsistence and usefulness. I admit that the +mass of women are not chargeable with this latter absurdity of +cherishing aspirations and urging claims so wholly and so glaringly at +war with this voluntary imprisonment and this self-degradation. They +are content in their helplessness and poverty and destitution of +rights. Nay, they are so deeply deluded as to believe that all this +belongs to their natural and unavoidable lot. But the handful of women +of whom I am here complaining—the woman's rights women—persevere +just as blindly and stubbornly as do other women, in wearing a dress +that both marks and makes their impotence, and yet, O amazing +inconsistency! they are ashamed of their dependence, and remonstrate +against its injustice. They claim that the fullest measure of rights +and independence and dignity shall be accorded to them, and yet they +refuse to place themselves in circumstances corresponding with their +claim. They demand as much for themselves as is acknowledged to be due +to men, and yet they refuse to pay the necessary, the +never-to-be-avoided price of what they demand—the price which men +have to pay for it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_837" id="Page_837">[Pg 837]</a></span></p> + +<p>I admit that the dress of woman is not the primal cause of her +helplessness and degradation. That cause is to be found in the false +doctrines and sentiments of which the dress is the outgrowth and +symbol. On the other hand, however, these doctrines and sentiments +would never have become the huge bundle they now are, and they would +probably have all languished, and perhaps all expired, but for the +dress. For, as in many other instances, so in this, and emphatically +so in this, the cause is made more efficient by the reflex influence +of the effect. Let woman give up the irrational modes of clothing her +person, and these doctrines and sentiments would be deprived of their +most vital aliment by being deprived of their most natural expression. +In no other practical forms of folly to which they might betake +themselves, could they operate so vigorously and be so invigorated by +their operation.</p> + +<p>Were woman to throw off the dress, which, in the eye of chivalry and +gallantry, is so well adapted to womanly gracefulness and womanly +helplessness, and to put on a dress that would leave her free to work +her own way through the world, I see not but that chivalry and +gallantry would nearly or quite die out. No longer would she present +herself to man, now in the bewitching character of a plaything, a +doll, an idol, and now in the degraded character of his servant. But +he would confess her transmutation into his equal; and, therefore, all +occasion for the display of chivalry and gallantry toward her on the +one hand, and tyranny on the other, would have passed away. Only let +woman attire her person fitly for the whole battle of life—that great +and often rough battle, which she is as much bound to fight as man is, +and the common sense expressed in the change will put to flight all +the nonsensical fancies about her superiority to man, and all the +nonsensical fancies about her inferiority to him. No more will then be +heard of her being made of a finer material than man is made of; and, +on the contrary, no more will then be heard of her being but the +complement of man, and of its taking both a man and a woman (the +woman, of course, but a small part of it) to make up a unit. No more +will it then be said that there is sex in mind—an original sexual +difference in intellect. What a pity that so many of our noblest women +make this foolish admission! It is made by the great majority of the +women who plead the cause of woman.</p> + +<p>I am amazed that, the intelligent women engaged in the "Woman's Rights +Movement," see not the relation between their dress and the oppressive +evils which they are striving to throw off. I am amazed that they do +not see that their dress is indispensable to keep in countenance the +policy and purposes out of which those evils grow. I hazard nothing in +saying, that the relation between the dress and degradation of an +American woman, is as vital as between the cramped foot and +degradation of a Chinese woman; as vital as between the uses of the +inmate of the harem and the apparel and training provided for her. +Moreover, I hazard nothing in saying, that an American woman will +never have made her most effectual, nor, indeed, any serviceable +protest against the treatment of her sex in China, or by the lords of +the harem, so long as she consents to have her own person clothed in +ways so repugnant to reason and religion, and grateful only to a +vitiated taste, be it in her own or in the other sex.</p> + +<p>Women are holding their meetings; and with great ability do they urge +their claim to the rights of property and suffrage. But, as in the +case of the colored man, the great needed change is in himself, so, +also, in the case of woman, the great needed change is in herself. Of +what comparative avail would be her exercise of the right of suffrage, +if she is still to remain the victim of her present false notions of +herself and of her relations to the other sex?—false notions so +emphatically represented and perpetuated by her dress? Moreover, to +concede to her the rights of property would be to benefit her +comparatively little, unless she shall resolve to break out from her +clothes-prison, and to undertake right earnestly, as right earnestly +as a man, to get property. Solomon says: "The destruction of the poor +is their poverty." The adage that knowledge is power, is often +repeated; and there are, indeed, many instances to verify it. +Nevertheless, as a general proposition, it is a thousandfold more +emphatically true that property is power. Knowledge helps to get +property, but property is the power. That the slaves are a helpless +prey, is chiefly because they are so poor and their masters so rich. +The masses almost everywhere are well-nigh powerless, because almost +everywhere they are poor. How long will they consent to be poor? Just +so long as they shall consent to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_838" id="Page_838">[Pg 838]</a></span> robbed of their God-given right +to the soil. That women are helpless is no wonder, so long as women +are paupers.</p> + +<p>As long as woman shall be silly enough to learn her lessons in the +schools of gallantry and chivalry, so long will it be the height of +her ambition to be a graceful and amiable burden upon the other sex. +But as soon as she shall consent to place herself under the +instructions of reason and common sense, and to discard, as wholly +imaginary, those differences between the nature of man and the nature +of woman, out of which have grown innumerable nonsensical doctrines +and notions, and all sorts of namby pamby sentiments, so soon will she +find that, to no greater extent than men are dependent on each other, +are women to foster the idea of their dependence on men. Then, and not +till then, will women learn that, to be useful and happy, and to +accomplish the high purposes of their being, they must, no less +emphatically than men, stand upon their own feet, and work with own +hands, and bear the burdens of life with their own strength, and brave +its storms with their own resoluteness.</p> + +<p>The next "Woman's Rights Convention" will, I take it for granted, +differ but little from its predecessors. It will abound in righteous +demands and noble sentiments, but not in the evidence that they who +enunciate these demands and sentiments are prepared to put themselves +in harmony with what they conceive and demand. In a word, for the lack +of such preparation and of the deep earnestness, which alone can +prompt to such preparation, it will be, as has been every other +Woman's Rights Convention, a failure. Could I see it made up of women +whose dress would indicate their translation from cowardice to +courage; from slavery to freedom; from the kingdom of fancy and +fashion and foolery to the kingdom of reason and righteousness, then +would I hope for the elevation of woman, aye, and of man too, as +perhaps I have never yet hoped. What should be the parts and +particulars of such dress, I am incapable of saying. Whilst the +"Bloomer dress" is unspeakably better than the common dress, it +nevertheless affords not half that freedom of the person which woman +is entitled and bound to enjoy. I add, on this point, that however +much the dresses of the sexes should resemble each other, decency and +virtue and other considerations require that they should be obviously +distinguishable from each other.</p> + +<p>I am not unaware that such views as I have expressed in this letter +will be regarded as serving to break down the characteristic delicacy +of woman. I frankly admit that I would have it broken down; and that I +would have the artificial and conventional, the nonsensical and +pernicious thing give place to the natural delicacy which would be +common to both sexes. As the delicacy, which is made peculiar to one +of the sexes, is unnatural, and, therefore, false, this, which would +be common to both, would be natural, and, therefore, true. I would +have no characteristic delicacy of woman, and no characteristic +coarseness of man. On the contrary, believing man and woman to have +the same nature, and to be therefore under obligation to have the same +character, I would subject them to a common standard of morals and +manners. The delicacy of man should be no less shrinking than that of +woman, and the bravery of woman should be one with the bravery of man. +Then would there be a public sentiment very unlike that which now +requires the sexes to differ in character, and which, therefore, holds +them amenable to different codes—codes that, in their partiality to +man, allow him to commit high crimes, and that, in their cruelty to +woman, make the bare suspicion of such crimes on her part the +justification of her hopeless degradation and ruin.</p> + +<p>They who advocate that radical change in her dress which common sense +calls for, are infidels in the eyes of such as subscribe to this +interpretation of the Bible. For if the Bible teaches that the +Heaven-ordained condition of woman is so subordinate and her +Heaven-ordained character so mean, then they are infidels who would +have her cast aside a dress so becoming that character and condition, +and have her put on a dress so entirely at war with her humble nature, +as to indicate her conscious equality with man, and her purpose to +assert, achieve, and maintain her independence. Alas, how +misapprehended are the true objects and true uses of the Bible! That +blessed book is given to us, not so much that we may be taught by it +what to do, as that we may be urged by its solemn and fearful commands +and won by its melting entreaties, to do what we already know we +should do. Such, indeed, is the greatest value of its recorded fact +that Jesus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_839" id="Page_839">[Pg 839]</a></span> Christ died to save us from our sins. We already know that +we should repent of our sins and put them away; and it is this fact +which furnishes our strongest possible motive for doing so. But men +run to the Bible professedly to be taught their duty in matters where +their very instincts—where the laws, written in large, unmistakable, +ineffaceable letters upon the very foundations of their being—teach +them their duty. I say <i>professedly</i>, for generally it is only so. +They run to the Bible, not to learn the truth, but to make the Bible +the minister to folly and sin. They run from themselves to the Bible, +because they can more easily succeed in twisting its records into the +service of their guilty passions and guilty purposes than they can +their inflexible convictions. They run to the Bible for a paramount +authority that shall override and supplant these uncomfortable +convictions. They run from the teachings of their nature and the +remonstrances of their consciences to find something more palatable. +Hence, we find the rum-drinker, and slaveholder, and polygamist, and +other criminals going to the Bible. They go to it for the very purpose +of justifying their known sins. But not only may we not go to the +Bible to justify what we ourselves have already condemned, but we must +not take to the judicature of that book, as an open question, any of +the wrongs against which nature and common sense cry out—any of the +wrongs which nature and common sense call on us to condemn.</p> + +<p>So fraught with evil, and ruinous evil, is this practice, on the part +of the Church as well as the world, of inquiring the judgment of the +Bible in regard to sins, which the natural and universal conscience +condemns, but which the inquirer means to persist in, if only he can +get the Bible to testify against his conscience and in favor of his +sins; so baleful, I say, is this practice, as to drive me to the +conclusion that the Bible can not continue to be a blessing to mankind +in spite of it. The practice, in its present wide and well-nigh +universal extent, turns the heavenly volume into a curse. Owing to +this practice, the Bible is, this day, a hindrance rather than a help +to civilization.</p> + +<p>But if woman is of the same nature and same dignity with man, and if +as much and as varied labor is needed to supply her wants as to supply +the wants of man, and if for her to be, as she so emphatically is, +poor and destitute and dependent, is as fatal to her happiness and +usefulness and to the fulfillment of the high purposes of her +existence, as the like circumstances would be to the honor and welfare +of man, why then put her in a dress which compels her to be a +pauper—a pauper, whether in ribbons or rags? Why, I ask, put her in a +dress suited only to those occasional and brief moods, in which man +regards her as his darling, his idol, and his angel; or to that +general state of his mind in which he looks upon her as his servant, +and with feelings certainly much nearer contempt than adoration. +Strive as you will to elevate woman, nevertheless the disabilities and +degradation of this dress, together with that large group of false +views of the uses of her being and of her relations to man, symbolized +and perpetuated, as I have already said, by this dress, will make your +striving vain.</p> + +<p>Woman must first fight against herself—against personal and mental +habits so deep-rooted and controlling, and so seemingly inseparable +from herself, as to be mistaken for her very nature. And when she has +succeeded there, an easy victory will follow. But where shall be the +battle-ground for this indispensable self-conquest? She will laugh at +my answer when I tell her, that her dress, aye, her dress, must be +that battle-ground. What! no wider, no sublimer field than this to +reap her glories in! My further answer is, that if she shall reap them +anywhere, she must first reap them there. I add, that her triumph +there will be her triumph everywhere; and that her failure there will +be her failure everywhere.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Gerrit Smith.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Affectionately yours,</p> + + + +<h4>Mrs. Stanton's Reply.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Seneca Falls</span>, <i>Dec. 21, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Cousin</span>:—Your letter on the "Woman's Right Movement" I have +thoroughly read and considered. I thank you, in the name of woman, for +having said what you have on so many vital points. You have spoken +well for a man whose convictions on this subject are the result of +reason and observation; but they alone whose souls are fired through +personal experience and suffering can set forth the height and depth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_840" id="Page_840">[Pg 840]</a></span> +the source and center of the degradation of women; they alone can feel +a steadfast faith in their own native energy and power to accomplish a +final triumph over all adverse surroundings, a speedy and complete +success. You say you have but little faith in this reform, because the +changes we propose are so great, so radical, so comprehensive; whilst +they who have commenced the work are so puny, feeble, and undeveloped. +The mass of women are developed at least to the point of discontent, +and that, in the dawn of this nation, was considered a most dangerous +point in the British Parliament, and is now deemed equally so on a +Southern plantation. In the human soul, the steps between discontent +and action are few and short indeed. You, who suppose the mass of +women contented, know but little of the silent indignation, the deep +and settled disgust with which they contemplate our present social +arrangements. You claim to believe that in every sense, thought, and +feeling, man and woman are the same. Well, now, suppose yourself a +woman. You are educated up to that point where one feels a deep +interest in the welfare of her country, and in all the great questions +of the day, in both Church and State; yet you have no voice in either. +Little men, with little brains, may pour forth their little sentiments +by the hour, in the forum and the sacred desk, but public sentiment +and the religion of our day teach us that silence is most becoming in +woman. So to solitude you betake yourself, and read for your +consolation the thoughts of dead men; but from the Bible down to +Mother Goose's Melodies, how much complacency, think you, you would +feel in your womanhood? The philosopher, the poet, and the saint, all +combine to make the name of woman synonymous with either fool or +devil. Every passion of the human soul, which in manhood becomes so +grand and glorious in its results, is fatal to womankind. Ambition +makes a Lady Macbeth; love, an Ophelia; none but those brainless +things, without will or passion, are ever permitted to come to a good +end. What measure of content could you draw from the literature of the +past?</p> + +<p>Again, suppose yourself the wife of a confirmed drunkard. You behold +your earthly possessions all passing away; your heart is made +desolate; it has ceased to pulsate with either love, or hope, or joy. +Your house is sold over your head, and with it every article of +comfort and decency; your children gather round you, one by one, each +newcomer clothed in rags and crowned with shame; is it with gladness +you now welcome the embrace of that beastly husband, feel his fevered +breath upon your cheek, and inhale the disgusting odor of his tobacco +and rum? Would not your whole soul revolt from such an union? So do +the forty thousand drunkards' wives now in this State. They, too, are +all discontented, and but for the pressure of law and gospel would +speedily sunder all these unholy ties. Yes, sir, there are women, pure +and virtuous and noble as yourself, spending every day of all the +years of their existence in the most intimate association with +infamous men, kept so by that monstrous and unnatural artifice, +baptized by the sacred name of marriage. I might take you through +many, many phases of woman's life, into those sacred relations of +which we speak not in our conventions, where woman feels her deepest +wrongs, where in blank despair she drags out days, and weeks, and +months, and years of silent agony. I might paint you pictures of real +life so vivid as to force from you the agonized exclamation, How can +women endure such things!</p> + +<p>We who have spoken out, have declared our rights, political and civil; +but the entire revolution about to dawn upon us by the acknowledgment +of woman's social equality, has been seen and felt but by the few. The +rights, to vote, to hold property, to speak in public, are +all-important; but there are great social rights, before which all +others sink into utter insignificance. The cause of woman is, as you +admit, a broader and a deeper one than any with which you compare it; +and this, to me, is the very reason why it must succeed. It is not a +question of meats and drinks, of money and lands, but of human +rights—the sacred right of a woman to her own person, to all her +God-given powers of body and soul. Did it ever enter into the mind of +man that woman too had an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the +pursuit of her individual happiness? Did he ever take in the idea that +to the mother of the race, and to her alone, belonged the right to say +when a new being should be brought into the world? Has he, in the +gratification of his blind passions, ever paused to think whether it +was with joy and gladness that she gave up ten or twenty years of the +heyday of her existence to all the cares and sufferings of excessive +maternity? Our present laws, our religious teachings, our social +customs on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_841" id="Page_841">[Pg 841]</a></span> the whole question of marriage and divorce, are most +degrading to woman; and so long as man continues to think and write, +to speak and act, as if maternity was the one and sole object of a +woman's existence—so long as children are conceived in weariness and +disgust—you must not look for high-toned men and women capable of +accomplishing any great and noble achievement. But when woman shall +stand on an even pedestal with man—when they shall be bound together, +not by withes of law and gospel, but in holy unity and love, then, and +not till then, shall our efforts at minor reforms be crowned with +complete success. Here, in my opinion, is the starting-point; here is +the battle-ground where our independence must be fought and won. A +true marriage relation has far more to do with the elevation of woman +than the style and cut of her dress. Dress is a matter of taste, of +fashion; it is changeable, transient, and may be doffed or donned at +the will of the individual; but institutions, supported by laws, can +be overturned but by revolution. We have no reason to hope that +pantaloons would do more for us than they have done for man himself. +The negro slave enjoys the most unlimited freedom in his attire, not +surpassed even by the fashions of Eden in its palmiest days; yet in +spite of his dress, and his manhood, too, he is a slave still. Was the +old Roman in his toga less of a man than he now is in swallow-tail and +tights? Did the flowing robes of Christ Himself render His life less +grand and beautiful? In regard to dress, where you claim to be so +radical, you are far from consistent.</p> + +<p>Believing, as you do, in the identity of the sexes, that all the +difference we see in tastes, in character, is entirely the result of +education—that "man is woman and woman is man"—why keep up these +distinctions in dress? Surely, whatever dress is convenient for one +sex must be for the other also. Whatever is necessary for the perfect +and full development of man's physical being, must be equally so for +woman. I fully agree with you that woman is terribly cramped and +crippled in her present style of dress. I have not one word to utter +in its defense; but to me, it seems that if she would enjoy entire +freedom, she should dress just like man. Why proclaim our sex on the +house-tops, seeing that it is a badge of degradation, and deprives us +of so many rights and privileges wherever we go? Disguised as a man, +the distinguished French woman, "George Sand," has been able to see +life in Paris, and has spoken in political meetings with great +applause, as no woman could have done. In male attire, we could travel +by land or sea; go through all the streets and lanes of our cities and +towns by night and day, without a protector; get seven hundred dollars +a year for teaching, instead of three, and ten dollars for making a +coat, instead of two or three, as we now do. All this we could do +without fear of insult, or the least sacrifice of decency or virtue. +If nature has not made the sex so clearly defined as to be seen +through any disguise, why should we make the difference so striking? +Depend upon it, when men and women in their every-day life see and +think less of sex and more of mind, we shall all lead far purer and +higher lives.</p> + +<p>Your letter, my noble cousin, must have been written in a most +desponding mood, as all the great reforms of the day seem to you on +the verge of failure. What are the experiences of days and months and +years in the lifetime of a mighty nation? Can one man in his brief +hour hope to see the beginning and end of any reform? When you compare +the public sentiment and social customs of our day with what they were +fifty years ago, how can you despair of the temperance cause? With a +Maine Law and divorce for drunkenness, the rum-seller and drunkard +must soon come to terms. Let woman's motto be, "No union with +Drunkards," and she will soon bring this long and well-fought battle +to a triumphant close.</p> + +<p>Neither should you despair of the anti-slavery cause; with its +martyrs, its runaway slaves, its legal decisions in almost every paper +you take up, the topic of debate in our national councils, our +political meetings, and our literature, it seems as if the nation were +all alive on this question. True, four millions of slaves groan in +their chains still, but every man in this nation has a higher idea of +individual rights than he had twenty years ago.