LUCRETIA MOTT
1793-1880
Lucretia Coffin was a Quaker, born on the quaint little island of
Nantucket. Her father “followed the sea,” captain of a whaler, and
was often gone for long periods of time. So it was the mother who was
responsible for the early training of the six children. Thrift and
efficient housekeeping Lucretia learned, along with the Quaker doctrine
of non-resistance, and a thorough knowledge of the Bible.
When she was twelve, Captain Coffin forsook the sea and moved his
family to Boston. Public schools there gave Lucretia a feeling of
sympathy for the patient struggling poor which was always a prominent
trait in her character.
Later she was sent to a Friends’ boarding-school at Nine Partners, New
York, and stayed for two years, with no holidays and no vacation. A
strict school it was, for though both boys and girls were the pupils,
they were not allowed to speak to each other unless they were near
relatives in which case they might talk on certain days over the fence
that separated their playgrounds. Punishment Lucretia Coffin could bear
herself far more easily than she could see some one else endure it;
when for some trifling misdemeanor, a little boy, a cousin of James
Mott, one of the teachers, was locked up in a dark closet and given
only bread and water, Lucretia managed to slip into the forbidden side
of the house and supply him with more substantial food.
One of the instructors left the school, and fifteen-year-old Lucretia
became an assistant teacher, working with her classes in the daytime,
and with her books by the light of a solitary candle far into the
night. A year later she was made a regular teacher, with a salary of a
hundred dollars, her living and tuition for one of her little sisters.
The two young pedagogues, James Mott and Lucretia Coffin, found that
they had many ideas in common--ability, and a desire for knowledge and
a wider culture--so they formed a French class and had lessons for six
weeks. Such good friends they became that when she was eighteen and he
a few years older, they became engaged and were married and settled
in Philadelphia. He was quiet, reserved, serious; she bright, active,
very pretty. And after they had worked together for a great cause, they
loved each other more deeply than ever.
As a very young girl Lucretia Mott had been interested in slavery.
Her sympathy had first been enlisted from reading in her schoolbooks
Clarkson’s vivid picture of the slave ships. Many years later she
repeated word for word a description of the horrors of the “middle
passage,” which she had memorized from a reader. In 1818 on a journey
to Virginia, she had a first affecting glimpse of the slaves themselves.
This trip to the South was for the purpose of holding religious
meetings, for early that year Lucretia Mott discovered her great
gift--public speaking. Among the Friends it was no uncommon thing for
women to take part in meeting, and Mrs. Mott soon became one of their
favorite preachers. She had a real power over her audiences--her
slight figure, her delicate, charming face in the Quaker bonnet, at
once strong and tender, her sweetness of voice added to the convincing
earnestness of her manner.
People of all denominations went miles to hear her. Soon she began
traveling around the country, speaking in Quaker meeting-houses,
telling her listeners of the peace-loving principles of the Friends,
pointing out the evils of injustice in any form, and always, in
season and out of season, emphasizing the sin of slavery. Long before
Lundy and Garrison began their newspapers, long before Garrison and
Wendell Phillips were thundering against slavery and urging immediate
emancipation, this small sweet-faced Friend, mild and gentle in nature,
was blazing the way for the anti-slavery movement, a pioneer among the
advocates for freedom.
Through New York State, into New England and across to Nantucket,
as far south as Virginia, west to Ohio and Indiana, she traveled by
stage-coach or boat or carriage. Speaking at seventy-one meetings
in a ten weeks’ trip seems to have been no unusual record for her.
She always wore a simple, dove-colored dress, with a crossed muslin
kerchief at the neck, and a prim little cap. But the secret of her
magnetic personality was that she spoke because she was conscious of a
power impelling her to do so. Words came to her, as tears come, without
will of her own, because her heart was full and she couldn’t help
it. Though the leading abolitionists were often described as raving
fanatics, Lucretia Mott was noted for her unfailing composure, her
calm tone of profound faith, her lack of vehement accents and violent
gestures.
“Notice was given here for a religious meeting,” said the distressed
elders in one western town that bordered on a slave state. “We do hope,
Mrs. Mott, you will not name slavery, or allude to it this afternoon.”
“Why,” was her answer, “that is eminently a religious subject. I should
consider myself disobedient to the voice of God in my soul if I did not
speak against it.”
Her audience there was so large that many had to stand. Ordinarily they
would have become restless. For an hour and a half she held them,
closely attentive, and though she said some things far from palatable
to that prejudiced, excited, border section, her sincerity commanded
their respect and they crowded the hall again that evening to hear her
speak.
