The Project Gutenberg eBook of History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

THESE VOLUMES

ARE

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

TO THE

Memory of

Mary Wollstonecraft,
Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Martineau, Lydia Maria Child,
Margaret Fuller, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Josephine S. Griffing,
Martha C. Wright, Harriot K. Hunt, M.D., Mariana W. Johnson,
Alice and Phebe Carey, Ann Preston, M.D., Lydia Mott,
Eliza W. Farnham, Lydia F. Fowler, M.D.,
Paulina Wright Davis,

Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding
Political Rights for Women, have been,
in the Preparation of these Pages,
a Constant Inspiration

TO

The Editors.

PREFACE.

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.

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.

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.

Woven with the threads of this history, we have given some personal[Pg 8] 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.

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.

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."[Pg 9]

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.

INTRODUCTION.

The 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.

Writers on this question differ as to the cause of the universal degradation of woman in all periods and nations.

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.

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.[Pg 14]

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!

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 15] codes. Most of the Western States copied the advance legislation of New York, and some are now even more liberal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Under the influence of these liberal principles of republicanism that pervades all classes of American minds, however vaguely, if[Pg 16] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 17] 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.

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.

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.

The insurrections on Southern plantations were always defeated[Pg 18] 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.

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.

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[Pg 19] orders of women, they must hold and exercise the right of self-government on some other ground than superiority to women.

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.

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.

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[Pg 20] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 21] 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.

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."

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.

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.[Pg 22]

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.

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[Pg 23] 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.

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.[Pg 24]

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."

CHAPTER I.

PRECEDING CAUSES.

As 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.

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[Pg 26] 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.

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[Pg 27] 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 28] 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.

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.

The revival of learning had its influence upon woman, and we find in the early part of the fourteenth century a decided tendency[Pg 29] 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 Revue des Deux Mondes, 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.

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."

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.

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[Pg 30] 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.

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.

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.e., 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[Pg 31] 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 Aula Regia, 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."

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[Pg 32] 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.

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.

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[Pg 33] 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[Pg 34] raising their voices against political tyranny, and demanding for themselves equality of opportunity in every department of life.

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 Daily News, the second paper in circulation in England, for many years writing five long articles weekly, also to Dickens' Household Words, and the Westminster Review. She saw clearly the spirit and purpose of the Anti-Slavery Movement in this country, and was a regular contributor to the National Anti-Slavery Standard, 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[Pg 35] 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.

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.

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[Pg 36] 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."

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[Pg 37] 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.

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.

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.[1] Mariana[Pg 38] 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.[2] 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,"[3] 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 [4] 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,[Pg 39] 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.

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.

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.

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,[Pg 40] Mrs. A. L. Cox, Rebecca B. Spring, and Abigail Hopper Gibbons, a daughter of that noble Quaker philanthropist, Isaac T. Hopper.

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.

In 1840, Margaret Fuller published an essay in the Dial, entitled "The Great Lawsuit, or Man vs. Woman: Woman vs. 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.[5]

"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.

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."

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.

In 1849, Lucretia Mott published a discourse on woman, delivered[Pg 41] 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.

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[Pg 42] 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.

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.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 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.

[2] 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.

[3] 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."

[4] In the New York chapter a fuller account of the discussion and action upon these bills will be given.

[5] See Appendix.

CHAPTER II.

WOMAN IN NEWSPAPERS.

In newspaper literature woman made her entrance at an early period and in an important manner. The first daily newspaper in the world was established and edited by a woman, Elizabeth Mallet, in London, March, 1702. It was called The Daily Courant. 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.

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 The Mercury, 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 New York Weekly Journal, was conducted by Mrs. Zeuger for years after the death of her husband. She discontinued its publication in 1748. The Maryland Gazette, 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 Maryland Journal 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[Pg 44] early published in Virginia by women. Each was established in Williamsburg, and each was called The Virginia Gazette. 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 Virginia Gazette 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 The Gazette. 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 The Censor 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 Massachusetts Gazette and North Boston News Letter. 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. The Courant 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 New York Journal, continuing the business several years. She was appointed State printer. In 1798, The Journal and Argus 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 Free Enquirer, edited in New York by Frances Wright in 1828, "was the first periodical[Pg 45] 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 The New Harmony Gazette, 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."

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 Godey's Lady's Book. 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.

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 The Huntress. In 1827 Lydia Maria Child published a paper for children called The Juvenile Miscellany, and in 1841 assumed the editorship of The Anti-Slavery Standard, in New York, which she ably conducted for eight years. The Dial, 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 The Phrenological Journal 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 Journal. The Lowell Offering, 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[Pg 46] Nichols edited the Windham County Democrat from 1843 to 1853. It was a political paper of a pronounced character; her husband was the publisher. Jane G. Swisshelm edited The Saturday Visitor, at Pittsburg, Pa., in 1848. Also the same year The True Kindred appeared, by Rebecca Sanford, at Akron, Ohio. The Lily, 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. The Sybil soon followed, Dr. Lydia Sayre Hasbrook, editor; also The Pledge of Honor, edited by N. M. Baker and E. Maria Sheldon, Adrian, Michigan.

In 1849, Die Frauen Zeitung, edited by Mathilde Franceska Anneke, was published in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1850, Lydia Jane Pierson edited a column of the Lancaster (Pa.) Gazette; Mrs. Prewett edited the Yazoo (Miss.) Whig, in Mississippi; and Mrs. Sheldon the Dollar Weekly. In 1851, Julia Ward Howe edited, with her husband, The Commonwealth, a newspaper dedicated to free thought, and zealous for the liberty of the slave. In 1851, Mrs. C. C. Bentley was editor of the Concord Free Press, in Vermont, and Elizabeth Aldrich of the Genius of Liberty, in Ohio. In 1852, Anna W. Spencer started the Pioneer and Woman's Advocate, 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, The Una, 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 The Woman's Advocate 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 The Little Pilgrim; Mrs. Bailey conducted the Era, an anti-slavery paper, in Washington, D. C., after her husband's death.

In 1868, The Revolution, 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[Pg 47] it two years with the assistance of Phebe Carey and Augusta Larned, and in 1872 it found consecrated burial in The Liberal Christian, the leading Unitarian paper in New York. From the advent of The Revolution 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, The Pioneer, in San Francisco, Cal., Emily Pitts Stevens, editor and proprietor. The Woman's Advocate, at Dayton, O., A. J. Boyer and Miriam M. Cole, editors, started the same year. The Sorosis and The Agitator, in Chicago, Ill., the latter owned and edited by Mary A. Livermore, and The Woman's Advocate, in New York, were all alike short-lived. L'Amérique, a semi-weekly French paper published in Chicago, Ill., by Madam Jennie d'Héricourt, and Die Neue Zeit, 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, The Woman's Journal was founded in Boston, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Henry B. Blackwell, editors. Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly, an erratic paper, advocating many new ideas, was established in New York by Victoria Woodhull and Tennie C. Claflin, editors and proprietors. The New Northwest, in Portland, Oregon, in 1871, Abigail Scott Duniway, editor and proprietor. The Golden Dawn, at San Francisco, Cal., in 1876, Mrs. Boyer, editor.

The Ballot-Box 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 The National Citizen and Ballot-Box, 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 The True Woman, but soon died of inanition and inherent weakness of constitution.

In the Exposition of 1876, in Philadelphia, the New Century, 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 Woman's Words in Philadelphia. For some time, Penfield,[Pg 48] N. Y., boasted its thirteen-year-old girl editor, in Miss Nellie Williams. Her paper, the Penfield Enterprise, was for three years written, set up, and published by herself. It attained a circulation of three thousand.

Many foreign papers devoted to woman's interests have been established within the last few years. The Women's Suffrage Journal, in England, Lydia E. Becker, of Manchester, editor and proprietor; the Englishwoman's Journal, in London, edited by Caroline Ashurst Biggs; Woman and Work and the Victoria Magazine, by Emily Faithful, are among the number. Miss Faithful's magazine having attained a circulation of fifty thousand. Des Droits des Femmes, long the organ of the Swiss woman suffragists, Madame Marie Goegg, the head, was followed by the Solidarite. L'Avenir des Femmes, edited by M. Leon Richer, has Mlle. Maria Dairésmes, the author of a spirited reply to the work of M. Dumas, fils, on Woman, as its special contributor. L'Ésperance, of Geneva, an Englishwoman its editor, was an early advocate of woman's cause. La Donna, at Venice, edited by Signora Gualberti Aläide Beccari (a well-known Italian philanthropic name); La Cornelia, 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, Alborada, i.e., 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 Dekebalos, upholding the elevation of woman, was started in 1874. The Euridike, at Constantinople, edited by Emile Leonzras, is of a similar character. The Bengalee Magazine, devoted to the interests of Indian ladies, its editorials all from woman's pen, shows Asiatic advance.

In the United States the list of women's fashion papers, with their women editors and correspondents, is numerous and important. For fourteen years Harper's Bazaar has been ably edited by Mary L. Booth; other papers of similar character are both owned and edited by women. Madame Demorest's Monthly, 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[Pg 49] week for the Ledger, and for twenty years Jennie June (Mrs. Croly) has edited Demorest's Monthly and contributed to many other papers throughout the United States. Mary Mapes Dodge has edited the St. Nicholas the past eight years. So important a place do women writers hold, Harper's Monthly 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 Eagle. The New York Times 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 Inter-Ocean, one of the leading dailies of Chicago. Mary Forney Weigley edits a social department in her father's—John W. Forney—paper, the Progress, 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 Tribune, from Margaret Fuller to Lucia Gilbert Calhoun, have been from the pens of women.

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.

CHAPTER III.

THE WORLD'S ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, LONDON, JUNE 12, 1840.

In 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.

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[Pg 51] 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.

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.

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.

Among the immediate causes that led to the demand for the equal political rights of women, in this country, we may note three:

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.[Pg 52] 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 53] 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, urging every woman who agreed with them, to vote against 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.

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.

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,[Pg 54] 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.

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.

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:

This motion at once opened the debate on the admission of women delegates.[Pg 55]

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.

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.

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.

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 they 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[Pg 61] 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.

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..

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!

The one Abolitionist who sustained Mr. Garrison's position, and sat with him in the gallery, was Nathaniel P. Rogers, editor of the Herald of Freedom, 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.

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[Pg 62] 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.[7]

The movement for woman's suffrage, both in England and America, may be dated from this World's Anti-Slavery Convention.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] 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.

[7] 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."

CHAPTER IV.

NEW YORK.

New York 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.

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[Pg 64] 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.

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:

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.

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.

The Seneca County Courier, a semi-weekly journal, of July 14, 1848, contained the following startling announcement:

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[Pg 68] 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.[8] As the convention was to assemble in three days, the time was short for such productions; but having no experience in the modus operandi 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.

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[Pg 69] 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."

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.

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 tender mercies of men toward their wives, in taking care of their property and protecting them in their civil rights.

The Declaration having been freely discussed by many present, was re-read by Mrs. Stanton, and with some slight amendment adopted.[Pg 70]

The following resolutions were discussed by Lucretia Mott, Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock, Amy Post, Catharine A. F. Stebbins, and others, and were adopted:

At the last session Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following resolution:

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.

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.

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.

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,[9] and it is curious to see that the same old arguments, and objections rife at the start, are reproduced by the press[Pg 74] 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.

Conventions were held soon after in Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and at different points in New York.

Mr. Douglass, in his paper, The North Star, of July 28, 1848, had the following editorial leader:

THE ROCHESTER CONVENTION, AUGUST 2, 1848.

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.

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.

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[Pg 76] duties of the office, and the admirable manner in which she discharged them, soon reconciled the opposition to the seemingly ridiculous experiment.

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:

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.

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.

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[Pg 77] 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.

Near the close of the morning session, a young bride in traveling dress,[10] 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:

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[Pg 78] 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.

Sarah Owen read an address on woman's place and pay in the world of work. In closing, she said:

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.[Pg 79] 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.

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?

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 obedience 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.

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.

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[Pg 80] 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.

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.

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.

A letter was read from Gerrit Smith, approving cordially of the object of the Convention.

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.

The resolutions [11] 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[Pg 81] 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.

"PASTORAL LETTER."

Extract from a Pastoral Letter of "the General Association of Massachusetts (Orthodox) to the Churches under their care"—1837:

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 The Liberator, 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.'"

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.

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[Pg 84] 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 per se, Mr. Whittier remarked to Lucretia Mott, "Give woman the right to vote, and you end all these persecutions by reform and church organizations."

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[Pg 87] 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.

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.

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."

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The antique mahogany center-table on which this historic document was written now stands in the parlor of the McClintock family in Philadelphia.

[9] See Appendix.

[10] Rebecca Sanford, now Postmaster at Mt. Morris, N. Y.

[11] See Appendix.

CHAPTER V.

REMINISCENCES.

EMILY COLLINS.

I was 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.

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,[Pg 89] 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.

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.

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[Pg 90] from writing her a letter of approval and encouragement. In return I received the following:

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:

Possibly, extracts from my next letter to Miss Owen, dated Oct. 23, 1848, will give you the best idea of the movement:

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[Pg 93] was not only impious, but infamous to tread. "Woman's sphere" then, 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 "Free Nigger." 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.

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.

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[Pg 94] 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.

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. The American, Rochester, N. Y., July, 1848:

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 Journal of Commerce:

ERNESTINE L. ROSE.

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.

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 [13] 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[Pg 96] 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.

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.

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."

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[Pg 97] 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 98] third lecture in Washington was on the "Nebraska Question." This lecture was scarcely noticed, the only paper giving it the least report, being The Washington Globe, which, though it spoke most highly of her as a lecturer, misrepresented her by ascribing to her the arguments of the South. The National Era, 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.

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.

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.

The Boston Investigator 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.'"

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, multum in parvo, she has in a good measure complied with our request.

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.

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.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] 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.

[13] Fasting with Jews meant abstaining from food and drink from before sunset one evening, until after the stars were out the next evening.

CHAPTER VI.

OHIO.

There 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.

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.

A radical paper, called The Anti-Slavery Bugle, 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.

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.

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[Pg 102] 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.

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.

In 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe commenced the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in the National Era, 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.

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.

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[Pg 103] 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.

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.

SALEM CONVENTION.

In 1850 the first convention in Ohio was held at Salem, April 19th and 20th, in the Second Baptist Church.[14] The meeting convened at 10 o'clock, and was called to order by Emily Robinson, who proposed Mariana W. Johnson as President pro tem., Sarah Coates, Secretary pro tem. On taking the chair, Mrs. Johnson read the following call:

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.

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 Literary Gazette, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet N. Torrey.[15] 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:[Pg 105]

After some discussion the memorial was adopted. With the hope of creating a feeling of moral responsibility on this vital question, an earnest address [16] to the women of the State was also presented, discussed, and adopted.

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. Never did men so suffer. 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.

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[Pg 111] 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.

A favorable and lengthy report found its way into the New York Tribune 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.

