CHAPTER XV.

WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.

Woman under old religions--Woman took part in offices of early

Christian Church Councils--Original sin--Celibacy of the clergy--Their

degrading sensuality--Feudalism--Marriage--Debasing externals and

daring ideas--Witchcraft--Three striking points for consideration--

Burning of Witches--Witchcraft in New England--Marriage with

devils--Rights of property not recognized in woman--Wife

ownership--Women legislated for as slaves--Marriage under the Greek

Church--The Salic and Cromwellian eras--The Reformation--Woman under

monastic rules in the home--The Mormon doctrine regarding woman; its

logical result--Milton responsible for many existing views in regard

to woman--Woman's subordination taught to-day--The See trial--Right

Rev. Coxe--Rev. Knox-Little--Pan-Presbyterians--Quakers not as liberal

as they have been considered--Restrictive action of the Methodist

Church--Offensive debate upon ordaining Miss Oliver--The Episcopal

Church and its restrictions--Sunday-school teachings--Week-day school

teachings--Sermon upon woman's subordination by the President of a

Baptist Theological Seminary--Professor Christlieb of Germany--"Dear,

will you bring me my shawl?"--Female sex looked upon as a

degradation--A sacrilegious child--Secretary Evarts, in the

Beecher-Tilton trial, upon woman's subordination--Women degraded in

science and education--Large-hearted men upon woman's degradation--

Wives still sold in the market-place as "mares," by ahalter around

their necks--Degrading servile labor performed by woman in Christian

countries--A lower degradation--"Queen's women"--"Government

women"--Interpolations in the Bible--Letter from Howard Crosby,

D.D., LL.D. 752

APPENDIX 801

LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.

VOL. I.

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

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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.

Individualism rather than Authority--Personal appearance of

Abolitionists--Clerical attempt to silence Woman--Double battle

against the tyranny of sex and color--Bigoted Abolitionists--James

G. Birney likes freedom on a Southern plantation, but not at his

own fireside--John Bull never dreamt that Woman would answer his

call--The venerable Thomas Clarkson received by the Convention

standing--Lengthy debate on "Female" delegates--The "Females"

rejected--William Lloyd Garrison refused to sit in the Convention.

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

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. 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 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, 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:

"That a Committee of five be appointed to prepare a correct list

of the members of this Convention, with instructions to include

in such list, all persons bearing credentials from any

Anti-Slavery body."

This motion at once opened the debate on the admission of women

delegates.

Mr. Phillips: When the call reached America we found that it was

an invitation to the friends of the slave of every nation and of

every clime. Massachusetts has for several years acted on the

principle of admitting women to an equal seat with men, in the

deliberative bodies of anti-slavery societies. When the

Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society received that paper, it

interpreted it, as it was its duty, in its broadest and most

liberal sense. If there be any other paper, emanating from the

Committee, limiting to one sex the qualification of membership,

there is no proof; and, as an individual, I have no knowledge

that such a paper ever reached Massachusetts. We stand here in

consequence of your invitation, and knowing our custom, as it

must be presumed you did, we had a right to interpret "friends of

the slave," to include women as well as men. In such

circumstances, we do not think it just or equitable to that

State, nor to America in general, that, after the trouble, the

sacrifice, the self-devotion of a part of those who leave their

families and kindred and occupations in their own land, to come

three thousand miles to attend this World's Convention, they

should be refused a place in its deliberations.

One of the Committee who issued the call, said: As soon as we

heard the liberal interpretation Americans had given to our first

invitation, we issued another as early as Feb. 15, in which the

description of those who are to form the Convention is set forth

as consisting of "gentlemen."

Dr. Bowring: I think the custom of excluding females is more

honored in its breach than in its observance. In this country

sovereign rule is placed in the hands of a female, and one who

has been exercising her great and benignant influence in opposing

slavery by sanctioning, no doubt, the presence of her illustrious

consort at an anti-slavery meeting. We are associated with a body

of Christians (Quakers) who have given to their women a great,

honorable, and religious prominence. I look upon this delegation

from America as one of the most interesting, the most

encouraging, and the most delightful symptoms of the times. I can

not believe that we shall refuse to welcome gratefully the

co-operation which is offered us.

