I deem it appropriate in this connection, to express the gratitude I feel
for the kind, practical sympathy, and liberal patronage, which has been
extended to me by the public, through the sale of my books. Had it not
been for your generous patronage, my kind patrons, I, and the noble cause
I represent, would have been crushed to the earth, so far as my influence
was concerned. For with no law to shield me, and with no "greenbacks" to
defend myself with, what could I have done to escape another imprisonment,
either in some asylum or poorhouse?
It has been, and still is, the verdict of public sentiment, which the
circulation of these books has developed, that has hitherto shielded me
from a second kidnapping. And this protection you have kindly secured to
me by buying my books. I would willingly have given my books a gratuitous
circulation to obtain this protection, if I could possibly have done so.
But where could the $3000.00 I have paid out for the expense of printing
and circulating these books have been obtained? No one could advance me
money safely, so long as I was Mr. Packard's lawful wife, and I could not
even get a divorce, without the means for prosecuting the suit. Indeed, it
was your patronage alone, which could effectually help me on to a
self-reliant platform--the platform of "greenback independence."
I have never made any appeal to the charities of the public, neither can I
do so, from principle. For so long as I retain as good health as it is my
blessed privilege still to enjoy, I feel conscientiously bound to work for
my living, instead of living on the toil of other. My strong and vigorous
health is the only capital that I can call my own. All my other natural,
inalienable rights, are entirely in the hands of my persecutor, and
subject to his control. But while this capital holds good, I am not a
suitable object of charity. I am prosecuting business on business
principles, and I am subject to the same laws of success or failure as
other business persons are. I intend, and hope to make my business
lucrative and profitable, as well as philanthropic and benevolent.
I maintain that I have no claims upon the charities of the public, while
at the same time I maintain that I have a claim upon the sympathies of our
government. It is our government, the man government of America, who have
placed me in my deplorable condition; for I am just where their own laws
place me, and render all other married women _liable_ to be placed in the
same position. It is the "Common Law" which our government took from
English laws which makes a nonentity of a married woman, whose existence
is wholly subject to another, and whose identity is only recognized
through another. In short, the wife is dead, while her husband lives, as
to any legal existence. And where the Common Law is not modified, or set
aside by the Statute Laws, this worst form of English despotism is copied
as a model law for our American people!
Yes, I feel that I have a just claim upon the sympathies of our
government. Therefore, in selling my books, I have almost entirely
confined my application to the men, not the women, for the men alone
constitute the American government. And my patrons have responded to my
claims upon their sympathy, in a most generous, and praiseworthy manner.
Yea, so almost universally have I met with the sympathy of those gentlemen
that I have freely conversed with on this subject, that I cherish the firm
conviction, that our whole enlightened government would "en masse,"
espouse the principles I defend, and grant all, and even more than I ask
for married woman, could they but see the subject in the light those now
do, whom I have conversed with on this subject. I am fully satisfied that
all that our manly government needs to induce them to change this "Common
Law" in relation to woman is, only to know what this law is, and how
cruelly it subjects the women in its practical application. For man is
made, and constituted by God himself, to be the protector of woman. And
when he is true to this his God given nature, he is her protector. And all
true men who have not perverted or depraved their God-like natures, will,
and do, as instinctively protect their own wives, as they do themselves.
And the wives of such men do not need any other law, than this law of
manliness, to protect them or their interests.
But taking the human race as they now are, we find some exceptions to this
general rule. And it is for these exceptions that the law is needed, and
not for the great masses. Just as the laws against crimes are made for the
criminals, not for the masses of society, for they do not need them; they
are a law unto themselves, having their own consciences for their Judges
and Jurors. I see no candid, just reason why usurpation, and injustice,
and oppression, should not be legislated against, in this form, as well as
any other. Developed, refined, sensitive woman, is as capable of feeling
wrongs as any other human being. And why should she not be legally
protected from them as well as a man? My confidence in this God-like
principle of manliness is almost unbounded. Therefore I feel that a hint
is all that is needed, to arouse this latent principle of our government
into prompt and efficient action, that of extending legal protection to
subjected married woman.
There is one word I will here say to my patrons, who have the first
installment of my "Great Drama" in their possession, that you have
doubtless found many things in that book which you cannot now understand,
and are therefore liable to misinterpret and misapprehend my real meaning.
I therefore beg of you not to judge me harshly at present, but please
suspend your judgment until this allegory is published entire, and then
you will be better prepared to pass judgment upon it. Supposing Bunyan's
allegory of his Christian pilgrim had isolated parts of it published,
separate from the whole, and we knew nothing about the rest, should we not
be liable to misinterpret his real meaning?
Another thing, I ask you to bear in mind, this book was written when my
mind was at its culminating point of spiritual or mental torture, as it
were, and this may serve in your mind as an excuse, for what may seem to
you, as extravagant expressions; while to me, they were only the simple
truth as I experienced it. No one can judge of these feelings correctly,
until they have been in my exact place and position; and since this is an
impossibility, you have a noble opportunity for the exercise of that
charity towards me which you would like to have extended to yourselves in
exchange of situations.
A person under extreme physical torture, gives utterance to strong
expressions, indicating extreme anguish. Have we, on this account, any
reason or right to call him insane? So a person in extreme spiritual or
mental agony, has a right to express his feelings in language
corresponding to his condition, and we have no right to call him insane
for doing so.
Upon a calm and candid review of these scenes, from my present standpoint,
I do maintain that the indignant feelings which I still cherish towards
Mr. Packard, and did cherish towards Dr. McFarland, for their treatment of
me, were not only natural, sane feelings, but also were Christian
feelings. For Christ taught us, both by his teachings and example, that we
ought to be angry at sin, and even hate it, with as marked a feeling as we
loved good. "I, the Lord, hate evil." And so should we. But at the same
time we should not sin, by carrying this feeling so far, as to desire to
revenge the wrong-doer, or punish him ourselves, for then we go too far to
exercise the feeling of forgiveness towards him, even if he should repent.
We are not then following Christ's directions, "Be ye angry and sin not."
Now I am not conscious of ever cherishing one revengeful feeling towards
my persecutors; while, at the same time, I have prayed to God, most
fervently, that he would inflict a just punishment upon them for their
sins against me, if they could not be brought to repent without. For my
heart has ever yearned to forgive them, from the first to the last, on
this gospel condition.
I think our government has been called to exercise the same kind of
indignation towards those conspirators who have done all they can do to
overthrow it; and yet, they stand ready to forgive them, and restore them
to their confidence, on the condition of practical repentance. And I say
further, that it would have been wrong and sinful for our government to
have witheld this expression of their resentment towards them, and let
them crush it out of existence, without trying to defend itself. I say it
did right in defending itself with a resistance corresponding to the
attack. So I, in trying to defend myself against this conspiracy against
my personal liberty, have only acted on the self-defensive principle.
Neither have I ever aggressed on the rights of others in my self-defence.
I have simply defended my own rights.
In my opinion, it would be no more unreasonable to accuse the inmates of
"Libby Prison" with insanity, because they expressed their resentment of
the wrongs they were enduring in strong language, than it is to accuse me
of insanity for doing the same thing while in my prison. For prison life
is terrible under any circumstances. But to be confined amongst raving
maniacs, for years in succession, is horrible in the extreme. For myself,
I should not hesitate one moment which to choose, between a confinement in
an insane asylum, as I was, or being burned at the stake. Death, under the
most aggravated forms of torture, would now be instantly chosen by me,
rather than life in an insane asylum. And whoever is disposed to call this
"strong language," I say, let them try it for themselves as I did, and
_then_ let them say whether the expression is any stronger than the case
justifies. For until they have tried it, they can never imagine the
horrors of the maniac's ward in Jacksonville Insane Asylum.
In this connection it may be gratifying to my patrons and readers both, to
tell them how I came to write _such_ a book, instead of an ordinary book
in the common style of language. It was because such a kind of book was
presented to my mind, and no other was. It was under these circumstances
that this kind of inspiration came upon me.
The day after my interview with the Trustees, the Doctor came to my room
to see what was to be done. His first salutation was, "Well, Mrs. Packard,
the Trustees seemed to think that you hit your mark with your gun."
"Did they?" said I. "And was it that, which caused such roars and roars of
laughter from the Trustees' room after I left?"
"Yes. Your document amused them highly. Now, Mrs. Packard, I want you to
give me a copy of that document, for what is worth hearing once is worth
hearing twice."
"Very well," said I, "I will. And I should like to give the Trustees a
copy, and send my father one, and some others of the Calvinistic clergy.
But it is so tedious for me to copy anything, how would it do to get a few
handbills or tracts printed, and send them where we please?"
"You may," was his reply, "and I will pay the printer."
"Shall I add anything to it; that is, what I said to the Trustees, and so
forth?"
"Yes, tell the whole! Write what you please!"
With this most unexpected license of unrestricted liberty, I commenced
re-writing and preparing a tract for the press. But before twenty-four
hours had elapsed since this liberty license was granted to my hitherto
prison-bound intellect, the vision of a big book began to dawn upon my
mind, accompanied with the most delightful feelings of satisfaction with
my undertaking. And the next time the Doctor called, I told him that it
seemed to me that I must write a book--a _big book_--and "that is the
worst of it," said I, "I don't want a large book, but I don't see how I
can cut it down, and do it justice. I want to lay two train of cars," said
I, "across this continent--the Christian and the Calvinistic. Then I want
to sort out all the good and evil found in our family institutions, our
Church and State institutions, and our laws, and all other departments of
trades and professions, &c., and then come on with my two train of cars,
and gather up this scattered freight, putting the evil into the
Calvinistic train, and the good into the Christian train, and then
engineer them both on to their respective terminus. These thoughts are all
new and original with me, having never thought of such a thing, until this
sort of mental vision came before my mind. What shall I do, Doctor?"
"Write it out just as you see it."
He then furnished me with paper and gave directions to the attendants to
let no one disturb me, and let me do just as I pleased. And I commenced
writing out this mental vision; and in six week's time I penciled the
substance of "The Great Drama," which, when written out for the press,
covers two thousand five hundred pages! Can I not truly say my train of
thought was engineered by the "Lightning Express?" This was the kind of
inspiration under which my book was thought out and written. I had no
books to aid me, but Webster's large Dictionary and the Bible. It came
wholly through my own reason and intellect, quickened into unusual
activity by some spiritual influence, as it seemed to me. The production
is a remarkable one, as well as the inditing of it a very singular
phenomenon.
The estimation in which the book is held by that class in that Asylum who
are "spirit mediums," and whose only knowledge of its contents they wholly
derive from their clairvoyant powers of reading it, without the aid of
their natural vision, it may amuse a class of my readers to know. It was a
fact the attendants told me of, that my book and its contents, was made a
very common topic of remark in almost every ward in the house; while all
this time, I was closeted alone in my room writing it, and they never saw
me or my book. I would often be greatly amused by the remarks they made
about it, as they were reported to me by witnesses who heard them. Such as
these: "I have read Mrs. Packard's book through, and it is the most
amusing thing I ever read." "Calvinism is dead--dead as a herring." "Mrs.
Packard drives her own team, and she drives it beautifully, too." "The
Packard books are all over the world, Norway is full of them. They
perfectly devour the Packard books in Norway." "Mrs. Packard finds a great
deal of fault with the Laws and the Government, and she has reason to."
"She defends a higher and better law than our government has, and she'll
be in Congress one of these days, helping to make new laws!"
If this prophetess had said that _woman's influence_ would be felt in
Congress, giving character to the laws, I might have said I believed she
had uttered a true prophecy.
One very intelligent patient, who was a companion of mine, and had read
portions of my book, came to my room one morning with some verses which
she had penciled the night previous, by moonlight, on the fly-leaf of her
Bible, which she requested me to read, and judge if they were not
appropriate to the character of my book. She said she had been so
impressed with the thought that she must get up and write something, that
she could not compose herself to sleep until she had done so; when she
wrote these verses, but could not tell a word she had written the next
morning, except the first line. I here give her opinions of the book in
her own poetic language, as she presented them to me.