AKRON CONVENTION.

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.

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:

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[Pg 114] 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sojourner Truth, Mrs. Stowe's "Lybian Sibyl," was present at this Convention. Some of our younger readers may not know that[Pg 115] 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

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.

The following is the report of said meeting clipped from the Evening Post twenty-seven years ago, by Mrs. Gage:

LETTERS FROM FRIENDS IN OHIO.

Mrs. R. A. S. Janney, in reply to our request for a chapter of her recollections, said:

MASSILON CONVENTION.

On May 27, 1852, another State Convention was held in Massilon. We give the following brief notice from the New York Tribune:

Before they separated they organized "The Ohio Woman's Rights Association," and chose Hannah Tracy Cutler for President.

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 The Una, 1854, and is a very carefully written paper on the legal status of woman.[Pg 124]

CLEVELAND NATIONAL CONVENTION.

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 Plain Dealer said all the ladies prominent in this movement were present, some in full Bloomer costume. At the appointed time Lucretia Mott arose and said:

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.

Letters were read from distinguished people. Notably the following from Horace Greeley:

And here let us pay our tribute of gratitude to Horace Greeley. In those early days when he, as editor of the New York Tribune, 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 The Tribune; but more than once, he gave columns to the proceedings of our conventions.

To this letter, Henry B. Blackwell, brother of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, and the future husband of Lucy Stone, pertinently replied, saying:

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:

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, The Lily, 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.[Pg 128] 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.

Mrs. Bloomer, editor of The Lily, 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.

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.[Pg 129]

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.

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.

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.

MR. CHANNING'S LETTER.

MR. HIGGINSON'S LETTER.

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:

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!"

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.

A question arising in the Convention as to the colleges, Antoinette Brown remarked:

Ernestine L. Rose, says the Plain Dealer, 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 personnel of the platform, it says:

During the proceedings, Miss Brown, in a long speech on the[Pg 146] 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:

We hope the reader will not weary of these debates. As the efforts of many of our early speakers were extemporaneous, but[Pg 152] 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.

WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.

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.

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:

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.

NATIONAL CONVENTION AT CINCINNATI, OHIO.

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[Pg 164] 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.

After the election of officers,[19] 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.

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 St. Louis Intelligencer, nor of the presence of James Mott, whose services were always invaluable on the committees for business and resolutions.

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 [20] 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:

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.[21]

The proceedings of these early Conventions might be read with pride and satisfaction by the women of Ohio to-day, with all their[Pg 168] 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:

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.

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.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] 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.

[15] See Appendix.

[16] Said to have been written by J. Elizabeth Jones.

[17] 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.

[18] James McCune Smith.

[19] See Appendix.

[20] J. D. Cattell and H. Canfield.

[21] See Appendix.

CHAPTER VII.

REMINISCENCES BY CLARINA I. HOWARD NICHOLS.

In 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.

To Clarina Howard Nichols the women of Kansas are indebted for many civil rights they have as yet been too apathetic to exercise.

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.

VERMONT.

From 1843 to 1853 inclusive, I edited The Windham County[Pg 172] Democrat, published by my husband, Geo. W. Nichols, at Brattleboro.

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 Democrat, 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.

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.[22]

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.

Up to 1850 I had not taken position for suffrage, but instead of[Pg 173] 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.

The petition was referred to the Educational Committee of the House, whose chairman, editor of the Rutland Herald, 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 Green Mountain Freeman (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!"

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[Pg 174] after their wardrobes, when they shall have restored to us the legal right to our own?"

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."

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."[23] "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. Mr. Herald 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."

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.[Pg 175]

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.

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."

In the winter of 1852 I went as often as twice a week—late p.m. and returned early a.m.—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.

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,[Pg 176] electrified by the wail of a "Rachel mourning for her children." "O, father! she's my child! she's my child!" 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 Christian country (!) 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!"

From that excited crowd—all young men and grown boys, I being the only woman among them—rose thick and fast—"They've no business with the woman's babies!" "Pitch 'em overboard!" "I'll help." "Good for you; so'll I!" "All aboard." (The conductor had come upon the scene). "All aboard." "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 "go on," 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, only the father 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.

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[Pg 177] 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....

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.

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[Pg 178] 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.

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.

WISCONSIN.

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.

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!

In making the engagement, I had taken it for granted, that the[Pg 179] 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 180] speaking, as planned, rested with me, provided my hitherto untested physical ability proved equal, as it did, to the daily effort.

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.

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.

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[Pg 181] 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.

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 Tribune, 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.

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.[Pg 182]

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.

I had achieved a grateful success; license to "plead the cause of the poor and needy," where, how 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.

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.

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[Pg 183] 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.

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 no-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 man's rights and woman's needs.

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.

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[Pg 184] 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!

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!

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.

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.

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[Pg 185] 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."

KANSAS.

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.

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.

In advance of all these, at 11 o'clock a.m., 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[Pg 186] 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."

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.

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.

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[Pg 187] 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.

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.

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 you 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."

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."[Pg 188]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 189] "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."

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 Herald of Freedom, the last number of which went down with the "form" and press of the office to the bottom of the Kansas river, when the Border ruffians sacked Lawrence in 1856.

In March, 1857, I again returned to Kansas, and with my daughter and youngest son, made a permanent home in Wyandotte County.

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.

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[Pg 190] 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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.[Pg 191]

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.

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 sign the bill." 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."

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.

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[Pg 192] 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.

Policy restrained the few Republican members who had voted against the provisions [24] 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."

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[Pg 193] these from hundreds of telling incidents must suffice to initiate you in the spirit of that ever memorable campaign.

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.

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.

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."

My pleas before the Constitutional Convention and the people, were for equal legal and political rights for women. In detail I asked:

1st. Equal educational rights and privileges in all the schools and institutions of learning fostered or controlled by the State.

2d. An equal right in all matters pertaining to the organization and conduct of the Common Schools.[Pg 194]

3d. Recognition of the mother's equal right with the father to the control and custody of their mutual offspring.

4th. Protection in person, property, and earnings for married women and widows the same as for men.

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.

The debate published in the Wyandotte Gazette 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.

REPORT OF JUDICIARY FRANCHISE COMMITTEE ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE PETITIONS.

MISSOURI.

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[Pg 195] 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.

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 Windham County Democrat." 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!"

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?

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.

After a sharp, but good natured tilt on the slavery question, the Colonel returned to the lecture, about which he was so evidently in[Pg 196] 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.

Postscript No. 1.—Have you tried your experiment of education on any little nigger yet? J. S.

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.

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."

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.

In introducing me to my audience, the Colonel—remembering, perhaps, that I did not "mix things," or feeling that he might trust[Pg 197] 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."

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 no-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.

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.

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[Pg 198] 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.

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.

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[Pg 199] called on the editors of the Republican (pro-slavery), and secured a paid notice of my lecture. The editor of the Democrat, 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 Windham County Democrat—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."

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!

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.

From December, 1863, to March, 1866, I was in Washington, D. C., writing in the Military or Revenue Departments, or occupying[Pg 200] 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.

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.

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 exposé of my public life.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] Mrs. Nichols had written up a case occurring among the subscribers to the Democrat, 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.

[23] 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.

[24] 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

MASSACHUSETTS.

During 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,[25] 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.

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.[Pg 202]

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 [26] 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.[27] 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.

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, The Massachusetts Gazette and North Boston News-Letter, owned and edited by a woman, Margaret Draper.

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.

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[Pg 203] 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.

In Massachusetts, as in other States, were also formed associations known as "Daughters of Liberty."[28] These organizations did much to fan the nascent flames of freedom.

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[Pg 204] ranks, surrounded by companions,'mid the accompaniments of beating drums, waving flags, and all the paraphernalia of war.

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.[29] 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.

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.

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,[Pg 205] 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.

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:

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.

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."

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.

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[Pg 206] 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.

MISTRESS ANNE HUTCHINSON.

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.

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.

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[Pg 207] 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.[30] Mistress Hutchinson remained steadfast, and was sustained by many important people, among whom was the young Governor Vane.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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[Pg 208] 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.

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.

WOMAN'S EARLY POLITICAL RIGHTS.

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.[31] 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.[32]

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.[33]

THE FIRST STEP IN MASSACHUSETTS.

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[Pg 209] 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.

Mrs. Ferrin reported the substance of the above conversation to Mrs. Phebe King,[34] 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."

"Yes," replied Mrs. King, "and I should think every woman would sign such a petition."

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.

Miss Betsy King then suggested that Judge Pitkin [35] 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:

"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."

"But not one woman in fifty knows of the existence of such a law," was the reply.

"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."

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[Pg 210] 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.

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.

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.[36]

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.

In 1852 the petitions were signed only by ladies over sixty years of age, women of large experience and matured judgment, whose[Pg 211] prayers should have received at least respectful consideration from the legislators of the State. We give the appeal accompanying their petition:

In 1853 a petition [37] 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 [38] 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.

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[Pg 212] 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.

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.[39]

FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER,
October 23d and 24th, 1850.

The Conventions in New York and Ohio, though not extensively advertised, nor planned with much deliberation, for in both cases[Pg 216] 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.

In describing the preliminary arrangements in a report read in the second decade meeting in New York in 1870, she says:

"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.[40] 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.

"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.

"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.

"Some few there were, so cheering and so excellent, that it is but justice to give extracts from them:

"None came with such perfect and entire fullness as the one from which I quote the closing paragraph:

"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.

"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.

"The Convention came together in the bright October days, a solemn, earnest crowd of noble men and women.

"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.

"The Convention was called to order by Mrs. Sarah H. Earl,[41] of Worcester, and a permanent list of officers presented in due order, and the whole business of the Convention was conducted in a parliamentary[Pg 218] 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.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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.[Pg 219]

"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.

"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:

"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.

"In July, following this Convention, an able and elaborate notice appeared in the Westminster Review. 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:

"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.

"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!

"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."

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.

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[Pg 221] Anti-Slavery Bugle, 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:

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.

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:

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.

The papers read by the women, in style and argument, were in no way inferior to those of the men present.

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.[43]

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.[Pg 224]

Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, of Boston, the first woman who practiced medicine in this country, spoke on the medical education of women.

Sarah Tyndale, a successful merchant in Philadelphia, on the business capacity of woman.

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.

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.

Among the letters to the Convention, there was one quite novel and interesting from Helene Marie Weber,[44] 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[Pg 225] 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.

One of the grand results of this Convention was the thought roused in England. A good report of the proceedings in the New York Tribune, 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 Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, 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:

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:

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 [46]. Paulina Wright Davis, Chairman; Sarah H. Earle, Secretary; Wendell Phillips, Treasurer.

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.

THE SECOND NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER.

In accordance with a call from the Central Committee, the friends of Woman Suffrage assembled again in Brinley Hall, Oct. 15th[Pg 227] 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 resumé 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 [47] prepared for the consideration of the Convention.

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:

From her letter, we find, that Miss Martineau shared the common opinion in England that the article in the Westminster Review 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.

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 New York Tribune, 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.

Angelina Grimke, familiar with plantation life, spoke eloquently[Pg 232] on the parallel between the slave code and the laws for married women.

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:

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 The Worcester Spy:

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.

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.

Ernestine L. Rose, having known something of European despotism, followed Mr. Channing in a speech of great pathos and power. She said:

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,[Pg 243] which called out numerous complimentary comments and editorial notices, notably the following:

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:

THE UNA.

In February, 1853, Paulina Wright Davis started a woman's paper called The Una, published in Providence, Rhode Island, with the following prospectus:

The Una 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.

For some time Mrs. Dall assisted in the editorial department. The Una 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,[Pg 247] addressed a large assemblage of electors on behalf of her husband, the Conservative candidate. She was enthusiastically greeted by the populace.

The Maine Age 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."

This same year, The Una 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.

In the April Number, 1853, we find the following appeal to the citizens of Massachusetts, on the equal political rights of woman:

In favor of this Appeal Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, were heard.

We find in The Una 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.

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.

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.

We find the following comments on the character and duties of the gentlemen who composed the Convention, from the pen of Mr. Higginson, in The Una of June, 1853:

NEW ENGLAND WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.

This Convention assembled the day on which poor Anthony Burns was consigned to hopeless bondage;[50] 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:

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,[51] 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.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION IN BOSTON.

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:[Pg 256]

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.

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.

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[Pg 258] 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.

HEARING BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE,
MARCH, 1857.

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.

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.

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[Pg 262] Lucy Stone, soon after the bill passed in Massachusetts giving all women the right to vote on the school question.

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:

In June 11th, of this year, Mrs. Dall writes to the Liberator of her efforts to circulate the following petition:

NEW ENGLAND CONVENTION.

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:

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.

In The Liberator 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.

We close our chapter on Massachusetts, with a few extracts from a sermon by Theodore Parker, to show his position on the most[Pg 277] 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.

REMINISCENCES OF PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS.
BY E. C. S.

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,[53] 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.

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."[Pg 284]

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.

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."

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.

So they began life together, worshiped in Bethel church, and devoted[Pg 285] 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.

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 femme modele 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.

While lecturing in Baltimore, a "Friend," by the name of Anna[Pg 286] 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.

Thus passed the four years of her widowed life, lecturing to women through most of the Eastern and Western States.

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 man 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.

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 The Una, 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.

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 The Una, publishing[Pg 287] 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.

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."

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.

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'[Pg 288] 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 The London Times, a woman of fine conversational powers, and a brilliant writer, now the Paris correspondent of The New York Tribune. 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.

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[Pg 289] 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.[54] 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] 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.

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."

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."

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.

[26] Dried leaves of the raspberry.—Lossing.

[27] 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."

[28] 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.

[29] 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.

[30] "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."

[31] Atlantic Monthly, June, 1871.

[32] In three New England colonies church membership was required for the franchise.—Frothingham, "Rise of the Republic."

[33] 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.

[34] Mother of the late Daniel P. King, at that time a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and since then a Representative in Congress.

[35] Benj. C. Pitkin, of Salem, at that time State Senator.

[36] Hon. Mr. Upham saying: "A great many of the members told me they didn't believe a woman wrote it."

[37] 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.

[38] 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.

[39] 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."

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."

[40] Mrs. Davis herself.

[41] Wife of John Milton Earl, editor of the Worcester Spy.

[42] See Appendix.

[43] See Appendix.

[44] See Appendix.

[45] See Appendix

[46] See Appendix

[47] See Appendix.

[48] 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.

[49] 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.

[50] Anthony Burns, the slave, was a Baptist minister In his Southern home, and had sought freedom in Boston, but was pursued and recaptured.

[51] A gentleman of wealth, who gave most liberally to all reforms, and in his will bequeathed $5,000 to the cause of woman suffrage.

[52] 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.

[53] In the year 1875.

[54] See Appendix.

CHAPTER IX.

INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.

The 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.

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[Pg 291] 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.

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 far West, 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.

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."[55]

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[Pg 292] existence as wealth-producers, the elements which build up and sustain every civilized people.

