We are told that it is not within "the province of woman" to

discuss the subject of slavery; that it is a "political

question," and that we are "stepping out of our sphere" when we

take part in its discussion. It is not true that it is merely a

political question; it is likewise a question of justice, of

humanity, of morality, of religion; a question which, while it

involves considerations of immense importance to the welfare, and

prosperity of our country, enters deeply into the home--concerns

the every-day feelings of millions of our fellow beings. Whether

the laborer shall receive the reward of his labor, or be driven

daily to unrequited toil: whether he shall walk erect in the

dignity of conscious manhood, or be reckoned among the beasts

which perish; whether his bones and sinews shall be his own, or

another's; whether his child shall receive the protection of its

natural guardian, or be ranked among the live-stock of the

estate, to be disposed of as the caprice or interest of the

master may dictate; whether the sun of knowledge shall irradiate

the hut of the peasant, or the murky cloud of ignorance brood

darkly over it; whether "every one shall have the liberty to

worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience," or

man assume the prerogative of Jehovah and impiously seek to plant

himself upon the throne of the Almighty. These considerations are

all involved in the question of liberty or slavery.

And is a subject comprehending interests of such magnitude,

merely a "political question," and one in which woman "can take

no part without losing something of the modesty and gentleness

which are her most appropriate ornaments"? May not the "ornament

of a meek and quiet spirit" exist with an upright mind and

enlightened intellect? Must woman necessarily be less gentle

because her heart is open to the claims of humanity, or less

modest because she feels for the degradation of her enslaved

sisters, and would stretch forth her hand for their rescue?

By the Constitution of the United States, the whole physical

power of the North is pledged for the suppression of domestic

insurrections; and should the slaves maddened by oppression

endeavor to shake off the yoke of the task-master, the men of the

North are bound to make common cause with the tyrant, to put down

at the point of the bayonet every effort on the part of the slave

for the attainment of his freedom. And when the father, husband,

son, and brother shall have left their homes to mingle in the

unholy warfare; "to become the executioners of their brethren, or

to fall themselves by their hands," will the mother, wife,

daughter, and sister feel that they have no interest in this

subject? Will it be easy to convince them that it is no concern

of theirs, that their homes are rendered desolate and their

habitations the abodes of wretchedness? Surely this consideration

is of itself sufficient to arouse the slumbering energies of

woman, for the overthrow of a system which thus threatens to lay

in ruins the fabric of her domestic happiness; and she will not

be deterred from the performance of her duty to herself, her

family, and her country, by the cry of "political question."

But, admitting it to be a political question, have we no interest

in the welfare of our country? May we not permit a thought to

stray beyond the narrow limits of our own family circle and of

the present hour? May we not breathe a sigh over the miseries of

our countrywomen nor utter a word of remonstrance against the

unjust laws that are crushing them to the earth? Must we witness

"the headlong rage of heedless folly" with which our nation is

rushing onward to destruction, and not seek to arrest its

downward course? Shall we silently behold the land which we love

with all the heart-warm affection of children, rendered a hissing

and a reproach throughout the world by the system which is

already "tolling the death-knell of her decease among the

nations"?

No; the events of the last two years have "cast their dark

shadows before," overclouding the bright prospects of the future,

and shrouding our country in more than midnight gloom; and we can

not remain inactive. Our country is as dear to us as to the

proudest statesman; and the more closely our hearts cling to "our

altars and our homes," the more fervent are our aspirations, that

every inhabitant of our land may be protected in his fireside

enjoyments by just and equal laws; that the foot of the tyrant

may no longer invade the domestic sanctuary, nor his hand tear

asunder those whom God himself has united by the most holy ties.

Let our course then still be onward! Justice, humanity,

patriotism; every high and every holy motive urge us forward, and

we dare not refuse to obey. The way of duty lies open before us,

and though no pillar of fire be visible to the outward sense, yet

an unerring light shall illumine our pathway, guiding us through

the sea of persecution and the wilderness of prejudice and

error, to the promised land of freedom, where "every man shall

sit under his own vine and fig-tree, and none shall make him

afraid."

THANKFUL SOUTHWICK[64] moved the following:

_Resolved_, That it is the duty of all those who call themselves

Abolitionists, to make the most vigorous efforts to procure for

the use of their families the products of FREE LABOR, so that

their hands may be clean in this particular when inquisition is

made for blood.

ESTHER MOORE made remarks upon the importance of carrying into

effect the resolutions that had been passed.

This was the last meeting held in Pennsylvania Hall! Business

connected with the safety of the building made it necessary for

members of the board of managers to pass several times through the

saloon, when this Convention was in session, and they said

they never saw a more dignified, calm, and intrepid body of

persons assembled. Although the building was surrounded all day

by the mob who crowded about the doors, and at times even

attempted to enter the saloon, yet the women were perfectly

collected, unmoved by the threatening tempest. The cause which

they were assembled to promote is one that nerves the soul to

deeds of noble daring. The Convention had already adjourned late

in the afternoon, when the mob which destroyed the building began

to assemble. The doors were blocked up by the crowd, and the

streets almost impassable from the multitude of "fellows of the

baser sort." But these "American Women" passed through the whole

without manifesting any sign of fear, as if conscious of their

own greatness and of the protecting care of the God of the

oppressed.

We give our readers these interesting pages of anti-slavery history

because they were the initiative steps to organized public action and

the Woman Suffrage Movement _per se_, and to show how much more

enthusiasm women manifested in securing freedom for the slaves, than

they ever have in demanding justice and equality for themselves. Where

are the societies to rescue unfortunate women from the bondage they

suffer under unjust law? Where are the loving friends who keep

midnight vigils with young girls arraigned in the courts for

infanticide? Where are the underground railroads and watchful friends

at every point to help fugitive wives from brutal husbands? The most

intelligent, educated women seem utterly oblivious to the wrongs of

their own sex; even those who so bravely fought the anti-slavery

battle have never struck as stout blows against the tyranny suffered

by women.