</p> + +<p>As to the cause of woman, I see no signs of failure. We already have a +property law, which in its legitimate effects must elevate the <i>femme +covert</i> into a living, breathing woman, a wife into a property-holder, +who can make contracts, buy and sell. In a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_842" id="Page_842">[Pg 842]</a></span> years we shall see how +well it works. It needs but little forethought to perceive that in due +time these large property-holders must be represented in the +Government; and when the mass of women see that there is some hope of +becoming voters and law-makers, they will take to their rights as +naturally as the negro to his heels when he is sure of success. Their +present seeming content is very much like Sambo's on the plantation. +If you truly believe that man is woman, and woman is man; if you +believe that all the burning indignation that fires your soul at the +sight of injustice and oppression, if suffered in your own person, +would nerve you to a life-long struggle for liberty and independence, +then know that what you feel, I feel too, and what I feel the mass of +women feel also. Judge by yourself, then, how long the women of this +nation will consent to be deprived of their social, civil, and +political rights; but talk not to us of failure. Talk not to us of +chivalry, that died long ago. Where do you see it? No gallant knight +presents himself at the bar of justice to pay the penalty of our +crimes. We suffer in our own persons, on the gallows, and in prison +walls. From Blackstone down to Kent, there is no display of gallantry +in your written codes. In social life, true, a man in love will jump +to pick up a glove or bouquet for a silly girl of sixteen, whilst at +home he will permit his aged mother to carry pails of water and +armfuls of wood, or his wife to lug a twenty-pound baby, hour after +hour, without ever offering to relieve her. I have seen a great many +men priding themselves on their good breeding—gentlemen, born and +educated—who never manifest one iota of spontaneous gallantry toward +the women of their own household.</p> + +<p>Divines may preach thanksgiving sermons on the poetry of the arm-chair +and the cradle; but when they lay down their newspapers, or leave +their beds a cold night to attend to the wants of either, I shall +begin to look for the golden age of chivalry once more. If a short +dress is to make the men less gallant than they now are, I beg the +women at our next convention to add at least two yards more to every +skirt they wear. And you mock us with dependence, too. Do not the +majority of women in every town support themselves, and very many +their husbands, too? What father of a family, at the loss of his wife, +has ever been able to meet his responsibilities as woman has done? +When the mother dies the house is made desolate, the children are +forsaken—scattered to the four winds of heaven—to the care of any +one who chooses to take them. Go to those aged widows who have reared +large families of children, unaided and alone, who have kept them all +together under one roof, watched and nursed them in health and +sickness through all their infant years, clothed and educated them, +and made them all respectable men and women, ask them on whom they +depended. They will tell you on their own hands, and on that +never-dying, never-failing love, that a mother's heart alone can know. +It is into hands like these—to these who have calmly met the terrible +emergencies of life—who, without the inspiration of glory, or fame, +or applause, through long years have faithfully and bravely performed +their work, self-sustained and cheered, that we commit our cause. We +need not wait for one more generation to pass away, to find a race of +women worthy to assert the humanity of women, and that is all we claim +to do.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Affectionately yours,</p> + + + +<h4>Frances D. Gage's Reply to Gerrit Smith.</h4> + +<p class="heading">[From Frederick Douglass' paper].</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Frederick Douglass</span>.—<i>Dear Sir</i>:—In your issue of Dec. 1st, I find a +letter from Hon. Gerrit Smith to Elizabeth C. Stanton, in reference to +the Woman's Rights Movement, showing cause, through labored columns, +why it has proved a failure.</p> + +<p>This article, though addressed to Mrs. Stanton, is an attack upon +every one engaged in the cause. For he boldly asserts that the +movement "is not in proper hands, and that the proper hands are not +yet to be found." I will not deny the assertion, but must still claim +the privilege of working in a movement that involves not only my own +interest, but the interests of my sex, and through us the interests of +a whole humanity. And though I may be but a John the Baptist, unworthy +to unloose the latchet of the shoes of those who are to come in <i>short +skirts</i> to redeem the world, I still prefer that humble position to +being Peter to deny my Master, or a Gerrit Smith to assert that truth +<i>can</i> fail.</p> + +<p>I do not propose to enter into a full criticism of Mr. Smith's long +letter. He has made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_843" id="Page_843">[Pg 843]</a></span> the whole battle-ground of the Woman's Rights +Movement her dress. Nothing brighter, nothing nobler than a few inches +of calico or brocade added to or taken from her skirts, is to decide +this great and glorious question—to give her freedom or to continue +her a slave. This argument, had it come from one of less influence +than Gerrit Smith, would have been simply ridiculous. But coming from +<i>him</i>, the almost oracle of a large portion of our reformers, it +becomes worthy of an answer from every earnest woman in our cause. I +will not say one word in defense of our present mode of dress. Not I; +but bad as it is, and cumbersome and annoying, I still feel that we +can wear it, and yet be lovers of liberty, speaking out our deep +feeling, portraying our accumulated wrongs, saving ourselves for a +time yet from that antagonism which we must inevitably meet when we +don the semi-male attire. We <i>must own ourselves under the law first</i>, +own our bodies, our earnings, our genius, and our consciences; then we +will turn to the lesser matter of what shall be the garniture of the +body. Was the old Roman less a man in his cumbrous toga, than +Washington in his tights? Was Christ less a Christ in His vesture, +woven without a seam, than He would have been in the suit of a +Broadway dandy?</p> + +<p>"Moreover, to concede to her rights of property, would be to benefit +her comparatively little, unless she shall resolve to break out of her +clothes-prison, and to undertake right earnestly, as earnestly as a +man, to get property." So says Gerrit Smith. And he imputes the want +of earnestness to her clothes. It in a new doctrine that high and holy +purposes go from without inward, that the garments of men or women +govern and control their aspirations. But do not women <i>now</i> work +right earnestly? Do not the German women and our market women labor +right earnestly? Do not the wives of our farmers and mechanics toil? +Is not the work of the <i>mothers</i> in our land as important as that of +the father? "Labor is the foundation of wealth." The reason that our +women are "paupers," is not that they do not labor "right earnestly," +but that the law gives their earnings into the hands of manhood. Mr. +Smith says, "That women are helpless, is no wonder, so long as they +are paupers"; he might add, no wonder that the slaves of the cotton +plantation are helpless, so long as they are paupers. What reduces +both the woman and the slave to this condition? The law which gives +the husband and the master entire control of the person and earnings +of each; the law that robs each of the rights and liberties that every +"free white male citizen" takes to himself as God-given. Truth falling +from the lips of a Lucretia Mott in long skirts is none the less +truth, than if uttered by a Lucy Stone in short dress, or a Helen +Maria Weber in pants and swallow-tail coat. And I can not yet think so +meanly of manly justice, as to believe it will yield simply to a +change of garments. Let us assert our right to be free. Let us get out +of our prison-house of law. Let us own ourselves, our earnings, our +genius; let us have power to control as well as to earn and to own; +then will each woman adjust her dress to her relations in life.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smith speaks of reforms as failures; what can he mean? "The +Temperance Reform still drags." I have been in New York thirty-seven +days; have given thirty-three lectures; have been at taverns, hotels, +private houses, and depots; rode in stages, country wagons, omnibuses, +carriages, and railroad cars; met the masses of people daily, and yet +have not seen one drunken man, scarce an evidence that there was such +a thing as intemperance in the Empire State. If the whole body has +been diseased from childhood and a cure be attempted, shall we cry out +against the physician that his effort is a failure, because the malady +does not wholly disappear at once? Oh, no! let us rather cheer than +discourage, while we see symptoms of amendment, hoping and trusting +that each day will give renewed strength for the morrow, till the cure +shall be made perfect. The accumulated ills of centuries can not be +removed in a day or a year. Shall we talk of the Anti-Slavery Cause as +a "failure," while our whole great nation is shaking as if an Etna +were boiling below? When did the North ever stand, as now, defiant of +slavery? Anti-slavery may be said to be written upon the "chariots and +the bells of the horses." Our National Congress is nothing more or +less than a great Anti-slavery Convention. Not a bill, no matter how +small or how great its importance, but hinges upon the question of +slavery. The Anti-Slavery Cause is no failure; <span class="smcap">right can not fail</span>.</p> + +<p>"The next Woman's Rights Convention will be, as has every other +Woman's Rights<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_844" id="Page_844">[Pg 844]</a></span> Convention, a failure, notwithstanding it will abound +in righteous demands and noble sentiments." So thinks Mr. Smith. Has +any Woman's Rights Convention been a failure? No movement so radical, +striking so boldly at the foundation of all social and political +order, has ever come before the people, or ever so rapidly and widely +diffused its doctrine. The reports of our conventions have traveled +wherever newspapers are read, causing discussion for and against, and +these discussions have elicited truth, and aroused public thought to +the evils growing out of woman's position. New trades and callings are +opening to us; in every town and village may be found advocates for +the equality of privilege under the law, for every thinking, reasoning +human soul. Shall we talk of failure, because forty, twenty, or seven +years have not perfected all things? When intemperance shall have +passed away, and the four million chattel slaves shall sing songs of +freedom; when woman shall be recognized as man's equal, socially, +legally, and politically, there will yet be reforms and reformers, and +men who will despair and look upon one branch of the reform as the +great <i>battle-ground</i>, and talk of the failure of the eternal law of +progress. Still there will be stout hearts and willing hands to work +on, honestly believing that truth and right are sustained by no single +point, and their watchword will be "Onward!" We can not fail, for our +cause is just.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Frances D. Gage.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0"><span class="smcap">Rochester</span>, <i>Dec. 24, 1855</i>.</p> + +<p class="ltr-clear">The names of those who wore the Bloomer costume at that early day are: +Elizabeth Smith Miller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sarah +and Angelina Grimké, Mrs. William Burleigh, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, +Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Jarvis, Lydia Sayre Hasbrook, +Amelia Williard, Celia Burleigh, Harriet N. Austin, Lydia Jenkins, and +many patients at sanitariums, many farmers' wives, and many young +ladies for skating and gymnastic exercises.</p> + +<p>Looking back to this experiment, we are not surprised at the hostility +of men in general to the dress, as it made it very uncomfortable for +them to go anywhere with those who wore it. People would stare; some +men and women make rude remarks; boys follow in crowds, or shout from +behind fences, so that the gentleman in attendance felt it his duty to +resent the insult by showing fight, unless he had sufficient +self-control to pursue the even tenor of his way without taking the +slightest notice of the commotion his companion was creating. No man +went through the ordeal with the coolness and dogged determination of +Charles Dudley Miller, escorting his wife and cousin on long +journeyings, at fashionable resorts, in New York and Washington, to +the vexation of all his gentleman friends and acquaintances.</p> + + +<h4>Amelia Bloomer comments on Jane G. Swisshelm.</h4> + +<p><i>To the Editor of the Nonpareil:</i></p> + +<p>Jane Grey Swisshelm thinks it is dare-devil independence that is +ruining the women of this country.—<i>Nonpareil</i>.</p> + +<p>And what woman of them all has shown so much "dare-devil independence" +as Jane G. Swisshelm? One of the first women to wield the +pen-editorial thirty years ago, she was so independent and fearless as +to excite the wonder of her readers. The first woman admitted to the +reporters' gallery in the Capitol of the nation, she astonished and +shocked the country by her attacks upon Daniel Webster and other +prominent senators at that day, and was expelled from the gallery for +her "dare-devil independence." While publishing a paper at St. Cloud, +she was so outspoken and offensive in her personalities, that her +press and type were destroyed by indignant politicians. After the war +she obtained an office in one of the departments at Washington, and +started a paper called the <i>Reconstructionist</i> in that city. For her +"dare-devil independence" as a writer in attacking President Johnson +and charging that he had part in the assassination of President +Lincoln, she was relieved of her office and her press destroyed.</p> + +<p>And so in whatever she has part; to whatever she sets her hand, she +ever displays a reckless independence that is truly a marvel to those +who watch her uncertain course. She fearlessly attacks both friend and +foe, if they go contrary to her views of right; and both people and +measures that to-day have her countenance and approval, are liable +to-morrow to receive an unmerciful lashing from her pen. No woman has +set an example<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_845" id="Page_845">[Pg 845]</a></span> of more "dare-devil independence" before "the women of +this country" than Jane G. Swisshelm, and if it is proving their ruin +she has much to answer for. But we are not prepared to believe her +assertion, and we can not think her a ruined woman, notwithstanding +her many years of "dare-devil independence." The writer has known her +long, has engaged in many a pen-tilt with her, but has never met her +personally. She regards her as an able, outspoken defender of the +wronged and oppressed, a fearless advocate of the right as she sees +it, and an "independent dare-devil" writer on whatever subject she +deems worthy of her pen.</p> + + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Amelia Bloomer.</p> +<p class="ltr-left0"><span class="smcap">Council Bluffs</span>, <i>July 30, 1880</i>.</p> + + +<hr class="short" /> + + +<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> + + +<p class="heading">NEW YORK.</p> + +<h4>NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE CONVENTION, ROCHESTER,<br /> +APRIL 20, 21, 1852.</h4> + +<h4>Letter From Frances Dana Gage.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">McConnellsville</span>, O., <i>April 5, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Miss Anthony</span>:—Yours of March 22d, asking of me words of +counsel and encouragement for the friends of temperance, who are to +meet at Rochester on the 20th inst., is before me. Need I tell you how +earnestly my heart responds to that request, and with what joy I hail +every demonstration on the part of woman that evidences an awakening +energy in her mind, to the great duties and responsibilities of her +being!</p> + +<p>If we examine the statistics of crime in the United States, we shall +find that a very large proportion of the criminals of our land are the +victims of intemperance. The records of poverty, shame, and +degradation furnish the same evidence against the traffic and use of +ardent spirits. Examine those same statistics, and another great truth +stares us in the face—that nine-tenths of all the manufacturers of +ardent spirits, of all the drinkers of ardent spirits, and of all the +criminals made by ardent spirits, are men. But we find, too, in our +search, a fact equally interesting to us, that the greatest sufferers +from all this crime and shame and wrong, are women. Is it not meet, +then, that women should lay aside the dependent inactivity which has +hitherto held them powerless, and give their strength to the cause of +reform which is now agitating the minds of the people?</p> + +<p>What is woman? The answer is returned to me in tones that shake my +very soul. She is the mother of mankind! The living providence, under +God, who gives to every human being its mental, moral, and physical +organism—who stamps upon every human heart her seal for good or for +evil! Who then, but she, should cry aloud, and spare not, when the +children she has borne—forgetting their allegiance to her and their +duty to themselves, have assumed the power to rule over her, shutting +her out from their counsels, and surrounding her, without her own +consent, with circumstances which lead to misery and death; and, in +their pride and strength, trampling upon justice, love, and mercy, +withering her heart by violence and oppression, and yet compelling +her, in her dependence as a wife, to perpetuate in her offspring their +own depraved appetites and disorganized faculties?</p> + +<p>It will not be denied that woman in all past ages has been made, by +both law and custom, the inferior of her own children. Man has assumed +to himself the power of being "lord of creation"; yet what has he done +for his kind? Look at the present state of society and receive your +answer! He has filled the world with madness, with oppression and +wrong; he has allowed snares to be laid at every turn, to entangle the +feet of our children, and lead them away into vice and crime. He has +legalized the causes which fill the jails, the penitentiaries, the +houses of correction, the poorhouses, and asylums with the blood of +our hearts, even our children, and our children's children. There is +not a drunkard in the land, not a criminal that has been made by +strong drink, but is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_846" id="Page_846">[Pg 846]</a></span> child of a woman. Yet not one woman's vote +has ever been given to legalize the sale of ardent spirits, that have +maddened the brain of her child. No woman's vote ever sanctioned the +rum-seller's bar, at which her husband has bartered away his manhood, +and made himself more vile than the brutes that perish.</p> + +<p>Shall I be answered that woman's home influence must keep her children +and her husband in the paths of virtue and honor? What! disfranchised +woman—made by her law-maker an appendage to himself, her intellect +shackled, her labor underrated, her physical power dwarfed and +enfeebled by custom—is she expected to do this mighty thing? I hear +again an answer—"Woman is responsible for the moral atmosphere that +surrounds her." Is this indeed so? Men have taken from her every power +to protect herself, even the dignity and respect which the right of +suffrage confers upon the lowest man in the community, and which makes +his opinion worth its price among men, is denied her. Men are in the +daily habit of indulging in immoralities and vices, while they enjoin +it upon woman—"poor, frail, weak woman," as they call us—to destroy +the influence they have created. They place the temptation before the +child, then sternly demand of its suffering mother her vigilance and +care to control the appetite, which he has, it may be, inherited from +his fathers, back from the third and fourth generation. Perchance, +even through her own breast, he has sucked the poison that is +corrupting all the streams of his young life. She may have grappled +with the tempter, and come off conqueror; but can she hold him, the +drunkard's child—the drunkard's grandchild—with the twofold curse +upon his brow, while men place this direful temptation ever within his +reach, glaring out upon him in beautiful enticement at every corner of +the street, and at every turn of his daily and nightly walks, and add +their influence and example to draw him away from the counsels of a +mother's love, and the endearments of home? Then, when, under the +influence of men, he outrages society, and in his maniac madness +violates the law of the land, and becomes a felon, wasting away his +days in the gloomy prison, or expiating his crimes upon the gallows, +they forget what they have done, and, turning to the poor, crushed, +and bleeding heart, which they have pierced with a thousand sorrows, +cry out, "You, O mother of that guilty man, have not done your duty, +and society holds you responsible for all his suffering and for all +his crimes. O God! is this not adding insult to injury? How can the +weak control the strong? How can the servant, bound hand and foot by +the master, do the bidding of the tyrant? But all men are not +weak—all men are not oppressive—all men are not unjust. There is a +strong force, ever in the field of battle, struggling for truth and +right with earnest heart and firm resolve. Let us arouse, O my +sisters, and add our strength to theirs. The time is coming, aye, now +is, when we must shake off our dependence and inactivity, and live +more true to ourselves; when we must refuse to live the wives of +drunkards, perpetuating, as mothers, their vices and crimes, to +pollute society.</p> + +<p>Let us unite with the good and true among men, that our efforts may +overcome the legions who have hitherto conquered on the side of wrong, +and raise high the standard of love and humanity, where falsehood and +hate have ruled rampant. Let every woman, everywhere, speak out her +bold, free thought on the subject of temperance; and while we plead +with our rulers to deliver our husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers +from the temptations to sin, let us demand with earnestness the right +hereafter to protect ourselves; that we may redeem ourselves from the +unjust law that now taxes every woman, without her own consent, +according to her property or ability to labor, to pay her proportion +for the support of vice and crime—that hereafter, when such great +moral questions are under public discussion, and we, as one-half of +the people, send up our petitions to our law-makers for a redress of +wrongs, or an abatement of evils, our voice of pleading shall not be +spurned by the heartless sneer, "They are only women, and the voice of +a woman can not affect us at the polls, or disturb the course of our +political parties. What care we for her progress or her wrongs?" Thus +have we too often been answered, and shall be again, if we do not +prove worthy of the chaplet of freedom, by winning it for ourselves. +Let us then unite heart and hand in this great temperance +reform—laying aside all local animosities, all sectional prejudices +and sectarian jealousies—and, as it were, with one voice and one +spirit, take hold of the work before us, resolved, if we fail to-day, +to rise with renewed energy to-morrow, and "Never give up!" be our +motto, till,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_847" id="Page_847">[Pg 847]</a></span> without bloodshed, without hate, or uncharitableness, we +gain the victory over those who cater to the most uncontrollable and +destructive passion that has ever cursed humanity—the passion for +strong drink—and then, and not till then, will we fold our arms and +take our rest, amid the hallelujahs of the redeemed.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Frances D. Gage.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, in the cause of humanity,</p> + +<p class="ltr-to ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">S. B. Anthony</span>, <i>Chairman of Committee</i>.</p> + + +<h4>Letter From Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Brattleboro</span>, Vt., <i>April 13, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sisters and Friends of Temperance</span>:—In resorting to the pen as a +medium of communication with your Convention, I feel, most sensibly, +its inferiority to a <i>vis-à-vis</i> talk—it tells so little, and that so +meagerly! But, remembering that a single just thought, or vital truth, +communicated to intelligent minds and willing hearts, is an investment +sure of increase, I will bless God for the pen, and ask of Him to make +it a tongue for humanity.