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.

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.

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:

Before 1828, Frances Wright had visited Mr. Owen's colony, and assisted him in the editorial department of the New Harmony Gazette, changed afterward to the Free Enquirer, 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:

ROBERT DALE OWEN AND MARY ROBINSON.
BY ROSAMOND DALE OWEN.

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[Pg 294] 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.

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.

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."

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:

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.

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.

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.

For thirty years my father and mother labored with unabated energy;[Pg 296] his work leading him into the highways of public affairs, while her way lay through the by-paths of home and village life.

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.

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 New York Tribune.

As early as 1828, my father advocated an equal position for woman, publishing these views through The Free Enquirer, a weekly paper edited by Frances Wright and himself in New York.

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.

From pages upon pages of eloquence delivered in reply, I cull the following extracts, which are a sample of the spirit of the opposition:

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:

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.[Pg 300]

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?

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.

In reply to several slurs in regard to this memorial, my father during the debates in the Convention thus retorted:

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 Atlantic Monthly, June, 1875). Subsequent events have shown his judgment to have been[Pg 301] 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.

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 a priori, 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?

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[Pg 302] 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.

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?

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.

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[Pg 303] 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.

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 [56] 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[Pg 304] 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.

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[Pg 305] for the cases where the consequences were not confined to ourselves, or were of too serious a nature.

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.

"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.

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!

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[Pg 306] home wherein all that was sweet, and strong, and true, was nurtured by a wise hand, was sunned into blossoming by a loving heart.

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.

REMINISCENCES BY DR. MARY F. THOMAS AND AMANDA M. WAY.

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:

The resolution was adopted. Amanda M. Way, Joel Davis, and Fanny Hiatt were appointed.

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."

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 [57] will show the spirit of the leaders at that[Pg 307] 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.

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 [58] signed the Constitution in the first Convention, and the movement spread rapidly in the Hoosier State.

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.

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[Pg 308] 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.

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.

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:

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.

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:

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.

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 The Lily, 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.

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.

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.

Mrs. Birdsall being introduced, read a clear, concise address, occupying about half an hour.

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.

The ninth annual meeting was held in Good Templars' Hall, Richmond, in October, 1859. It continued but one day, as the time[Pg 310] was fully occupied in business plans for future work. Mary B. Birdsall was chosen President of the Association.

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.

We find the following letters from Henry C. Wright and Esther Ann Lukens, in The Liberator:

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:

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] "The Relation of Woman to Industry in Indiana," by May Wright Sewall.

[56] The vast audience of women alone, in Apollo Hall, to discuss the McFarland and Richardson tragedy.

[57] See Appendix.

[58] See Appendix.

CHAPTER X.

PENNSYLVANIA.

In 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.

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.

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."

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[Pg 321] 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.

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.[59]

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."

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[Pg 323] 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 ignis fatuus, an ever waving signal of the ingratitude of the republic to one-half its citizens.

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.

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.

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[Pg 324] 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."

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.

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.

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:

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 men 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.'"[Pg 325]

PHILADELPHIA ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

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—

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.

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:

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.

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.

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[Pg 334] 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.

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,[63] 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.

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.

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 a.m. The following officers were appointed:

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:

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:

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:

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

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 per se, 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.

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?

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[Pg 343] God, we shall have a glorious revival of liberty and justice everywhere.

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.

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.[65] 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[Pg 344] Massachusetts,[66] who for many years afterward preached the same glad tidings of justice, equality, and liberty for all.

TEMPERANCE.

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:

At their next Convention in Kennett Square, another stirring appeal was issued, and the following resolutions adopted:

Two weeks after this, Feb. 21st, a Woman's Temperance Mass Meeting was held in Philadelphia; an immense assemblage of both sexes.

The Pennsylvania Freeman 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."

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[Pg 350] 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.

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.

WESTCHESTER CONVENTION.
June 2, 1852.

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.

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.

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.

The Convention assembled at ten o'clock in Horticultural Hall, and was called to order by Lucretia Mott, and the following officers chosen:

Harriet K. Hunt then read an address upon the medical education of women; on concluding, she offered the following resolutions:

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.

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:

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.[69] 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 sine die.

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.

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[Pg 368] 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.

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,

NATIONAL CONVENTION IN PHILADELPHIA.

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.

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 The Bulletin, "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."

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.

Mrs. Frances D. Gage, President of the last Convention at Cleveland, called the assembly to order, and read[Pg 376]

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.

Lucy Stone, from the Business Committee, read a series of resolutions,[70] and as some one from the audience called, "Louder!" she remarked[Pg 378] 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.

Hannah Tracy Cutler gave a report of Illinois, Frances Dana Gage of Missouri, and Susan B. Anthony of New York.

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:

Remarks were made on this point by Elizabeth Paxton, Susan H. Cox, George P. Davis, and George Sunter, of Canada.

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.

At the close of this protracted discussion on the Bible position of woman, the following resolutions, presented by Mr. Garrison, were unanimously adopted:

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."[72] 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:

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.

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.

Alice Bradley Neal, of Philadelphia, ridiculed this Woman's Rights Convention in her husband's [73] paper, and Jane Grey Swisshelm indignantly replied in her Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor as follows:

While ever and anon during the last forty years Mrs. Swisshelm has seized some of these dilettante 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.

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.

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[Pg 388] 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.

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."

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 a.d. 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.

In Jane Grey Swisshelm, Pennsylvania can boast a successful editor of a liberal political newspaper during the eventful years of our anti-slavery struggle. The Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor was established Jan. 20, 1848. It was owned and edited by Mrs. Swisshelm for some years; merged into The Family Journal and Visitor 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.

Among the editors of Pennsylvania, Anna E. McDowell deserves mention. In The Una of January, 1855, we find the following:

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 The Philadelphia Sunday Republic. 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.

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.

WOMAN'S MEDICAL COLLEGE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

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).

Chief among those interested in placing the medical education of woman on a sound foundation was Ann Preston. The "Woman's[Pg 390] 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.

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.

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[Pg 391] of Design for Women, that men held the leading positions and received the highest salaries, but that has since been changed.

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.

For collecting many of the facts contained in this chapter we are indebted to Julia and Rachel Foster, daughters of Heron Foster, who founded The Pittsburgh Dispatch. 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.

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.[Pg 392]

ANGELINA GRIMKÉ.
Reminiscences by E. C. S.

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.

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.[74] But the chilling[Pg 393] 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 394] 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.

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?"

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."

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[Pg 395] 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.

"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."

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:

"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.'"

In the darkest hours of that fearful conflict with slavery in which she was engaged, when its advocates were everywhere met with[Pg 397] violence, and threatened with death, she wrote to William Lloyd Garrison as follows:

"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.

"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[Pg 398] 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."

"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 Anti-Slavery 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:

"Many of us remember," said another, "with what awakening power such God-inspired souls have roused us from the apathy of our lives.[Pg 399] 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."

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: Jam parce sepulto, "Spare him now in his grave."[Pg 400] 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.

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.

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[Pg 401] 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.

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.

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.

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,[Pg 402] 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.

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."

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:

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."

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution."

[60] Angelina E. Grimké.

[61] This building, the property of Jacob Peirce, was thus imperilled with his free consent.

[62] The Assembly Buildings, opened to us by the kindness of the lessee, Mr. John Toy.

[63] 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."

[64] In speaking of her, Lydia Maria Child said in her obituary notice in the National Anti-Slavery Standard 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."

[65] 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."

[66] Abby Kelly.

[67] 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.

[68] This letter will be found in "Reminiscences of Lucretia Mott," at the close of this chapter.

[69] See Appendix.

[70] See Appendix.

[71] 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.

[72] The first National Convention held in Washington was in January, 1869.

[73] Joseph C. Neal.

[74] 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.

CHAPTER XI

LUCRETIA MOTT.

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.

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[Pg 408] their husbands, tended to develop and strengthen them mentally and physically.

"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.

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.

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.

In her eighteenth year, Lucretia Coffin and James Mott, according[Pg 409] 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."

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."

In his young days, James Mott was a teacher; later on he engaged[Pg 410] 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.

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.

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[Pg 411] 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."

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.

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.

Their home was the castle of safety for runaway slaves, and the[Pg 412] 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.

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."

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:

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:

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."

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[Pg 414] 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."

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.

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.

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:

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:

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,[Pg 418] 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.

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.

When, as an enthusiastic Abolitionist, Mrs. Mott crossed the ocean to take part in the deliberations of the World's Anti-Slavery[Pg 419] 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.

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.

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[Pg 420] 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.

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.

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[Pg 421] 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.

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."

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.[Pg 422] 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.

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 London Times, 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."

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[Pg 423] 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!!"

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.

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[Pg 424] 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.

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."

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."

'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[Pg 425] 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.

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.

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[Pg 426] 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."

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.

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.[Pg 427]

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.

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[Pg 428] next speaker, seemingly unconscious that she had stabbed the prophet through and through, and dissipated the effect of his warnings.

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.

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.

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."

Space fails me to tell of all the pleasant memories of our forty years[Pg 429] 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.

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.

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.[Pg 430]

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.

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.

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?

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[Pg 431] 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.

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.

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.[Pg 432]

ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE.

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:

The following earnest and friendly letter from William Howitt, was highly prized by Mrs. Mott:

Harriet Martineau, who had visited Mrs. Mott when in America, and was prevented from attending the Convention by illness, wrote as follows:

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:

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.

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."

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[Pg 439] 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.

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.

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.

At a meeting in Glasgow, to hear George Thompson on the subject[Pg 440] 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:

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] 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.

CHAPTER XII.

NEW JERSEY.

In 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.

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.

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,[76] and William Livingston, a true patriot, was elected Governor, and re-elected for fourteen years.[Pg 442]

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.[77] 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.

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."

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[Pg 443] 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?"

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?"

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.

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?"

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[Pg 444] 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."

"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!"

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."

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."

"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[Pg 445] 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!"

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.

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.

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?"

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[Pg 446] 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.

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."

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.

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[Pg 447] 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:

THE ORIGIN, PRACTICE, AND PROHIBITION OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY.

William A. Whitehead, Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society, read the following paper at their annual meeting, January 21, 1858:

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."

DEFECTS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF NEW JERSEY.

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."[81]

Extract from "Eumenes," page 31, No. 8: "Defects of the Constitution respecting the Qualification of Electors and Elected":

Mr. Whitehead's report clearly shows three unjust inferences from the facts stated:

First. That all the corruptions of that special election in Essex County could be traced to the women.

Second. 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."

Third. "The unreasonableness of the demand" for representation by women tax-payers.

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.

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[Pg 454] 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.

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.

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.

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?

Whatever doubts the women known to the author of "Eumenes" might have had as to their own capacities; the women of to-day do[Pg 455] 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.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] The New York Tribune, 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."

[77] In the New York Observer, 1876.

[78] 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.

[79] The following letter contains the sentiments referred to in the text:

Orange, N. J., Dec. 18, 1858.

Mr. Mandeville, Tax Collector, Sir:—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.

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.

Lucy Stone.

Respectfully,

[80] See Washington National Intelligencer for Oct. 15, 1857, and Historical Magazine, Vol. I., page 360.

[81] Frank Leslie's Magazine, Feb., 1877.

CHAPTER XIII.

REMINISCENCES.
BY E. C. S.

The 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.

"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.

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:

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.[82][Pg 458]

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.

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 The Lily,[Pg 459] The Una, The Liberator, and The Standard, to remember our wrongs as well as those of the slave. We never met without issuing a pronunciamento on some question.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 460]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 461] 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.

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."

Miss Anthony, who was a frequent guest at my home, sometimes stood guard on such occasions.[83] 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,[Pg 462] 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.

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.

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.

"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.[Pg 463]

"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.

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.

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.

"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[Pg 464] '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.

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.

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.

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,[Pg 465] religious, and social equality of woman, not a lady would have anything to say to me.

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."

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 The Lily, 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."

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[Pg 466] "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.

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.[84]

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[Pg 467] of holding that party to its declared principles, and pushing it, if possible, a step or two forward.

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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 468]

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.

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."

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.

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."

Whilst all this was going on publicly, we had an equally trying[Pg 469] 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.

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.

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[Pg 470] 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.[85] 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,[Pg 471] mobs,[86] 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 [87] 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.

Gerrit Smith [88] 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] 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.

[83] 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, The Revolution, 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.

[84] 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.

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.

[85] See Appendix.

[86] See Appendix.

[87] See Appendix.

[88] 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.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW YORK.

A full 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.

In 1850, in the city of Buffalo, 1,500 women petitioned the Common[Pg 473] 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.

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.

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[Pg 474] 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.

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,"[89] 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.

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[Pg 475] 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.[90]

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[Pg 476] 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.

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.

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,[91] and on taking the chair, said:

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.

NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE CONVENTION,
Rochester, N. Y., April 20 and 21, 1852.

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[Pg 481] Susan B. Anthony, who read the following call that had been extensively circulated throughout the State:

The officers of the Convention were then chosen. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President,[93] who on rising said:

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 [94] from Frances Dana Gage, Clarina Howard Nichols, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Abby Kelly Foster, and Horace Greeley. In the discussion of the resolutions [95] 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,

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."

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 [96]. A vote of thanks was passed to Horace[Pg 485] Greeley for the kind manner in which he had uniformly sustained the women in their temperance efforts in The New York Tribune, and after six long sessions, the Convention adjourned.

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 The Lily and other papers, and called out many condemnatory notices by the press. The Troy Journal 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."

However, these bold utterances roused the consciences of many women to the sinfulness of such relations, and encouraged them in sundering such unholy ties.

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[Pg 486] 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.

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.

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 The Lily.

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[Pg 490] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To avoid this class in organizing "The Woman's Temperance Society," it was decided to enroll men as members, but not to[Pg 493] 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.

The President, on motion, appointed the various Committees,[98] and read a letter from Gerrit Smith to Susan B. Anthony:

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.

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.

Thus these politic gentlemen manipulated the association, eliminated the woman's rights element per se, 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[Pg 499] 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.

BRICK CHURCH MEETING.

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 New York Times 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."[99] A motion was made that all gentlemen present be[Pg 500] 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.

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 sine die; 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.[Pg 501]

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 whole 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 506] 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, et al., 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.

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.

A GRAND GATHERING—ANTI-SLAVERY—WOMAN'S RIGHTS—TEMPERANCE—THE WORLD'S FAIR, SEPTEMBER, 1853.

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.

THE HALF WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION,

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.

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[Pg 507] most of the allotted time for the convention over what class of persons could be admitted. In summing up the proceedings of these meetings

Antoinette Brown was asked why she went to that Convention, knowing, as she must, that she would be rejected.

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:

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."

In an editorial of The Una, 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 The Una. Mr. Channing's rebuke is severe, but we believe it to have been richly deserved and given in true Christian love."