Gradually the opposition to slavery, which she had been fostering,
won adherents to its cause. The Garrison campaign began. Friends of
freedom came out openly and spoke their views. In 1833 a national
anti-slavery society was formed in Philadelphia. Of the sixty or
seventy delegates, four were women, Lucretia Mott among them. They were
present by invitation, as listeners only. But during the discussion of
the proposed constitution, when one of the women briefly, modestly,
suggested transposing certain sentences, to put first the reference
to the Declaration of Independence, the men were so impressed that
they made the change immediately. But more than this Mrs. Mott, a
listener, accomplished. Her encouragement strengthened and confirmed
their purpose at a critical moment when some overcautious souls urged a
policy of delay.
The following year the Female Anti-slavery Society was formed, the
majority of its members Friends, and Lucretia Mott served as president
during most of its existence. For women to have an association of
their own was almost unheard of, in the eighteen thirties. They had no
idea of the meaning of preambles, resolutions and voting; and later
they confessed with amusement that they had to invite a colored man to
preside at their first meeting, to get them started.
In 1840 came a world’s anti-slavery convention in London, and Lucretia
Mott was one of the delegates from the United States. Full of
enthusiasm the first group arrived, only to find that women were not to
be recognized. The doors were shut against them, because of the old,
old prejudice--women should stay at home and be entertaining, public
affairs would rob them of their sweetest charm.
Wendell Phillips protested and moved that the ladies be admitted. The
excited discussion lasted for several hours, but when the vote was
taken the majority against the resolution was overwhelming. So in
the gallery sat Lucretia Mott, with Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Wendell
Phillips, and other women delegates, and their recruit, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton.
Arriving some days later, Garrison felt so outraged at this treatment
of his co-workers that he refused to take his seat in the convention.
With two other masculine members from the American Society he sat
up-stairs with the ladies. The British were scandalized--what sort
of world’s convention was this, with the founder of the greatest
anti-slavery movement of the century debarred from taking his seat on
the floor? They sent him a special invitation, but Garrison was firm.
He remembered that Lucretia Mott had been the first to shake his hand
when he came out of prison!
But before the meetings were over a tea was given with more than
four hundred guests; and there, much to the men’s consternation,
Lucretia Mott spoke. With a dignity that carried great force, with
real eloquence, she chose this way of addressing the convention. The
delegates found themselves listening with pleasure and admiration, and
broke into applause.
While they were in London, Lucretia Mott had a call from Clarkson, the
English abolitionist, then an old, old man of eighty-one, almost blind,
and they had a long talk together.
It is difficult for people of to-day to appreciate what peril and
reproach it meant to take a stand against slavery. Individuals who
dared to do so had to face private detraction and public abuse,
sometimes actual physical violence. On the side of slavery was
ranged all the power of trade and politics, of church and state, of
respectability and riot. This opposition became more and more bitter,
more and more popular, more and more widely spread. In equal or greater
ratio the earnestness and zeal of the anti-slavery group increased.
They were held up to odium and ridicule, for the spirit of persecution
was abroad. Lucretia Mott’s old friends scorned her and laughed at her.
They passed her on the street without speaking.
“But,” said she, “misrepresentation and ridicule and abuse heaped on
these reforms do not in the least deter me from my duty.”
Mobs of men and women would assemble outside the halls where
anti-slavery meetings were being held. They stoned the windows, they
broke in, leaped on the platform, and shouted so loudly that the
speaker’s voice was lost in the noise. Pennsylvania Hall, dedicated
to “liberty and the rights of man,” was surrounded by a crowd while
Lucretia Mott was addressing an audience of Philadelphia women, and
brickbats were hurled through the windows. The next day, shortly after
the meeting had adjourned, the mob set the hall on fire, then marched
through the streets, threatening an attack on the Motts’ house. The
children were sent away to a place of safety, and the little Quaker
lady, with her husband and a few friends, sat quietly waiting for the
crowd to come. But their fury was turned against another part of the
city and the Motts were safe for that night.
Shortly afterward they were sitting in the parlor one evening when they
heard confused noises and cries that came nearer and nearer--an angry
rumble hard to describe, but all too familiar to the experienced ears
of negroes and abolitionists. In the crowd was a young man who knew the
Quaker family. “On to the Motts’!” he cried, and purposely ran up the
wrong street, making several quick turnings. The rioters followed him
blindly until he slipped away from them, and a second time the Motts
were saved from violence.
In New York City an anti-slavery meeting was broken up by the crowd
and Garrison and other speakers roughly handled. Lucretia Mott, whose
fears and thoughts were never for herself, always unshrinking and
self-possessed in the stormiest scenes, noticed that some of the women
looked timid.
“Won’t thee look after the others?” she asked the gentleman who
accompanied her.
“Then who will take care of you?”
“This man will see me through,” she said, putting her hand on the arm
of a big ruffian in a red shirt. Roused by this unexpected appeal to
his chivalry he made way for her through the crowd and escorted her
safely to the house where she was staying.
The next day in a restaurant near the hall, she recognized him and
sitting down at his table began talking with him. When he left he asked:
“Who is that lady?”
“Lucretia Mott.”
Dumfounded for a moment he shook his head and then said, “Well, she’s a
good sensible woman!”