</p> + +<p>The limits of a written communication will forbid me to say much, and +I would address myself to a single point broached in your Albany +Convention, and a point that seems to me of the first importance; +because a mistake in morals, a wrong perpetrated in the home +relations, is the greatest of all wrongs to humanity. And marred, +indeed, would be your triumph, if, in preventing the repeal of one +unjust statute, you sanction the enactment of another. So true it is +that one injustice becomes the source of another, I fear to +contemplate the enactment of a trifling encroachment even upon +inalienable rights or divinely sanctioned pursuits.</p> + +<p>In addressing myself to the position that "drunkenness be made a good +and sufficient cause for divorce," I am secured from any fear that you +will regard me as warring with abstractions, since such a bill has +found its way into your Legislature, proving that the popular sympathy +for suffering women and children is already concentrating on divorce +as the remedy. I have hesitated about addressing you on this subject, +lest I might render myself obnoxious to the charge of diverting the +objects of your meeting, to an occasion for the discussion of +forbidden topics. But an irresistible conviction, that since the +subject is already launched upon your reform, it is important that a +just view of its bearings should be presented, impels me to throw +myself upon your sympathy, trusting in the divine power of truth to +commend both my motives and my positions to your judgments and your +hearts.</p> + +<p>And first, let me say, I would not be understood as opposed to +emancipating the wretched victims of irremediable abuse. And if there +be a benevolence, under the warm heaven of Almighty Love, it is the +protecting of helplessness and innocence from the sufferings that +result, inevitably, from the rum traffic. But while I fully agree with +Mrs. Stanton, that no pure-hearted and understanding woman can +innocently become the mother of a drunkard's offspring—while I rely +upon the general diffusion of physiological truths to create a +sentiment abhorrent to the idea of raising a posterity, the breath of +whose life shall be derived from the animalized and morally tainted +vitality of the drunkard—I differ with her in the remedy proposed.</p> + +<p>If drunkenness were irremediable, and beyond the reach of legislation, +then would I accept her remedy as the final resort. But regarding +divorce as, at best, only affording a choice of evils, and drunkenness +as equally within the power of legislation, I propose that drunkenness +be legislated out of existence, and thus the necessity for divorce, +which it creates, be avoided.</p> + +<p>Let a thoroughly prohibitive law destroy the traffic, and the drunkard +will be found "clothed" again and "in his right mind." It will come to +this glorious consummation at last; and, though years may intervene, +it becomes us to act with reference to the discerned future, and +beware that transient evils do not betray us into planting life-long +regrets. Allow me to illustrate my idea by narrating incidents of a +case in point, and which is inwoven with the recollections and +tenderest sympathies of my whole life.</p> + +<p>The young and lovely mother of five little ones procured a divorce +from her husband, whose incompetency and unkindness was the result +solely of intemperance, and that intemperance the consequence of his +strong social bias and inability to resist the temptations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_848" id="Page_848">[Pg 848]</a></span> of a +period, when every man put the bottle to his neighbor's month as proof +of his generosity, his friendship, and his good-breeding. His father, +on whom the family were dependent for support, urged it upon the wife, +as a duty to her children and due to her own self-respect, to procure +a divorce, when, at last, the miserable husband had been sent to +prison for a forgery, involving a small sum, and which he had thought +to meet—before the note came to maturity—undetected.</p> + +<p>She submitted, and, before the period of his imprisonment expired, +married again, by the advice and persuasion of her kind father-in-law, +to a wealthy and excellent man, who offered a father's care and home +to her children, in proof of his affection for herself. But the heart +never yielded its first love; and, when more than twenty years had +passed, she confessed to a friend "that, should he reform at the +eleventh hour, she must be the most wretched of women." He did reform! +and for many years has exhibited those cheerful graces of the +Christian, which, added to his naturally amiable disposition and +unselfish deportment, make his three-score and tenth year seem rather +the morning than the evening of a life, stretching far away into the +glories of eternity.</p> + +<p>And now, tell me, friends, if the picture of that youthful affection, +strengthened and intensified in the hearts of both by long years of +unavailing regret, does not awaken in you a conviction of some better +way for protecting helpless women and children from the evils of +drunkenness? Oh, say, can you calmly contemplate the hundreds and +thousands of hearts which would throb with repressed anguish, when the +wretchedness which drove them to divorce shall have vanished with the +doomed traffic, and reformed men, by the strong arm of law, reclaim +their children from the weeping Rachels of the land?</p> + +<p>But think not, friends, that I am unmindful of the misery of years, or +months even, when I plead that divorce shall not be made the necessity +of hunted and betrayed affections, the factitious barrier against +abuse and starvation. I present to your consideration a remedy equally +effective, and far more grateful to the delicate sensibilities and +hopeful affection of the woman and the wife—a remedy which possesses +the merit of a preventive power, and the collateral security of a +reclaiming influence.</p> + +<p>The advantage proposed to be secured to the wife of the drunkard, by +divorce, is the release from his control of her property and person. +Secure to the innocent and suffering wife the guardianship of her +children, and the control of her own earnings—in short, make her a +free, instead of a bond-woman—and you secure to the family of the +drunkard all the alleviation in the power of legislation, and without +compelling the wife, from pecuniary necessity or self-immolating +regard for her children, to sever her conjugal relation, and quench +the hope of a future of rational companionship.</p> + +<p>The pauperism and extreme degradation of the drunkard's family is +mainly chargeable to the laws, which wreck the energies, by merging +the means of the wife and mother in the will of the irresponsible +husband and father.</p> + +<p>With these views—gathered from facts and heart-broken confidences +open to few—I appeal to you in the name of the most sacred +affections—I protest, in behalf of humanity, against compelling the +unfortunate of my dependent sex to choose between their present +bondage of means and divorce.</p> + +<p>To the Christian, who shrinks from divorce, as separating what God +hath joined, I appeal to carry out the principle, preserving +everywhere what God hath joined. Hath He not joined mother and child +in body and spirit? Sever them not. Hath He not joined in each human +being necessities and ability to supply them? But, alas! by man's +carpentry, the ability of woman to supply her wants is pressed into +the service of man's carnal and wicked appetites, to supply him with +liquid fire, while herself and babes become miserable paupers in body +and in mind!</p> + +<p>I leave the subject here, praying that God may bless your +deliberations, and guide you into all truth.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">C. I. H. Nichols.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, for the oppressed, ever,</p> + + + +<h4>Syracuse Convention, Sept. 8, 9, 10, 1852.</h4> + +<p class="heading allsc">ELIZABETH CADY STANTON'S LETTER.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Seneca Falls</span>, <i>Sept. 6</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Friends</span>:—As I can not be present with you, I wish to suggest +three points for your sincere and earnest consideration.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_849" id="Page_849">[Pg 849]</a></span></p> + +<p>1. Should not all women living in States where woman has the right to +hold property refuse to pay taxes, so long as she is unrepresented in +the government of that State?</p> + +<p>Such a movement, if simultaneous, would no doubt produce a great deal +of confusion, litigation, and suffering on the part of woman; but +shall we fear to suffer for the maintenance of the same glorious +principle for which our forefathers fought, bled, and died? Shall we +deny the faith of the old Revolutionary heroes, and purchase for +ourselves a false power and ignoble ease, by declaring in action that +taxation without representation is just? Ah, no! like the English +Dissenters and high-souled Quakers of our own land, let us suffer our +property to be seized and sold, but let us never pay another tax until +our existence as citizens, our civil and political rights be fully +recognized.... The poor, crushed slave, but yesterday toiling on the +rice plantation in Georgia, a beast, a chattel, a thing, is to-day, in +the Empire State (if he own a bit of land and a shed to cover him), a +person, and may enjoy the proud honor of paying into the hand of the +complaisant tax-gatherer the sum of seventy-five cents. Even so with +the white woman—the satellite of the dinner-pot, the presiding genius +of the wash-tub, the seamstress, the teacher, the gay butterfly of +fashion, the <i>feme covert</i> of the law, man takes no note of her +through all these changing scenes. But, lo! to-day, by the fruit of +her industry, she becomes the owner of a house and lot, and now her +existence is remembered and recognized, and she too may have the +privilege of contributing to the support of this mighty Republic, for +the "white male citizen claims of her one dollar and seventy-five +cents a year, because, under the glorious institutions of this free +and happy land, she has been able, at the age of fifty years, to +possess herself of a property worth the enormous sum of three hundred +dollars. It is natural to suppose she will answer this demand on her +joyously and promptly, for she must, in view of all her rights and +privileges so long enjoyed, consider it a great favor to be permitted +to contribute thus largely to the governmental treasury.</p> + +<p>One thing is certain, this course will necessarily involve a good deal +of litigation, and we shall need lawyers of our own sex whose +intellects, sharpened by their interests, shall be quick to discover +the loopholes of retreat. Laws are capable of many and various +constructions; we find among men that as they have new wants, that as +they develop into more enlarged views of justice, the laws are +susceptible of more generous interpretation, or changed altogether; +that is, all laws touching their own interests; for while man has +abolished hanging for theft, imprisonment for debt, and secured +universal suffrage for himself, a married woman, in most of the States +in the Union, remains a nonentity in law—can own nothing; can be +whipped and locked up by her lord; can be worked without wages, be +robbed of her inheritance, stripped of her children, and left alone +and penniless; and all this, they say, according to law. Now, it is +quite time that we have these laws revised by our own sex, for man +does not yet feel that what is unjust for himself, is also unjust for +woman. Yes, we must have our own lawyers, as well as our physicians +and priests. Some of our women should go at once into this profession, +and see if there is no way by which we may shuffle off our shackles +and assume our civil and political rights. We can not accept man's +interpretation of the law.</p> + +<p>2. Do not sound philosophy and long experience teach us that man and +woman should be educated together? This isolation of the sexes in all +departments, in the business and pleasure of life, is an evil greatly +to be deplored. We see its bad effects on all sides. Look at our +National Councils. Would men, as statesmen, ever have enacted such +scenes as the Capitol of our country has witnessed, had the feminine +element been fairly represented in their midst? Are all the duties of +husband and father to be made subservient to those of statesman and +politician? How many of these husbands return to their homes as happy +and contented, as pure and loving, as when they left? Not one in +ten.... Experience has taught us that man has discovered the most +profitable branches of industry, and we demand a place by his side. +Inasmuch, therefore, as we have the same objects in life, namely, the +full development of all our powers, and should, to some extent, have +the same employments, we need precisely the same education; and we +therefore claim that the best colleges of our country be open to +us.... This point, the education of boys and girls together, is a +question of the day; it was prominent at the late Educational +Convention in Newark, and it is fitting that in our Convention it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_850" id="Page_850">[Pg 850]</a></span> +should be fully discussed. My ground is, that the boy and the girl, +the man and the woman, should be always together in the business and +pleasures of life, sharing alike its joys and sorrows, its distinction +and fame; nor will they ever be harmoniously developed until they are +educated together, physically, intellectually, and morally.</p> + +<p>I hope, therefore, that in the proposed People's College, some place +will be provided where women can be educated side by side with man. +There is no better test of the spirituality of a man, than is found in +his idea of the true woman. Men having separated themselves from women +in the business of life, and thus made their natures coarse by contact +with their own sex exclusively, now demand separate pleasures too; and +in lieu of the cheerful family circle, its books, games, music, and +pleasant conversation, they congregate in clubs to discuss politics, +gamble, drink, etc., in those costly, splendid establishments, got up +for such as can not find sufficient excitement in their own parlors or +studios. It seems never to enter the heads of these fashionable +husbands, that the hours drag as heavily with their fashionable wives, +as they sit alone, night after night, in their solitary elegance, +wholly given up to their own cheerless reflections; for what subjects +of thought have they? Gossip and fashion will do for talk, but not for +thought. Their theology is too gloomy and shadowy to afford them much +pleasure in contemplation; their religion is a thing of form and not +of life, so it brings them no joy or satisfaction. As to the reforms +of the day, they are too genteel to feel much interest in them. There +is no class more pitiable than the unoccupied woman of fashion thrown +wholly upon herself.... Does not the abuse of the religious element in +woman demand our earnest attention and investigation?</p> + +<p>Priestcraft did not end with the beginning of the reign of +Protestantism. Woman has always been the greatest dupe, because the +sentiments act blindly, and they alone have been educated in her. Her +veneration, not guided by an enlightened intellect, leads her as +readily to the worship of saints, pictures, holy days, and inspired +men and books, as of the living God and the everlasting principles of +Justice, Mercy, and Truth.</p> + +<p>There is the Education Society, in which women who can barely read and +write and speak their own language correctly, form sewing societies, +and beg funds to educate a class of lazy, inefficient young men for +the ministry, who, starting in life on the false principle that it is +a blessing to escape physical labor, begin at once to live on their +piety. What is the result? Why, after going through college, +theological seminaries, and a brief struggle at fitting up skeleton +sermons, got up by older heads for the benefit of beginners, and after +preaching them for a season to those who hunger and thirst for light +and truth, they sink down into utter insignificance, too inefficient +to keep a place, and too lazy to earn the salt to their porridge, +whilst the women work on to educate more for the same destiny. Look at +the long line of benevolent societies, all filled with these male +agents, living, like so many leeches, on the religious element in our +natures, most of them from the ranks of the clergy, who, unable to +build up or keep a church, have taken refuge in some of these +theological asylums for the intellectually maimed, halt, and blind of +this profession.</p> + +<p>Woman really thinks she is doing God service when she casts her mite +into their treasury, when in fact not one-tenth of all the funds +raised ever reach the ultimate object. Among the clergy we find our +most violent enemies—those most opposed to any change in woman's +position; yet no sooner does one of these find himself out of place +and pocket, than, if all the places in the various benevolent +societies chance to be occupied, he takes a kind of philanthropic +survey of the whole habitable globe, and forthwith forms a Female +Benevolent Society for the conversion of the Jews, perhaps, or for +sending the Gospel to the Feejee Islands, and he is, in himself, the +law for one and the gospel for the other. Now, the question is, not +whether the Jews are converted, or whether the Gospel ever reaches the +islands, but, Does the agent flourish? Is his post profitable? And +does woman beg and stitch faithfully for his support and for the +promotion of his <i>glorious mission?</i></p> + +<p>Now, I ask women with all seriousness, considering that we have little +to give, had we not better bestow our own charities with our own +hands? And instead of sending our benevolent outgushings in steamers +to parts unknown, had we not better let them flow in streams whose +length and breadth we can survey at pleasure, knowing their source +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_851" id="Page_851">[Pg 851]</a></span> where they empty themselves? Instead of any further efforts in +behalf of a pin-cushion ministry, I conjure my countrywomen to devote +themselves from this hour to the education, elevation, and +enfranchisement of their own sex. If the same amount of devotion and +self-sacrifice could be given in this direction now poured out on the +churches, another generation would give us a nobler type of womanhood +than any yet molded by any Bishop, Priest, or Pope.</p> + +<p>Woman in her present ignorance is made to rest in the most distorted +views of God and the Bible and the laws of her being; and like the +poor slave "Uncle Tom," her religion, instead of making her noble and +free, and impelling her to flee from all gross surroundings, by the +false lessons of her spiritual teachers, by the wrong application of +great principles of right and justice, has made her bondage but more +certain and lasting, her degradation more helpless and complete.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</p> + + +<p class="ltr-date break"><span class="smcap">Gloucester, Mass.</span>, <i>August 24, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p><i>To Mrs. Paulina W. Davis:</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>:...—I have never questioned what I understand to be the +central principle of the reform in which you are engaged. I believe +that every mature soul is responsible directly to God, not only for +its faith and opinions, but for the details of its life in the world. +In every crisis of duty there can be consultation, at last, only +between one spirit and its Creator. The assertion that woman is +responsible to man for her belief or conduct, in any other sense than +man is responsible to woman, I reject, not as a believer in any theory +of "Woman's Rights," but as a believer in that religion which knows +neither male nor female, in its imperative demand upon the individual +conscience.</p> + +<p>This being true, I know not by what logic the obligation of woman to +form her own ideal of life, and pursue the career which her reason and +conscience dictate, can be denied. The sphere of activity in which any +person will shine, is always an open question until answered by +experience. I may admire the wisdom of the mind which has discovered +that half the people in the world are incompetent to act beyond one +circle of duty; but until the fact has been established by the +universal failure of your sex, everywhere outside that fatal line, I +must admire rather than believe. Every real position in society is +achieved by conquest. I must convince my people that I am a true +minister of the Gospel, before I can claim their respect and support. +And when a woman, in the possession of the powers and opportunities +given her by God, tells me she must trade, or instruct the young, or +heal the sick, or paint, or sing, or act upon the stage, or call +sinners to repentance, I <i>can</i> say but one thing—just what I must say +to the man who affirms the same—"My friend, show your <i>ability</i> to +serve society in this way, and all creation can not deprive you of the +right. If you <i>can do</i> this to which you aspire—can do it well, then +you and everybody will be the gainers. And whoever says you have +forfeited any essential grace or virtue of womanhood by your act, +betrays, by the accusation, an utter incompetency to judge upon +questions of human responsibility and obligation."</p> + +<p>.... I therefore believe the method of this reform is that declared by +God when He said to Adam: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat +bread." There is no "royal road" to womanhood, as there is certainly +none to manhood. <i>You</i> must achieve what you desire.... Woman must do +much before man can help her. I suppose the sexes are about equally +culpable; and I make no peculiar charge, when I say that until I can +see more individual consecration, more clearness of perception and +firmness of conduct in regions outside of the walls of the household +among the mass of women, than now, I shall not cherish extravagant +hopes of the great immediate success of your noble object.</p> + +<p>.... Your movement is a part of the great onward march of society, and +must be exposed to the reverses from outward hostility and inward +faithlessness, that have always hindered the progress of the race.... +This reform will be a sword of division, and you will not be surprised +when those who have entered it from any motive less exalted than +consecration to duty, fall away in weariness and disgust. Yet all the +more honorable will it be to those who are content to remain, and +abide the fatal conditions of sincere human effort. You are not very +near your journey's end; but you are doing much for your sex, in a +mode which will "tell" inevitably upon society. I often encounter a +new spirit of self-respect and honorable independence; a new hope, and +works corresponding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_852" id="Page_852">[Pg 852]</a></span> to it, among young women, which I can trace back +to these Conventions. I believe cultivated men in all professions are +becoming ashamed to treat your arguments with open ridicule or quiet +contempt, and occupy a position, at least, of fair-minded neutrality, +to a greater degree than ever before, while the popular sympathies are +every year more enlisted in your success.—With great respect, I +remain your friend and fellow-laborer in the cause of truth,</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">A. D. Mayo.</p> + + +<p>Samuel J. May read the following extract from a letter from Wm. Lloyd +Garrison, of Boston:</p> + +<p>"Much, very much, do I regret that I can not be at the Woman's Rights +Convention which is to assemble to-morrow in Syracuse; but +circumstances prevent. I shall be there in spirit, from its +organization to its dissolution. It has as noble an object in view, +aye, and as Christian a one, too, as was ever advocated beneath the +sun. Heaven bless all its proceedings.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right"><span class="smcap">Wm. Lloyd Garrison.</span></p> +<p class="ltr-left">"Yours for all Human Rights,</p> +<p class="ltr-to clear">"Rev. <span class="smcap">S. J. May</span>."</p> + +<h4>Comments of the Press after the Syracuse Convention.</h4> + +<p class="heading"><i>The Syracuse Standard, Sept. 10th</i> (a liberal Democratic paper).</p> + +<p>Great interest was manifested in the proceedings yesterday, and the +hall was densely crowded during the day and evening. Much difficulty +was found in getting out of the Convention after the adjournment. Each +lady covered at least three steps of the stairway with her dress, and +little groups of ladies gathered in the passage-ways and went through +the ceremony of shaking hands and kissing each other, as though they +had been separated for years and never expected to meet again. This +operates as a serious obstacle, and we noticed some ladies exhibiting +a petulant spirit in being jostled by the crowd which they themselves +had occasioned, as their dresses were torn and soiled by the feet of +those who were using their utmost efforts to keep the crowd from +pushing them all down-stairs together. This is a great annoyance to +those who are not fond of going through the world at the slow and +steady pace of a fashionable lady, and we suggest the practice of +making the outside of the hall a place for retailing gossip. Those who +sweep the dirty stairway with their dresses should don the Bloomer +costume without delay.</p> + +<p><i>The Star</i>, belonging to that portion of the press called "the +Satanic," held to its original character while speaking of the +Convention. It was through this paper that Reverends Sunderland and +Ashley made public their sermons against Woman's Rights.</p> + +<p class="heading"><i>The Star, September 10th.</i></p> + +<p>The women at the Tomfoolery Convention now being held in this city, +talk as fluently of the Bible and God's teachings in their speeches, +as if they could draw an argument from inspiration in maintenance of +their Woman's Rights stuff.... The poor creatures who take part in the +silly rant of "brawling women" and Aunt Nancy men, are most of them +"ismizers" of the rankest stamp, Abolitionists of the most frantic and +contemptible kind, and Christian(?) sympathizers with such heretics as +Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, C. C. Burleigh, and S. S. +Foster. These men are all Woman's Righters, and preachers of such +damnable doctrines and accursed heresies, as would make demons of the +pit shudder to hear.</p> + +<p>We have selected a few appropriate passages from God's Bible for the +consideration of the infuriated gang (Bloomers and all) at the +Convention: Gen. iii. 16; Tit. ii. 4, 5; Prov. ix. 13, xxi. 9,19; 1 +Cor. xi. 8, 9; 1 Tim. ii. 8-14; 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35; Eph. v. 23-24.</p> + +<p class="heading"><i>Daily Star, Sept. 11th.</i></p> + +<p>Our usual amount of editorial matter is again crowded out this morning +by the extreme quantity of gabble the Woman's Righters got off +yesterday. Perhaps we owe an apology for having given publicity to the +mass of corruption, heresies, ridiculous nonsense, and reeking +vulgarities which these bad women have vomited forth for the past +three days. Our personal preference would have been to have entirely +disregarded these folks <i>per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_853" id="Page_853">[Pg 853]</a></span> signe de mepris</i>, but the public +appetite cries for these novelties and eccentricities of the times, +and the daily press is expected to gratify such appetites; +furthermore, we are of opinion that reporting such a Convention as +this, is the most effectual way of checking the mischief it might +otherwise do. The proceedings of these three days' pow-wow are a most +shocking commentary upon themselves, and awaken burning scorn for the +participants in them.</p> + +<p>The Convention adjourned <i>sine die</i> last evening at ten o'clock, and, +for the credit of our city, we hope its members will adjourn out of +town as soon as possible, and stay so adjourned, unless they can come +among us for more respectable business. Syracuse has become a by-word +all through the country because of the influence which goes out from +these foolish Conventions held here, and it is high time that we +should be looking after our good name.</p> + +<p>When the pamphlet report of the Convention's proceedings appeared, +<i>The Star</i> said:</p> + +<p>It gives the written speeches quite full, but only the skeleton of the +spoken ones, which in reality constituted the cream of the affair.... +This portion of the world's history in relation to these agitating +questions, is very appropriately treated upon by the Lord Himself: +"<i>The sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, +and for looking after those things which are coming on earth; for the +power of heaven shall be shaken</i>." We recognize the sea as symbolizing +the ideas which are drifted over the earth's surface, and the waves +roaring, the agitating topics which the times have brought upon us.</p> + + +<p class="heading break"><i>The New York Herald</i> (editorial), <i>Sept. 12, 1852</i>.</p> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">The Woman's Rights Convention—The Last Act of the Drama.</span></p> + +<p>The farce at Syracuse has been played out. We publish to-day the last +act, in which it will be seen that the authority of the Bible, as a +perfect rule of faith and practice for human beings, was voted down, +and what are called the laws of nature set up instead of the Christian +code. We have also a practical exhibition of the consequences that +flow from woman leaving her true sphere where she wields all her +influence, and coming into public to discuss questions of morals and +politics with men. The scene in which Rev. Mr. Hatch violated the +decorum of his cloth, and was coarsely offensive to such ladies +present as had not lost that modest "feminine element," on which he +dwelt so forcibly, is the natural result of the conduct of the women +themselves, who, in the first place, invited discussion about sexes; +and in the second place, so broadly defined the difference between the +male and the female, as to be suggestive of anything but purity to the +audience. The women of the Convention have no right to complain; but, +for the sake of his clerical character, if no other motive influenced +him, he ought not to have followed so bad an example. His speech was +sound and his argument conclusive, but his form of words was not in +the best taste. The female orators were the aggressors; but, to use +his own language, he ought not to have measured swords with a woman, +especially when he regarded her ideas and expressions as bordering +upon the obscene. But all this is the natural result of woman placing +herself in a false position. As the Rev. Mr. Hatch observed, if she +ran with horses she must expect to be betted upon. The whole tendency +of these Conventions is by no means to increase the influence of +woman, to elevate her condition, or to command the respect of the +other sex.</p> + +<p>Who are these women? what do they want? what are the motives that +impel them to this course of action? The <i>dramatis personæ</i> of the +farce enacted at Syracuse present a curious conglomeration of both +sexes. Some of them are old maids, whose personal charms were never +very attractive, and who have been sadly slighted by the masculine +gender in general; some of them women who have been badly mated, whose +own temper, or their husbands, has made life anything but agreeable to +them, and they are therefore down upon the whole of the opposite sex; +some, having so much of the virago in their disposition, that nature +appears to have made a mistake in their gender—mannish women, like +hens that crow; some of boundless vanity and egotism, who believe that +they are superior in intellectual ability to "all the world and the +rest of mankind," and delight to see their speeches and addresses in +print; and man shall be consigned to his proper sphere—nursing the +babies, washing the dishes, mending stockings, and sweeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_854" id="Page_854">[Pg 854]</a></span> the +house. This is "the good time coming." Besides the classes we have +enumerated, there is a class of wild enthusiasts and visionaries—very +sincere, but very mad—having the same vein as the fanatical +Abolitionists, and the majority, if not all of them, being, in point +of fact, deeply imbued with the anti-slavery sentiment. Of the male +sex who attend these Conventions for the purpose of taking a part in +them, the majority are hen-pecked husbands, and all of them ought to +wear petticoats.</p> + +<p>In point of ability, the majority of the women are flimsy, flippant, +and superficial. Mrs. Rose alone indicates much argumentative power.</p> + +<p>How did woman first become subject to man as she now is all over the +world? By her nature, her sex, just as the negro is and always will +be, to the end of time, inferior to the white race, and, therefore, +doomed to subjection; but happier than she would be in any other +condition, just because it is the law of her nature. The women +themselves would not have this law reversed. It is a significant fact +that even Mrs. Swisshelm, who formerly ran about to all such +gatherings from her husband, is now "a keeper at home," and condemns +these Conventions in her paper. How does this happen? Because, after +weary years of unfruitfulness, she has at length got her rights in the +shape of a baby. This is the best cure for the mania, and we would +recommend a trial of it to all who are afflicted.</p> + +<p>What do the leaders of the Woman's Rights Convention want? They want +to vote, and to hustle with the rowdies at the polls. They want to be +members of Congress, and in the heat of debate to subject themselves +to coarse jests and indecent language, like that of Rev. Mr. Hatch. +They want to fill all other posts which men are ambitious to +occupy—to be lawyers, doctors, captains of vessels, and generals in +the field. How funny it would sound in the newspapers, that Lucy +Stone, pleading a cause, took suddenly ill in the pains of +parturition, and perhaps gave birth to a fine bouncing boy in court! +Or that Rev. Antoinette Brown was arrested in the middle of her sermon +in the pulpit from the same cause, and presented a "pledge" to her +husband and the congregation; or, that Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, while +attending a gentleman patient for a fit of the gout or <i>fistula in +ano</i>, found it necessary to send for a doctor, there and then, and to +be delivered of a man or woman child—perhaps twins. A similar event +might happen on the floor of Congress, in a storm at sea, or in the +raging tempest of battle, and then what is to become of the woman +legislator?</p> + + +<h4>WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.</h4> + +<p class="heading allsc">COMMENTS OF THE PRESS.</p> + +<p class="heading">"<i>The New York Herald</i>" (editorial article), <i>September 9, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p>.... "We are at length—praised be the stars!—drawing to the +termination of the clamorous conventions, which have kept the city in +a state of ferment and agitation, excitement and fun, for the past two +weeks....</p> + +<p>"The World's Temperance Convention commenced its sittings on Tuesday, +and is still in session. This organization was calculated to effect +much good, had it not been leavened with the elements of discord, +which had brought contempt and ridicule on that of the 'Whole World.' +The Rev. Miss Antoinette Brown cast the brand of disorder into it, by +presenting herself as a delegate from the other association. This was +a virtual declaration of Woman's Rights, and a resolute effort to have +them recognized by the Convention. Neal Dow, as President and as a man +of gallantry, decided on receiving Miss Antoinette's credentials, and +for a time victory appeared to smile on the Amazons. The triumph, +however, was only ephemeral and illusive. The motion was put and +carried that none but the officers and invited guests of the +Convention should be permitted to occupy places on the platform, and +so, by this indirect movement, Miss Brown saw herself, in the moment +of her brightest hopes, expelled from the stage, and once more the +Anti-Woman's Righters were in the ascendancy.</p> + +<p>"This was on Tuesday. Next day another stormy scene, arising from the +same cause, was enacted. The meek, temperate Dow—the light of the +reformation, the apostle of the Maine Liquor Law, the President of the +World's Temperance Convention—no longer able to control the stormy +elements which had developed themselves in the council,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_855" id="Page_855">[Pg 855]</a></span> resolved by a +<i>coup d'état</i> to give the world an instance of his temperate demeanor +and of the liberality of the reformers, and accordingly directed the +police officers in attendance to clear the hall. The order was +enforced, and even Miss Antoinette Brown, notwithstanding she was the +bearer of credentials, was compelled to evacuate with the rest of the +throng, and leave Metropolitan Hall to the quiet and peaceful +possession of the male delegates to the World's Temperance Convention. +Thus harmony was restored in that obstreperous assembly.</p> + +<p class="heading">"'They made a solitude, and called it peace.'"</p> + + +<p class="heading break">"<i>Herald," September 10, 1853</i>.</p> + +<p>.... "Thus stands the case, then. This World's Temperance, or Maine +Law Convention, headed by Neal Dow, the founder of the aforesaid +statute, has turned adrift the Woman's Rights party, male and female, +black and white, the Socialists, the Amalgamationists, the Infidels, +the Vegetarians, and the Free Colored Americans ... What is to follow +from these proceedings, excluding Miss Brown, Phillips, Douglass, and +Smith from the holy cause of temperance? Agitation? Of course. What +else? Very likely a separate Maine Law coalition movement, comprising +the Abolitionists, the strong-minded women, and Free Colored Americans +all over the North, in opposition to Neal Dow and the orthodox Maine +Law party. Thus the house will be divided—is, indeed, already +divided—against itself. What then? The Scriptures say that such a +house can't stand. It can't. And thus the Maine Law is crippled in a +miserable squabble with fugitive slaves, Bloomers, and Abolitionists. +How strange! Great country this, anyhow."</p> + + +<p class="heading break">"<i>National Democrat," September 5</i> (Rev. Chauncey C. Burr, editor).</p> + +<p>"Time was when a full-blooded nigger meeting in New York would have +been heralded with the cry of 'Tar and feathers!' but, alas! in these +degenerate days, we are called to lament only over an uproarious +disturbance. <i>The Tribune</i> groans horribly, it is true, because a set +of deistical fanatics were interrupted in their villainous orgies; but +it should rather rejoice that no harsher means were resorted to than +'tufts of grass.' Talk about freedom! Is any land so lost in +self-respect—so sunk in infamy—that God-defying, Bible-abhorring +sacrilege will be civilly allowed? Because the bell-wether of <i>The +Tribune</i>, accompanied by a phalanx of blue petticoats, is installed as +the grand-master of outrages, is that any reason for personal respect +and public humiliation? In view of all the aggravating circumstances +of the case, we congratulate the foolhardy fanatics on getting off as +easy as they did; and we commend the forbearance of the considerate +crowd in not carrying their coercive measures to extremes, because, +the humbug being exploded, all that is necessary now is to laugh, +hiss, and vociferously applaud. When men make up their minds to vilify +the Bible, denounce the Constitution, and defame their country +(although this is a free country), they should go down in some obscure +cellar, remote from mortal ken, and, even there, whisper their hideous +treason against God and liberty."</p> + + +<h4>MOB CONVENTION, 1853.</h4> + +<p>1. <i>Resolved</i>, That this movement for the rights of woman makes no +attempt to decide whether woman is better or worse than man, neither +affirms nor denies the equality of her intellect with that of +man—makes no pretense of protecting woman—does not seek to oblige +woman any more than man is now obliged, to vote, take office, labor in +the professions, mingle in public life, or manage her own property.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Resolved</i>, That what we do seek is to gain these rights and +privileges for those women who wish to enjoy them, and so to change +public opinion that it shall not be deemed indecorous for women to +engage in any occupation which they deem fitted to their habits and +talents.</p> + +<p>3. <i>Resolved</i>, That the fundamental principle of the Woman's Rights +movement is—that every human being, without distinction of sex, has +an inviolable right to the full development and free exercise of all +energies; and that in every sphere of life, private and public, +Functions should always be commensurate with Powers.</p> + +<p>4. <i>Resolved</i>, That each human being is the sole judge of his or her +sphere, and entitled to choose a profession without interference from +others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_856" id="Page_856">[Pg 856]</a></span></p> + +<p>5. <i>Resolved</i>, That whatever differences exist between Man and Woman, +in the quality or measure of their powers, are originally designed to +be and should become bonds of union and means of co-operation in the +discharge of all functions, alike private and public.</p> + +<p>6. <i>Resolved</i>, That the monopoly of the elective franchise, and +thereby of all the powers of legislation and government, by men, +solely on the ground of sex, is a monstrous usurpation—condemned +alike by reason and common-sense, subversive of all the principles of +justice, oppressive and demoralizing in its operations, and insulting +to the dignity of human nature.</p> + +<p>7. <i>Resolved</i>, That we see no force in the objection, that woman's +taking part in politics would be a fruitful source of domestic +dissension; since experience shows that she may be allowed to choose +her own faith and sect without any such evil result, though religious +disputes are surely as bitter as political—and if the objection be +sound, we ought to go further, and oblige a wife to forego all +religious opinions, or to adopt the religious as well as the political +creed of her husband.</p> + +<p>8. <i>Resolved</i>, That women, like men, must be either self-supported and +self-governed, or dependent and enslaved; that an unobstructed and +general participation in all the branches of productive industry, and +in all the business functions and offices of common life, is at once +their natural right, their individual interest, and their public duty; +the claim and the obligation reciprocally supporting each other; that +the idleness of the rich, with its attendant physical debility, moral +laxity, passional intemperance and mental dissipation, and the +ignorance, wretchedness, and enforced profligacy of the poor, which +are everywhere the curse and reproach of the sex, are the necessary +results of their exclusion from those diversified employments which +would otherwise furnish them with useful occupation, and reward them +with its profits, honors, and blessings, that this enormous wrong +cries for redress, for reparation by those whose delinquency allows +its continuance.</p> + +<p><i>Whereas</i>, The energies of Man are always in proportion to the +magnitude of the objects to be obtained; and, whereas, it requires the +highest motive for the greatest exertion and noblest action; +therefore,</p> + +<p>9. <i>Resolved</i>, That Woman must be recognized politically, legally, +socially, and religiously the equal of man, and all the obstructions +to her highest physical, intellectual, and moral culture and +development be removed, that she may have the highest motive to assume +her place in that sphere of action and usefulness which her capacities +enable her to fill.</p> + +<p>10. <i>Resolved</i>, That this movement gives to the cause of education a +new motive and impulse; makes a vast stride toward the settlement of +the question of wages and social reform; goes far to cure that +widespread plague—the licentiousness of cities; adds to civilization +a new element of progress; and in all these respects commends itself +as one of the greatest reforms of the age.</p> + + +<h4>FIRST APPEAL OF 1854.</h4> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Woman's Rights.—Circulate the Petition</span>.</p> + +<p>The Albany Woman's Rights Convention, held in February last, resolved +to continue the work of Petitioning our State Legislature, from year +to year, until the law of Justice and Equality shall be dispensed to +the whole people, without distinction of sex.</p> + +<p>In order to systematize and facilitate the labors of the friends who +shall engage in the work of circulating the Petitions, a Committee was +appointed to devise and present some definite plan of action. In the +estimation of that Committee, the first and most important work to be +done is to enlighten the people as to the real claims of the Woman's +Rights Movement, thereby dispelling their many prejudices, and +securing their hearty good-will. To aid in the accomplishment of this +first great object, the Committee purpose holding Woman's Rights +Meetings in all the cities and many of the larger villages of the +State, during the coming fall and winter, and gladly, could they +command the services of Lecturing Agents, would they thoroughly +canvass the entire State. But, since to do so is impossible, they +would urge upon the friends in every county, town, village, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_857" id="Page_857">[Pg 857]</a></span> +school district, to hold public meetings in their respective +localities, and, if none among their own citizens feel themselves +competent to address the people, invite speakers from abroad. Let the +question be fully and freely discussed, both pro and con, by both +friends and opponents.</p> + +<p>Though the living speaker can not visit every hearthstone throughout +the length and breadth of the Empire State, and personally present the +claims of our cause to the hearts and consciences of those who +surround them, his arguments, by the aid of the invaluable art of +printing, may. Therefore the Committee have resolved to circulate as +widely as possible the written statement of Woman's Political and +Legal Rights, as contained in the Address written by Elizabeth Cady +Stanton, of Seneca Falls, N. Y., and adopted by the Albany +Convention—presented to our Legislature at its last session. This +Address has been highly spoken of by many of the best papers in the +State, and pronounced, by eminent lawyers and statesmen, an able and +unanswerable argument. And the Committee, being fully confident of its +power to convince every candid inquirer after truth of the justice and +mercy of our claims, do urgently call upon the friends everywhere to +aid them in giving to it a thorough circulation.</p> + +<p>There is no reform question of the day that meets so ready, so full, +so deep a response from the masses, as does this Woman's Rights +question. To ensure a speedy triumph, we have only to take earnest +hold of the work of disseminating its immutable truths. Let us, then, +agitate the question, hold public meetings, widely circulate Woman's +Rights Tracts, and show to the world that we are in earnest—that we +will be heard—that our demands stop not short of justice and perfect +equality to every human being. Let us, at least, see to it, that this +admirable Address of Mrs. Stanton is placed in the hands of every +intelligent man and woman in the State, and thus the way prepared for +the gathering up of a mighty host of names to our petitions to be +presented to our next Legislature, a mammoth roll, that shall cause +our law-makers to know that the People are with us, and that if our +prayer be not wisely and justly answered by them, other and truer +representatives will fill those Legislative Halls.</p> + +<p>The success of our first appeal to our Legislature, made last winter, +encourages us to persevere. That the united prayer of only 6,000 men +and women should cause the reporting and subsequent passage in the +House, of a bill granting two of our most special claims—that of the +wife to her earnings, and the mother to her children—is indeed a +result the most sanguine scarce dared to hope for. What may we not +expect from our next appeal, that shall be 20,000, nay, more, if we +but be faithful, 100,000 strong. To the work, then, friends, of +renovating public sentiment and circulating petitions. There is no +time to be lost. Our Fourth of July gatherings will afford an +opportunity for both distributing the Address and circulating the +petitions. And, Women of the Empire State, it is for you to do the +work, it is for you to shake from your feet the dust of tyrant custom, +it is for you to remember that "he who would be free must himself +strike the blow."</p> + +<p>The petitions to be circulated are the same as last year—one asking +for the <span class="smcap">Just and Equal Rights of Women</span>, and the other for <span class="smcap">Woman's +Right of Suffrage</span>. The petitions are to be signed by both men and +women, the men's names placed in the right column, and the women's in +the left. All intelligent persons must be ready and willing to sign +the first, asking a revision of the laws relative to the property +rights of women, and surely no true republican can refuse to give his +or her name to the second, asking for woman the Right of +Representation—a practical application of the great principles of +'76.