Another letter of Mr. Channing's of same date to the editor of The Daily Register:

Through this fierce conflict Horace Greeley, with his personal presence[Pg 511] on the platform, and his brave editorials in the New York Tribune, fought a great battle for free speech and human equality. Speaking of the Whole World's Convention, he said:

In deciding the action of the Convention to be worse in its treatment toward Mr. Smith than toward Miss Brown, we think The Una correspondent makes a grave mistake.

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?

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[Pg 513] 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."

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."

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.

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[Pg 514] 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."

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."

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 The Rochester Democrat said the next morning, that "whatever the schoolmasters might think of Miss Anthony, it was evident that she hit the nail on the head."

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[Pg 515] 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.

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."

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[Pg 516] 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."

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."

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."[102]

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[Pg 517] encounters, took no counsel with their fears nor prejudices, but seeing the principle steadfastly maintained it.

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.

THE SYRACUSE NATIONAL CONVENTION,
September 8, 9, and 10, 1852.

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 [103] editorials of the city papers reflected their own conservative or progressive tendencies.

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[Pg 518] as to call forth much criticism from the majority, to whom a happy medium seemed desirable.

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.

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.

Lucy Stone read the call [104] 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.[Pg 519]

The Nominating Committee reported the list of officers,[105] 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.

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[Pg 520] 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 Syracuse Standard, "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."

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 Tribune. 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.

Mrs. Stanton's letter [106] 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.

Mr. Greeley's letter bore two remarkable aspects. First, he recognized the poverty of woman as closely connected with her degradation.[Pg 522] 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.

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.

The declaration of sentiments [107] adopted at the Westchester Convention was read by Martha C. Wright, and commented upon as follows by

Susan B. Anthony read the resolutions.[108] 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.[109]

Mr. Smith set forth the education, the dignity, the power of self-government, and took his seat amid great applause.

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.

Mrs. Davis read an interesting letter from the Rev. A. D. Mayo.[110] Samuel J. May read letters from William Lloyd Garrison, of Boston, and Margaret H. Andrews, of Newburyport, Massachusetts.

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."

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:

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,[111] 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.

Thomas McClintock [112] 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.

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.[113] Paying[Pg 540] 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.

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:

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.

The discussion was closed by the adoption of the following resolution, introduced by Paulina Wright Davis:

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.

The character and influence of this Convention can best be shown by the reports of the city press.[115]

The discussions of this Convention did not end with its adjournment; its sine die 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."

Rev. Byron Sunderland, pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church of Syracuse (since Chaplain of the United States Senate), characterized it in his sermon [116] as a "Bloomer Convention," taking for his text Deut. xxii. 5:

Mrs. Gage's reply, in the absence of the editor, appeared in The Star, in whose columns Rev. Mr. Sunderland's sermon had been given the public, calling forth the following letter:

Some other person, under the head of "A Reader," addressed the following to The Star, which, in the editor's absence, was published:

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, The Star 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.

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[Pg 546] press; the Church, the press, and the fireside all aiding in the continued dissemination of the woman's rights discussion.

The publication of the proceedings of the Convention in pamphlet form gave The Star 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.

MOB CONVENTION IN NEW YORK.

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.

The leading papers in the United States were The Tribune, The Herald, The Times, The Evening Post, and The Express, 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. The Tribune 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.

The Herald 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.

The Times held a middle position; established at a much later date, its influence was not so great nor extended as either The Tribune or The Herald. 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.[Pg 547] 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.

The Empress, an organ of the Democratic party, was in its debasement on a par with The Herald and Times, 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.

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 The Tribune sent forth his grand fulminations against bigotry, hypocrisy, and vulgarity in every issue of his journal. William Cullen Bryant, editor of The Post, 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.

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[Pg 548] 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 [117] 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 [118] which were accepted and laid on the table for discussion.

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.

To the credit of Mr. Greeley, he made an effort to suppress the disturbance. Raymond, of The Times, gave the following report:

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.

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

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:

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.

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.

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,[Pg 572] owing to the tumult and interruption by impertinent noises, she spoke as follows, in German, Mrs. Rose translating her remarks into English:

The audience showing a better disposition to hear Madame Anneké, she proceeded thus:

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:

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:

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[Pg 574] "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 sine die; the following resolution having first been read by Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, and passed without dissent:

WOMAN'S RIGHTS STATE CONVENTION,
ROCHESTER, N. Y., NOVEMBER 30 AND DECEMBER 1, 1853.

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:

The Convention assembled at Corinthian Hall at 10 o'clock. Rev. Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, in the chair.[123] After thanking[Pg 579] 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.

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.

The President invited any one who saw errors or fallacies in the arguments brought forward, to make them apparent.

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 The Una of the same date:

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[Pg 588] 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.

An appeal [125] to the women of the State was at once issued, and all[Pg 589] 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.

Horace Greeley, chairman of the Committee on Industry, published in The New York Tribune the following report:

ALBANY CONVENTION.
FEBRUARY 14 AND 15, 1854.

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.[Pg 592]

The officers [126] of the Convention being reported, Mrs. Elizabeth[Pg 593] 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:

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.

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[Pg 606] only among the legislators on the bills before them, but among the people throughout the State.

Ernestine L. Rose and Rev. William Henry Channing presented the arguments and appeals to the Committee, and Mrs. Rose invited them to ask questions. The Register concludes:

William Henry Channing asks the following questions in the Albany Evening Journal:

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.

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.

We give the report of the presentation and discussion of the petitions from The Albany Evening Journal of Feb. 20, 1854:

The motion for the Select Committee prevailed, ayes, 84; the Committee appointed, and Mr. Wood excused from serving.

The report was signed by James L. Angle and all the members of the Committee except Mr. Richards.

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 [128] 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 [129] 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.

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.

As the agitation was kept up from year to year with frequent conventions, ever and anon some prominent person who had hitherto[Pg 620] 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 The Boston Liberator:

SARATOGA CONVENTIONS,
August, 1854-'55.

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[Pg 621] the same time.[131] 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.

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.[132] The meeting was held in St. Nicholas Hall, which was well filled throughout, three-hundred dollars being taken at the door. The following resumé of this occasion is from the pen of Judge William Hay, in a letter to The North Star of Rochester (Frederick Douglass, editor):

This Convention was so successful in point of numbers and receipts, and the sale of woman suffrage literature, that it was decided[Pg 623] to repeat the experiment the next year; accordingly the following call was issued early in the season:

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.

A brief report of the secretaries in The Una 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 [134] 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.

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[Pg 624] 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.

It was at this Convention that Mary L. Booth [135] 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 625] the real claims of the movement, they must take The Una, a paper owned and edited by one of its leaders. No one would expect to get temperance truths from Bennett's Herald, nor anti-slavery facts from The New York Observer, or Christian Advocate; no more can we look to any of the popular newspapers, political or religious, for reliable information on the woman's rights movement.

She also presented the claims of The Woman's Advocate, 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,[136] and closed by presenting the form of petition that had just been adopted.[137]

Mr. May moved the appointment of a committee of five [138] 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.[139][Pg 626]

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.[140]

Following the Convention the usual attacks were made by the press, accusing the members of "infidelity and free love," which[Pg 628] Miss Brown refuted through The New York Tribune. In this way, with conventions being continually held at the fashionable watering places [142] 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.

ALBANY CONVENTION, 1855.

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 [143] 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.

Of the hearings before the Legislature which followed this Convention, we give the report from

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:

Lydia Mott, in a letter to Susan B. Anthony, under date of Albany, March 15, 1856, says:

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:

THE SEVENTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S EIGHTS CONTENTION.

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.

The Convention was called to order by Martha C. Wright, President of the last Convention.

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.

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[Pg 637] of the whole claim of woman. By her own request, it was not published.

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.

Mr. Higginson then reported the following resolution from the Business Committee:

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.

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.

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.

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."

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:

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:

It was in the year 1859 that Charles F. Hovey of Boston left by will,[153] a sum of $50,000 to be expended annually in the promotion of various reforms. Woman's Rights among them.[Pg 668]

MOZART HALL,
NEW YORK, MAY 13, 14, 1858.

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.[154] These, with the usual familiar speakers,[155] filled the platform with quite a striking group of[Pg 669] 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.

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."

Mrs. Farnham [156] 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.

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.

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.

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,[Pg 671] 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.

All the sessions of this Convention were interrupted by the rowdyism of a number of men occupying the rear part of the hall.

George William Curtis, 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.

NINTH NATIONAL CONVENTION.

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.

The sessions commenced with a business meeting, on the afternoon[Pg 673] of that day, in Mozart Hall. The meeting was called to order by Susan B. Anthony, 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 [157] was appointed for that purpose, and a series of resolutions [158] offered by Caroline H. Dall.

These resolutions were discussed by Mrs. Dall, Mrs. Hallock, Mrs. Elizabeth Neal Gay, Lucretia Mott, A. M. Powell, Charles C. Burleigh, and others.

EVENING SESSION.

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.

Lucretia Mott 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.

Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, 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[Pg 674] 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.

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:

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.[Pg 676]

Of the canvass of 1859 and '60, we find the following letter in The New York Tribune, February, 1860.

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:

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:

AN ACT CONCERNING THE RIGHTS AND LIABILITIES OF HUSBAND AND WIFE.

The Act of 1860 [161] 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[Pg 687] 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 [162]. 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[Pg 688] 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.

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.

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.

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 The New York Independent, 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.

TENTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.
COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, MAY 10-11, 1860.

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,[163] nominated at a preliminary meeting, which was adopted without dissent.

The President, Martha C. Wright, of Auburn, on taking the Chair, addressed the Convention as follows:[Pg 689]

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.

Mrs. Rose, from the Business Committee, presented a series of resolutions [167], which were read by Miss Anthony. Elizabeth Cady[Pg 708] 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.

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:

Rev. Samuel Longfellow, of Brooklyn, N. Y., brother of the poet, was next introduced, and spoke as follows:

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).

Elizabeth Cady Stanton then presented a series of resolutions,[168] in support of which she addressed the Convention as follows:

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,[170] and my remarks following them will be very brief."[Pg 724]

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.[Pg 742] 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.

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?

CONVENTION IN ALBANY AND HEARING BEFORE THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE IN THE ASSEMBLY CHAMBER.
February 7th and 8th, 1861.

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.[173] The interest in the question was intense at this time,[Pg 746] 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 The New York Tribune, had a prolonged discussion with the Hon. Robert Dale Owen,[174] 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. The Albany Evening Journal also took strong grounds against the bill. But the opponents invariably discussed the question on the basis that marriage was an equal relation, in which man suffered as much as woman, ignoring the fact that man had made the laws governing it, and all to his own advantage.

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:

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.

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 [175] is the strongest possible proof of woman's need of the ballot[Pg 748] 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!

When Susan B. Anthony heard of the repeal of 1862, she was filled with astonishment, and wrote thus to Miss Lydia Mott:

And, worse still, in 1871,[176] 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 [177] 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.

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.

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[Pg 752] 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.

This is the vital point of interest to the vast majority of married women, since it is only the few 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.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] 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 coup d'état, 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.

[90] A Heroic Woman.—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.

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.

Mrs. Freeland is said to be "the pious mother of a fine family of children, and a highly respectable member of the Episcopal Church."

The Carson League commenting on this affair says:

"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.

"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 amen.

The Lily, June, 1853.

[91] Mrs. Thompson, of Albany; Mrs. Cushman, of New York, Vice-Presidents. Mrs. Fowler and Miss Anthony, Secretaries. Lydia Mott, of Albany; Phebe Hoag Jones, of Troy; Eliza Hoxie Shove, of Easton; and Elizabeth Van Alstine, of Canajoharie, Business Committee.

[92] 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.

[93] Vice-Presidents.—Mary C. Vaughan, Olivia Fraser, Frances Stanton Avery, Rhoda De Garmo, Sarah D. Fish, and Mrs. D. C. Ailing.

Secretaries.—Amelia Bloomer and Susan B. Anthony.

Resolutions.—Amy Post, Elizabeth Monroe, Rachel Van Lew.

Finance.—Susan B. Anthony, Mary H. Hallowell, H. Attilia Albro.

[94] See Appendix.

[95] See Appendix.

[96] Vice-Presidents—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.

Recording Secretaries—Susan B. Anthony, Rochester; Mary C. Vaughan, Oswego.

Corresponding Secretary—Amelia Bloomer, Seneca Falls.

Treasurer—Elvira Marsh, Rochester.

Executive Committee—Sarah T. Gould, Mary H. Hallowell, and Mrs. Samuel Richardson, Rochester.

[97] The Lily 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 The Lily for most of our facts on the temperance movement in New York.

[98] Nomination—Lemira Kedzie, Lydia F. Fowler, Amy Post, Mary H. Hallowell, Frederick Douglass, Lydia Jenkins.

Business Committee—Emily Clark, W. H. Channing, Mary H. Hallowell, Rev. S. J. May, Mrs. Robie, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols.

Finance—Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Bloomer, H. Attilia Albro. Also, on motion, the President was added to the Business Committee.

[99] 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.

[100] Vice-Presidents—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.

[101] See page 152—Cleveland Convention—for the full description of this mob by Miss Brown herself.

[102] The Binghamton Daily Republican 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 equal if not identical. 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.

[103] The Daily Standard, 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.

The Daily Star, 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.

[104]

THE NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.

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.

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.

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,

Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Paulina Wright Davis,
William Henry Channing,
Lucy Stone,
Samuel J. May.

[105] President.—Lucretia Mott, Philadelphia.

Vice-Presidents.—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.

Secretaries.—Susan B. Anthony, Martha C. Wright, Samuel J. May, Lydia F. Fowler.

Business Committee.—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.

Committee on Finance.—Rosa Smith, Joseph Savage, Caroline M. Severance.

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 Genius of Liberty; Dr. Cutcheon, of McGrawville College; Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lydia P. Savage, Sarah Hallock, Griffith M. Cooper.

[106] See Appendix.

[107] See Pennsylvania Chapter, page 360.

[108] The Syracuse Journal said: "Miss Anthony has a capital voice and deserves to be made clerk of the Assembly."

[109] 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.

[110] See Appendix.

[111] See Appendix.

[112] 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.

[113] 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.

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.

[114] The Jewish.

[115] See Appendix for comments of Syracuse Star and New York Herald.

[116] 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.

[117] President.—Lucretia Mott.

Vice-Presidents.—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.

Secretaries.—Lydia F. Fowler, Sidney Peirce, Oliver Johnson.

Business Committee.—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.

Finance Committee.—Susan B. Anthony, Lydia A. Jenkins, Edward A. Stansbury.

[118] See Appendix.

[119] Fanny Ellsler danced for the Bunker Hill monument.

[120] See p. 259.

[121] 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.