Take, for example, the resolution presented by Mary Grew, and passed

in the Woman's Anti-Slavery Convention forty-three years ago,

declaring that it was the Christian duty of every woman to withdraw

from all churches that fellowshiped with slavery, which was a sin

against God and man. Compare the conscience and religious earnestness

for a principle implied in such a resolution with the apathy and

supineness of the women of to-day. No such resolution has ever yet

passed a woman's rights convention. And yet is injustice to a colored

man a greater sin than to a woman? Is liberty and equality more sweet

to him than to her! Is the declaration by the Church that woman may

not be ordained or licensed to preach the Gospel, no matter how well

fitted, how learned or devout, because of her sex, less insulting and

degrading than the old custom of the negro pew?

The attitude of the Church to-day is more hostile and insulting to

American womanhood than it ever was to the black man, by just so much

as women are nearer the equals of priests and bishops than were the

unlettered slaves. When women refuse to enter churches that do not

recognize them as equal candidates for the joys of earth and heaven,

equal in the sight of man and God, we shall have a glorious revival

of liberty and justice everywhere.

How fully these pages of history illustrate the equal share woman has

had in the trials and triumphs of all the political and moral

revolutions through which we have passed, from feeble colonies to an

independent nation; suffering with man the miseries of poverty and

war, all the evils of bad government, and enjoying with him the

blessings of luxury and peace, and a wise administration of law. The

experience of the heroines of anti-slavery show that no finespun

sentimentalism in regard to woman's position in the clouds ever exempt

her from the duties or penalties of a citizen. Neither State officers,

nor mobs in the whirlwind of passion, tempered their violence for her

safety or benefit.

When women proposed to hold a fair in Concert Hall, their flag was

torn down from the street, while they and their property were ejected

by the high constable. When women were speaking in Pennsylvania Hall,

brickbats were hurled at, them through the windows. When women

searched Philadelphia through for a place where they might meet to

speak and pray for the slave-mother and her child (the most miserable

of human beings), halls and churches were closed against them. And who

were these women? Eloquent speakers, able writers, dignified wives and

mothers, the most moral, religious, refined, cultured, intelligent

citizens that Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, and

Pennsylvania could boast. There never was a queen on any European

throne possessed of more personal beauty, grace, and dignity than

Maria Weston Chapman.[65] The calmness and impassioned earnestness of

Angelina Grimké, speaking nearly an hour 'mid that howling mob, was

not surpassed in courage and consecration even by Paul among the wild

beasts at Ephesus. Here she made her last public speech, and as the

glowing words died upon her lips, a new voice was heard, rich, deep,

and clear upon the troubled air; and the mantle of self-sacrifice, so

faithfully worn by South Carolina's brave daughter, henceforth rested

on the shoulders of an equally brave and eloquent Quaker girl from

Massachusetts,[66] who for many years afterward preached the same glad

tidings of justice, equality, and liberty for all.

TEMPERANCE.

In this reform, also, the women of Pennsylvania took an equally active

part. We are indebted to Hannah Darlington, of Kennett Square, Chester

Co., for the following record of the temperance work in this State:

KENNETT SQUARE, 2 mo., 6, 1881.

DEAR MRS. STANTON:--I did not think our early temperance work of

sufficient account to preserve the reports, hence with

considerable research am able to send you but very little. Many

mixed meetings were held through the county before 1847.

Woods-meetings, with decorated stands, were fashionable in

Chester in warm weather, for several years before we branched off

with a call for a public meeting. That brought quite a number

together in Friends' Meeting-house at Kennett Square, where we

discussed plans for work and appointed committees to carry them

out.

Sidney Peirce, Ann Preston, and myself, each prepared addresses

to read at meetings called in such places as the Committee

arranged; and with Chandler Darlington to drive us from place to

place, we addressed many large audiences, some in the day-time

and some in the evening; scattered appeals and tracts, and

collected names to petitions asking for a law against licensing

liquor-stands.

In 1848, we went to Harrisburg, taking an address to the

Legislature written by Ann Preston, and sanctioned by the meeting

that appointed us. The address, with our credentials and

petitions, was presented to the two Houses, read in our presence,

and referred to the Committee on "Vice and Immorality," which

called a meeting and invited us to give our address. Sidney

Peirce, who was a good reader, gave it with effect to a large

roomful of the Committee and legislators. It was listened to with

profound attention, complimented highly, and I think aroused a

disposition among the best members to give the cause of

temperance more careful consideration. The Local Option Law was

passed by that Legislature.

We also aided the mixed meetings by our presence and addresses,

and by circulating petitions, and publishing appeals in the

county papers; helping in every way to arouse discussion and

prepare the people to sustain the new law. But the Supreme Court

of the State, through the liquor influence, declared the law

unconstitutional, after a few months' successful trial. Drinking,

however, has not been as respectable since that time. We

continued active work in our association until the inauguration

of the Good Templars movement, in which men and women worked

together on terms of equality.

Respectfully yours, HANNAH M. DARLINGTON.

TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.

A Temperance Convention of Women of Chester County, met at

Marlborough Friends' Meeting-house, on Saturday, the 30th of

December, 1848, and was organized by the appointment of MARTHA

HAYHURST, President; SIDNEY PEIRCE and HANNAH PENNOCK,

Secretaries.