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.

The Rev. Henry Grew, of Philadelphia: The reception of women as a

part of this Convention would, in the view of many, be not only a

violation of the customs of England, but of the ordinance of

Almighty God, who has a right to appoint our services to His

sovereign will.

Rev. Eben Galusha, New York: In support of the other side of this

question, reference has been made to your Sovereign. I most

cordially approve of her policy and sound wisdom, and commend to

the consideration of our American female friends who are so

deeply interested in the subject, the example of your noble

Queen, who by sanctioning her consort, His Royal Highness Prince

Albert, in taking the chair on an occasion not dissimilar to

this, showed her sense of propriety by putting her Head foremost

in an assembly of gentlemen. I have no objection to woman's being

the neck to turn the head aright, but do not wish to see her

assume the place of the head.

George Bradburn, of Mass.: We are told that it would be outraging

the customs of England to allow women to sit in this Convention.

I have a great respect for the customs of old England. But I ask,

gentlemen, if it be right to set up the customs and habits, not

to say prejudices of Englishmen, as a standard for the government

on this occasion of Americans, and of persons belonging to

several other independent nations. I can see neither reason nor

policy in so doing. Besides, I deprecate the principle of the

objection. In America it would exclude from our conventions all

persons of color, for there customs, habits, tastes, prejudices,

would be outraged by _their_ admission. And I do not wish to be

deprived of the aid of those who have done so much for this

cause, for the purpose of gratifying any mere custom or

prejudice. Women have furnished most essential aid in

accomplishing what has been done in the State of Massachusetts.

If, in the Legislature of that State, I have been able to do

anything in furtherance of that cause, by keeping on my legs

eight or ten hours day after day, it was mainly owing to the

valuable assistance I derived from the women. And shall such

women be denied seats in this Convention? My friend George

Thompson, yonder, can testify to the faithful services rendered

to this cause by those same women. He can tell you that when

"gentlemen of property and standing" in "broad day" and

"broadcloth," undertook to drive him from Boston, putting his

life in peril, it was our women who made their own persons a

bulwark of protection around him. And shall such women be refused

seats here in a Convention seeking the emancipation of slaves

throughout the world? What a misnomer to call this a World's

Convention of Abolitionists, when some of the oldest and most

thorough-going Abolitionists in the world are denied the right to

be represented in it by delegates of their own choice.

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.

George Thompson: I have listened to the arguments advanced on

this side and on that side of this vexed question. I listened

with profound attention to the arguments of Mr. Burnet, expecting

that from him, as I was justified in expecting, I should hear the

strongest arguments that could be adduced on this, or any other

subject upon which he might be pleased to employ his talents, or

which he might adorn with his eloquence. What are his arguments?

Let it be premised, as I speak in the presence of American

friends, that that gentleman is one of the best controversialists

in the country, and one of the best authorities upon questions of

business, points of order, and matters of principle. What are

the strongest arguments, which one of the greatest champions on

any question which he chooses to espouse, has brought forward?

They are these:

1st. That English phraseology should be construed according

to English usage.

2d. That it was never contemplated by the anti-slavery

committee that ladies should occupy a seat in this

Convention.

3d. That the ladies of England are not here as delegates.

4th. That he has no desire to offer an affront to the ladies

now present.