</p> + +<p>It is desirable that there shall be one person in each county to whom +all the petitions circulated in its several towns, villages, and +school districts, shall be forwarded, and who shall arrange and attach +them in one roll, stating upon a blank sheet, placed between the +petition and the signatures, the number of signers, the name of the +county, and the number of towns represented, and forward them as early +as the 1st of December next, to Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, N. Y. +Where no person volunteers, or is appointed such county agent, the +petitions, properly labeled, may be sent directly to Rochester.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stanton's Address is published in neat pamphlet form, in large +type, and may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_858" id="Page_858">[Pg 858]</a></span> had at the following prices: $2 per 100, 37½ cts. +per dozen; or if sent by mail, $3 per 100, and 50 cts. per dozen. +Packages of over 25 may be sent by express to all places on the line +of the railroads at a less cost than by mail.</p> + +<p>It is hoped that every person who reads this notice, and feels an +interest in the universal diffusion of the true aim and object of the +Woman's Rights agitation, will, without delay, order copies of this +address to distribute gratuitously or otherwise, among their neighbors +and townsmen. Should there be any wishing to aid in this work, who can +not command the money necessary to purchase the Address, their orders +will be cheerfully complied with free of charge.</p> + +<p>The Committee have on hand a variety of Woman's Rights Tracts, written +by S. J. May, Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Mrs. C. I. H. +Nichols, Ernestine L. Rowe, T. W. Higginson, and others. Also, the +Reports of the several National Woman's Rights Conventions, all of +which may be had at very low prices.</p> + +<p>All correspondence and orders for Address, petitions, etc., should be +addressed to</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Susan B. Anthony</span>, General Agent, Rochester, N. Y.</p> +<p class="ltr-to"><i>June 22, 1854</i></p> + +<h4>SECOND APPEAL OF 1854.</h4> + +<p><i>To the Women of the State of New York:</i></p> + +<p>We purpose again this winter to send petitions to our State +Legislature—one, asking for the Just and Equal Rights of Woman, and +one for Woman's Right of Suffrage. The latter, we think, covers the +whole ground, for we can never be said to have just and equal rights +until the right of suffrage is ours. Some who will gladly sign the +former may shrink from making the last demand. But be assured, our +cause can never rest on a safe, enduring basis, until we get the right +of suffrage. So long as we have no voice in the laws, we have no +guarantee that privileges granted us to-day by one body of men, may +not be taken from us to-morrow by another.</p> + +<p>All man's laws, his theology, his daily life, go to prove the fixed +idea in his mind of the entire difference in the sexes—a difference +so broad that what would be considered cruel and unjust between man +and man, is kind and just between man and woman. Having discarded the +idea of the oneness of the sexes, how can man judge of the needs and +wants of a being so wholly unlike himself? How can he make laws for +his own benefit and woman's too at the same time? He can not. He never +has, as all his laws relative to woman most clearly show. But when man +shall fully grasp the idea that woman is a being of like feelings, +thoughts, and passions with himself, he may be able to legislate for +her, as one code would answer for both. But until then, a sense of +justice, a wise self-love, impels us to demand a voice in his +councils.</p> + +<p>To every intelligent, thinking woman, we put the question, On what +sound principles of jurisprudence, constitutional law, or human +rights, are one-half of the people of this State disfranchised? If you +answer, as you must, that it is done in violation of all law, then we +ask you, when and how is this great wrong to be righted? We say now; +and petitioning is the first step in its accomplishment. We hope, +therefore, that every woman in the State will sign her name to the +petitions. It is humiliating to know that many educated women so +stultify their consciences as to declare that they have all the rights +they want. Have you who make this declaration ever read the barbarous +laws in reference to woman, to mothers, to wives, and to daughters, +which disgrace our Statute Books? Laws which are not surpassed in +cruelty and injustice by any slaveholding code in the United States; +laws which strike at the root of the glorious doctrine for which our +fathers fought and bled and died, "no taxation without +representation"; laws which deny a right most sacredly observed by +many of the monarchies of Europe—"the right of trial by a jury of +one's own peers"; laws which trample on the holiest and most unselfish +of all human affections—a mother's love for her child—and with +ruthless cruelty snap asunder the tenderest ties; laws which enable +the father, be he a man or a minor, to tear the infant from the +mother's arms and send it, if he chooses, to the Feejee Islands—yea, +to will the guardianship of the <i>unborn</i> child to whomsoever he may +please, whether to the Sultan of Turkey or the Imam of Muscat; laws by +which our sons and daughters may be bound to service to cancel their +father's debts of <i>honor</i>, in the meanest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_859" id="Page_859">[Pg 859]</a></span> rum-holes and brothels in +the vast metropolis; laws which violate all that is most pure and +sacred in the marriage relation, by giving to the cruel, beastly +drunkard the rights of a man, a husband, and father; laws which place +the life-long earnings of the wife at the disposal of the husband, be +his character what it may; laws which leave us at the mercy of the +rum-seller and the drunkard, against whom we have no protection for +our lives, our children, or our homes; laws by which we are made the +watch-dogs to keep a million and a half of our sisters in the foulest +bondage the sun ever shone upon—which forbid us to give food and +shelter to the panting fugitive from the land of slavery.</p> + +<p>If, in view of laws like these, there be women in this State so lost +to self-respect, to all that is virtuous, noble, and true, as to +refuse to raise their voices in protest against such degrading +tyranny, we can only say of that system which has thus robbed +womanhood of all its glory and greatness, what the immortal Channing +did of slavery, "If," said he, "it be true that the slaves are +contented and happy—if there is a system that can blot out all love +of freedom from the soul of man, destroy every trace of his Divinity, +make him happy in a condition so low and benighted and hopeless, I ask +for no stronger argument against such a slavery as ours." No! never +believe it; woman falsifies herself and blasphemes her God, when in +view of her present social, legal, and political position, she +declares she has all the rights she wants. If a few drops of Saxon +blood gave our Frederick Douglass such a clear perception of his +humanity, his inalienable rights, as to enable him, with the +slaveholder's Bible, the slaveholder's Constitution, a Southern public +sentiment and education all laid heavy on his shoulders, to stand +upright and walk forth in search of freedom, with as much ease as did +Samson of old with the massive gates of the city, shall we, the +daughters of our Hancocks and Adamses, we in whose veins flow the +blood of the Pilgrim Fathers, shall we never try the strength of these +withes of law and gospel with which in our blindness we have been +bound hand and foot? Yes, the time has come.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"The slumber is broken, the sleeper is risen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The day of the Goth and the Vandal is o'er.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And old Earth feels the tread of Freedom once more."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Fail not, Women of the Empire State, to swell our Petitions. Let no +religious scruples hold you back. Take no heed to man's interpretation +of Paul's injunctions to women. To any thinking mind, there is no +difficulty in explaining those passages of the Apostle as applicable +to the times in which they were written, as having no reference +whatever to the Women of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>"Honor the King," heroes of '76! Those leaden tea-chests of Boston +Harbor cry out, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." When +the men of 1854, with their Priests and Rabbis, shall rebuke the +disobedience of their forefathers—when they shall cease to set at +defiance the British lion and the Apostle Paul in their National +Policy, then it will be time enough for us to bow down to man's +interpretation of law touching our social relations, and acknowledge +that God gave us powers and rights, merely that we might show forth +our faith in Him by being helpless and dumb.</p> + +<p>The writings of Paul, like our State Constitutions, are susceptible of +various interpretations. But when the human soul is roused with holy +indignation against injustice and oppression, it stops not to +translate human parchments, but follows out the law of its inner +being, written by the finger of God in the first hour of its creation.</p> + +<p>Our Petitions will be sent to every county in the State, and we hope +that they will find at least ten righteous Women to circulate them. +But should there be any county so benighted that a petition can not be +circulated throughout its length and breadth, giving to every man and +woman an opportunity to sign their names, then we pray, not that "God +will send down fire and brimstone" upon it, but that the "Napoleon" of +this movement will flood it with Woman's Rights Tracts and +Missionaries.</p> + +<p class="ltr-from">Elizabeth Cady Stanton,</p> +<p class="ltr-title"><i>Chairman N. Y. State Woman's Rights Committee.</i></p> +<p class="ltr-to"><span class="smcap">Seneca Falls</span>, <i>Dec. 11, 1854</i>.</p> + +<p>N. B.—All orders for forms of Petitions and Woman's Rights Tracts, +and all communications relating to the movement in this State, should +be addressed to our General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_860" id="Page_860">[Pg 860]</a></span> Agent, Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, N. Y. +Let the Petitions be returned, as soon as possible, to Lydia Mott, +Albany, N. Y., as we wish to present them early in the session, and +thereby give our Legislature due time for the consideration of this +important question.</p> + + +<h4>NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION, COOPER INSTITUTE, 1856.</h4> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Letter from Mrs. Stanton</span>.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Seneca Falls</span>, <i>November 24, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Lucy Stone</span>:—We may continue to hold our Conventions, we may talk +of our right to vote, to legislate, to hold property, but until we can +arouse in woman a proper self-respect, she will hold in contempt the +demands we now make for our sex. We shall never get what we ask for +until the majority of women are openly with us; and they will never +claim their civil rights until they know their social wrongs. From +time to time I put these questions to myself: How is it that woman can +longer silently consent to her present false position? How can she +calmly contemplate the barbarous code of laws which govern her civil +and political existence? How can she devoutly subscribe to a theology +which makes her the conscientious victim of another's will, forever +subject to the triple bondage of the man, the priest, and the law? How +can she tolerate our social customs, by which womankind is stripped of +all true virtue, dignity, and nobility? How can she endure our present +marriage relations, by which woman's life, health, and happiness are +held so cheap, that she herself feels that God has given her no +charter of rights, no individuality of her own. I answer, she +patiently bears all this because in her blindness she sees no way of +escape. Her bondage, though it differs from that of the negro slave, +frets and chafes her just the same. She too sighs and groans in her +chains; and lives but in the hope of better things to come. She looks +to heaven; whilst the more philosophical slave sets out for Canada. +Let it be the object of this Convention to show that there is hope for +woman this side of heaven, and that there is a work for her to do +before she leaves for the celestial city.</p> + +<p>Marriage is a divine institution, intended by God for the greater +freedom and happiness of both parties—whatever therefore conflicts +with woman's happiness is not legitimate to that relation. Woman has +yet to learn that she has a right to be happy in and of herself; that +she has a right to the free use, improvement, and development of all +her faculties, for her own benefit and pleasure. The woman is greater +than the wife or the mother; and in consenting to take upon herself +these relations, she should never sacrifice one iota of her +individuality to any senseless conventionalisms, or false codes of +feminine delicacy and refinement.</p> + +<p>Marriage, as we now have it, is opposed to all God's laws. It is by no +means an equal partnership. The silent partner loses everything. On +the domestic sign, the existence of a second person is not recognized +by even the ordinary abbreviation, Co. There is the establishment of +John Jones. Perhaps his partner supplies all the cents and the +senses—but no one knows who she is or whence she came. If John is a +luminous body, she shines in his reflection; if not, she hides herself +in his shadow. But she is nameless, for a woman has no name! She is +Mrs. John or James, Peter or Paul, just as she changes masters; like +the Southern slave, she takes the name of her owner. Many people +consider this a very small matter; but it is the symbol of the most +cursed monopoly on this footstool; a monopoly by man of all the +rights, the life, the liberty, and happiness of one-half of the human +family—all womankind. For what man can honestly deny that he has not +a secret feeling that where his pleasure and woman's seems to +conflict, the woman must be sacrificed; and what is worse, woman +herself has come to think so too. She believes that all she tastes of +joy in life is from the generosity and benevolence of man; and the +bitter cup of sorrow, which she too often drinks to the very dregs, is +of the good providence of God, sent by a kind hand for her improvement +and development. This sentiment pervades the laws, customs, and +religions of all countries, both Christian and heathen. Is it any +wonder, then, that woman regards herself as a mere machine, a tool for +men's pleasure? Verily is she a hopeless victim of his morbidly +developed passions. But, thank God, she suffers not alone! Man too +pays the penalty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_861" id="Page_861">[Pg 861]</a></span> of his crimes in his enfeebled mind, dwarfed body, +and the shocking monstrosities of his deformed and crippled offspring.</p> + +<p>Call yourselves Christian women, you who sacrifice all that is great +and good for an ignoble peace, who betray the best interests of the +race for a temporary ease? It were nobler far to go and throw +yourselves into the Ganges than to curse the earth with a miserable +progeny, conceived in disgust and brought forth in agony. What mean +these asylums all over the land for the deaf and dumb, the maim and +blind, the idiot and the raving maniac? What all these advertisements +in our public prints, these family guides, these female medicines, +these Madame Restells? Do not all these things show to what a depth of +degradation the women of this Republic have fallen, how false they +have been to the holy instincts of their nature, to the sacred trust +given them by God as the mothers of the race? Let Christians and +moralists pause in their efforts at reform, and let some scholar teach +them how to apply the laws of science to human life. Let us but use as +much care and forethought in producing the highest order of +intelligence, as we do in raising a cabbage or a calf, and in a few +generations we shall reap an abundant harvest of giants, scholars, and +Christians.</p> + +<p>The first step in this improvement is the elevation of woman. She is +the protector of national virtue; the rightful lawgiver in all our +most sacred relations.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">Elizabeth Cady Stanton.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours truly,</p> + + + +<p class="heading ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">Letter From N. H. Whiting</span>.</p> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="smcap">Marshfield, Mass.</span>, <i>September 29, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>:—I do not see that I can do much to aid you in your +effort for self-emancipation from the injustice your sex encounters in +the present social and political arrangements of the world. You know +the old maxim, "The gods help them who help themselves." This is true +of all times and circumstances. The two inevitable conditions that are +found in, and are essential to all bondage, are the spirit of +oppression, the desire to exercise unlawful dominion on the one side, +and ignorance, servility, the willingness, if not the desire to be +enslaved on the other. The absence of either is fatal to the existence +of the thing itself.</p> + +<p>I apprehend the principal thing you want from our sex, as a +preliminary to your growth and equal position in the great struggle of +life, is what Diogenes wanted of Alexander, viz., that we shall "get +out of your sunshine." In other words, that we shall remove the +obstacles we have placed in your way. To this end, politically, all +laws which discriminate between man and woman, to the injury of the +latter, should at once be blotted out. Women should have an equal +voice in the creation and administration of that government to which +they are subject. This will be a fair start in that direction. The +first thing to be done, socially, is to so regulate and arrange the +industrial machinery that women shall have an equal chance to labor in +all the departments, and that the same work shall receive the same pay +whether done by man or woman. This will do much to clear the track, so +that all can have a fair chance. This is all you ask, as I take it. +This you should have. Justice demands it....</p> + +<p>But, save in the removal of the outward forms of society, which now +environ and hedge up your way, the active work in all this change in +the most important human relations must be done by yourselves. "They +who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." What woman is +capable of we shall never know until she has a fair chance in the wide +arena of universal human life.</p> + +<p>If the love of frivolity and show and of empty admiration, which now +so generally obtains, is an unfailing characteristic in the female +sex, legislation can not help you. Encouragement, sympathy, can not +help you. It is of no use to fight against the eternal laws. But if +this be only a perversion or misdirection of noble and lovely powers +and faculties, the result of accidental circumstances and vicious +institutions, as I believe, then, when the outward pressure is +removed, the elastic spring of the genuine human spirit, encased in +the form of woman, shall return; the great curse of civil and domestic +strife shall cease; the true marriage of the male and female heart can +then take place, because that perfect equality, under which alone it +can exist, will be recognized and established.</p> + +<p>You are engaged in a great work. May you have faith and resolution to +continue to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_862" id="Page_862">[Pg 862]</a></span> the end. It is a long way before you. Man is a plant of +slow growth. His education and development are the work of ages. It is +only by a landmark extending far back into the dim and misty past we +can trace his upward path.</p> + +<p>But though the race grows so slow, and the forward wave is go often +pressed backward by the prevailing currents of ignorance, +superstition, and oppression, still, it is cheering to know that no +true word was ever spoken, or good deed ever done, but it cast some +rays of light into the surrounding darkness, while it gave strength +and vigor to the spirit that sent it forth. That is a grand truth +whose utterance is attributed to Jesus, "It is more blessed to give +than to receive." By that gift we may relieve the want of others, but +we gain far more to ourselves by creating from the chaos of human +crime and misery a beautiful and godlike act. That act is wrought into +the fibers of our own individual life, and we are nobler, better, +happier than before.</p> + +<p>So you, in the thankless task before you, subject to ribald jest, to +the cold, heartless sneer, to obloquy and abuse of all sorts from our +and even your sex, who are most immediately to be benefited by your +labors, will have this great truth to console and stimulate you, that +in every step of this grand procession in which you are marching, you +will gather rich and substantial food for the sustenance and growth of +your own mental and moral natures.</p> + +<p class="ltr-right sc">N. H. Whiting.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Truly yours,</p> + + + +<p class="ltr-date break"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>November 25, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p><i>To the Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention</i>:</p> + +<p>The central claim for Woman is her right to be, and to do, as well as +to suffer. Allow her everywhere to represent herself and her own +interests.</p> + +<p>Custom and law both deny her this right. If she is too cowardly to +contend with custom, and to overcome it, let her remain its slave. But +the law has bound her hand and foot. Here she can not act. The +law-makers have forged her chains and riveted them upon her. They +alone can take them off. Shall we not, then, at once demand of +them—demand of every sovereign State in the Union—the elective +franchise for woman? With this franchise she can make for herself a +civil and political equality with man. Without it she is utterly +without power to protect herself. She does not need to be protected +like a child. She does need freedom to use the powers of +self-protection with which her own nature is endowed.</p> + +<p>Each of the several States has its specific laws—statutes and +constitution—varying in details, but all more or less unjust to her +as wife, mother, property-holder; in short, unjust to her in all her +relations as citizen. Every State denies to her the right to represent +herself politically. Once give her this, and she can take all the +rest.</p> + +<p>Would it not be wholly appropriate, then, for this National Convention +to demand the right of suffrage for her from the Legislature of each +State in the Nation? We can not petition the General Government on +this point. Allow me, therefore, respectfully to suggest the propriety +of appointing a committee, which shall be instructed to prepare a +memorial adapted to the circumstances of each legislative body; and +demanding of each, in the name of this Convention, the elective +franchise for woman.</p> + +<p>Such a memorial, presented to the several States during the coming +winter, could not fail of doing good. It would be pressing home this +great question upon all the powers that be in the whole nation; and, +with comparatively little effort, would, at least, create a healthful +agitation. Who shall say that the just men of some State will not even +accord to us the franchise we claim? With this hint to the wise, I +remain, as ever,</p> + +<p class="ltr-right1 sc">Antoinette L. Brown Blackwell.</p> +<p class="ltr-left">Yours, for equal human rights,</p> + + + +<p class="ltr-clear">Mr. <span class="smcap">Hattelle</span> moved that a Committee be at once appointed to draft such +a memorial, which was adopted.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span> rose to offer as an amendment, that a recommendation +go forth from this Convention to the women of each State, to +inaugurate their presentation of the subject to their several +Legislatures.</p> + +<p>Thomas Wentworth Higginson proposed that the friends of Woman Suffrage +should publish an almanac each year giving the advance steps in their +movement. He issued one for 1858, from which we clip the following:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_863" id="Page_863">[Pg 863]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS ALMANAC.</h4> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">The History of Woman in Three Pictures.</span></p> + +<p>I. <span class="smcap">Hindoo Laws</span>. 2000 B. C.—"A man, both day and night, must keep his +wife so much in subjection, that she by no means be mistress of her +own actions. If the wife have her own free-will, notwithstanding she +be of a superior caste, she will behave amiss."