[122]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Seneca Falls;	James M'Cune Smith, New York;
Mary Cheney Greeley, New York;	S. G. Love, Randolph;
Ernestine L. Rose, New York;	Mary F. Love, Randolph;
Samuel J. May, Syracuse;	C. M. Crowley, Randolph;
George W. Jonson, Buffalo;	R. T. Trail, New York;
Antoinette L. Brown, South Butler;	Emily S. Trail, New York;
Frederick Douglass, Rochester;	Oliver Johnson, New York;
Hiram Corliss, Greenwich;	Mariana W. Johnson, New York;
Lydia A. Jenkins, Geneva;	Sydney Howard Gay, New York:
William H. Channing, Rochester;	Catharine E. Welling, Elmira;
William Hay, Saratoga Springs;	Mrs. Holbrook, Elmira;
Amy Post, Rochester;	H. A. Zoller, Little Falls;
Mary H. Hallowell, Rochester;	Stephen Haight, Dutchess County;
Susan B; Anthony, Rochester;	Sarah A. Burtis, Rochester;
William R. Hallowell, Rochester;	Lydia P. Savage, Syracuse;
Isaac Post, Rochester;	Lydia Mott, Albany;
Mary B. F. Curtis, Rochester;	J. B. Sands, Canandaigua;
Lemira Kedzie, Rochester;	Catharine H. Sands, Canandaigua.

[123] Vice-Presidents.—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.

Secretaries.—Susan B. Anthony, Sarah Pellet, Wm. J. Watkins, and Sarah Willis.

Finance Committee.—Mary S. Anthony, Mary H. Hallowell, E. J. Jenkins, Lucy Colman, and Mary Cooper.

Business Committee.—Ernestine L. Rose, William Henry Channing, Antoinette L. Brown, Frederick Douglass, Amy Post, and Samuel J. Love.

[124] 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.

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.

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.

His property before marriage continues his after marriage, subject to her inchoate rights of dower.

Her property before marriage continues hers absolutely.

Upon marriage he is liable to support her, and may be compelled to do it if he prove refractory.

She is not liable to support him, however wealthy she may be, or poor he may be.

He is liable to support the children. She is not so liable, though possessed of millions.

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).

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).

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).

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).

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.

The wife is not liable for her husband's debts contracted at any time.

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.

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).

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).

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.

The earnings of the husband are his. The earnings of the wife are his, if she live with him and he support her.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.

[125] Woman's Rights.—Circulate the Petitions.—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.

William Henry Channing.

Rochester, Dec. 8, 1853.

Petition for the Just and Equal Rights of Women.—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.

Petition for Woman's Right to Suffrage.—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.

N. B.—Editors throughout the State in favor of this movement are respectfully requested to publish this address and the petitions.

[126] President.—Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Vice-Presidents.—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.

Business Committee.—Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, South Butler; W. H. Channing, Rochester; Mrs. Catherine A. F. Stebbins, Mrs. Phebe H. Jones, Troy.

Secretaries.—Susan B. Anthony, Sarah Pellet.

Finance Committee.—Mary S. Anthony, Rochester; Anna W. Anthony, Cayuga.

[127] An Act Relative to the Rights of Married Women:—The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

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.

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.

[128] See Appendix.

[129] 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.

[130] 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.

[131] As this meeting was hastily decided upon, there was no call issued; it was merely noticed in the county papers. The Saratoga Whig, August 18, 1854, says:

Women's Rights.—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.

[132] 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.

[133] The Daily Saratogian. 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.

[134] President.—Martha C. Wright, of Auburn.

Vice-Presidents.—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.

Secretaries.—Emily Jaques, Nassau; Aaron M. Powell, Ghent; Mary L. Booth, Williamsburgh.

Finance Committee.—Susan B. Anthony, Marietta Richmond, Mary S. Anthony, Phebe H. Jones.

Business Committee.—Antoinette L. Brown, Ernestine L. Rose, T. W. Higginson, Charles F. Hovey, of Boston; Phebe Merritt, of Michigan; Hon. William Hay, of Saratoga Springs.

[135] Now the successful editor of Harper's Bazar.

[136] This year Miss Anthony canvassed the State, holding conventions in fifty-four counties, organizing societies, getting signatures to petitions, and subscribers to The Una. 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.

[137]

Women's Rights Petition.

To the Honorable, the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York:

Whereas, 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:

1st. That all men are born free and equal.

2d. That government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

3d. That taxation and representation should go together.

4th. That those held amenable to laws should have a share in framing them.

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.

[138] The committee were Susan B. Anthony, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette L. Brown, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha C. Wright, Lydia Mott.

[139] 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.

[140] 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.

[141] 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.

[142] 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.

[143] 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.

[144] 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.

[145] President.—Lucy Stone.

Vice-Presidents.—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.

Secretaries.—Martha C. Wright, of New York; Oliver Johnson, of New York; Henrietta Johnson, of New Jersey.

Business Committee.—Ernestine L. Rose, Susan B. Anthony, Wendell Phillips, James Mott, Mariana Johnson, T. W. Higginson, William Green, Jr.

Treasurer.—Wendell Phillips.

Finance.—Susan B. Anthony.

[146] At the close of chapter on Indiana, p. 315.

[147] John C. Fremont's campaign.

[148] Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont.

[149] 1. Resolved, 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.

2. Resolved, 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.

3. Resolved, 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.

4. Resolved, 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.

5. Resolved, 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.

6. Resolved, 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.

7. Resolved, 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.

[150] During the struggle to extend slavery into that free State.

[151] 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.

[152] She gave $100,000 to the Observatory in Albany.

[153]

Extracts From The Will Of The Late Charles F. Hovey, Esq.

Article 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.

Article 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.

Article 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.

CHARLES F. HOVEY.

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.

George L. Lovett.
Thomas Mack.
William W. Howe.

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.

Isaac Ames,

Judge of Probate and Insolvency.

May 30, 1859.

[154] 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."

[155] 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.

[156] 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.

[157] Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Caroline H. Dall, Caroline M. Severance, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Thomas W. Higginson, Susan B. Anthony.

[158] Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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,

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

[159]

Form of Petition.

To the Senate and Assembly of the Slate of New York:

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.

[160] 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."

[161]

AN ACT
concerning the rights and liabilities of husband and wife.
Passed March 20, 1860.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

Section 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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.

[162] On the final passage of the bill the following Senators, as The Journal 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.

[163] President.—Martha Wright, of Auburn, New York.

Vice-Presidents.—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.

Secretaries.—Ellen Wright and Mary L. Booth.

Finance Committee.—Susan B. Anthony, Lucy N. Colman, and Marietta Richmond.

Business Committee.—Ernestine L. Rose, A. L. B. Blackwell, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, E. Cady Stanton, Mary Grew, and Wendell Phillips.

[164] 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 inspector of election, 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.

[165] Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, J. Elizabeth Jones, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Lucy N. Colman, and Susan B. Anthony.

[166] Mrs. Roberts and her daughters in Niagara County.

[167] Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Whereas, 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,

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

[168] 1. Resolved, 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."

2. Resolved, 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.

3. Resolved, 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.

4. Resolved, 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.

5. Resolved, 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.

6. Resolved, 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.

7. Resolved, 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.

8. Resolved, 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.

9. Resolved, 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.

10. Resolved, 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.

[169] Thurlow Weed, editor of The Albany Evening Journal, opposed the passage of the Divorce Bill before the New York Legislature in 1860.

[170] Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That the permanence and indissolubility of marriage tend more directly than anything else toward this result.

[171] 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.

[172] 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.

[173] [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].

AN ACT IN REGARD TO DIVORCES DISSOLVING THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

Section 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:

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.

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.

§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.

§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.

§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.

§5. This act shall take effect immediately.

[174] Published at the close of Mr. Greeley's "Recollections of a Busy Life."

[175]

Passed April 10, 1862.

Sect. 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.

§2. The fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh sections of the said Act are hereby repealed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[176]

The Guardianship Law, passed April 25, 1871.

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.

[177] See law of 1860.

CHAPTER XV.

WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.
BY MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

Woman 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.

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[Pg 754] 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.

Woman had acquired great liberty under the old civilizations. In Rome she had not only secured remarkable personal and property rights,[178] 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 Bono Dea, 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[Pg 755] 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.

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, a.d. 365, in its eleventh canon [179] forbade the ordination of women to the ministry, and by its forty-fourth canon prohibited them from entering into the altar.

The Council of Orleans, a.d. 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.

Nearly five hundred years later than the Council of Laodicea, we find the Council of Paris (a.d. 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,[180] 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.

A curious old black-letter volume published in London in 1632, entitled "The Lawes and Resolutions of Women's Rights," says,[Pg 756] "the reason why women have no control in Parliament, why they make no laws, consent to none, abrogate none, is their Original Sin."

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.[181] 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.

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[Pg 757] 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.

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 a.d. 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 a.d. 395, ruled that a bishop who had children after ordination, should be excluded from the major orders. The Council of a.d. 444, deposed Chelidonius, Bishop of Besancon, for having married a widow; while the Council of Orleans, a.d. 511, consisting of thirty-two bishops, decided that any monk who married should be expelled from the ecclesiastical order.

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[Pg 758] 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 759] 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.[182]

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.[183] 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.[Pg 760]

Priestly celibacy did not cause priestly purity of life,[184] 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.[185] 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."[186] 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."

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,[Pg 761] 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.

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,[187] the Parliament of Italy repealed the old restriction upon woman's testimony.

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.

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.

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,[188] and all exactions upon them[Pg 762] 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 Marchetta, 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.

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.[Pg 763]

Marquette was claimed by the Lords Spiritual [189] 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.

In Scotland, Margaret, wife of Malcolm Conmore, generally known, from her goodness, as St. Margaret,[190] 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.[191] These infamous outrages upon woman were enforced under Christian law by both Church and State.[192]

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.[Pg 764] 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.

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).[193] 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.

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.

In looking at the history of witchcraft, we see three striking points for consideration:

Second. 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.[Pg 765]

Third. 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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 766] 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."

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,"[194] 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"[195] of seventeen years.

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[Pg 767] 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.

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.

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."

The death these poor women chose to suffer rather than accept a chance of life with the name of witch clinging to them,[197] was one of the most painful of which we can conceive,[198] although in the diversity of torture inflicted upon "the witch," it is scarcely possible to say which was the least agonizing.

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.[Pg 769]

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.

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.

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.[199] Wherever it became the basis of legislation, the laws of succession and inheritance, and those in regard to children, constantly sacrificed the[Pg 770] 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.

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.

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.[Pg 771]

The great school of German jurists [200] 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.[201]

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,[202] 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.

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[Pg 772] 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).

The present formula of advertising a wife, which so frequently disgraces the press, is due to this belief in wife-ownership.

By old English law, in case the wife was in danger of perishing in a storm, it was allowable "to harbor" and shelter her.

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.

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;[203] 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.

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 [204] alive; while if the husband murdered the wife, his was hanging, "the same as if he had murdered any stranger." Her[Pg 773] 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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

Woman's wrongs under the Reformation, we discover by glancing[Pg 775] 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:

A writer about this period, said: "She that knoweth how to compound a pudding is more desirable than she who skillfully compoundeth a poem."

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.

Fourth. This masculine family head was a general father confessor, to whom she was held responsible in thought and deed.

Fifth. Neither genius nor talent could free woman from such control, without consent.

Luther, though free from the lasciviousness of the old priesthood, was not monogamic in principle. When applied to by the German Elector, Philip,[206] Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, for permission to marry a second wife, while his first, Margaret of Savoy, was[Pg 776] 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.[207]

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 The San Francisco Chronicle:

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.

Rev. C. P. Lyford, of the Methodist Church, long a resident of Utah, in a letter of February 19, 1881, to The Northern Christian Advocate, a Methodist paper published in Syracuse, says:

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[Pg 779] 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.

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.

In Christian countries to-day, the restrictions on woman in the married relation are much greater than upon man.[208] 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 [209] 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.

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 [210] designed to play upon our sympathies. Old Dr.[Pg 780] Johnson said of Milton, that he would not allow his daughters [211] 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."

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 [212] 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:

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!"

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?"[213]

The Christianity of to-day thus continues to teach the existence[Pg 782] 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."

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:

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.[Pg 783]

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.

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."

The Congregational Church is placed upon record through laws governing certain of its bodies:

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.

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 [215] 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 Syracuse Sunday Morning Courier of March 4, 1877, reported this debate as follows:

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:

As answer to this appeal, and in reply to all women seeking the ministry of that Church, the Conference passed the following resolution:

An Episcopal Church Convention meeting in Boston in the summer[Pg 786] 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.

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.

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 The National Citizen and Ballot-Box (Syracuse, N. Y.), in August, 1880, said:

This same doctrine is taught in the public schools. The Republican, of Havre de Grace, Maryland, in its issue of August 6, 1880, gave the following report of a speech at that time:

Sermons are frequently preached in opposition to woman's demand[Pg 787] 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:

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.

The sermon was especially directed against the following resolutions of this Convention, which throughout the country met much clerical criticism and opposition:

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[Pg 788] 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.[217]

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,[218] though all the facts of nature and science prove it to extend throughout creation.

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[Pg 789] of holy things by the mere fact of her coming into existence. What irony of all that is called holy!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 791] 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 Chicago Inter-Ocean, says:

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:

The essayist, E. P. Whipple, in a recent speech before the Papyrus Club of Boston, said of George Eliot:

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.

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.[220] George Borrow, in his singular narrative, "The Rommany Rye," says:

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 [221] 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[Pg 793] 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.

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 [222] 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.[223]

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[Pg 794] of moral degradation exacted of the serf under feudalism. In some portions of Christendom the "service"[224] of young girls to-day implies their sacrifice to the Moloch of man's unrestrained passions.

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?

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.[Pg 795]

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:

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[Pg 796] 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:

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.

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.[225] And yet in the[Pg 797] 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 in our own, image, after our own likeness.... So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.... 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."

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. The Church Union 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.

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[Pg 798] 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.

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.[226] 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:

The world still asks, What is Truth? A work has recently been published entitled, "The Christian Religion to a.d. 200." It is the fruit of several-years' study of a period upon which the Church has[Pg 799] 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 (a.d. 202). The first collection, or canon, of the New Testament was prepared by the Synod or Council of Laodicea in the fourth century (a.d. 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.

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.

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?

FOOTNOTES:

[178] 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."

[179] 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.

[180] 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.—Hist. of Christian Religion from a.d. to 200, p. 23, Waite. 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.—Ibid., p. 384-5. 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.—Bunsen's Christianity of Mankind, Vol. VII., p. 386-393; 3d Vol. Analecta.

[181] 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, a.d. 420.—Hist. Christian Religion to a.d. 200 (Waite), p. 382.

[182] 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.—"Latin Christianity."

[183] The Christian Church was swamped by hysteria from the third to the sixteenth century.—Rev. Charles Kingsley's Life and Letters.

[184] 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."—Galignani's Messenger, September 19, 1874.

[185] 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.—Lecky, "Hist. of European Morals," p. 350. 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.—Ibid, Vol. 2, p. 349. It was openly attested that 100,000 women in England were made dissolute by the clergy.—Draper's "Intellectua. Development of Europe," p. 498.