Here I presume are the strongest arguments the gentleman has to

adduce, for he never fails to use to the best advantage the

resources within his reach. I look at these arguments, and I

place on the other side of the question, the fact that there are

in this assembly ladies who present themselves as delegates from

the oldest societies in America. I expected that Mr. Burnet

would, as he was bound to do, if he intended to offer a

successful opposition to their introduction into this Convention,

grapple with the constitutionality of their credentials. I

thought he would come to the question of title. I thought he

would dispute the right of a convention assembled in

Philadelphia, for the abolition of slavery, consisting of

delegates from different States in the Union, and comprised of

individuals of both sexes, to send one or all of the ladies now

in our presence. I thought he would grapple with the fact, that

those ladies came to us who have no slavery from a country in

which they have slaves, as the representatives of two millions

and a half of captives. Let gentlemen, when they come to vote on

this question, remember, that in receiving or rejecting these

ladies, they acknowledge or despise [loud cries of No, no]. I ask

gentlemen, who shout "no," if they know the application I am

about to make. I did not mean to say you would despise the

ladies, but that you would, by your vote, acknowledge or despise

the parties whose cause they espouse. It appears we are prepared

to sanction ladies in the employment of all means, so long as

they are confessedly unequal with ourselves. It seems that the

grand objection to their appearance amongst us is this, that it

would be placing them on a footing of equality, and that would be

contrary to principle and custom. For years the women of America

have carried their banner in the van, while the men have humbly

followed in the rear. It is well known that the National Society

solicited Angelina Grimke to undertake a mission through New

England, to rouse the attention of the women to the wrongs of

slavery, and that that distinguished woman displayed her talents

not only in the drawing-room, but before the Senate of

Massachusetts. Let us contrast our conduct with that of the

Senators and Representatives of Massachusetts who did not disdain

to hear her. It was in consequence of her exertions, which

received the warmest approval of the National Society, that that

interest sprung up which has awakened such an intense feeling

throughout America. Then with reference to efficient management,

the most vigorous anti-slavery societies are those which are

managed by ladies.

If now, after the expression of opinion on various sides, the

motion should be withdrawn with the consent of all parties, I

should be glad. But when I look at the arguments against the

title of these women to sit amongst us, I can not but consider

them frivolous and groundless. The simple question before us is,

whether these ladies, taking into account their credentials, the

talent they have displayed, the sufferings they have endured, the

journey they have undertaken, should be acknowledged by us, in

virtue of these high titles, or should be shut out for the

reasons stated.

Mr. Phillips, being urged on all sides to withdraw his motion,

said: It has been hinted very respectfully by two or three

speakers that the delegates from the State of Massachusetts

should withdraw their credentials, or the motion before the

meeting. The one appears to me to be equivalent to the other. If

this motion be withdrawn we must have another. I would merely ask

whether any man can suppose that the delegates from Massachusetts

or Pennsylvania can take upon their shoulders the responsibility

of withdrawing that list of delegates from your table, which

their constituents told them to place there, and whom they

sanctioned as their fit representatives, because this Convention

tells us that it is not ready to meet the ridicule of the morning

papers, and to stand up against the customs of England. In

America we listen to no such arguments. If we had done so we had

never been here as Abolitionists. It is the custom there not to

admit colored men into respectable society, and we have been told

again and again that we are outraging the decencies of humanity

when we permit colored men to sit by our side. When we have

submitted to brick-bats, and the tar tub and feathers in America,

rather than yield to the custom prevalent there of not admitting

colored brethren into our friendship, shall we yield to parallel

custom or prejudice against women in Old England? We can not

yield this question if we would; for it is a matter of

conscience. But we would not yield it on the ground of

expediency. In doing so we should feel that we were striking off

the right arm of our enterprise. We could not go back to America

to ask for any aid from the women of Massachusetts if we had

deserted them, when they chose to send out their own sisters as

their representatives here. We could not go back to Massachusetts

and assert the unchangeableness of spirit on the question. We

have argued it over and over again, and decided it time after

time, in every society in the land, in favor of the women. We

have not changed by crossing the water. We stand here the

advocates of the same principle that we contend for in America.

We think it right for women to sit by our side there, and we

think it right for them to do the same here. We ask the

Convention to admit them; if they do not choose to grant it, the

responsibility rests on their shoulders. Massachusetts can not

turn aside, or succumb to any prejudices or customs even in the

land she looks upon with so much reverence as the land of

Wilberforce, of Clarkson, and of O'Connell. It is a matter of

conscience, and British virtue ought not to ask us to yield.