Letters received by a Committee of Correspondence, appointed at a

Convention last winter, were read; one, from Pope Bushnell,

Chairman of the Committee on Vice and Immorality, to which

temperance petitions were referred; and also from our

Representatives in the Legislature, pledging themselves to use

all their influence to obtain the passage of a law to prohibit

the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage amongst us. The

Business Committee reported addresses to the men and women of

Chester County, which were considered, amended, and adopted, as

follows:

_To the Women of Chester County_:

DEAR SISTERS:--Again we would urge upon you the duty and

necessity of action in the temperance cause. Notwithstanding the

exertions that have been made, intoxicating liquors continue to

be sold and drank in our midst. Still, night after night, the

miserable drunkard reels to that home he has made desolate.

Still, wives and sisters weep in anguish as they look on those

dearer to them than life, and see, trace by trace, their delicacy

and purity of soul vanishing beneath the destroying libations

that tempt them when they pass the domestic threshold.

We need not depict to you the poverty and crime and unutterable

woe that result from intemperance, nor need you go far to be

reminded of the revolting fact, that under the sanction of laws,

men still make it a deliberate business to deal out that terrible

agent, the only effect of which is to darken the God-like in the

human soul, and to foster in its place the appetites of demons.

The law passed the 7th of April, 1846, under which the sale of

intoxicating drinks was prohibited by vote of the people in most

of the townships in Chester County, has been decided by the

Supreme Court to be unconstitutional; and this decision, by

inspiring confidence in the dealers and consumers of the fatal

poison, seems to have given a new impetus to this diabolical

traffic. Wider and deeper its ravages threaten to extend

themselves; and to every benevolent mind comes the earnest

question, What must now be done? It is too late for women to

excuse themselves from exertion in this cause, on the ground that

it would be indelicate to leave the sheltered retirement of home.

Alas! where is the home-shelter that guards the delicacy of the

drunkard's wife and daughter? We all recognize the divine

obligation to relieve suffering and to cherish virtue as binding

alike on man and woman. Our hearts thrill at the mention of those

women who were "last at the cross and earliest at the grave" of

the crucified Nazarine. We commend her whose prayers and

entreaties once saved her native Rome from pillage. We admire the

heroism of a Joan of Arc, as it is embalmed in history and song.

We boast of virgin martyrs to the faith of their convictions, and

we dare not now put forth the despicable plea of feminine

propriety to excuse our supineness, when fathers, sons, and

brothers are falling around us, degraded, bestialized, thrice

murdered by this foe at our doors. No! we have solemn obligations

resting upon us, and we should be unfaithful to the holiest call

of duty, false to the instincts of womanhood and the pleading

voice of love, if we should sit quietly down in careless ease

while vice is thus spreading around us, and human souls are

falling into the fell snare of the destroyer.

By meeting together and taking counsel one with another, we will

become more alive to our duty in relation to this momentous

subject. The more we prize the sweet privacy of happy homes, the

more strong is the appeal to us to labor to make sacred and

joyful the hearth-stones of others. If _men_ will remain

comparatively supine we must the more energetically sound the

alarm, and point them to the danger. If rulers will devise

wickedness by law, we must give them no rest, till, like the

unjust judge, they yield to our very importunity, and repeal

their iniquitous statutes. The temporal and spiritual welfare of

many an immortal being is at stake, and we should esteem it a

high privilege to labor in this holy cause with an earnest and,

if need be, a life-long consecration. Let us, then, apply

ourselves devotedly to the work, and a fresh and resistless

impulse will be given to the temperance reformation. The

electrical fervor of earnest spirits ever communicates itself to

others, and the Legislature itself can not long resist our united

efforts. In such a cause "we have great allies." God and humanity

are on our side, our own souls Will be strengthened and elevated

by the work; "failure" is a word that belongs not to us, since

our efforts are in a righteous cause.

_To the Men of Chester County:_

Permit us once more to plead with you on behalf of temperance. We

know that to some of you this may seem an old and wearisome

subject, but we know also that the sorrow and crime caused by

intemperance are _not_ old; new, fresh cases are around us now.

Its ravages are repeated every day, and we must beseech you to

"hear us for our cause." We can not be silent while the grog-shop

stands like the poisonous upas amongst us, and men openly deal

out crime and wretchedness in the form of intoxicating drinks.

We need not in this place enlarge upon the danger ever attendant

upon the use of those stimulants, nor will we now stop long to

dwell upon the solemn fact, that whoever, at the demand of

appetite, drinks even the sweet cider, weakens his own moral

strength, becomes a tempter to the weak, and casts away the pure

influence of an unsullied example. Reckless and guilty indeed is

that man who, in the light of this day, dares to insult humanity

and defy heaven by publicly putting the glass to his lips.

Men of Chester County! you possess the power to put a stop to the

traffic in liquors, and we conjure you by the sacred obligations

of virtue and humanity, as you hope to stand acquitted before the

just tribunal of God, to arise in your might and banish it from

the community; think, we beseech you, of the depths of pollution

to which intemperance leads, of the bestial appetites it fosters,

of all the unnameable impurities that revel in its abodes; think

of the hearth-stones desolated, of the mothers and daughters

whose earthly hopes and joys have been destroyed by that

charnel-house, the tavern. The incendiary who applies the

midnight torch to peaceful dwellings, the robber who commits

murder to secure his prey, is not an enemy to society half so

dangerous, as he who inflames all evil passions and scatters

wretchedness through a community, by dispensing alcoholic poison.