</p> + +<p>"The Creator formed woman for this purpose, that man might have sexual +intercourse with her, and that children might be born from thence."</p> + +<p>"A woman shall never go out of the house without the consent of her +husband.... and shall act according to the orders of her husband, and +shall pay a proper respect to the Deity, her husband's father, the +spiritual guide, and the guests; and shall not eat until she has +served them with victuals (if it is physic, she may take it before +they eat); a woman also shall never go to a stranger's house, and +shall not stand at the door, and must never look out of a window."</p> + +<p>"If a woman, following her own inclinations, goes whithersoever she +choose, and does not regard the words of her master, such a woman +shall be turned away."</p> + +<p>"If a man goes on a journey, his wife shall not divert herself by +play, nor shall see any public show, nor shall laugh, nor shall dress +herself with jewels and fine clothes, nor shall see dancing, nor hear +music, nor shall sit in the window, nor shall ride out, nor shall +behold anything choice or rare, but shall fasten well the house-door +and remain private; and shall not eat any dainty victuals, and shall +not view herself in a mirror; she shall never exercise herself in any +such agreeable employment during the absence of her husband."</p> + +<p>"It is proper for every woman, after her husband's death, to burn +herself in the fire with his corpse."</p> + +<p>It will be seen that the following laws scarcely vary at all, in +principle, from the preceding:</p> + +<p>II. <span class="smcap">Anglo-Saxon Laws</span>. 1848.—"By marriage, the husband and wife are +one person in law; that is, <i>the very being or existence of the woman +is suspended during the marriage</i>, or at least is incorporated and +consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, +and <i>covert</i> she performs everything; and is, therefore, called in our +Law-French a <i>feme-covert</i>, is said to be <i>covert-baron</i>, or under the +protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her +condition during her marriage is called her <i>coverture</i>. Upon this +principle, of an union of person in husband and wife, depend almost +all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities that either of them +acquire by the marriage."—<i>1 Blackstone Com</i>., 356.</p> + +<p class="break">"The husband also, by the old law, might give his wife moderate +correction. For, as he is to answer for her misbehavior, the law +thought it reasonable to intrust him with this power of restraining +her by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is +allowed to correct his apprentices or children. But this power of +correction was confined within reasonable bounds, and the husband was +prohibited from using any violence to his wife, <i>aliter quam ad virum, +ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris suae licite et +rationabiliter pertinet</i> (except as lawfully and reasonably belongs to +a husband, for the sake of governing and disciplining his wife). The +civil law gave the husband the same, or a larger authority over his +wife, allowing him, for some misdemeanors, <i>flagellis et Fustibus +acriter verberare uxorem</i> (to beat his wife severely with whips and +cudgels); for others only <i>modicam castigationem adhibere</i> (to +administer moderate chastisement). But with us, in the politer reign +of Charles II., this power of correction began to be doubted, and a +wife may now have security of peace against the husband, or, in +return, a husband against his wife. Yet the lower rank of people, who +were always fond of the old common law, still claim and exact their +ancient privilege, and the courts of law will still permit a husband +to restrain a wife of her liberty in case of any gross +misbehavior."—<i>1 Blackstone</i>, 366.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_864" id="Page_864">[Pg 864]</a></span></p> + +<p class="break">"The legal effects of marriage are generally deducible from the +principle of the common law by which the husband and wife are regarded +as one person, and her legal existence and authority are in a degree +lost or suspended during the continuance of the matrimonial +union."—<i>2 Kent's Comm. on Am. Law</i>, 129.</p> + +<p class="break">"Even now, in countries of the most polished habits, a considerable +latitude is allowed to marital coercion. In England the husband has +the right of imposing <i>such corporal restraints as he may deem +necessary</i>, for securing to himself the fulfillment of the obligations +imposed on the wife by virtue of the marriage contract. He may, in the +plenitude of his power, adopt every act of physical coercion which +does not endanger the life or health of the wife, or render +cohabitation unsafe."—<i>Petersdorff's Abridgement, note</i>.</p> + +<p class="break">"The husband hath, by law, power and dominion over his wife, and <i>may +keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may beat her</i>, but +not in a violent or cruel manner."—<i>Bacon's Abridgement, title +"Baron aud Feme," B. 9</i>.</p> + +<p class="break">"<i>The wife is only the servant of her husband.</i>"—<i>Baron Alderson</i> +(<i>Wharton's Laws relating to the Women of England</i>), <i>p. 168</i>.</p> + +<p class="break">"It is probably not generally known, that whenever a woman has +accepted an offer of marriage, all she has, or expects to have, +becomes virtually the property of the man thus accepted as a husband; +and no gift or deed executed by her between the period of acceptance +and the marriage is held to be valid; for were she permitted to give +away or otherwise settle her property, he might be disappointed in the +wealth he looked to in making the offer."—<i>Roper, Law of Husband and +Wife, Book I., ch. xiii</i>.</p> + +<p class="break">"A lady whose husband had been unsuccessful in business, established +herself as a milliner in Manchester. After some years of toil, she +realized sufficient for the family to live upon comfortably, the +husband having done nothing meanwhile. They lived for a time in easy +circumstances, after she gave up business, and then the husband died, +<i>bequeathing all his wife's earnings to his own illegitimate +children</i>. At the age of sixty-two, she was compelled, in order to +gain her bread, to return to business."—<i>Westminster Review, Oct., +1856</i>.</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Mr. Justice Coleridge's Judgment</span> "<i>in re Cochrane</i>."—The facts were +briefly these. A writ of <i>habeas corpus</i> had been granted to the wife, +who, having been brought into the power of the husband by strategem, +had since that time been kept in confinement by him. By the return to +the writ, it appeared that the parties had lived together for about +three years after their marriage on terms of apparent affection, and +had two children; that in May, 1836, Mrs. Cochrane withdrew herself +and offspring from his house and protection, and had resided away from +him against his will, for nearly four years. While absent from her +husband, Mrs. Cochrane had always resided with her mother, nor was +there the slightest imputation on her honor. In ordering her to be +restored to her husband, the learned judge, after stating the question +to be whether by the common law, the husband, in order to prevent his +wife from eloping, <i>has a right to confine her in his own +dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinite time</i>, +using no cruelty nor imposing any hardship or unnecessary restraint on +his part, and on hers there being no reason from her past conduct to +apprehend that she will avail herself of her absence from his control +to injure either his honor or his property, stated, "<i>That there could +be no doubt of the general dominion which the law of England +attributes to the husband over the wife</i>."—<i>8 Dowling's P. C. 360</i>. +<i>Quoted in Westminster Review, Oct., 1856</i>.</p> + +<p class="break">III. <span class="smcap">Signs Of The Times</span>. 1857.—It is obvious that the English common +law, as above stated, is scarcely a step beyond barbarism. Yet this +law remained almost unaltered in the United States, as respects woman, +till the year 1848—the year of the first local Woman's Rights +Convention, the first National one being held in 1850. Since then +every year has brought improvements, and even those who denounce the +Woman's Rights Movement, admit the value of these its results.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_865" id="Page_865">[Pg 865]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is near Trenton, says <i>The Newark Advertiser</i>, a woman who is a +skillful mechanic. She has made a carriage, and can make a violin or a +gun. She is only 35 years old.</p> + +<p>This is told as though it were something wonderful for a woman to have +mechanical genius; when the fact is, that there are thousands all over +the country who would make as good mechanics and handle tools with as +much skill and dexterity as men, if they were only allowed to make +manifest their ingenuity and inclinations. A girl's hands and head are +formed very much like those of a boy, and if put to a trade at the age +when boys are usually apprenticed, she will master her business quite +as soon as the boy—be the trade what it may.</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Sale Of A Wife At Worcester, England</span>.—One of these immoral and +illegal transactions was recently completed at Worcester. The +agreement between the fellow who sold and the fellow who bought is +given in <i>The Worcester Chronicle</i>:</p> + +<p>"Thomas Middleton delivered up his wife, Mary Middleton, to Phillip +Rostins, and sold her for one shilling and a quart of ale, and parted +wholly and solely for life, not trouble one another for life. Witness, +Signed Thomas |x| Middleton. Witness, Mary Middleton, his wife. +Witness, Phillip |x| Rostins. Witness, S. H. Stone, Crown Inn, Friar +Street."</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Female Inventors</span>.—"Man, having excluded woman from all opportunity of +mechanical education, turns and reproaches her with having invented +nothing. But one remarkable fact is overlooked. Society limits woman's +sphere to the needle, the spindle, and the basket; and tradition +reports that she <i>herself invented all three</i>. If she has invented her +tools as fast as she has found opportunity to use them, can more be +asked?"—<i>T. W. Higginson</i>.</p> + +<p class="break">In the ancient Hindoo dramas, wives do not speak the same language +with their husbands, but employ the dialect of slaves.</p> + +<p class="break">A correspondent of <i>The London Spectator</i> suggests:—"The employment +of women <i>as clerks at railway stations</i> would not be an unprecedented +innovation; they not unfrequently fill that position abroad; and I can +recall at least one instance, when, at a principal station in France, +a female clerk displayed under difficult circumstances an amount of +zeal and intelligence which showed her to be admirably suited to her +office—'the right <i>woman</i> in the right place.'"</p> + +<p class="break">The word courage is, in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, a +<i>feminine</i> noun.</p> + +<p class="break">Upwards of ten thousand females in New York, forty thousand in Paris, +and eighty thousand in London, are said, by statisticians, to +regularly earn a daily living by immoral practices. And yet all these +are Christian cities!</p> + +<p class="break">A widow lady of Bury, Mary Chapman, who would appear to have been a +warlike dame, making her will in 1649, leaves to one of her sons, +among other things, "also <i>my</i> muskett, rest, bandileers, sword, and +headpiece, <i>my</i> jacke, a fine paire of sheets, and a hutche."</p> + +<p class="break">Addison, in <i>The Spectator</i>, refers to a French author, who mentions +that the ladies of the court of France, in his time, thought it +ill-breeding and a kind of female pedantry, to pronounce a hard word +right, for which reason they took frequent occasion to use hard words, +that they might show a politeness in murdering them. The author +further adds, that a lady of some quality at court, having +accidentally made use of a hard word in a proper place, and pronounced +it right, the whole assembly was out of countenance for her.</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Sewing In New York</span>.—"I am informed from one source, that based on a +calculation some two years ago, the number of those who live by sewing +in New York exceeds fifteen thousand. Another, who has good means of +information, tells me there are forty thousand earning fifteen +shillings ($1.87½) per week, and paying twelve shillings ($1.50) +for board, making shirts at four cents."—-<i>E. H. Chapin</i>, "<i>Moral +Aspects of City Life</i>."</p> + +<p class="break">The first "pilgrim" who stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock is said, by +tradition, to have been a young girl, named Mary Chilton.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_866" id="Page_866">[Pg 866]</a></span></p> + +<p>The <i>St. Louis Republican</i> mentions that there is one feature about +the steamer Illinois Belle, of peculiar attractiveness—a lady clerk. +"Look at her bills of lading, and 'Mary J. Patterson, clerk,' will be +seen traced to a delicate and very neat style of chirography. A lady +clerk on a Western steamer! It speaks strongly of our moral progress."</p> + +<p>George Borrow, in his singular narrative, "The Romany Rye," states +that the sale of a wife, with a halter round her neck, is still a +legal transaction in England. It must be done in the cattle-market, as +if she were a mare, "all women being considered as mares by old +English law, <i>and indeed called mares in certain counties where +genuine old English is still preserved</i>."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Testimonial to Miss Mitchell</span>.—The fame of our talented countrywoman, +Miss Maria Mitchell, of Nantucket, has spread far and wide among +astronomers, and is cherished with pride by all Americans. We are glad +to learn that it is proposed to present her a testimonial which will +be at once an appropriate tribute to her talents, and an aid to the +future prosecution of her astronomical researches. An observatory on +Nantucket Island is for sale on very favorable terms, and a plan is on +foot for its purchase, to be presented to her. The sum needed is +$3,000, of which more than a third has been raised by ladies in +Philadelphia and its neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Miss Mitchell is now in Europe, visiting the principal observatories +and astronomers there, and it is hoped that she will soon be +gratefully surprised by learning that the very imperfect means +hitherto at her disposal in pursuing her favorite science are to be +replaced on her return by a collection of instruments which she will +be delighted to possess. Drs. Bond, of Harvard College Observatory, +and Hall, of Providence, have interested themselves in securing this +object, and express strongly their opinion that valuable results to +science can not fail to be realized by furnishing so skillful and +diligent an observer as Miss Mitchell the proposed aids to her +researches. Dr. Bond expresses the conviction that Nantucket enjoys +special advantages as an astronomical site, on account of its +comparative exemption from thermometrical disturbances of the +atmosphere.</p> + +<p>We hope this worthy tribute to our countrywoman's scientific merit +will not fail to be paid. Miss Mitchell's friends have the refusal of +the observatory only till September 1st, and several other purchasers +are ready to take it at once. Dr. Geo. Choate, of Salem, has consented +to receive the pledges of such as desire to be enrolled among the +subscribers to the fund, among whose names are already the honored +ones of Edward Everett, J. I. Bowditch, John C. Brown, of Providence, +and F. Peabody, of Salem, besides other munificent patrons of +science.—<i>Journal of Commerce.</i></p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Learn to Swim</span>.—When the steamer Alida was sinking from her collision +with the Fashion, a Kentucky girl of seventeen was standing on the +guard, looking upon the confusion of the passengers, and occasionally +turning and looking anxiously toward the shore. A gallant young man +stepped up to her and offered to convey her safely to shore. "Thank +you," replied the lady, "you need not trouble yourself; I am only +waiting for the crowd to get out of the way, when I can take care of +myself." Soon the crowd cleared the space, and the lady plunged into +the water, and swam to the shore with ease, and without any apparent +fear.</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">A Lady Horsebreaker in France</span>.—In consequence of the success obtained +by Madame Isabelle in breaking in horses for the Russian army, the +French Minister of War lately authorized her to proceed officially +before a commission, composed of general and superior officers of +cavalry, with General Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely at their head, to +a practical demonstration of her method on a certain number of young +cavalry horses. After twenty days' training, the horses were so +perfectly broken in, that the minister no longer hesitated to enter +into an arrangement with Madame Isabelle to introduce her system into +all the imperial schools of cavalry, beginning with that of +Saumur.—<i>Galignani's Messenger</i>.</p> + +<p class="break">Since the passage of what is called the Married Woman's Act, in 1848, +in Pennsylvania, there have been brought, in the Court of Common +Pleas, one thousand one hundred and thirty-five suits for divorce. A +large majority of the cases are brought by the wives, on the ground of +cruel treatment and desertion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_867" id="Page_867">[Pg 867]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Women ruled all, and ministers of state<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were at the doors of women forced to wait—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Women, who've oft as sovereigns graced the land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But never governed well at second-hand."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16"><i>Churchill's Satires, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1761.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<h4>SENATOR ANTHONY.</h4> + +<p>"A Woman's Rights Convention is in session in New York. A collection +of women arguing for political rights, and for the privileges usually +conceded only to the other sex, is one of the easiest things in the +world to make fun of. There is no end to the smart speeches and the +witty remarks that may be made on the subject. But when we seriously +attempt to show that a woman who pays taxes ought not to have a voice +in the manner in which the taxes are expended, that a woman whose +property and liberty and person are controlled by the laws, should +have no voice in framing those laws, it is not so easy. If women are +fit to rule in monarchies, it is difficult to say why they are not +qualified to vote in a republic; nor can there be greater indelicacy +in a woman going up to the ballot-box than there is in a woman opening +a legislature or issuing orders to an army.</p> + +<p>"We do not say that women ought to vote; but we say that it is a great +deal easier to laugh down the idea than to argue it down. Moreover, +there are a great many things besides voting that are confined to men, +and that women can do quite as well, or even better. There are many +employments which ought to be opened to women, there are many ways in +which women can be made to contribute more largely to their own +independence and comfort, and to the general good of society. All +well-directed plans to this end should receive the support of thinking +men. The danger is that conventions of this kind are apt to overlook +the present and attainable good, in their efforts for results which +are of less certain value and far less practicable."—<i>Providence +Journal, Edited by Ex-Governor Anthony.</i></p> + + +<h4>WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE, 1857.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wisconsin Report on the Suffrage Question</span>.—The following extract from +the report on the extension of the right of suffrage in Wisconsin, we +find in <i>The Milwaukee Free Democrat</i>:</p> + +<p>"Perhaps no question ever submitted to a community would call forth so +much of its mental activity, such a crusade into the realms of +history, such a balancing of good and evil, of the past with the +present, such an examination of the social and political rights and +relations, as the question whether the right of suffrage ought to be +extended to all citizens over the age of twenty-one, which would, of +course, include both sexes. The giddy devotee of fashion would be +surprised in the midst of her frivolity, and be compelled to think and +reason, in view of a new responsibility which is menacing her. Even if +opposed to the proposition, she would be compelled to organize and +inspire the public opinion necessary to defeat it. Whatever might be +the event, woman's intellectual position would be changed, and changed +forever, and with hers that of all other classes....</p> + +<p>"Let no one imagine that he can dispose of this question by a +contemptuous fling at strong-minded women and hen-pecked husbands. The +principle will gain more strength from the character of the arguments +of its opponents than from any number of Bloomer conventions. The +modern idea of the fashionable belle, floating like a bird of paradise +through the soiree; the impersonation of motion and grace in the +ball-room, indulging alternately in syncope and rapture over the +marvelous adventures and despair of the hero of a mushroom romance, +her rapid transition from one excitement to another, to fill up the +dreary vacuum of life, provoking as it does the secret derision of +sensible men; all this comes from that legislation, from that public +opinion, which drives women away from real life; from the discussion +of questions in which her happiness and destiny are involved. A +senseless, though a false fondness, denies her a participation in all +questions of the actual world around her. The novel writers therefore +create a fictitious world, filled with fantastic and hollow +characters, for her to range in. Awhile she believes she is an angel, +till some unfortunate husband finds her to be a moth on his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_868" id="Page_868">[Pg 868]</a></span> fortune, +and a baleful shadow stretching across his pathway, without curiosity +or interests in all those practical realities, which the world, +outside of her charmed existence, is attending to. These are the +abortions of a false public opinion. For ages they have been regarded +as the natural results of female organism. Hence, woman has become +famed as a gossip, because she would degrade herself by discussing +Judge A.'s qualifications for Judge of Probate, though Judge A. may +yet appoint a guardian for her children. In the sewing society, she +sews scandal, or reads brocades, silks, and crinolines, because it +would be extremely coarse and vulgar in her to read the statutes of +Wisconsin, where her rights of person and property, marriage and +divorce, are regulated. In those statutes she would find that though +$350,000 are appropriated to build a University, she is as effectually +excluded from that institution as though it was a convent of monks. So +there is some inconvenience at last in being regarded as a <i>bona-fide</i> +angel, for angels have no use for Universities. Some indignant +school-ma'am begins to suspect the hollow compliments of moon-struck +admirers, and demands a direct voice in the laws which provide for the +mutual improvement of her sex. But the grave doctor of law puts on his +spectacles, and tells her she is fully and exactly represented in man, +only more so. When he eats, she eats; when he thinks, she thinks; when +he gets drunk, she gets drunk; that it would be as absurd to provide +for the board and education of one's own shadow as to provide a +separate establishment for woman, who possesses all things, enjoys all +things, and sways all things in man, as fully as though she did it +herself. And a single woman, or widow, may pay taxes, but it would be +outrageous for her to have a choice in the men who are to spend the +money and then cry out for more. When married, ten years ago, her +education was equal to her husband's, now she can not write a +grammatical letter: her husband's mind has been enlarged by the influx +of new ideas, and by contacts with the electric atmosphere of thought +in the great world without; but denied as she has been the right of +expressing her will by a direct vote, she has lost all interest in +passing events; the globe has dwindled to a half-acre lot and the +village church. Her partner finds the match unequal, spends his time +with more congenial society, and is out-and-out in favor of Moses' law +of a galloping divorce. The old stager has filled the political arena +with frauds and brawls, and bruises and blood; and having levelled the +morals of the ballot-box with those of the race-ground or box-ring, he +has yet virtue enough left to declare that woman shall not enter this +moral Aceldama.