[186] "Le Sorcerie," p. 259, Michelet.

[187] Died in 1880.

[188] 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.—"Histoire Universelle," Cesar Cantu.

[189] 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.—"La Sorcerie," Michelet, p. 62.

[190] 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 droit de jambage).—Sketches of Feudalism.

[191] 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.

[192] 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 cuissage 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.—Cesar Cantu, "Histoire Universelle," Vol. IX., p. 202-3.

[193] Le Michelet, "Le Sorcerie," p. 151.

[194] The very word femina (woman) means one wanting in faith; for fe means faith, and minus, less.—Witch Hammer. 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.

[195] 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.—Sprangler.

[196] 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 "contumacy," 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 to them, in the first instance, all the complaints and informations were made.—Pitcairn, Vol. I., Part 2, p. 50.

[197] The following is an account of the material used, and the expenses attending the execution of two witches in Scotland:

For	10 loads of coal to burn the witches	£3 06 8
"	a tar barrel	0 14 0
"	towes	0 06 0
"	hurdles to be jumps for them	3 10 0
"	making of them	0 08 0
"	one to go to Tinmouth for the lord to sit upon the assize as judge	0 06 0
"	the executioner for his pains	8 14 0
"	his expenses there	0 16 4
—Lectures on Witchcraft in Salem, Charles W. Upham.

[198] 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.

[199] No marriage could take place after 12 m., which is even now the rule of the established Church of England.

[200] Science of Law.

[201] 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.

[202] Whoever wishes to gain insight into that great institution, Canon Law, can do so most effectively by studying Common Law, in regard to woman.—Blackstone..

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.e., 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.—Charles Kingsley, Life and Letters. Letter to John Stuart Mill, of June 17, 1849.

[203] Wives in England were bought from the fifth to the eleventh century (Descriptive Sociology, Herbert Spencer). By an ancient law of India, a father was forbidden to sell his daughter in marriage. Keshub Chunder Sen, 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.

[204] 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 mundt, or keeping of some man (Descriptive Sociology, England, Herbert Spencer). 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.—Ibid.

[205] Wives in Russia.—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.

Woman's Lot in Russia.—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, apropos of the enfranchisement of the serfs, "God has forgotten the nook where He hid the keys of woman's emancipation."

[206] One of the powerful German Electors, who formerly made choice of the Emperor of Germany

[207] 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.—"Woman in all Countries and Nations," Nichols

[208] 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.

[209] The Birchall case.

[210] "History," says Voltaire, "is only a parcel of tricks we play with the dead."

[211] John Milton and His Daughters.—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.—The Athenæum.

[212] Mrs. Robinson, of Indiana, and Mrs. E. S. Whitney, of New York.

[213] 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:

"Women at the Church Poll—What Came of Reviving an Old Statute in Portchester.—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."

[214] 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.—Independent, N. Y., Feb. 24, 1881.

[215] Broken Down.—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.—Ex.

[216] 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.

[217] 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."—State Prohibitionist, Des Moines, Ia., Jan. 28, 1881.

[218] The great botanist, Linnæus, was persecuted when he first presented his sexual system in vegetation to the world.

[219] 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.—Subjection of Woman, John Stuart Mill.

[220] The Worcester Chronicle 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.

[221] 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.

[222] The Fair Sex in the Alps.—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.

[223] Lord Shaftesbury bringing the subject before Parliament.

[224] A Story of Ireland in 1880.—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.

[225] 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 male, 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 One the attributes which, separated in our human race, express themselves in Manhood and Womanhood."

[226] Some person, over the signature of "A Bible Reader," writing in the Sun 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.

"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."

APPENDIX.

CHAPTER I.

PRECEDING CAUSES.

Margaret Fuller 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."

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."

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."

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 The Dial 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.

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."

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[Pg 802] of the Woman's Rights agitation of the last thirty-three years. Her work, "The Great Lawsuit; or, Man vs. Woman, Woman vs. 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 Marriage and of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman belongs 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—a 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."

Margaret Fuller was the first woman upon the staff of The New York Tribune, 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 The Tribune; 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 The Tribune to one whose standard of culture was so far above that of his readers or his own.

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.

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.

CHAPTER IV.

NEW YORK.

Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions.

Women Out of their Latitude.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 803]

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 six thousand years, 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.

But this change is impracticable, uncalled for, and unnecessary. If effected, 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 real evils that the millions of the industrious, hard-working, and much suffering women of our country groan under and seek to redress.—Mechanic's (Albany, N. Y.) Advocate.

Insurrection among the Women.

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 women are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." The list of grievances which the Amazons 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 bolting with a vengeance.—Worcester (Mass.) Telegraph.

The Reign of Petticoats.

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 heartless "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 equality and fraternization—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.

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[Pg 804] 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.—Rochester (N. Y.) Daily Advertiser, Henry Montgomery, Editor.

"Progress," 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!—Lowell (Mass.) Courier.

To us they appear extremely dull and uninteresting, and, aside from their novelty, hardly worth notice.—Rochester Advertiser.

This has been a remarkable Convention. It was composed of those holding to some one of the various isms 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 emeute 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!—Rochester Democrat.

The Women of Philadelphia.

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.

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."

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."—Public Ledger and Daily Transcript.

Woman's Rights Convention.[Pg 805]

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.

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 extenso 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.

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.

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.—New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, Proprietor.

Mrs. Stanton's Reply.[Pg 806]

In answer to all the newspaper objections, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in an article published in the National Reformer, Rochester, N. Y., Geo. G. Cooper, Editor, Sept. 14, 1848, said as follows:

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 us, 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?

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 now 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 nonentity because his wife is so distinguished, that James Mott is head and shoulders above the greater part of his sex, 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.

Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols.[Pg 807]

Miss Barber, of The Madison (Ga.) Visitor, promises to "sit in the corner and be a good girl," if we will admit her to our next "editorial soirée." Indeed we will, and brother Lamb, of The Greenfield Democrat, 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 Mr. Swisshelm, Mr. Pierson, and more of the same sort for "that class." He has nobody on his side but the musty, fusty old bachelors of the ——, and ----, and ——, who, never having wanted for anything but puddings and shirts, imagine, as Mrs. Pierson says, that "a shirt and a pudding are the two poles of woman's sphere."

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."

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, "the 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 entire rib! And what has it to do with the question of her intellectual equality, that she was created afterward? 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.

Miss Barber assumes woman's entire intellectual equality, in claiming that she "may mould the mind of the future statesman into whatsoever she will—that "through him she can and will 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.—Windom County Democrat, Brattleboro, Vermont.

Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm.

A Mistake.—Dear Brother Wright:—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 baboons," 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[Pg 808] 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.

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."

Jane G. Swisshelm.

Your good-tempered friend and sister,

Borders of Monkeydom, Sept. 28, 1848.

P. S.—There is a man who edits The Sunday Age 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.—Saturday Visitor, Pittsburg, Penn.

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 vs. Boots." The reader can judge, with such texts for inspiration, what the sermons must have been.

Resolutions at Rochester.

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:

1. Resolved, That we petition our State Legislature for our right to the elective franchise, every year, until our prayer be granted.

2. Resolved, 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.

3. Resolved, 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.[Pg 809]

4. Resolved, 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.

5. Whereas, 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,

Whereas, 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,

Resolved, That we will seek the overthrow of this barbarous and unrighteous law; and conjure women no longer to promise obedience in the marriage covenant.

Resolved, 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.

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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Signatures to the Declaration adopted at Seneca Falls.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this Declaration:

Lucretia Mott,	Hannah Plant,
Harriet Cady Eaton,	Lucy Jones,
Margaret Pryor,	Sarah Whitney,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton,	Mary H. Hallowell,
Eunice Newton Foote,	Elizabeth Conklin,
Mary Ann McClintock,	Sally Pitcher,
Margaret Schooley,	Mary Conklin,
Martha C. Wright,	Susan Quinn,
Jane C. Hunt,	Mary S. Mirror,
Amy Post,	Phebe King,
Catharine F. Stebbins,	Julia Ann Drake,
Mary Ann Frink,	Charlotte Woodward,
Lydia Mount,	Martha Underhill,
Delia Matthews,	Dorothy Matthews,
Catharine C. Paine,	Eunice Barker,
Elizabeth W. McClintock,	Sarah K. Woods,
Malvina Seymour,	Lydia Gild,
Phebe Mosher,	Sarah Hoffman,
Catherine Shaw,	Elizabeth Leslie,
Deborah Scott,	Martha Ridley,
Sarah Hallowell,	Rachel D. Bonnel,
Mary McClintock,	Betsy Tewksbury,
Mary Gilbert,	Rhoda Palmer,
Sophronie Taylor,	Margaret Jenkins
Cynthia Davis,	Cynthia Fuller,
Mary Martin,	Eliza Martin,
P. A. Culvert,	Maria E. Wilbur,
Susan R. Doty,	Elizabeth D. Smith,
Rebecca Race,	Caroline Barker,
Sarah A. Mosher,	Ann Porter,
Mary E. Vail,	Experience Gibbs,
Lucy Spalding,	Antoinette F. Segur,
Lavinia Latham,	Hannah J. Latham,
Sarah Smith,	Sarah Sisson.

The following are the names of the gentlemen present in favor of the movement:

Richard P. Hunt,	Charles L. Hoskins,
Samuel D. Tilman,	Thomas McClintock,
Justin Williams,	Saron Phillips,
Elisha Foote,	Jacob Chamberlain,
Frederick Douglass,	Jonathan Metcalf,
Henry W. Seymour,	Nathan J. Milliken,
Henry Seymour,	S. E. Woodworth,
David Spalding,	Edward F. Underhill,
William G. Barker,	George W. Pryor,
Elias J. Doty,	Joel Bunker,
John Jones,	Isaac Van Tassel,
William S. Dell,	Thomas Dell,
James Mott,	E. W. Capron,
William Burroughs,	Stephen Shear,
Robert Smalldridge	Henry Hatley,
Jacob Matthews,	Azaliah Schooley.

Many persons signed the Declaration at Rochester, among them Daniel Anthony, Lucy Read Anthony, Mary S. Anthony, the officers of the Convention, and others.

CHAPTER VI.

OHIO.

Salem Convention, April 19, 20, 1850.

Letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Seneca Falls, N. Y., April 7.

Dear Mariana:—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, for what shall you first petition? 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[Pg 811] 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:

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, full of righteous indignation, 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 might be done to us; 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 shall be.

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!

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,[Pg 812] 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—the one woman will find the most difficult to take, the one man will most reluctantly give up; therefore let us encamp right under its shadow; there spend all our time, strength, and moral 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 at discretion. Then comes equality in Church and State, in the family circle, and in all our social relations.

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.

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 The Westminster Review 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!

E. C. Stanton.

Yours sincerely,

Letter from Lucretia Mott.

Dear Friends:—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."[Pg 813]

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 ask as favor, but demand as right, that every civil and ecclesiastical obstacle be removed out of the way.

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.

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.

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 men 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.

I herewith forward to you a "Discourse on Woman," which, though brought out by local circumstances, may yet contain principles of universal application.

Wishing you every success in your noble effort,

I am yours, for woman's redemption and consequent elevation,

Lucretia Mott.

Philadelphia, 4th mo., 13, 1850.

Letter from Lucy Stone.

For the Woman's Rights Convention:

Dear Friends:—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 now, when a State Constitution is to be formed.

It is easier, when the old is destroyed, to build the new right, than to right it after it is built.

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, reel 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 his lowest depths.

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[Pg 814] 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.

Massachusetts ought 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," we'll pledge Massachusetts to follow her.

Lucy Stone.

Yours, for Justice and Equal Rights,

Southampton, April 10, 1850.

Letter from Sarah Pugh.

"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."—Colman's Letters from Europe.

Dear Friends:—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?

That women contribute their full share in the building-up of an estate by labor—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 perpetual oversight and unvarying labor she may make one dollar, two, or more.

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.

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.

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.

Sarah Pugh.

With great interest, your friend,

To the Ohio Convention of Women, Phila., April 15, 1850.

Resolutions of the Salem (Ohio) Convention, 1850.

6th. Resolved, 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,[Pg 815] 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.

16th. Resolved, 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.

19th. Resolved, 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 taking the right to themselves to enact laws for her.

20th. Resolved, 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.

After the Akron Convention in 1851, The New York Sunday Mercury 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.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

To the Woman's Convention, held at Akron, Ohio, May 25, 1851:

Dear Friends:—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."

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.

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[Pg 816] practitioner, is an outrage on common decency that nothing but the tyrant custom 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.

But the great work before us is the education of those just coming on the stage of action. Begin with the girls of to-day, 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 out 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 coward, 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 courage; 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 needle—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.

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 thus 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.

E. C. Stanton.

Seneca Falls, May 1861.

Resolutions of the Massilon (Ohio) Convention, 1852.

1st. Resolved, That in the proposition affirmed by the nation to be self-evidently true, that "all men are created equal," the word "men" is a general term, including the whole race, without distinction of sex.

2d. Resolved, That this equality of the sexes must extend, and does extend, to rights personal, social, legal, political, industrial, and religious, including, of course, representation[Pg 817] 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 her sphere of action, as man to choose his.

3d. Resolved, 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.

4th. Resolved, That the assertion of these rights for woman, equally with man, involves the doctrine that she, equally with him, should be protected in their exercise.

5th. Resolved, 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.

6th. Resolved, 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.

7th. Resolved, 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.

8th. Resolved, 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.

9th. Resolved, 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.

10th. Resolved, 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.

11th. Resolved, 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.

Fifth National Woman's Rights Convention, Cleveland, Ohio 1853.

1st. Resolved, That by Human Rights, we mean natural Rights, in contradistinction to conventional usages, and that because Woman is a Human being, she, therefore, has Human Rights.

2d. Resolved, 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.

4th. Resolved, 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.[Pg 818]

5th. Resolved, 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.

6th. Resolved, 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."

7th. Resolved, 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.

8th. Resolved, 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.

Mr. Garrison, on being called for, replied that the resolutions would do for his speech to-night, and read as follows:

1st. Resolved, 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.

2d. Resolved, 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.

3d. Resolved, 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.

4th. Resolved, 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.

5th. Resolved, 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.

6th. Resolved, 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[Pg 819] 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.

7th. Resolved, 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 non compos mentis.

Rebecca M. Sanford To The Cleveland Convention.

New London, Huron Co., O., October 3, 1853.

Friends Of Reform:—Not being present at the Convention, I can but express my interest by a few lines.

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; there is a limit in law, 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.

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.

This done, the monster evils of society, Intemperance, etc., can be handled with ungloved hands.

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.

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 ultraisms. 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.

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 now, you will be obliged to come to it before you receive the credit for a wisdom you justly deserve.

May God guide you and bless you.

Rebecca M. Sanford.

Yours, strong in the right,

Sixth National Woman's Rights Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1856.

OFFICERS:

President—Martha C. Wright, New York.

Vice-Presidents—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.[Pg 820]

Business Committee—Lucy Stone Blackwell, Ohio; Lucretia Mott, Pennsylvania; Josephine S. Griffing, Adelaide Swift, Henry B. Blackwell, Ohio.

Secretaries—Rebecca Plumly, Pennsylvania; Wm. Henry Smith, editor of The Type of the Times.

RESOLUTIONS.

Whereas, All men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and,

Whereas, To secure these rights governments are instituted among them, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; therefore

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That taxation without representation is tyranny.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

MASSACHUSETTS.

First Worcester Convention, 1850.

Names of Persons who Signed the Call of 1850.

MASSACHUSETTS.
Lucy Stone,	B. S. Treanor,	Dr. Seth Rogers,
Wm. H. Channing,	Mary M. Brooks,	Eliza F. Taft,
Harriot K. Hunt,	T. W. Higginson,	Dr. A. C. Taft,
A. Bronson Alcott,	Mary E. Higginson,	Charles K. Whipple,
Nathaniel Barney,	Emily Winslow,	Mary Bullard,
Eliza Barney,	R. Waldo Emerson,	Emma C. Goodwin,
Wendell Phillips,	William L. Garrison,	Abby Price,
Ann Greene Phillips,	Helen E. Garrison,	Thankful Southwick,
Adin Ballou,	Charles F. Hovey,	Eliza J. Kenney,
Anna Q. T. Parsons,	Sarah Earle	Louisa M. Sewall,
Mary H. L. Cabot,	Abby K. Foster	Sarah Southwick.

RHODE ISLAND.
Sarah H. Whitman,	Sarah Brown,	George Clarke,
Thomas Davis,	Elizabeth B. Chace,	Mary Adams,
Paulina W. Davis,	Mary Clarke,	George Adams.
Joseph A. Barker,	John L. Clarke,

NEW YORK
Gerrit Smith,	Charlotte G. Coffin,	Joseph Savage,
Nancy Smith,	Mary G. Taber,	L. N. Fowler,
Elizabeth C. Stanton,	Elizabeth S. Miller,	Lydia Fowler,
Catharine Wilkinson,	Elizabeth Russell,	Sarah Smith,
Samuel J. May,	Stephen Smith,	Charles D. Miller.
Charlotte C. May,	Rosa Smith,

PENNSYLVANIA.
William Elder,	Jane G. Swisshelm,	Myra Townsend,
Sarah Elder,	Charlotte Darlington,	Mary Grew,
Sarah Tyndale,	Simon Barnard,	Sarah Lewis,
Warner Justice,	Lucretia Mott,	Sarah Pugh,
Huldah Justice,	James Mott,	Hannah Darlington,
William Swisshelm,	W. S. Pierce,	Sarah D. Barnard.

MARYLAND.
Mrs. Eliza Stewart.

OHIO.
Elizabeth Wilson,	Mary Cowles,	Benjamin S. Jones,
Mary A. Johnson,	Maria L. Giddings,	Lucius A. Hine,
Oliver Johnson,	Jane Elizabeth Jones,	Sylvia Cornell.

RESOLUTIONS.

Wendell Phillips presented, from the Business Committee, the following resolutions:

Resolved, 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,

Resolved, 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."

Resolved, That political rights acknowledge no sex, and, therefore, the word "male" should be stricken from every State Constitution.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.[Pg 822]

From Mildred A. Spoford.

Paulina Wright Davis.—Dear Madam:—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.

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—"Honi soit qui mal y pense."

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....

Mildred A. Spoford.

I remain, dear madam, yours sincerely,

Extract from a Letter of H. M. Weber.

La Pelouse, August 8, 1850.

.... 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.

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.

There are no well-founded objections to women dressing, as we term it, en cavalier. The only two I ever heard are these: "To do so is contrary to law, both human and divine," and, "The male dress is outre and less graceful than our own." These objections[Pg 823] 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.

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.

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 bagatelle. 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.

H. M. Weber.

Affectionately yours,

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:

Resolved, That as women alone can learn by experience and prove by works, what is their rightful sphere of duty, we recommend, as next steps, that they should demand and secure:

1st. Education 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.

2d. Partnership 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.

3d. A co-equal share in the formation and administration of law, Municipal, State, and National, through legislative assemblies, courts, and executive offices.

4th. Such unions 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

To carry out the plan suggested by Mr. Channing, the following Committees were appointed:

Members Of Committees.

Central Committee.—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[Pg 824] 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.

Educational Committee.—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.

Industrial Committee.—Elizabeth Blackwell, Harriot K. Hunt, Benjamin S. Treanor, Ebenezer D. Draper, Phebe Goodwin, Alice Jackson, Maria Waring, Sarah L. Miller.

Committee on Civil and Political Functions.—Ernestine L. Rose, Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, Hannah Stickney, Sarah Hallock, Abby K. Foster, Charles C. Burleigh, Elizabeth C. Stanton, William L. Garrison.

Committee on Social Relations.—Lucretia Mott, William H. Channing, Anna Q. T. Parsons, William H. Fish, Rebecca Plumley, Elizabeth B. Chace, John G. Forman, Henry Fish, Mary Grew.

Committee on Publication.—Wm. Henry Channing, Chairman; Ernestine L. Rose, Charlotte Fowler Wells.

MEMBERS WORCESTER CONVENTION, 1850.

Massachusetts.—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.

Maine.—Anna R. Blake, Ellen M. Prescott, Oliver Dennett, Lydia Dennett.

New York.—Frederick Douglass, Lydia Mott, S. H. Hallock, Ernestine L. Rose, Joseph[Pg 825] Carpenter, Pliny Sexton, J. C. Hathaway, Lucy N. Colman, Antoinette L. Brown, Edgar Hicks.

New Hampshire.—P. B. Cogswell, Julia Worcester, Parker Pillsbury, Sarah Pillsbury, Asa Foster.

Vermont.—Clarina I. Howard Nichols. Mrs. A. E. Brown.

Pennsylvania.—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.

Connecticut.—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.

Rhode Island.—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.

Iowa.—Silas Smith.

Ohio.—Mariana Johnson, Oliver Johnson, Ellen Blackwell, Marian Blackwell, Diana W. Ballou.

California.—Mrs. Mary G. Wright.

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.

Second Worcester Convention, 1851.

resolutions.

1. Resolved, 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.

2. Resolved, 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.

3. Resolved, 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.

4. Resolved, 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.

5. Resolved, 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[Pg 826] 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 uniform custom, when we recollect that we are just emerging from the ages in which might has been always right.

6. Resolved, 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.

7. Resolved, 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.

8. Resolved, 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 half of mankind only who, in relation to the other, have hitherto assumed the character of governors.

9. Resolved, That we see no weight in the argument that it is necessary 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.

10. Resolved, 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.

Glen Haven, Feb. 18, 1853.

Paulina Wright Davis.—My Dear Friend:—Bless you for The Una, 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.

I do not ask you to send me The Una, for the dollar must go with the request, and the[Pg 827] dollar has yet to be earned by quill-work, a task quite as hard as was work when a child at the quill-wheel, winding yarn from the reel.

Drop me a line if you would like my assistance as a correspondent, and what I can do, I will cheerfully.

J. C. Jackson, M.D.[227]

Very truly, your friend,

FOOTNOTES:

[227] 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.

Petition of Harriot K. Hunt to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention.

To the Constitutional Convention now sitting in Boston:

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.

Paulina Wright Davis

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 cortège.

CHAPTER IX.

INDIANA.

Dublin Convention, October, 1851.

RESOLUTIONS.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That the avenues to gain, in all their varieties, should be as freely opened to woman as they now are to man.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That woman should receive for equal labor, equal pay with man.

Resolved, 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.

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[Pg 828] 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.

CHAPTER X.

PENNSYLVANIA.

Saxe, Dana, and Grace Greenwood.

Mr. Saxe 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 The Evening Post. Mr. Saxe, after seeing the criticism, wrote a note to the editor of the Post, in which he makes an exception in favor of Grace. This calls forth another letter from her, from which we make the following extract:

New Brighton, Jan. 22, 1850.

Gentlemen:—....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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 829]

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 Post, 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.

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?

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.

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.

Grace Greenwood.

Westchester Convention, June 2 and 3, 1852.

Letter From Mary Mott.

Auburn, De Kalb County, Indiana, May 17, 1852.

Sisters:—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 divine right. 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[Pg 830] thought of doing. There were germs in that charter that have borne excellent fruit since that day.

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.

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[Pg 831] 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 marriage is not a contract, 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 have dominion. 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 thou shalt rule over him." 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?

Mary Mott.

Letter from Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.

New York, May 27, 1852.

Mrs. Darlington.—Dear Madam:—-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.

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 physical nature and the duties of life are equally neglected. I believe that the chief source of the false position of women is, the inefficiency of women themselves—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.

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.

With hearty sympathy in every aspiration, and the right hand of fellowship to every conscientious worker, believe me,

Elizabeth Blackwell.

Very truly yours,

Letter from Paulina Wright Davis.

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 thorough 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[Pg 832] 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....

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."....

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."....

Letter from Wm. H. and Mary Johnson.

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 our 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?

"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?

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?

"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?"

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.

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[Pg 833] 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

"New occasions teach new duties—Time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth!"

Desiring that your discussions may be guided by that spirit which has heretofore characterized them, we remain your friends,

Wm. H. Johnson And Mary Johnson.

Resolutions Of The Westchester Convention, 1852.

Resolved, 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."

Resolved, 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 proper discharge of governmental duties necessarily involve the sacrifice of the refinement or sensibilities of true womanhood.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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."

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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[Pg 834] highest cultivation and development of all its varied powers, will only make more apparent those sensibilities and graces which are considered its peculiar charm.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That H. M. Darlington, P. E. Gibbons, Hannah Wright, Mary Ann Fulton, Sarah E. Miller, Lea Pusey, and Ruth Dugdale be the Committee.

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.

The Convention adjourned sine die.

Fourth National W. R. Convention, Philadelphia, October 18, 19, 20, 1854.

RESOLUTIONS.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That woman's aspiration is to be the only limit of woman's destiny.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, That in perfect confidence that what we desire will one day be accomplished, we commit the cause of woman to God and to humanity.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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.

Resolved, 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 all men and excludes all women.

Resolved, 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."

Resolved, 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.

Mrs. Tracy Cutler made an address upon the objects of the movement.[Pg 835]

CHAPTER XI.

Lucretia Mott's Funeral.

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. The Philadelphia Times 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 836]

CHAPTER XIII

MRS. STANTON'S REMINISCENCES.

Peterboro, December 1, 1855.

Elizabeth C. Stanton.—My Dear Friend:—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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 837]

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 838] robbed of their God-given right to the soil. That women are helpless is no wonder, so long as women are paupers.

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 839] 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 professedly, 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.

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.

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.

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.

Gerrit Smith.

Affectionately yours,

Mrs. Stanton's Reply.

Seneca Falls, Dec. 21, 1855.

My Dear Cousin:—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,[Pg 840] 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?

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!

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[Pg 841] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 femme covert into a living, breathing woman, a wife into a property-holder, who can make contracts, buy and sell. In a few[Pg 842] 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.

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.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Affectionately yours,

Frances D. Gage's Reply to Gerrit Smith.

[From Frederick Douglass' paper].

Frederick Douglass.—Dear Sir:—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.

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 short skirts 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 can fail.

I do not propose to enter into a full criticism of Mr. Smith's long letter. He has made[Pg 843] 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 him, 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 must own ourselves under the law first, 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?

"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 now 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 mothers 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.

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; right can not fail.

"The next Woman's Rights Convention will be, as has every other Woman's Rights[Pg 844] 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 battle-ground, 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.

Frances D. Gage.

Rochester, Dec. 24, 1855.

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.

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.

Amelia Bloomer comments on Jane G. Swisshelm.

To the Editor of the Nonpareil:

Jane Grey Swisshelm thinks it is dare-devil independence that is ruining the women of this country.—Nonpareil.

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 Reconstructionist 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.

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[Pg 845] 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.

Amelia Bloomer.

Council Bluffs, July 30, 1880.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW YORK.

NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE CONVENTION, ROCHESTER,
APRIL 20, 21, 1852.

Letter From Frances Dana Gage.

McConnellsville, O., April 5, 1852.

My Dear Miss Anthony:—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!

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?

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?

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[Pg 846] 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.

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.

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,[Pg 847] 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.

Frances D. Gage.

Yours, in the cause of humanity,

S. B. Anthony, Chairman of Committee.

Letter From Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols.

Brattleboro, Vt., April 13, 1852.

Sisters and Friends of Temperance:—In resorting to the pen as a medium of communication with your Convention, I feel, most sensibly, its inferiority to a vis-à-vis 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 848] 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

I leave the subject here, praying that God may bless your deliberations, and guide you into all truth.

C. I. H. Nichols.

Yours, for the oppressed, ever,

Syracuse Convention, Sept. 8, 9, 10, 1852.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON'S LETTER.

Seneca Falls, Sept. 6.

My Dear Friends:—As I can not be present with you, I wish to suggest three points for your sincere and earnest consideration.[Pg 849]

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?

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 feme covert 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.

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.

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[Pg 850] 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.

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?

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.

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.

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 glorious mission?

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[Pg 851] 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.

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.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Gloucester, Mass., August 24, 1852.

To Mrs. Paulina W. Davis:

Dear Madam:...—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.

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 can say but one thing—just what I must say to the man who affirms the same—"My friend, show your ability to serve society in this way, and all creation can not deprive you of the right. If you can do 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."

.... 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. You 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.

.... 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[Pg 852] 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,

A. D. Mayo.

Samuel J. May read the following extract from a letter from Wm. Lloyd Garrison, of Boston:

"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.

Wm. Lloyd Garrison.

"Yours for all Human Rights,

"Rev. S. J. May."

Comments of the Press after the Syracuse Convention.

The Syracuse Standard, Sept. 10th (a liberal Democratic paper).

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.

The Star, 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.

The Star, September 10th.

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.

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.

Daily Star, Sept. 11th.

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 per[Pg 853] signe de mepris, 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.

The Convention adjourned sine die 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.

When the pamphlet report of the Convention's proceedings appeared, The Star said:

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: "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." 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.

The New York Herald (editorial), Sept. 12, 1852.

The Woman's Rights Convention—The Last Act of the Drama.

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.

Who are these women? what do they want? what are the motives that impel them to this course of action? The dramatis personæ 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[Pg 854] 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.

In point of ability, the majority of the women are flimsy, flippant, and superficial. Mrs. Rose alone indicates much argumentative power.

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.

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 fistula in ano, 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?

WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.

COMMENTS OF THE PRESS.

"The New York Herald" (editorial article), September 9, 1853.

.... "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....

"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.

"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,[Pg 855] resolved by a coup d'état 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.

"'They made a solitude, and called it peace.'"

"Herald," September 10, 1853.

.... "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."

"National Democrat," September 5 (Rev. Chauncey C. Burr, editor).

"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. The Tribune 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 The Tribune, 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."

MOB CONVENTION, 1853.

1. Resolved, 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.

2. Resolved, 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.

3. Resolved, 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.

4. Resolved, That each human being is the sole judge of his or her sphere, and entitled to choose a profession without interference from others.[Pg 856]

5. Resolved, 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.

6. Resolved, 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.

7. Resolved, 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.

8. Resolved, 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.

Whereas, 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,

9. Resolved, 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.

10. Resolved, 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.

FIRST APPEAL OF 1854.

Woman's Rights.—Circulate the Petition.

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.

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[Pg 857] 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.

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.

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.

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."

The petitions to be circulated are the same as last year—one asking for the Just and Equal Rights of Women, and the other for Woman's Right of Suffrage. 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.

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.

Mrs. Stanton's Address is published in neat pamphlet form, in large type, and may be[Pg 858] 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.

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.

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.

All correspondence and orders for Address, petitions, etc., should be addressed to

Susan B. Anthony, General Agent, Rochester, N. Y.

June 22, 1854

SECOND APPEAL OF 1854.

To the Women of the State of New York:

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.

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.

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 unborn 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 honor, in the meanest[Pg 859] 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.

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.

"The slumber is broken, the sleeper is risen,
The day of the Goth and the Vandal is o'er.
And old Earth feels the tread of Freedom once more."

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

Chairman N. Y. State Woman's Rights Committee.

Seneca Falls, Dec. 11, 1854.

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[Pg 860] 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.

NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION, COOPER INSTITUTE, 1856.

Letter from Mrs. Stanton.

Seneca Falls, November 24, 1856.

Dear Lucy Stone:—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.

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.

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[Pg 861] of his crimes in his enfeebled mind, dwarfed body, and the shocking monstrosities of his deformed and crippled offspring.

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.

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.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Yours truly,

Letter From N. H. Whiting.

Marshfield, Mass., September 29, 1856.

Dear Friend:—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.

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....

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.

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.

You are engaged in a great work. May you have faith and resolution to continue to[Pg 862] 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.

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.

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.

N. H. Whiting.

Truly yours,

New York, November 25, 1856.

To the Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,

Antoinette L. Brown Blackwell.

Yours, for equal human rights,

Mr. Hattelle moved that a Committee be at once appointed to draft such a memorial, which was adopted.

Wendell Phillips 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.

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:[Pg 863]

THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS ALMANAC.

The History of Woman in Three Pictures.

I. Hindoo Laws. 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."

"The Creator formed woman for this purpose, that man might have sexual intercourse with her, and that children might be born from thence."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It is proper for every woman, after her husband's death, to burn herself in the fire with his corpse."

It will be seen that the following laws scarcely vary at all, in principle, from the preceding:

II. Anglo-Saxon Laws. 1848.—"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and covert she performs everything; and is, therefore, called in our Law-French a feme-covert, is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture. 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."—1 Blackstone Com., 356.

"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, aliter quam ad virum, ex causa regiminis et castigationis uxoris suae licite et rationabiliter pertinet (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, flagellis et Fustibus acriter verberare uxorem (to beat his wife severely with whips and cudgels); for others only modicam castigationem adhibere (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."—1 Blackstone, 366.[Pg 864]

"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."—2 Kent's Comm. on Am. Law, 129.

"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 such corporal restraints as he may deem necessary, 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."—Petersdorff's Abridgement, note.

"The husband hath, by law, power and dominion over his wife, and may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may beat her, but not in a violent or cruel manner."—Bacon's Abridgement, title "Baron aud Feme," B. 9.

"The wife is only the servant of her husband."—Baron Alderson (Wharton's Laws relating to the Women of England), p. 168.

"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."—Roper, Law of Husband and Wife, Book I., ch. xiii.

"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, bequeathing all his wife's earnings to his own illegitimate children. At the age of sixty-two, she was compelled, in order to gain her bread, to return to business."—Westminster Review, Oct., 1856.

Mr. Justice Coleridge's Judgment "in re Cochrane."—The facts were briefly these. A writ of habeas corpus 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, has a right to confine her in his own dwelling-house, and restrain her from liberty for an indefinite time, 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, "That there could be no doubt of the general dominion which the law of England attributes to the husband over the wife."—8 Dowling's P. C. 360. Quoted in Westminster Review, Oct., 1856.

III. Signs Of The Times. 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.[Pg 865]

There is near Trenton, says The Newark Advertiser, 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.

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.

Sale Of A Wife At Worcester, England.—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 The Worcester Chronicle:

"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."

Female Inventors.—"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 herself invented all three. If she has invented her tools as fast as she has found opportunity to use them, can more be asked?"—T. W. Higginson.

In the ancient Hindoo dramas, wives do not speak the same language with their husbands, but employ the dialect of slaves.

A correspondent of The London Spectator suggests:—"The employment of women as clerks at railway stations 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 woman in the right place.'"

The word courage is, in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, a feminine noun.

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!

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 my muskett, rest, bandileers, sword, and headpiece, my jacke, a fine paire of sheets, and a hutche."

Addison, in The Spectator, 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.

Sewing In New York.—"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."—-E. H. Chapin, "Moral Aspects of City Life."

The first "pilgrim" who stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock is said, by tradition, to have been a young girl, named Mary Chilton.[Pg 866]

The St. Louis Republican 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."

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, and indeed called mares in certain counties where genuine old English is still preserved."

Testimonial to Miss Mitchell.—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.

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.

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.—Journal of Commerce.

Learn to Swim.—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.

A Lady Horsebreaker in France.—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.—Galignani's Messenger.

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.[Pg 867]

"Women ruled all, and ministers of state
Were at the doors of women forced to wait—
Women, who've oft as sovereigns graced the land,
But never governed well at second-hand."

Churchill's Satires, a.d. 1761.

SENATOR ANTHONY.

"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.

"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."—Providence Journal, Edited by Ex-Governor Anthony.

WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE, 1857.

Wisconsin Report on the Suffrage Question.—The following extract from the report on the extension of the right of suffrage in Wisconsin, we find in The Milwaukee Free Democrat:

"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....

"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[Pg 868] 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 bona-fide 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.

"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.

"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.

"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[Pg 869] 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.

"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. Vox populi vox Dei. 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.

"David Noggle.
"J. T. Mills.

"I altogether prefer the Committee's amendment to the Senate bill.

Hopewell Coxe."

"February 27, 1857.

One Year's Work.—The following are a portion of the results of the Woman's Rights petitions, presented during the winter of 1856-7:

In Ohio and Wisconsin, Legislative Committees have reported favorably to the Right of Suffrage, and extracts from the reports are given above.

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.

The memorial presented to the New York Legislature, owing to some mistake, was not offered till too late for action.

Ohio Statute.—Bill passed by the Ohio Legislature, April 17, 1857.

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.

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.

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.

Maine Statute.—At the recent session of the Legislature of Maine, the following acts were passed:

"An Act relating to the property of deceased married women. Be it enacted," etc.

"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.

"An Act in relation to the rights of married women.

"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.

Female Suffrage in Kentucky.—Kentucky Revised Statutes, 1852, ch. 88. "Schools and Seminaries." Art. 6, Sec. 1:[Pg 870]

"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 any widow having a child between six and eighteen years of age, may also vote in person or by written proxy."

[But if the suffrage is not limited to widows who have a child between six and eighteen, but extended to unmarried, married, and childless 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].

Female Suffrage in Canada.—[The following is the Canadian law under which women vote. The omission of the word male 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."]

XVIII. and XIV. Victoria, Cap 48.—An Act for the better establishment and maintenance of Common Schools in Upper Canada. Passed July 24, 1850.

Sec. 1. Preamble—Repeals former acts.

Sec. 2. Enacts that the election of School Trustees shall take place on the second Wednesday of January in each year.

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 taxable inhabitants.

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.

Sec. 5. Provides that in all Country School Districts three trustees shall be similarly elected by a majority of the freeholders or householders of such school section.

"The Emancipation of Women."—A very curious controversy, on paper, is going on at present in the Reveu Philosophique et Religieuse, 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.

REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE OHIO SENATE, ON GIVING THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE TO FEMALES.

Columbus, 1858.

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:

"Whereas, The women of the State of Ohio are disfranchised by the Constitution solely on account of their sex;

"We do, respectfully, demand for them the right of suffrage—a right which involves[Pg 871] all other rights of citizenship—one that can not, justly, be withheld, as the following admitted principles of government show:

"First. 'All men are born free and equal.'

"Second. 'Government derives its just power from the consent of the governed.'

"Third. 'Taxation and representation are inseparable.'

"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."

Your Committee have given the subject referred to them a careful examination, and now

Report.

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.

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."

The House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1764, declared, "That the imposition of duties and taxes, by the Parliament of Great Britain, upon a people not represented 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." "If we are not represented we are slaves!" 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.

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, there is no class of persons 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 universal suffrage, that which excludes by constitutional taboo one-half of the people. To declare that a voice in the government is the right of all, and then give it only to a part—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.

The citizens thus robbed of a natural right complain of the injustice. They protest[Pg 872] against taxation without representation. They claim that all just 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 without representation."

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 873] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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[Pg 874] 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.

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. Our 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 inalienability and equality of human rights 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 shall be, inseparable,"—"governments, to be just, 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?

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.

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.

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 man's right to vote does not depend on his ability to perform physical labor, why should a woman's? 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,[Pg 875] contributes greatly to their order, decorum, and decency. Why should not the polls, also, be civilized by her presence?

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.

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.

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 choses in action, 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."

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 lawfully 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. This very thing has been done. 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.

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 twelve spoons!" All this[Pg 876] 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!

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,

"The law hath yet another hold on her."

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 competent 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:

"Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that;
You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live."

Such is the famous right of dower, which has been the subject of so many stupid eulogies by lawyers and commentators.

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[Pg 877] 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.

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"?

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 confiscated to the State 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.

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.[Pg 878] 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.

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, so long as she remained unmarried. If she married again, or at her death, it was to go to his heirs.

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.'"

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—the right of suffrage. 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.

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.

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, we have no right to debar her from the ballot-box.

Your Committee recommend the adoption of the following resolution:

Resolved, 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.

J. D. Cattell,
H. Canfield.

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Frances Wright	Frontispiece
Ernestine L. Wright	page 97
Frances D. Gage	129
Clarina Howard Nichols	193
Paulina Wright Davis	273
Lucretia Mott	369
Antoinette L. Brown	449
Amelia Bloomer	497
Susan B. Anthony	577
Martha C. Wright	641
Elizabeth Cady Stanton	721
Matilda Joslyn Gage	753

Elizabeth Cady Stanton,	Lydia Mott,
Ernestine L. Rose,	Antoinette L. Brown,
Samuel J. May,	Susan B. Anthony.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton,	Martha C. Weight,
Wendell Phillips,	Caroline M. Severance,
Caroline H. Dall,	Thomas W. Higginson,
Ernestine L. Rose,	Susan B. Anthony,
Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Committee.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, Edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

E-text prepared by Richard J. Shiffer and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

HISTORY of Woman Suffrage.

EDITED BY

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AND MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

ILLUSTRATED WITH STEEL ENGRAVINGS.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

1848-1861.

"GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED."

Second Edition.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY. Rochester, N. Y.: Charles Mann. London: 25 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Paris. G. Fischbacher, 33 Rue de Seine. 1889.

Copyright, 1881, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage.

Copyright, 1887, by Susan B. Anthony.

PREFACE.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

PRECEDING CAUSES.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER II.

WOMAN IN NEWSPAPERS.

CHAPTER III.

THE WORLD'S ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, LONDON, JUNE 12, 1840.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IV.

NEW YORK.

THE ROCHESTER CONVENTION, AUGUST 2, 1848.

"PASTORAL LETTER."

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER V.

REMINISCENCES.

EMILY COLLINS.

ERNESTINE L. ROSE.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VI.

OHIO.

SALEM CONVENTION.

AKRON CONVENTION.

LETTERS FROM FRIENDS IN OHIO.

MASSILON CONVENTION.

CLEVELAND NATIONAL CONVENTION.

MR. CHANNING'S LETTER.

MR. HIGGINSON'S LETTER.

WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.

NATIONAL CONVENTION AT CINCINNATI, OHIO.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VII.

REMINISCENCES BY CLARINA I. HOWARD NICHOLS.

VERMONT.

WISCONSIN.

KANSAS.

REPORT OF JUDICIARY FRANCHISE COMMITTEE ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE PETITIONS.

MISSOURI.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIII.

MASSACHUSETTS.

MISTRESS ANNE HUTCHINSON.

WOMAN'S EARLY POLITICAL RIGHTS.

THE FIRST STEP IN MASSACHUSETTS.

FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER, October 23d and 24th, 1850.

THE SECOND NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER.

THE UNA.

NEW ENGLAND WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION IN BOSTON.

HEARING BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, MARCH, 1857.

NEW ENGLAND CONVENTION.

REMINISCENCES OF PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS. BY E. C. S.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IX.

INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.

ROBERT DALE OWEN AND MARY ROBINSON. BY ROSAMOND DALE OWEN.

REMINISCENCES BY DR. MARY F. THOMAS AND AMANDA M. WAY.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER X.

PENNSYLVANIA.

PHILADELPHIA ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

TEMPERANCE.

WESTCHESTER CONVENTION. June 2, 1852.

E-text prepared by Richard J. Shiffer
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

HISTORY

of

Woman Suffrage.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON,
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AND
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
Rochester, N. Y.: Charles Mann.
London: 25 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.
Paris. G. Fischbacher, 33 Rue de Seine.
1889.

Copyright, 1881, by
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and
Matilda Joslyn Gage.

FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER,
October 23d and 24th, 1850.

HEARING BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE,
MARCH, 1857.

REMINISCENCES OF PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS.
BY E. C. S.

ROBERT DALE OWEN AND MARY ROBINSON.
BY ROSAMOND DALE OWEN.

WESTCHESTER CONVENTION.
June 2, 1852.

ANGELINA GRIMKÉ.
Reminiscences by E. C. S.

REMINISCENCES.
BY E. C. S.

NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE CONVENTION,
Rochester, N. Y., April 20 and 21, 1852.

THE SYRACUSE NATIONAL CONVENTION,
September 8, 9, and 10, 1852.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS STATE CONVENTION,
ROCHESTER, N. Y., NOVEMBER 30 AND DECEMBER 1, 1853.

ALBANY CONVENTION.
FEBRUARY 14 AND 15, 1854.

SARATOGA CONVENTIONS,
August, 1854-'55.

MOZART HALL,
NEW YORK, MAY 13, 14, 1858.

TENTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.
COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, MAY 10-11, 1860.

CONVENTION IN ALBANY AND HEARING BEFORE THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE IN THE ASSEMBLY CHAMBER.
February 7th and 8th, 1861.

WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.
BY MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.