Oh! are there not sorrows enough in our best condition? have we

not temptations strong enough within and without? Shall men

progress too fast in the "onward and upward" road of virtue and

happiness, that you leave before them these sinks of pollution,

these trap-doors of ruin, these fatal sirens, enticing the unwary

listener to destruction? Call us not fanatical. Indifference is

crime; silence is fatal here. When the midnight cry of fire is

sounded, you rush from your slumbers, and, heedless of danger,

hasten to extinguish the flames; but here is a devouring element,

burning on from year to year, consuming not mere shingles and

rafters, but the priceless hopes and aspirations of immortal

souls, leaving blackened ruins in the place of beauty; and we

must continue to cry "Fire! fire!" until you hasten to stop the

fearful conflagration. Tell us not of liberty and natural right,

as a plea for this traffic. It is the liberty to rob innocent

families and reduce them to pauperism; the right to break hearts

and hopes, to reduce men to demons, to scatter vice and anguish

and desolation around the land. Well may we exclaim with Madame

Roland, when she was taken along the bloody streets of Paris,

about to be murdered in the abused name of freedom, "Oh, Liberty,

what crimes are committed in thy name!"

Fathers and brothers, shall woman in her agony, and man in his

degradation, appeal to you in vain? Too long has this evil been

borne, too long have minor points of public good taken precedence

of this reform. It must not be that you will be content to dwell

in quiet indifference, in the midst of a rum-selling community,

and die, leaving your children exposed to the tempter's snare. It

must not be endured that this infernal traffic, this shame to

civilization, this slur on Christianity, shall continue amongst

us. It must not be endured that men shall be clothed with the

monstrous authority to demoralize neighborhoods and scatter the

fire-brands of death and destruction. The power to arrest this

horrible work is in your hands. Be vigilant, be active. There is

resistless might in the energy of earnest wills devoted to a

noble cause. Petition, remonstrate, work while yet it is day. Say

not that we can gain nothing by petitioning. Was it not through

this means, we obtained the law under which a vote of the

majority excluded the sale of intoxicating liquors amongst us?

Did not our petitions last winter cause a bill for its

prohibition to be reported in the Legislature, which was lost in

the House by a small majority? True, the law we desire may not

entirely prevent drunkenness, but it will certainly act as a

restraint. It will make drinking less reputable, and thus prevent

drunkard-making. It will have the moral influence of a State

verdict against the practice. The dread responsibility of this

traffic must rest upon you, if, through silent acquiescence, you

permit its ravages. Do what you can, and peace and prosperity

will soon sit where the blackness of ruin has brooded, and the

sweet reward of approving consciences and the blessings of joyful

hearts will gladden your pathway.

The following resolutions were adopted:

_Resolved_, That petitioning the Legislature is the most definite

and efficient means at our command, whereby to obtain a law to

abolish the sale of intoxicating drinks, as a beverage amongst

us.

_Resolved_, That the following persons be appointed to obtain

names in their respective neighborhoods, to the petition referred

to: Sarah Evans, Grace Anna Lewis, Jane Kimber, H. A.

Pennypacker, Catherine Hawley, Deborah Way, Sarah Wood, M. B.

Thomas, Anna Parke, Margaret Lea, Susannah Cox, Elizabeth Evans,

E. Garrett, M. Darlington, Eliza Agnew, M. P. Wilson, Eliza Pyle,

Mary Chambers, H. M. Barnard, Mrs. Jefferis, Alice Speakman,

Sarah S. Barnard, Susan Fulton, Mary W. Coates, Millicent Stern,

Mrs. Ramsey, Mrs. Hamilton, A. E. Valentine, Ruth Ann Seal, R. W.

Taylor, M. K. Darlington, Lydia Agnew, M. Taylor, Alice Lewis,

Ann Barnard, Rebecca Pugh, Lydia Jacobs, Margaret Ross, Rachel

Leake, Ann Preston, M. W. Cox, Ann Coates, Rachel Good, Esther

Jane Kent, Ellen Wilkinson, Mary Pugh, Sarah Ann Cunningham,

Eliza Lysle, Beulah Hughes, Sarah Ann Conard.

_Resolved_, That we urgently solicit those having care of

petitions, to make use of every opportunity to obtain men's and

women's names in different columns, or on separate petitions, and

thus aid the Chester County Temperance Society in procuring the

names of those favorable to obtaining a prohibitory law.

_Resolved_, That Hannah Cox, Sidney Peirce, Ann Preston, Mary

Cox, Mary Ann Fulton, Dinah Mendenhall, Mary K. Darlington, Mary

S. Agnew, and Hannah M. Darlington, be a committee to call

meetings of the people in different neighborhoods, at which to

read the addresses to men and women, obtain signatures to

petitions, etc.

_Resolved_, That we offer the proceedings of this meeting for

publication in the County papers and _Temperance Standard_.

_Resolved_, That we adjourn to meet in Kennett Square, on

Saturday, the 3d of February, 1849.

MARTHA HAYHURST, _President_.

SIDNEY PEIRCE }

} _Secretaries_.

HANNAH PENNOCK }

At their next Convention in Kennett Square, another stirring

appeal was issued, and the following resolutions adopted:

WHEREAS, The peace of our homes, the security of our property,

and our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness, are all jeoparded by intemperance; and whereas, this

monstrous vice, with all its attendant train of evils, will

continue to spread its ravages over our fair country so long as

the traffic in intoxicating drinks is supported and sanctioned by

law; and,

WHEREAS, The people have the same right to be protected from the

desolations of this vice, that they have to be protected from the

depredations of the incendiary, the robber, and the murderer,

whose deeds are but too often instigated by it; therefore,

_Resolved_, That we demand of the Representatives of the people,

at the next session, a law for the total prohibition of the

traffic in intoxicating drinks as a beverage, within the limits

of Chester County.