</p> + +<p>"Yet it may be that democracy, for self-preservation, will be +compelled to invite women to the ballot-box, to restrain and overawe +the ruffianism of man. Though man smiles with secret derision at the +competition of woman, in dress and show, yet he is too tender of her +reputation to allow her the same field with himself wherein to +exercise her powers. We believe that this contortion of character is +justly attributable to the denial of the right of voting, the great +mode by which the questions of the day are decided in this country. +Politics are our national life. As civilization advances, its issues +will penetrate still deeper into social and every-day life of the +people; and no man or woman can be regarded as an entity, as a power +in society, who has not a direct agency in governing its results. +Without a direct voice in molding the spirit of the age, the age will +disown us.</p> + +<p>"But the objection is argued seriously. Political rivalry will arm the +wife against the husband; a man's foes will be those of his own +household. But we believe that political equality will, by lending the +thoughts and purposes of the sexes, to a just degree, into the same +channel, more completely carry out the designs of nature. Women will +be possessed of a positive power, and hollow compliments and +rose-water flatteries will be exchanged for a pure admiration and a +well-grounded respect, when we see her nobly discharging her part in +the great intellectual and moral struggles of the age, that wait their +solution by a direct appeal to the ballot-box. Woman's power is, at +present, poetical and unsubstantial; let it be practical and real. +There is no reality in any power that can not be coined into votes. +The demagogue has a sincere respect and a salutary fear of the voter; +and he that can direct the lightning flash of the ballot-box is +greater than he who possesses a continent of vapor, gilded with +moonshine.</p> + +<p>"It is true, the right of voting would carry with it the right to hold +office; but since it is true that the sexes have appropriate spheres, +the discretion of individual voters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_869" id="Page_869">[Pg 869]</a></span> would recognize this fact, and +seldom elect a woman to an office, for which she is unfitted by nature +and education, as incompetent men are now elected. But the cruelty of +our laws is seen in this—that where nature makes exceptions, the laws +are inexorable.</p> + +<p>"We have shown that woman is not correctly represented by man at the +ballot-box. Could her voice be heard, it would alter the choice of +public men and their character. With legislators compelled to respect +her opinions, the law itself, constitutions, and politics reflect, to +a just extent, her peculiar views and interests. Nor is it for us to +decide whether these would be for the better or worse. Let the +majority rule. <i>Vox populi vox Dei.</i> Woman's intellect would enlarge +with her more commanding political condition, and though she might +blight the hopes of many a promising aspirant, yet the Union would not +be dissolved under her administration. Believing the time has come +when an appeal on her behalf to the voters of this State will not be +in vain, we have prepared to submit the question to the people, by our +amendment to the Senate bill.</p> + +<p class="author"> +"David Noggle.<br /> +"J. T. Mills.</p> + +<p>"I altogether prefer the Committee's amendment to the Senate bill.</p> +<p class="ltr-right close"><span class="smcap">Hopewell Coxe."</span></p> +<p class="ltr-left0 close">"<i>February 27, 1857</i>.</p> + +<p class="ltr-clear"><span class="smcap">One Year's Work</span>.—The following are a portion of the results of the +Woman's Rights petitions, presented during the winter of 1856-7:</p> + +<p>In Ohio and Wisconsin, Legislative Committees have reported favorably +to the Right of Suffrage, and extracts from the reports are given +above.</p> + +<p>Ohio, Maine, Indiana, and Missouri have passed laws giving to married +women the right to control their own earnings. The Ohio and Maine +statutes are printed below; also a Maine act, giving the husband title +to an allowance from a deceased wife's property, similar to that now +given by the law to widows.</p> + +<p>The memorial presented to the New York Legislature, owing to some +mistake, was not offered till too late for action.</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Ohio Statute</span>.—Bill passed by the Ohio Legislature, April 17, 1857.</p> + +<p>Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, +that no married man shall sell, dispose of, or in any manner part +with, any personal property, which is now, or may hereafter be, exempt +from sale upon execution, without having first obtained the consent of +his wife thereto.</p> + +<p>Sec. 2. If any married man shall violate the provisions of the +foregoing section, his wife may, in her own name, commence and +prosecute to final judgment and execution, in civil action, for the +recovery of such property or its value in money.</p> + +<p>Sec. 8. Any married woman, whose husband shall desert her, or from +intemperance or other cause become incapacitated, or neglect to +provide for his family, may, in her own name, make contracts for her +own labor and the labor of her minor children, and in her own name, +sue for and collect her own or their earnings.</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Maine Statute</span>.—At the recent session of the Legislature of Maine, the +following acts were passed:</p> + +<p>"An Act relating to the property of deceased married women. Be it +enacted," etc.</p> + +<p>"When a wife dies intestate and insolvent, her surviving husband shall +be entitled to an allowance from her personal estate, and a +distributive share in the residue thereof, in the same manner as a +widow is in the estate of her husband; and if she leaves issue he +shall have the use of one-third, if no issue, one-half of her real +estate for life, to be received and assigned in the manner and with +the rights of dower." Approved April 13, 1857.</p> + +<p>"An Act in relation to the rights of married women.</p> + +<p>"Any married woman may demand and receive the wages of personal labor +performed other than for her own family, and may hold the same in her +own right against her husband or any other person, and may maintain an +action therefore in her own name." Approved April 17, 1857.</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Female Suffrage in Kentucky</span>.—Kentucky Revised Statutes, 1852, ch. 88. +"Schools and Seminaries." Art. 6, Sec. 1:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_870" id="Page_870">[Pg 870]</a></span></p> + +<p>"An election shall be held at the school-house of each school +district, from nine o'clock in the morning till two o'clock in the +evening, of the first Saturday of April of each year, for the election +of three Trustees for the District for one year, and until others are +elected and qualified. The qualified voters in each District shall be +the electors, and <i>any widow having a child between six and eighteen +years of age, may also vote in person or by written proxy</i>."</p> + +<p>[But if the suffrage is not limited to <i>widows</i> who have a child +between six and eighteen, but extended to <i>unmarried, married</i>, and +<i>childless</i> men, why not give it to women in those positions also? +Such a partial concession, though valuable as recognizing a principle, +is not likely to be extensively used. For in this case, as in that of +women who are stockholders in corporations, the female voters will be +deterred by their own small numbers and by the prejudices of society. +But give woman the equal right of suffrage, and the prejudice will +soon be swept away].</p> + +<p class="break"><span class="smcap">Female Suffrage in Canada</span>.—[The following is the Canadian law under +which women vote. The omission of the word <i>male</i> was intentional, and +was done to secure the weight of the Protestant property in the hands +of women, against the Roman Catholic aggressions and demands for +separate schools. The law works well. "A friend of mine in Canada West +told me," said Lucy Stone recently, "that when the law was first +passed giving women who owned a certain amount of property, or who +paid a given rental, a right to vote, he went trembling to the polls +to see the result. The first woman who came was a large property +holder in Toronto; with marked respect the crowd gave way as she +advanced. She spoke her vote and walked quietly away, sheltered by her +womanhood. It was all the protection she needed."]</p> + +<p>XVIII. and XIV. <span class="smcap">Victoria, Cap</span> 48.—An Act for the better establishment +and maintenance of Common Schools in Upper Canada. Passed July 24, +1850.</p> + +<p>Sec. 1. Preamble—Repeals former acts.</p> + +<p>Sec. 2. Enacts that the election of School Trustees shall take place +on the second Wednesday of January in each year.</p> + +<p>Sec. 22. And be it enacted, that in each Ward, into which any City or +Town is or shall be divided according to Law, two fit and proper +persona shall be elected School Trustees by a majority of all the +<i>taxable inhabitants</i>.</p> + +<p>Sec. 25. Enacts that on the second Wednesday in January there shall be +a meeting of all the taxable inhabitants of every incorporated +village, and at such meeting six fit and proper persons, from among +the resident householders, shall be elected School Trustees.</p> + +<p>Sec. 5. Provides that in all <i>Country</i> School Districts <i>three</i> +trustees shall be similarly elected by a majority of <i>the freeholders +or householders</i> of such school section.</p> + +<p class="break">"<span class="smcap">The Emancipation of Women</span>."—A very curious controversy, on paper, is +going on at present in the <i>Reveu Philosophique et Religieuse</i>, +between M. Proudhon and Mme. Jenny D'Hericourt. The latter defends, +with great warmth, the moral, civil, and political emancipation of +woman. Proudhon, in reply, declares that all the theories of Mme. +D'Hericourt are inapplicable, in consequence of the inherent weakness +of her sex. The periodical in which the contest is going on was +founded and is conducted by the old St. Simoniens.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<h4>REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO SENATE, ON GIVING THE RIGHT +OF SUFFRAGE TO FEMALES.</h4> + +<p class="ltr-date"><span class="sc">Columbus, 1858.</span></p> + +<p>The following petition, numerously signed by both men and women, +citizens of this State, was, at the first session of the Legislature, +referred to the undersigned Select Committee:</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Whereas</span>, The women of the State of Ohio are disfranchised by the +Constitution solely on account of their sex;</p> + +<p>"We do, respectfully, demand for them the right of suffrage—a right +which involves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_871" id="Page_871">[Pg 871]</a></span> all other rights of citizenship—one that can not, +justly, be withheld, as the following admitted principles of +government show:</p> + +<p>"First. 'All men are born free and equal.'</p> + +<p>"Second. 'Government derives its just power from the consent of the +governed.'</p> + +<p>"Third. 'Taxation and representation are inseparable.'</p> + +<p>"We, the undersigned, therefore, petition your honorable body to take +the necessary steps for a revision of the Constitution, so that all +citizens may enjoy equal political rights."</p> + +<p>Your Committee have given the subject referred to them a careful +examination, and now</p> + +<p class="heading"><span class="smcap">Report</span>.</p> + +<p>Your Committee believe that the prayer of the petitioners ought to be +granted. Our opinion is based both upon grounds of principle and +expediency, which we will endeavor to present as briefly as is +consistent with a due consideration of this subject.</p> + +<p>The founders of this Republic claimed and asserted with great +emphasis, the essential equality of human rights as a self-evident +truth. They scouted the venerable old dogma of the divine right of +kings and titled aristocracies to rule the submissive multitude. They +were equally explicit in their claim that "taxation and representation +are inseparable."</p> + +<p>The House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1764, declared, "That +the imposition of duties and taxes, by the Parliament of Great +Britain, upon a <i>people not represented</i> in the House of Commons, is +absolutely irreconcilable with their rights." A pamphlet entitled "The +Rights of the British Colonies Asserted," was sent to the agent of the +Colony in England, to show him the state of the public mind, and along +with it an energetic letter. "The silence of the province," said this +letter, alluding to the suggestion of the agent that he had taken +silence for consent, "should have been imputed to any cause—even to +despair—rather than be construed into a tacit cession of their +rights, or the acknowledgment of a right in the Parliament of Great +Britain, to impose duties and taxes on a people who are not +represented In the House of Commons." "<i>If we are not represented we +are slaves!</i>" Some of England's ablest jurists acknowledge the truth +of this doctrine. Chief Justice Pratt said: "My position is +this—taxation and representation are inseparable. The position is +founded in the law of nature. It is more; it is itself an eternal law +of nature." In defence of this doctrine they waged a seven years' war: +and yet, when they had wrung from the grasp of Great Britain the +Colonies she would not govern upon this principle, and undertook to +organize them according to their favorite theory, most of the +Colonies, by a single stroke of the pen, cut off one-half of the +people from any representation in the government which claimed their +obedience to its laws, the right to tax them for its support, and the +right to punish them for disobedience.</p> + +<p>This disparity between their theory and practice does not seem to have +excited much, if any notice, at the time, nor until its bitter fruits +had long been eaten in obscurity and sorrow by thousands who suffered, +but did not complain. Indeed, so apathetic has been the public mind +upon this subject, that no one is surprised to see such a remark as +the following by a distinguished commentator upon American +institutions: "In the free States, except criminals and paupers, +<i>there is no class of persons</i> who do not exercise the elective +franchise." It seems women are not even a class of persons. They are +fairly dropped from the human race, and very naturally, since we have +grown accustomed to recognize as <i>universal</i> suffrage, that which +excludes by constitutional taboo one-half of the people. To declare +that a voice in the government is the right of <i>all</i>, and then give it +only to a <i>part</i>—and that the part to which the claimant himself +belongs—is to renounce even the appearance of principle. As ought to +have been foreseen, the class of persons thus cut off from the means +of self-protection, have become victims of unequal and oppressive +legislation, which runs through our whole code. We first bind the +hands, by the organic law, and then proceed with deliberate safety, by +the statute, to spoil the goods of the victim. Whatever palliation for +the past hoary custom, false theology, and narrow prejudice may +furnish, it is certainly time now to remedy those evils, and reduce to +practice our favorite theory of government.</p> + +<p>The citizens thus robbed of a natural right complain of the injustice. +They protest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_872" id="Page_872">[Pg 872]</a></span> against taxation without representation. They claim that +all <i>just</i> government must derive its power from the consent of the +governed. A forcible female writer says: "Even this so-called free +government of the united States, as at present administered, is +nothing but a political, hereditary despotism to woman; she has no +instrumentality whatever in making the laws by which she is governed, +while her property is taxed <i>without</i> representation."</p> + +<p>But this feeling, it is claimed, is entertained but by few women; on +the contrary, they generally disown such claim when made in their +behalf. Supposing the fact to be true to the fullest extent ever +asserted, if it proves that American women ought to remain as they +are, it proves exactly the same with respect to Asiatic women; for +they, too, instead of murmuring at their seclusion and at the +restraint imposed upon them, pride themselves on it, and are +astonished at the effrontery of women who receive visits from male +acquaintances, and are seen in the streets unveiled. Habits of +submission make women, as well as men, servile-minded. The vast +population of Asia do not desire or value—probably would not +accept—political liberty, nor the savages of the forest civilization; +which does not prove that either of these things is undesirable for +them, or that they will not, at some future time, enjoy it. Custom +hardens human beings to any kind of degradation, by deadening that +part of their nature which would resist it. And the case of woman is, +in this respect even, a peculiar one, for no other inferior caste that +we have heard of has been taught to regard its degradation as their, +its, honor. The argument, however, implies a secret consciousness that +the alleged preference of women for their dependent state is merely +apparent, and arises from their being allowed no choice; for, if the +preference be natural, there can be no necessity for enforcing it by +law. To make laws compelling people to follow their inclinations, has +not, hitherto, been thought necessary by any legislator.</p> + +<p>The plea that women do not desire any change is the same that has been +urged, times out of mind, against the proposal of abolishing any +social evil. "There is no complaint," which is generally, and in this +case certainly not true, and when true, only so because there is not +that hope of success, without which complaint seldom makes itself +audible to unwilling ears. How does the objector know that women do +not desire equality of freedom? It would be very simple to suppose +that if they do desire it they will all say so. Their position is like +that of the tenants and laborers who vote against their own political +interests to please their landlords or employers, with the unique +admission that submission is inculcated in them from childhood, as the +peculiar attraction and grace of their character. They are taught to +think that to repel actively even an admitted injustice, done to +themselves, is somewhat unfeminine, and had better be left to some +male friend or protector. To be accused of rebelling against anything +which admits of being called an ordinance of society, they are taught +to regard as an imputation of a serious offence, to say the least, +against the propriety of their sex. It requires unusual moral courage, +as well as disinterestedness in a woman, to express opinions favorable +to woman's enfranchisement, until, at least, there is some prospect of +obtaining it.</p> + +<p>The comfort of her individual life and her social consideration, +usually depend on the good-will of those who hold the undue power; and +to the possessors of power, any complaint, however bitter, of the +misuse of it, is scarcely a less flagrant act of insubordination than +to protest against the power itself. The professions of women in this +matter remind us of the State offenders of old, who, on the point of +execution, used to protest their love and devotion to the sovereign by +whose unjust mandate they suffered. Grlselda, himself, might be +matched from the speeches put by Shakespeare into the mouths of male +victims of kingly caprice and tyranny; the Duke of Buckingham, for +example, in "Henry VIII.," and even Wolsey.</p> + +<p>The literary class of women are often ostentatious in disclaiming the +desire for equality of citizenship, and proclaiming their complete +satisfaction with the place which society assigns them; exercising in +this, as in many other respects, a most noxious influence over the +feelings and opinions of men, who unsuspectingly accept the +servilities of toadyism as concessions to the force of truth, not +considering that it is the personal interest of these women to profess +whatever opinions they expect will be agreeable to men. It is not +among men of talent, sprung from the people, and patronized and +flattered by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_873" id="Page_873">[Pg 873]</a></span> aristocracy, that we look for the leaders of a +democratic movement. Successful literary women are just as unlikely to +prefer the cause of woman to their own social consideration. They +depend on men's opinion for their literary, as well as for their +feminine successes; and such is their bad opinion of men, that they +believe there is not more than one in a thousand who does not dislike +and fear strength, sincerity, and high spirit in a woman. They are, +therefore, anxious to earn pardon and toleration for whatever of these +qualities their writings may exhibit on other subjects, by a studied +display of submission on this; that they may give no occasion for +vulgar men to say—what nothing will prevent vulgar men from +saying—that learning makes woman unfeminine, and that literary ladies +are likely to be bad wives.</p> + +<p>But even if a large majority of women do not desire any change in the +Constitution, that would be a very bad reason for withholding the +elective franchise from those who do desire it. Freedom of choice, +liberty to choose their own sphere, is what is asked. We have not +heard that the most ardent apostles of female suffrage propose to +compel any woman to make stump speeches against her will, or to march +a fainting sisterhood to the polls under a police, in Bloomer costume. +Women who condemn their sisters for discontent with the laws as they +are, have their prototype in those men of America who, in our +revolutionary struggle with England, vehemently denounced and +stigmatized as fanatics and rebels the leaders and malcontents of that +day. But neither their patriotism nor wisdom have ever been much +admired by the American people, perhaps not even by the English.</p> + +<p>The objection urged against female suffrage with the greatest +confidence and by the greatest number, is that such a right is +incompatible with the refinement and delicacy of the sex. That it +would make them harsh and disputative, like male voters. This +objection loses most, if not all of its force, when it is compared +with the well-established usages of society as relates to woman. She +already fills places and discharges duties with the approbation of +most men, which are, to say the least, quite as dangerous to her +refinement and retiring modesty, as the act of voting or even holding +office would be. In our political campaigns all parties are anxious to +secure the co-operation of women. They are urged to attend our +political meetings, and even in our mass meetings, when whole acres of +men are assembled, they are importunately urged to take a conspicuous +part, sometimes as the representatives of the several States, and +sometimes as the donors of banners and flags, accompanied with +patriotic speeches by the fair donors. And in great moral questions, +such as temperance, for example, in the right disposition of which +woman is more interested than man, she often discharges a large amount +of the labor of the campaign; but yet, when it comes to the crowning +act of voting, she must stand aside—delicacy forbids—that is too +masculine, too public, too exposing, though it could be done, in most +cases, with as little difficulty and exposure as a letter can be taken +out or put in the post-office.</p> + +<p>Then there is that large class of concert singers and readers of the +drama, who are eulogized and petted by those who are most shocked at +the idea of women submitting themselves to the exposure of voting. In +fact, the whole question of publicity is settled to the fullest +extent; at least every man must be silent who acquiesces in the +concert, the drama, or the opera. We need not dwell on the exposures +of the stage or the indelicacies of the ballet, but if Jenny Lind was +"an angel of purity and benevolence" for consenting to stand, chanting +and enchanting, before three thousand excited admirers; if Madame +Sontag could give a full-dress rehearsal (which does not commonly +imply a superfluity of apparel) for the special edification of the +clergy of Boston, and be rewarded with duplicate Bibles, it is +difficult to see why a woman may not vote on questions vitally +affecting the interests of herself, or children, or kindred.