Mr. Ashurst: You are convened to influence society upon a subject

connected with the kindliest feelings of our nature; and being

the first assembly met to shake hands with other nations, and

employ your combined efforts to annihilate slavery throughout the

world, are you to commence by saying, you will take away the

rights of one-half of creation! This is the principle which you

are putting forward.

The Rev. A. Harvey, of Glasgow: It was stated by a brother from

America, that with him it is a matter of conscience, and it is a

question of conscience with me too. I have certain views in

relation to the teaching of the Word of God, and of the

particular sphere in which woman is to act. I must say, whether I

am right in my interpretations of the Word of God or not, that my

own decided convictions are, if I were to give a vote in favor of

females, sitting and deliberating in such an assembly as this,

that I should be acting in opposition to the plain teaching of

the Word of God. I may be wrong, but I have a conscience on the

subject, and I am sure there are a number present of the same

mind.

Captain Wanchope, R. N., delegate from Carlisle: I entreat the

ladies not to push this question too far. I wish to know whether

our friends from America are to cast off England altogether. Have

we not given £20,000,000 of our money for the purpose of doing

away with the abominations of slavery? Is not that proof that we

are in earnest about it?

James C. Fuller: One friend said that this question should have

been settled on the other side of the Atlantic. Why, it was there

decided in favor of woman a year ago.

James Gillespie Birney: It has been stated that the right of

women to sit and act in all respects as men in our anti-slavery

associations, was decided in the affirmative at the annual

meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in May, 1839. It is

true the claim was so decided on that occasion, but not by a

large majority; whilst it is also true that the majority was

swelled by the votes of the women themselves. I have just

received a letter from a gentleman in New York (Louis Tappan),

communicating the fact, that the persistence of the friends of

promiscuous female representation in pressing that practice on

the American Anti-Slavery Society, at its annual meeting on the

twelfth of last month, had caused such disagreement among the

members present, that he and others who viewed the subject as he

did, were then deliberating on measures for seceding from the old

organization.

Rev. C. Stout: My vote is that we confirm the list of delegates,

that we take votes on that as an amendment, and that we

henceforth entertain this question no more. Are we not met here

pledged to sacrifice all but everything, in order that we may do

something against slavery, and shall we be divided on this

_paltry question_ and suffer the whole tide of benevolence to be

stopped by a _straw_? No! You talk of being men, then be men!

Consider what is worthy of your attention.

Rev. Dr. Morrison: I feel, I believe, as our brethren from

America and many English friends do at this moment, that we are

treading on the brink of a precipice; and that precipice is the

awaking in our bosoms by this discussion, feelings that will not

only be averse to the great object for which we have assembled,

but inconsistent, perhaps, in some degree, with the Christian

spirit which, I trust, will pervade all meetings connected with

the Anti-Slavery cause. We have been unanimous against the common

foe, but we are this day in danger of creating division among

heartfelt friends. Will our American brethren put us in this

position? Will they keep up a discussion in which the delicacy,

the honor, the respectability of those excellent females who have

come from the Western world are concerned? I tremble at the

thought of discussing the question in the presence of these

ladies--for whom I entertain the most profound respect--and I am

bold to say, that but for the introduction of the question of

woman's rights, it would be impossible for the shrinking nature

of woman to subject itself to the infliction of such a discussion

as this.

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.

George Thompson: I hope, as the question is now decided, that Mr.

Phillips will give us the assurance that we shall proceed with

one heart and one mind.

Mr. Phillips replied: I have no doubt of it. There is no

unpleasant feeling in our minds. I have no doubt the women will

sit with as much interest behind the bar[6] as though the

original proposition had been carried in the affirmative. All we

asked was an expression of opinion, and, having obtained it, we

shall now act with the utmost cordiality.