_Resolved_, That we see neither reason nor consistency in the

conduct of our law-makers in restraining the thief, the burglar,

the counterfeiter, and the robber, while they let loose upon

society the legalized rum-seller.

"Will they the felon fox restrain,

And yet take oft the tiger's chain?"

_Resolved_, That we hail with joy the appearance of a recent

pastoral letter issued by the Synod of the Free Church of

Cincinnati, containing sentiments in regard to the advancement of

this reform, which meet our hearty approval, and which, if

adopted by all religious bodies, would insure the speedy triumph

of temperance, with all the blessings that follow in its train.

_Resolved_, That we adjourn to meet at Old Kennett, on Saturday,

the 8th of December, 1849.

HANNAH M. DARLINGTON, _President_.

ALICE LEWIS }

}_Secretaries_.

MARY S. AGNEW, }

NORTH AMERICAN AND UNITED STATE GAZETTE, FEB. 6, 1852.

The ladies of the City and County of Philadelphia, and all other

persons who feel impressed with the importance of PETITIONING THE

LEGISLATURE TO ENACT A LAW PROHIBITING THE USE OF ALL

INTOXICATING DRINKS as a beverage, are earnestly requested to

attend a meeting to be held at the CHINESE MUSEUM, corner of

NINTH and GEORGE STREETS, on SATURDAY EVENING, Feb. 7th, at 7-1/2

o'clock.

The meeting will be addressed by the REV. ALBERT BARNES, REV.

JOHN CHAMBERS, JUDGE KELLEY, DR. JAS. BRYAN, and WM. J. MULLEN.

JUDGE ALLISON will preside. The LADIES' TEMPERANCE UNION is

particularly invited to attend. Admittance five cents, to defray

expenses.

Two weeks after this, Feb. 21st, a Woman's Temperance Mass Meeting was

held in Philadelphia; an immense assemblage of both sexes.

_The Pennsylvania Freeman_ of March 4, 1852, says: "A large number of

petitions from various parts of the State, most of them numerously

signed, asking for the passage of the Maine Anti-Liquor Law, have been

presented in both Houses. On Tuesday, in the Senate, one was presented

from this city signed by 15,580 ladies; and another in the House,

signed by 14,241 ladies. What the Legislature will do we shall not

venture to predict."

It is interesting to note the same successive steps in every State,

and how naturally, in laboring for anti-slavery and temperance, women

have at last in each case demanded freedom for themselves. In the

anti-slavery school, 'mid violence and persecution they learned the

a, b, c of individual rights; in the temperance struggle they learned

that the ultimate power in moral movements is found in wise

legislation, and in graduating on the woman suffrage platform, they

have learned that prayers and tears are worth little until coined into

law, and that to command the attention of legislators, petitioners

must represent votes.

A moral power that has no direct influence on the legislation of a

nation, is an abstraction, and might as well be expended in the clouds

as outside of codes and constitutions, and this has too long been the

realm where women have spent their energies fighting shadows. The

power that makes laws, and baptizes them as divine at every church

altar, is the power for woman to demand now and forever.

WESTCHESTER CONVENTION. _June 2, 1852_.

The first Woman's Rights Convention held in Pennsylvania was called in

the leafy month of June, in the quiet Quaker town of West Chester, in

one of the loveliest regions of that State. Chester County had long

been noted for its reform movements and flourishing schools, in which

the women generally took a deep interest.

It was among these beautiful hills that Bayard Taylor lived and wrote

his "Hannah Thurston," a most contemptible burlesque of his own

neighbors and the reforms they advocated.

Kennett Square and Longwood have for years been noted for their

liberal religious meetings, in which the leading reformers of the

nation have in turn been annually represented. In those gatherings of

the Progressive Friends, all the questions of the hour were freely

discussed, and their printed testimonies sent forth to enlighten the

people.

The Convention assembled at ten o'clock in Horticultural Hall, and was

called to order by Lucretia Mott, and the following officers chosen:

PRESIDENT.--Mariana Johnson.

SERVICE-PRESIDENTS.--Mary Ann Fulton, William Jackson, Chandler

Darlington.

SECRETARIES.--Sarah L. Miller, Hannah Darlington, Sidney Peirce,

Edward Webb.

BUSINESS COMMITTEE.--James Mott, Ann Preston, Lucretia Mott,

Frances D. Gage, Sarah D. Barnard, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Joseph A.

Dugdale, Margaret Jones, Ernestine L. Rose, Alice Jackson, Jacob

Painter, Phebe Goodwin.

FINANCE COMMITTEE, appointed by the Chair.--Hannah Darlington,

Jacob Painter, Isaac Mendenhall, Elizabeth Miller.

Mrs. Mott read the following call:

The friends of Justice and Equal Rights are earnestly invited to

assemble in Convention, to consider and discuss the present

position of Woman in Society, her Natural Eights and Relative

Duties.

The reasons for such a Convention are obvious. With few

exceptions, both the radical and conservative portions of the

community agree that woman, even in this progressive age and

country, suffers under legal, educational, and vocational

disabilities which ought to be removed. To examine the nature of

these disabilities, to inquire into their extent, and to consider

the most feasible and proper mode of removing them, will be the

aim of the Convention which it is proposed to hold.

If it shall promote in any degree freedom of thought and action

among women; if it shall assist in opening to them any avenues to

honorable and lucrative employment (now unjustly and unwisely

closed); if it shall aid in securing to them more thorough

intellectual and moral culture; if it shall excite higher

aspirations; if it shall advance by a few steps just and wise

public sentiment, it will not have been held in vain.

The elevation of woman is the elevation of the human race. Her

interests can not be promoted or injured without advantage or

injury to the whole race. The call for such a Convention is

therefore addressed to those who desire the physical,

intellectual, and moral improvement of mankind. All persons

interested in its objects are respectfully requested to be

present at its sessions and participate in its deliberations.

THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

The position in which woman has been placed is an anomaly. On the

one hand she is constantly reminded of duties and

responsibilities from which an angel might shrink. The world is

to be saved by her prayers, her quiet and gentle efforts. Man,

she is told, is ruled by her smiles; his whole nature subdued by

the potency of her tears. Priests, politicians, and poets assure

her with flattering tongue, that on her depend the progress and

destiny of the race. On the other hand, she is told that she must

lovingly confide in the strength and skill of man, who has been

endowed with superior intellectual powers; that she must count it

her highest honor to reflect upon the world the light of his

intelligence and wisdom, as the moon reflects the light of the

sun!

We may congratulate one another on this occasion in view of the

cheering indications so manifest on every hand that the ignorance

and darkness which have so long brooded over the prospects of

woman, are beginning to give place to the light of truth. In the

summer of 1848, in the village of Seneca Falls, a small number of

women, disregarding alike the sneers of the ignorant and the

frowns of the learned, assembled in Convention and boldly claimed

for themselves, and for their sex, the rights conferred by God

and so long withheld by man. Their courageous words were the

expression of sentiments which others had felt as deeply as

themselves, but which the restraints imposed by long-established

custom had taught them to suppress. But now the hour had come,

and the world stood prepared for the reception of a new thought,

which is destined to work a revolution in human society, more

beneficent than any that has preceded it. The seeds of truth

which that Convention planted in faith and hope were not left to

perish. In many thoughtful minds they germinated apace and

brought forth fruit. That fruit was seen in the large Convention

held in Ohio in the spring of 1850, in that held in Massachusetts

in the autumn of the same year, and in those which have followed

since in New England and the West.

Woman at length is awaking from the slumber of ages. Many of the

sex already perceive that knowledge, sound judgment, and perfect

freedom of thought and action are quite as important for the

mothers as for the fathers of the race. They weary of the

senseless talk of "woman's sphere," when that sphere is so

circumscribed that they may not exert their full influence and

power to save their country from war, intemperance, slavery,

licentiousness, ignorance, poverty, and crime, which man, in the

mad pursuit of his ambitious schemes, unchecked by their presence

and counsel, permits to desolate and destroy all that is fair and

beautiful in life and fill the world with weeping, lamentation,

and woe. Woman begins to grow weary of her helpless and dependent

position, and of being treated as if she were formed only to

cultivate her affections, that they may flow in strong and deep

currents merely to gratify the self-love of man.

She does not listen with delight, as she once did, when she hears

her relations to her equal brother represented by the poetical

figure of the trellis and creeping tendril, or of the oak and the

gracefully clinging vine. No, she feels that she is, like him, an

accountable being--that the Infinite Father has laid

responsibilities upon her which may not be innocently transferred

to another, but which, in her present ignorance, she is not

prepared to meet. She is becoming rapidly imbued with the spirit

of progress, and will not longer submit, without remonstrance, to

the bondage of ancient dogmas and customs. In the retirement and

seclusion of life, the stirring impulse of the times has reached

even the heart of woman, and she feels the necessity of a more

thorough culture and a wider field of usefulness. She sees the

glaring injustice by which she has long been deprived of all fair

opportunity to earn an independent livelihood, and thus, in too

many instances, constrained to enter the marriage relation, as a

choice of evils, to secure herself against the ills of impending

poverty. The wrong she so deeply feels she is at length arousing

herself to redress.

What, then, is the substance of our demand? I answer, we demand

for woman equal freedom with her brother to raise her voice and

exert her influence directly for the removal of all the evils

that afflict the race; and that she be permitted to do this in

the manner dictated by her own sense of propriety and justice. We

ask for her educational advantages equal to those enjoyed by the

other sex; that the richly endowed institutions which she has

been taxed to establish and support, may be open alike to all her

children. We claim for her the right to follow any honorable

calling or profession for which she may be fitted by her

intellectual training and capacity. We claim for her a fair

opportunity to attain a position of pecuniary independence, and

to this end that she receive for her labor a compensation

equivalent to its recognized value when performed by the other

sex.

These demands, we think, must be admitted to be essentially wise

and just. We make them in no spirit of selfish antagonism to the

other sex, but under a deep conviction that they are prompted by

an enlightened regard for the highest welfare of the race. Some

one has justly said that God has so linked the human family

together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt

throughout its length. The true interests of the sexes are not

antagonistic, but harmonious. There can be no just conflict

between their respective rights and duties. For the coming of the

day when this great truth shall be universally received, we must

work and pray as we have opportunity. When that day shall arrive,

it will be clearly perceived that in the true Harmonic Order

"woman and her brother are pillars in the same temple and priests

of the same worship."

The Secretary, SIDNEY PEIRCE, read the following letter from

SARAH M. GRIMKÉ.

When an insect emerges with struggles from its chrysalis state,

how feeble are all its movements, how its wings hang powerless

until the genial air has dried and strengthened them, how

patiently the insect tries again and again to spread them, and

visit the flowers which bloom around, till at last it enjoys the

recompense of its labors in the nectar and the fragrance of the

garden.

This illustrates the present condition of Woman. She is just

emerging from the darkness and ignorance by which she has been

shrouded. She looks forth from her chrysalis and sees the natural

and intellectual world lying around her clothed in radiant

beauty, and inviting her to enter and possess this magnificent

inheritance. How came I, she asks, to be excluded from all these

precious privileges? I will arise and go to my Father and say,

"Father, permit me to share the labors of my brethren and partake

of the fruits which they enjoy." "Go, my daughter," is the

paternal response. "Be unto man, in an infinitely higher sense

than heretofore, a help-meet." How is woman fulfilling her divine

mission? Is she looking on the benefits she is commissioned to

bestow on the human race, or is she keeping her eye on her own

interests and seeking her own elevation, with little of that

expansive benevolence, that philosophical foresight which seeks

the development of all?

Woman is now in the transition state, a glorious mission is

before her, a glorious destiny awaits her. To fulfill that

mission, to be worthy of that destiny, she must patiently wait

and quietly hope, blessing those who scorn and deride her feeble

and often unsuccessful efforts, to free herself from her

entanglements. She must expect many failures in her attempts to

emancipate herself from the thralldom of public opinion. Those

who have long held the reins of power and the rank of

superiority, naturally look with distrust on a movement which

threatens to overturn long established customs and transform the

baby and the toy into an intellectual being, desiring equal

rights with themselves and asserting her claim to all the

immunities they enjoy. Woman must be willing to see herself as

she is, the slave of fashion, assuming all the Proteus forms she

invents, without reference to health or convenience. She must

remember how few of us give evidence of sufficient development to

warrant our claims; and whilst we feel a divine impulse to

proceed in achieving the enlargement of woman, whilst we hear a

voice saying, "Ye have compassed this mountain long enough; speak

to the people that they go forward," let us not be dismayed at

the hindrances we shall encounter from those whom we are laboring

to release from the swaddling bands of infancy, or the

grave-clothes of superstition, time-honored opinion and crushing

circumstances. We are now in a perilous and difficult position.

We feel all the inconveniences of our past condition, all the

disadvantages and uneasiness of the one we are constrained to

occupy, and see in bold relief all the advantages which a change

will yield us. But let us remember that our transition state,

although replete with temptations and suffering, is necessary to

our improvement; we need it to strengthen us and enable us to

bear hardships as good soldiers of truth.

To regard any state of society as fixed, is to regard it as the

ultimate good, as the best condition to which we can attain. But

when man has progressed, when his morality and his religion have

assumed a higher tone, it is impossible to perpetuate his

childhood, or to give permanence to institutions and opinions

whose days are numbered. When reform has truth for its basis and

is instinct with the life of progression, no power can dress it

in the habiliments of the grave, and bury it out of sight, either

in the Potter's-field or under the magnificent mausoleum. There

is nothing so precious to man as progress; he has defended it

with his heart's best blood, and according to his development has

aided it, although sometimes in his blindness he has scattered

fire and sword, destruction and misery around, in endeavoring to

force mankind to adopt the truths he thought essential to

progress. "Woman has come on the stage," says Horace Mann, "6,000

years after man, to profit by his misdeeds and correct his

errors." Until now, the world was not prepared to receive, in

full measure, the hallowed influence which woman is designed to

shed. Her holy mission is to bring peace on earth and good-will

to man. She does not ask for irresponsible power; she has seen

that from the earliest records of the human race the possession

of such power is fraught with danger, that it has always made

tyrants. She feels Divinity stirring within her, and its

irrepressible aspirings can not, should not be controlled.

Mankind have always rejected the means appointed by Infinite

Wisdom to assist their upward flight. Let us then go calmly

forward, alike regardless of the scorn and ridicule of the

shallow, the grave denunciations of the bigot, or the weighty

counsel of the narrow-minded and selfish, who would point out the

exact position fitted for us to occupy, and with seeming

condescension invite us to fill some posts of honor and profit,

while they undertake to confine us within their bounds, leaving

nothing to our good sense, intelligence, intuitive desires, and

aspiring hopes. The truth is, "It is not in man that walketh to

direct his steps." God alone is competent to do this, and in the

present movement His power, wisdom, and will, are so

conspicuous, that it will be well to set no bounds to His work,

but let it have free course, expecting that contradictions and

inconsistencies will mar it, but believing that those

contradictions will cease, those inconsistencies disappear, and

the perfected human being be developed.

If we adopt as our watchword the language of Margaret Fuller, we

can not but overcome all obstacles, outlive all opposition: "Give

me Truth. Cheat me by no illusion. Oh, the granting of this

prayer is sometimes terrible; I walk over the burning plowshares

and they sear my feet--yet nothing but Truth will do."

SARAH M. GRIMKÉ

LUCRETIA MOTT addressed the Convention, briefly referring to the

importance of the movement and expressing her gratification on

seeing the response given to the call, by the great number of

persons assembled. She saw before her not only a large delegation

from the immediate vicinity, but a goodly number from other and

distant States.

The movement for the enfranchisement of woman is indeed making

rapid progress. Since the first Convention held at Seneca Falls,

in 1848, where a few women assembled, and notwithstanding their

ignorance of the parliamentary modes of conducting business,

promulgated these principles, which took deep root, and are

already producing important results. Other large Conventions have

been held in different places, which have done much toward

disseminating the great principles of equality between the sexes;

and a spirit of earnest inquiry has been aroused. She referred to

the fact that the agitation commenced in those States most

distinguished for intellectual and moral culture, while we in

Pennsylvania are ready to embrace their views on this subject;

and trusted that the Convention now assembled, would be neither

less interesting nor less efficient than those that have been

already held.

Mrs. CLARINA HOWARD NICHOLS, of Brattleboro, Vermont, spoke

briefly on the absurdity of the popular idea of woman's sphere.