In her own home Lucretia Mott sheltered fugitive slaves, till it became
widely known as a place of refuge. Many a poor negro she helped on his
way to Canada, by the Underground Railroad. In the entrance hall of
the Mott house there stood two roomy armchairs which the family called
“the beggars’ chairs,” for there applicants, rich and poor, known and
unknown, black and white, waited to see Mrs. Mott.
Almost incredible was the opposition she met. Even the gentle Quakers
reproached her for “lugging in” slavery at their meetings. Many of
them wished she would resign. A minority wanted to disown her. They
refused the use of their meeting-houses for abolition lectures. When
she was speaking away from Philadelphia they allowed her to stay at
country taverns, instead of inviting her to their homes--a great breach
of hospitality. They discussed taking away her “approved minister’s
minute,” which introduced her to Quaker communities. But in justice
to herself, and because she loved the society and its traditions and
desired to remain a Friend, she was so careful that they could bring no
case against her.
Never did she compromise her principles. Never did she ask for police
protection, though the mob clamored and howled around the building.
And never did she meet bodily harm. She lived the Quaker doctrine
of non-resistance, and did not believe in repelling violence with
violence. Holding that slavery was wrong, the Motts decided to use
nothing made with slave labor. That meant giving up sugar and candy
and cotton cloth. Most of all, it meant giving up the cotton goods
commission business in which for the first time James Mott was finding
it possible to make a comfortable living. Yet unflinchingly they
sacrificed material prosperity for the spiritual gain. Mrs. Mott opened
a school and they managed to get along until a new business could be
established.
After the Civil War colored people were not allowed to ride in the
Philadelphia street-cars except in certain ones reserved for them.
One rainy day Lucretia Mott saw a negress, evidently in poor health,
standing on the platform in a cold drizzle. She asked the conductor
to let her enter the car, but he refused. Immediately Mrs. Mott went
outside and stood by the woman. The famous Mrs. Mott, seventy years
old, riding in the rain on the platform of his car? That would never
do! The conductor begged her to come in.
“Not without this woman--I can not!” was the reply.
“Oh, well, bring her in then,” he said. And soon the company changed
the rule discriminating against colored passengers.
After the fugitive slave law was passed in 1850 many exciting cases
came up in Philadelphia. Perhaps the most famous was the trial of a
negro named Daniel Webster Dangerfield, who was arrested, charged with
being a fugitive slave. The alleged master engaged a famous lawyer
who was later attorney-general of the United States. The trial lasted
all one day, into the night and the next day; all that time Lucretia
Mott with her knitting sat in the crowded room beside the poor ragged
prisoner, like a guardian spirit. The opposing counsel asked that her
chair be moved, fearing that her face would influence the jury!
In the court the negro won; but outside a rabble surged up and down,
threatening to give him over to his Maryland master, while inside a
group of young Quakers was equally determined that he should keep his
hard-won freedom. Another colored man, resembling him, was driven
away from the court-house in the carriage, while Dangerfield walked a
few squares with some of his friends, then was sent eight miles to an
unsuspected station of the Underground Railroad, and in a few days was
safe in Canada.
“I have heard a great deal of Mrs. Mott,” said the opposing lawyer at
the conclusion of the trial, “but never saw her before to-day. She is
an angel!”
Soon after he joined the party of freedom. Asked how he dared to
make the change, with so many interests arrayed on the other side,
his answer was, “Do you think there is anything I dare not do, after
sitting in that court room facing Lucretia Mott?”
With all her public work this gentle Friend was first of all a womanly
woman, a fine housekeeper, a splendid mother, a devoted wife. Her
letters speak constantly of the varied activities of her hands--of
doing the family ironing, making mince meat for forty pies, sewing
and putting down carpets, knitting, and making carpet-rags and the
children’s clothes. She was herself the best answer to the argument
that public affairs must necessarily take a woman’s attention from her
household.
For years the abolitionists felt their cause hopeless. The very utmost
they could do would be a lifelong protest against slavery. But Lucretia
Mott lived to see freedom for the negroes an accomplished fact. Nor did
she confine her work to this one cause. She was as firm an advocate
of woman’s equality with man, an able speaker for woman’s rights in
that early day when the subject met only ridicule and abuse. She used
her eloquence for temperance, for the advancement of the freedmen, for
peace through arbitration.
Instead of averted faces and open condemnation, in her last years
she met everywhere with tenderness and veneration. And her face was
like that of a transfigured saint, for she was without jealousy or
bitterness, free from malice, incapable of hate. She was a preacher, a
reformer, a woman commanding our admiration.
Exactly how much she did for abolition in that half-century of
agitation and reform can not be measured accurately. She planted the
seed and encouraged others. As famous and as much abused as Garrison,
as popular a speaker as Phillips, she antedated them both. She was a
veritable pioneer in the great movement that culminated in Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation.