Fidelity to the truth requires me to add one more melancholy fact, in
order to make this narrative of events complete, and that is, that Mr.
Packard has made merchandise of this stigma of Insanity he has branded me
with, and used it as a lucrative source of gain to himself, in the
following manner. He has made most pathetic appeals to the sympathies of
the public for their charities to be bestowed upon him, on the plea of his
great misfortune in having an insane wife to support--one who was
incapable of taking care of herself or her six children--and on this false
premise he has based a most pathetic argument and appeal to their
sympathies for pecuniary help, in the form of boxes of clothing for
himself and his destitute and defenceless children. These appeals have
been most generously responded to from the American Home Missionary
Society. So that when I returned to my home from the Asylum, I counted
twelve boxes of such clothing, some of which were very large, containing
the spoils he had thus purloined from this benevolent society, by entirely
false representations.
My family were not destitute. But on the contrary, were abundantly
supplied with a supernumerary amount of such missionary gifts, which had
been lavished upon us, at his request, before I was imprisoned. I had
often said to him, that I and my children had already more than a supply
for our wants until they were grown up. Now, what could he do with twelve
more such boxes? My son, Isaac, now in Chicago, and twenty-one years of
age, told me he had counted fifty new vests in one pile, and he had as
many pants and coats, and overcoats, and almost every thing else, of men's
wearing apparel, in like ratio. He said I had a pile of dress patterns
accumulated from these boxes, to one yard in depth in one solid pile. And
this was only one sample of all kinds of ladies' apparel which he had thus
accumulated, by his cunningly devised begging system.
Still, to this very date, he is pleading want and destitution as a basis
for more charities of like kind. He has even so moved the benevolent
sympathies of the widow Dickinson with whom he boarded, as to make her
feel that he was an honest claimant upon their charities in this line, on
the ground of poverty and destitution. She accordingly started a
subscription to procure him a suit of clothes, on the ground of his
extreme destitution, and finally succeeded in begging a subscription of
one hundred and thirteen dollars for his benefit, and presented it to him
as a token of sympathy and regard.
Another fact, he has put his property out of his hands, so that he can say
he has nothing. And should I sue him for my maintainance, I could get
nothing. His rich brother-in-law, George Hastings, supports the three
youngest children, mostly, thus leaving scarcely no claimants upon his own
purse, except his own personal wants. His wife and six children he has so
disposed of, as to be almost entirely independent of him of any support.
And it is my honest opinion, that had Sunderland people known of these
facts in his financial matters, they would not have presented him with one
hundred and thirteen dollars, as a token of their sympathy and esteem.
Still, looking at the subject from their stand-point, I have no doubt they
acted conscientiously in this matter. I have never deemed it my duty to
enlighten them on this subject, except as the truth is sought for from me,
in a few individual isolated cases. I do not mingle with the people
scarcely at all, and have sold none of my books among them. Self-defence
does not require me to seek the protection of enlightened public sentiment
now that the laws protect my personal liberty, while in Massachusetts.
But fidelity to the cause of humanity, especially the cause of "Married
Woman," requires me to make public the facts of this notorious
persecution, in order to have her true legal position known and fully
apprehended. And since my case is a practical illustration of what the law
is on this subject--showing how entirely destitute she is of any legal
protection, except what the will and wishes of her husband secures to
her--and also demonstrates the fact, that the common-law, everywhere, in
relation to married woman, not only gravitates towards an absolute
despotism, but even protects and sustains and defends a despotism of the
most arbitrary and absolute kind. Therefore, in order to have her social
position changed legally, the need of this change must first be seen and
appreciated by the common people--the law-makers of this Republic. And
this need or necessity for a revolution on this subject can be made to
appear in no more direct manner, than by a practical case such as my own
furnishes. As the need of a revolution of the law in relation to negro
servitude was made to appear, by the practical exhibition of the Slave
Code in "Uncle Tom's" experience, showing that all slaves were _liable_ to
suffer to the extent he did; so my experience, although like "Uncle
Tom's," an extreme case, shows how all married women are _liable_ to
suffer to the same extent that I have. Now justice to humanity claims that
such liabilities should not exist in any Christian government. The laws
should be so changed that such another outrage could not possibly take
place under the sanction of the laws of a Christian government.
As Uncle Tom's case aroused the indignation of the people against the
slave code, so my case, so far as it is known, arouses this same feeling
of indignation against those laws which protect married servitude. Married
woman needs legal emancipation from married servitude, as much as the
slave needed legal emancipation from his servitude.
Again, all slaves did not suffer under negro slavery, neither do all
married women suffer from this legalized servitude. Still, the principle
of slavery is wrong, and the principle of emancipation is right, and the
laws ought so to regard it. And this married servitude exposes the wife to
as great suffering as negro servitude did. It is my candid opinion, that
no Southern slave ever suffered more spiritual agony than I have suffered;
as I am more developed in my moral and spiritual nature than they are,
therefore more capable of suffering. I think no slave mother ever endured
more keen anguish by being deprived of her own offspring than I have in
being legally separated from mine. God grant that married woman's
emancipation may quickly follow in the wake of negro emancipation!