</p> + +<p>But, with all our dainty notions of female proprieties, women are, by +common consent, dragged into court as witnesses, and subjected to the +most scrutinizing and often indelicate examinations and questions, if +either party imagines he can gain a sixpence, or dull the edge of a +criminal prosecution, by her testimony. The interest, convenience, and +prejudices of men, and not any true regard for the delicacy of the +sex, seem to be the standard by which woman's rights and duties are to +be measured. It is prejudice, custom, long-established usage, and not +reason, which demand the sacrifice of woman's natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_874" id="Page_874">[Pg 874]</a></span> rights of +self-government; a relic of barbarism still lingering in all +political, and nearly all religions organizations. Among the purely +savage tribes, woman takes position as a domestic drudge—a mere beast +of burden, whilst the sensual civilization of Asia regard her more in +the light of a domestic luxury, to be jealously guarded from the +profane sight of all men but her husband. Both positions equally and +widely remote from the noble one God intended her to fill.</p> + +<p>In Persia and Turkey women grossly offend the public taste if they +suffer their faces to be seen in the streets. In the latter country +they are prohibited by law, in common with "pigs, dogs, and other +unclean animals," as the law styles them, from so much as entering +their mosques. <i>Our</i> ideas of the proper sphere, duties, and +capabilities of woman do not differ from these so much in kind as +degree. They are all based upon the assumption that man has the right +to decide what are the rights, to point out the duties, and to fix the +boundaries of woman's sphere; which, taking for true, our cherished +theory of government, to wit: the <i>inalienability and equality of +human rights</i> can hardly be characterized by a milder term than that +of an impudent and oppressive usurpation. Who has authorized us, +whilst railing at miters, and crosiers, and scepters, and shouting in +the ears of the British Lion, as self-evident truths, "representation +and taxation are, and <i>shall</i> be, inseparable,"—"governments, to be +<i>just</i>, must have the consent of the governed;" to say woman, one-half +of the whole race, shall, nevertheless, be taxed without +representation and governed without her consent? Who hath made us a +judge betwixt her and her Maker?</p> + +<p>It is said woman's mental and moral organization is peculiar, +differing widely from that of man. Perhaps so. She must then have a +peculiar fitness of qualification to judge what will be wise and just +government for her. Let her be free to choose for herself, in the +light of her peculiar organization, to what she is best adapted. She +is better qualified to judge of her proper sphere than man can be. She +knows her own wants and capabilities. Let us leave her, as God created +her, a free agent, accountable to Him for any violation of the laws of +her nature. He has mingled the sexes in the family relation; they are +associated on terms of equality in some churches. They are active +working and voting members of literary and benevolent societies. They +vote as share-holders in stock companies, and in countries where less +is said about freedom, and equality, and representation, they are +often called to, and fill, with distinguished ability, very important +positions, and often discharge the highest political trusts known to +their laws. Which of England's kings has shown more executive ability +than Elizabeth, or which has been more conscientious and discreet than +Annie and Victoria? Spain, too, had her Isabella, and France her Maid +of Orleans, her Madame Roland, yes, and her Charlotte Corday. Austria +and Hungary their Maria Theresa. Russia her Catharine; and even the +jealous Jewish Theocracy was judged forty years by a woman. It is too +late, by thirty centuries, to put in the plea of her incompetency in +political affairs.</p> + +<p>But it is objected that it would not do for woman, particularly a +married woman, to be allowed to vote. It might bring discord into the +family if she differed from her husband. If this objection were worth +anything at all, it would lie with tenfold greater force against +religious than political organizations. No animosities are so bitter +and implacable as those growing out of religions disagreements; yet we +allow women to choose their religious creeds, attend their favorite +places of worship, and in some of them take an equal part in the +church business, and all this, though the husband is of another +religion, or of no religion, and no one this side of Turkey claims +that the law should compel woman to have no religion, or adopt that of +her husband. But, even if that objection were a good one, more than +half the adult women of the State are unmarried.</p> + +<p>It is said, too, that as woman is not required to perform military +duty, and work on the roads, she ought not to vote. None but +"able-bodied" men, under a certain age, are required to do military +duty, and the effect is practically the same in regard to the two +days' work on the roads, whilst women pay tax for military and road +purposes the same as man. A <i>man's</i> right to vote does not depend on +his ability to perform physical labor, why should a <i>woman's?</i> By the +exclusion of woman from her due influence and voice in the government, +we lose that elevating and refining influence which she gives to +religious, social, and domestic life. Her presence at our political +meetings, all agree,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_875" id="Page_875">[Pg 875]</a></span> contributes greatly to their order, decorum, and +decency. Why should not the polls, also, be civilized by her presence?</p> + +<p>Does not the morality of our politics demonstrate a great want of the +two qualities so characteristic of woman, heart and conscience? The +female element which works such miracles of reform in the rude manners +of men, in all the departments of life where she has the freedom to +go, is nowhere more needed than in our politics, or at the polls.</p> + +<p>We have endeavored to show that the constitutional prohibition of +female suffrage is not only a violation of natural right, but equally +at war with the fundamental principles of the government. Let us now +look at the practical results of this organic wrong. After having +taken away from woman the means of protecting her person and property, +by the peaceable, but powerful ballot, how have we discharged the +self-imposed duty of legislating for her? By every principle of honor, +or even of common honesty, we are bound to see that her interests do +not suffer in our hands. That, if we depart at all from the principle +of strict equality, it should be in her favor. Let as see what are the +facts.</p> + +<p>When a woman marries she becomes almost annihilated in the eyes of the +law, except as a subject of punishment. She loses the right to receive +and control the wages of her own labor. If she be an administratrix, +or executrix, she is counted as dead, and another must be appointed. +If she have children, they may be taken from her against her will, and +placed in the care of any one, no matter how unfit, whom the father +may select. He may even give them away by will. "The personal property +of the wife, such as money, goods, cattle, and other chattels, which +she had in possession at the time of her marriage, in her own right, +and not in the right of another, vest immediately in the husband, and +he can dispose of them as he pleases. On his death, they go to his +representatives, like the residue of his property. So, if any such +goods or chattels come to her possession in her own right, after the +marriage, they, in like manner, immediately vest in the husband." +"Such property of the wife, as bonds, notes, arrears of rent, +legacies, which are termed <i>choses in action</i>, do not vest in the +husband by mere operation of marriage. To entitle him to them, he must +first reduce them into possession, by recovering the money, or +altering the security, as by making them payable to himself. If the +husband appoint an attorney to receive a debt or claim due the wife, +and the attorney received it, or if he mortgaged the claim or debt, or +assign it for a valuable consideration, or recover judgment by suit, +in his own name, or if he release it, in all these cases the right of +the wife, upon the decease of the husband, is gone."</p> + +<p>The real estate of the wife, such as houses and lands, is in nearly +the same state of subjection to the husband's will. He is entitled to +all the rents and profits while they both live, and the husband can +hold the estate during his life, even though the wife be dead. A woman +may thus be stripped of every available cent she ever had in the +world, and even see it squandered in ministering to the low appetite +or passions of a drunken debauchee of a husband. And when, by economy +and toil, she may have acquired the means of present subsistence, +this, too, may be <i>lawfully</i> taken from her, and applied to the same +base purpose. Even her Family Bible, the last gift of a dying mother, +her only remaining comfort, can be lawfully taken and sold by the +husband, to buy the means of intoxication. <i>This very thing has been +done.</i> Can any one believe that laws, so wickedly one-sided as these, +were ever honestly designed for the equal benefit of woman with man? +Yet wives are said to have quite a sufficient representation in the +government, through their husbands, to secure them protection.</p> + +<p>But the cruel inequality of the laws relating to woman as wife are +quite outdone by those relating to her as widow. It is these stricken +and sorrowful victims, the law seems especially to have selected as +its prey. Upon the death of the husband, the law takes possession of +the whole of the estate. The smallest items of property must be turned +out for valuation, to be handled by strangers. The clothes that the +deceased had worn, the chair in which he sat, the bed on which he +died, all these sacred memorials of the dead, must undergo the cold +scrutiny of officers of the law. The widow is counted but as an alien, +and an incumbrance on the estate, the bulk of which is designed for +other hands. She is to have doled out to her, like a pauper, by paltry +sixes, the furniture of her own kitchen. "One table, six chairs, six +knives and forks, six plates, six tea-cups and saucers, one +sugar-dish, one milk-pail, one tea-pot, and <i>twelve</i> spoons!" All +this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_876" id="Page_876">[Pg 876]</a></span> munificent provision for, perhaps, a family of only a +dozen-persons. Think of it, ye widows, and learn to be grateful for +man's provident care of you in your hour of need!</p> + +<p>Then comes the sale of "the effects of the deceased," as they are +called; and amid the fullness and freshness of her grief, the widow is +compelled to see sold into the hands of strangers, amid the coarse +jokes and levity of a public auction, articles to her beyond all +price, and around which so many tender memories cling. Experience +alone can fully teach the torture of this fiery ordeal. But this is +only the beginning of her sorrows. If she have children, the estate is +considered to belong to them, while she is but an "incumbrance" upon +it. She is to have the rents and profits of one-third part of the real +estate her lifetime, which, to the vast majority of cases, is so +unproductive as to compel her to leave that spot, endeared to her by +so many tender ties—the home of her early love, the birthplace of her +children—for a cheaper and less comfortable home. But, bereaved of +her husband and robbed of her property,</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The law hath yet another hold on her."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Following up the insulting and injurious assumption of her +incompetency and untrustworthiness, implied in the denial of her right +of suffrage, the guardianship of her children is taken from her. Her +daughter, at the age of twelve, and her son, at fifteen, are to go +through the mockery of choosing for themselves a <i>competent</i> +guardian—a proceeding calculated to destroy the beautiful trust and +confidence in the wisdom and fitness of the mother to govern and +direct them, so natural and so essential to the happiness of children. +When the justifying pretext for the infliction of all this misery is +the benefit of the children, her maternal nature will struggle hard to +endure it with patience. But, until the passage of the law of 1863, +"regulating descents and distributions," when there were no children +of either parent, the law did not abate its rigor toward her, in the +disposition of the real estate, which is generally all that is left, +after paying the debts and costs of "settlement," though the whole of +the houses and lands might have been bought with her money, two-thirds +were immediately handed over to the relatives of the husband, however +above need; and though they might have been strangers, or even +enemies, to her. She had but a life estate in the other third, which, +at her death, also went, as the other, to her husband's heirs. She +could not indulge her benevolent feelings or gratify her friendships, +by devising by will, to approved charities or favorite friends, the +means she no longer needed. With a bitter sense of injustice and +despairing sorrow, she might well adopt the language of the unhappy +Jew:</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You take my house, when you do take the prop<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That doth sustain my house; you take my life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When you do take the means whereby I live."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Such is the famous right of dower, which has been the subject of so +many stupid eulogies by lawyers and commentators.</p> + +<p>Take an example of the effect of these laws upon an overburdened +heart, which occurred just before the passage of the Act of 1853. A +young couple, by their united means and patient industry, had secured +for themselves a small, but comfortable home. It furnished the means +of supplying all their simple wants. It was their own; doubly endeared +by the struggles and sacrifices it had cost them. They were content. +They had no children, but they had each other, and were happy in their +mutual love. Death seemed a great way off; and life—it was a real +joy. They knew little of the laws of estates. Owing nothing, they +feared no intrusion upon the sanctity of their home. But the husband +was killed by the falling of a tree; and, after some hours, was found +dead by the agonized wife. There was no will. The wrung heart of the +childless widow, in her utter bereavement, still clung to her home, +which, though blighted and desolate, was still dear to her. There, at +least, she would find shelter. But soon the inexorable law laid its +cold, unwelcome hand upon that darkened home. There must be letters of +administration had—an inventory of the "effects"—an appraisement. +Everything was explained by sympathizing counsel. The "right of dower" +set conspicuously in the foreground—"one equal third part"—at length +she comprehended it all. Her home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_877" id="Page_877">[Pg 877]</a></span> was to pass into other hands: +henceforth she was to be counted only as an incumbrance on it. Looking +from the misery of the present down the gloom of the future, she could +see only widowhood and penury. And whilst the appraisers were +performing their ungracious task of overhauling cupboards and drawers, +and estimating the value in cash of presents received in her +courtship, she, in her quiet despair at this last bitter drop added to +her full cup, arrayed herself in her best apparel (which the law +generously provides "she shall retain"), and, without uttering a word +of complaint or farewell, walked to the nearest water and drowned +herself.</p> + +<p>If "oppression maketh even a wise man mad," ought we to wonder that a +woman, almost crazed by a sudden and terrible bereavement, upon +finding that her calamity, instead of giving her the jealous and +compassionate protection of the law, was to be made the pretext for +robbing her of what yet remained of earthly comforts, should, in the +madness of her despair, cast away the burden of a life no longer +tolerable? In India she would have been burned upon the funeral pile +of her dead husband; we drive her to madness and suicide by the +slower, but no less cruel torture, of starvation and a breaking heart. +Whilst persisting in such legislation, how could we expect to escape +the woe, denounced by the compassionate and long-suffering Saviour, +against the "hypocrites who devour widows' houses"?</p> + +<p>It is said woman can accomplish any object of her desire better by +persuasion, by her smiles and tears and eloquence, than she could ever +compel by her vote. But with all her powers of coaxing and eloquence, +she has never yet coaxed her partner into doing her simple justice. +Shall we never get beyond the absurd theory that every woman is +legally and politically represented by her husband, and hence has an +adequate guarantee? The answer is, that she has been so represented +ever since representation began, and the result appears to be that, +among the Anglo-Saxon race generally, the entire system of laws in +regard to women is, at this moment, so utterly wrong, that Lord +Brougham is reported to have declared it useless to attempt to amend +it—"There must be a total reconstruction before a woman can have any +justice." The wrong lies not so much in any special statute as in the +fundamental theory of the law, yet no man can read the statutes on +this subject of the most enlightened nation, without admitting that +they were obviously made by man, not with a view to woman's interest, +but his own. Our Ohio laws may not be so bad as the law repealed in +Vermont in 1850, which <i>confiscated to the State</i> one-half the +property of every childless widow, unless the husband had other heirs. +But they must compel from every generous man the admission, that +neither justice nor gallantry has yet availed to procure anything like +impartiality in the legal provisions for the two sexes. With what +decent show of justice, then, can man, thus dishonored, claim a +continuance of this suicidal confidence? There is something +respectable in the frank barbarism of the old Russian nuptial +consecration, "Here, wolf, take thy lamb." But we can not easily +extend the same charity to the civilized wolf of England and America, +clad in the sheep's clothing of a volume of revised statutes, +caressing the person of the bride and devouring her property.</p> + +<p>It is said the husband can, by will, provide against these cases of +hardship and injustice. True, he can, if he will, but does he? The +number is few, some of the more thoughtful and conscientious; but this +is only obtaining justice as a favor, and not as a natural right. But +it is a majority of husbands who make these laws, and they generally +have no desire to amend them by will. Besides, the will of the husband +is sometimes even worse than the law itself. Such cases are by no +means rare. Almost every man's memory may furnish one or more examples +that have fallen under his immediate notice. One or two only we will +mention. A woman, advanced in life, who owned a valuable farm in her +own right, in the border of a flourishing town, married a man who had +little or no property. The farm was soon cut up into town lots and +sold at high prices. In a few years the husband died, leaving no +children, but, by will, directed the division of nearly the whole of +the estate among his relatives, persons who the wife never saw. The +only remedy in this case was to fall back upon her right of dower, and +submit to the robbery of the law, in order to escape the worse robbery +of the will. This will was not the result of any disagreement between +the husband and the wife. It was only the natural outgrowth of the +whole policy of our laws as regards the property rights of woman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_878" id="Page_878">[Pg 878]</a></span> +Permit us to notice one other case, which occurred in a neighboring +State. Many similar ones, no doubt, have occurred in our own, the law +in both States being the same.</p> + +<p>A woman who had a fortune of fifty thousand dollars in "personal +property," married. All this, by the law, belonged absolutely to the +husband. In a year he died, leaving a will directing that the widow +should have the proceeds of a certain part of this money, <i>so long as +she remained unmarried</i>. If she married again, or at her death, it was +to go to his heirs.</p> + +<p>How different in all these cases is the condition of the husband upon +the death of the wife. There in then no officious intermeddling of the +law in his domestic affairs. His house, sad and desolate though it be, +is still sacred and secure from the foot of unbidden guests. There is +no legal "settlement" to eat up his estate. He is not told that "one +equal third part" of all his lands and tenements shall be set apart +for his use during his lifetime. "He has all, everything, even his +wife's bridal presents too are his. If the wife had lands in her own +right, and if they have ever had a living child, he has a life estate +in the whole of it, not a beggarly 'third part.'"</p> + +<p>Such is the result of man's government of woman without her consent. +Such is the protection he affords her. She now asks the means of +protecting herself, by the same instrumentality which man considers so +essential to his freedom and security, representation, political +equality—<span class="smcap">the right of suffrage</span>. The removal of this constitutional +restriction is of great consequence, because it casts upon woman a +stigma of inferiority, of incompetency, of unworthiness of trust. It +ranks her with criminals and madmen and idiots. It is essential to +her, practically, as being the key to all her rights, which will open +to her the door of equality and justice.</p> + +<p>Does any one believe that if woman had possessed an equal voice in +making our laws, we should have standing on our statute books, for +generations, laws so palpably unequal and unjust toward her? The idea +is preposterous.</p> + +<p>If our sense of natural justice and our theory of government both +agree, that the being who is to suffer under laws shall first +personally assent to them, and that the being whose industry the +government is to burden should have a voice in fixing the character +and amount of that burden, then, while woman is admitted to the +gallows, the jail, and the tax-list, <i>we have no right</i> to debar her +from the ballot-box.</p> + +<p>Your Committee recommend the adoption of the following resolution:</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the Judiciary Committee be instructed to report to +the Senate, a bill to submit to the qualified electors at the next +election for senators and representatives, an amendment to the +Constitution whereby the elective franchise shall be extended to the +citizens of Ohio, without distinction of sex.</p> + +<p class="author"> +J. D. Cattell,<br /> +H. Canfield.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="trans-note"> +<a name="END" id="END"></a> +<p class="heading">Transcriber's Notes</p> + +<p>The transcriber made changes as below +indicated to the text to correct obvious errors:</p> + +<pre class="note"> + 1. p. 18, "worhips" --> "worships" + 2. p. 25, "evironments" --> "environments" + 3. P. 54, "resoultion" --> "resolution" + 4. p. 236, "spoliage" --> "spoilage" + 5. p. 236, "pacifcally" --> "pacifically" + 6. p. 269, "politicans" --> "politicians" + 7. p. 303, "wilness" --> "wilderness" + 8. p. 347, "itoxicating" --> "intoxicating" + 9. p. 347, "probibitory" --> "prohibitory" + 10. p. 349, "Legiture" --> "Legilature" + 11. p. 373, "dipossessed" --> "dispossessed" + 12. p. 383, "monoply" --> "monopoly" + 13. p. 384, "Jospeh" --> "Joseph" + 14. p. 405, "penalities" --> "penalties" + 15. p. 448, "coup d'etat" --> "coup d'état" + 16. p. 491, "recolletion" --> "recollection" + 17. P. 507, "beleive" --> "believe" + 18. p. 534, "wrold" --> "world" + 19. p. 539, "familar" --> "familiar" + 20. p. 584, "lawer" --> "lawyer" + 21. p. 595, "prentence" --> "pretence" + 22. p. 730, "womahood" --> "womanhood" + 23. p. 742, "gods" --> "goods" + 24. p. 792, "moden" --> "modern" + 25. p. 834, "congratlate" --> "congratulate" + 26. p. 837, "nonsenical" --> "nonsensical" + 27. p. 838, "characacteristic" --> "characteristic" + 28. p. 840, "virtuons" --> "virtuous" +</pre> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> + +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE, VOLUME I***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 28020-h.txt or 28020-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/0/2/28020">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/0/2/28020</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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