She thought the sphere of sex could only be determined by

capacity and moral obligation. She had once thought politics

necessarily too degrading for woman, but she had changed her

views. The science of government, it is said, is of divine

origin; a participation in its administration can not then

necessarily involve anything to deteriorate from the true dignity

of woman. The world's interests have never yet been fully

represented. The propriety of woman voting had been to her a

stumbling-block; the idea was repelling. She was not yet allowed

to vote, but she had ceased to consent to the arrangement which

deprived her of that right, and therefore experienced a freedom

of spirit which she had not known before. The idea that woman

could not go to the ballot-box without a sacrifice of her

delicacy was absurd. Women were allowed to vote in church matters

unquestioned. They can hold railroad stock, bank stock, and stock

of other corporations, where their influence is in proportion to

the amount held.

But we are not called upon to maintain the position of the

propriety or expediency of women voting. The question is, Shall

they have the right so to do?--the propriety should be left to

themselves. Woman can now travel alone securely, where formerly

it was considered a risk. She can deposit her vote with men,

with as much propriety as she can ride with them in railroad

cars, on steamboats, etc. She came all the way from the Green

Mountains without any male attendant; she traveled with members

of Congress and delegates to the Baltimore Convention, and not a

"bear" among them offered her the least indignity.

ERNESTINE L. ROSE quoted the testimony of Horace Mann,[67] that

our Legislatures were "bear gardens, our representatives too rude

and rough for woman's association, hence the impropriety and

indelicacy of her mingling in politics." But we are told it is

woman's province to soothe the angry passions and calm the

belligerent feelings of man, and if what Horace Mann says is

true, where can we find a riper harvest awaiting us than in the

halls of legislation!

Harriet K. Hunt then read an address upon the medical education of

women; on concluding, she offered the following resolutions:

_1st. Resolved_, That the present position of medical

organizations, precluding women from the same educational

advantages with men, under pretext of delicacy, virtually

acknowledges the impropriety of his being her medical attendant.

_2d. Resolved_, That we will do all in our power to sustain those

women who, from a conviction of duty, enter the medical

profession, in their efforts to overcome the evils that have

accumulated in their path, and in attacking the strongholds of

vice.

_3d. Resolved_, That the past actions and present indications of

our medical schools should not affect us at all; and

notwithstanding Geneva and Cleveland Medical Colleges closed

their doors after graduating one woman each, and Harvard, through

the false delicacy of the students, declared it inexpedient to

receive one who had been in successful practice many years, we

would still earnestly follow in peace and love where duty points,

and leave the verdict to an enlightened public sentiment.

The address of Dr. Hunt called out a discussion on the importance of a

thorough medical training for women in all departments of science

belonging to that profession.

Mrs. NICHOLS spoke earnestly of the imperfect education of woman.

With no knowledge of the laws of health, she has no means of

obtaining the required information. Men hold the purse even when

it is filled by the labor of both. They close the college doors,

though we have helped to build and endow them. And at what a

fearful cost of life and health are we thus wronged. Does it cost

too much to educate the future mothers of this nation in the

science of life? Who can estimate how much greater are the

expenses incurred by our ignorant violation of the laws of

health?

FRANCES DANA GAGE, of Ohio, spoke of the high scholarship and

very successful examinations of those women who had been admitted

into the medical colleges, far surpassing the young men in their

recitations and general intelligence. So long as the lives of

children are conceded to be in the hands of their mothers, it is

of vital consequence to the race that women be thoroughly

educated for the medical profession.

Mrs. ROSE said: These are mighty questions. When our little ones

are removed by death from our care and affection, we feel most

keenly our ignorance, and long to know something of those

immutable laws of life and health we have so long violated. Woman

should at least know enough to be physician to herself and

children, but she is denied the advantages granted to man for

obtaining knowledge of these things more necessary if possible to

her than to him.

The idea of a female doctor is ridiculed. But what is she worth

as a nurse of the sick without a knowledge of the art of healing?

Why am I in the prime of life in such feeble health? In my

country, the laws of life are, comparatively speaking, kept in a

nutshell. The girl must not exercise; it is not fashionable. She

must not be seen in active life; it is not feminine. The boy may

run, the girl must creep. It is to discuss all these grave

inequalities that we have assembled here, and I trust the

influence of this Convention may be felt in opening to woman all

honest and honorable means of self-support and self-development,

and in removing all the legal shackles that block her pathway

through life.

EVA PUGH said: The degradation of one sex is the degradation of

the other. This question is universal, affecting all alike. No

fact is better established than that the character of the parent

is inherited by the child. Can noble men be born of infirm women?

Who are the mothers of great men? Women of mind, of thought, of

independence; not women degraded by man's tyranny, laboring in

prescribed limits, thinking other people's thoughts, and echoing

their opinions. This question of woman's rights affects the whole

human race. We know from sad experience that man can not rise

while woman is degraded.

Mrs. MOTT spoke of the great change in public sentiment within

her recollection in regard to the so-called sphere of woman.

Twenty years ago people wondered how a modest girl could attend

lectures on Botany; but modest girls did attend them and other

places frequented only by men, and the result was not a loss of

delicacy, but a higher and nobler development; a true modesty.

JOSEPH A. DUGDALE made a few remarks on the injustice of the laws

by which happy households are often broken up on the death of the

husband and father. He said there remained one way in which this

great evil could be avoided even while the law remains unchanged,

and that was by a will of the husband conveying the whole

property of their joint industry and economy to the wife, in the

event of his death. He urged this as the duty of every husband

and father. He closed his remarks with the following extract from

the will of Martin Luther, proving that other errors than those

of the Church, were deemed by the great reformer of sufficient

magnitude to awaken his earnest opposition:

MARTIN LUTHER'S WILL.

"This is all I am worth, and I give it all to my wife for the

following reasons:

"1. Because she has always conducted herself toward me lovingly,

worthily, and beautifully, like a pious, faithful, and noble

wife; and by the rich blessings of God, she has borne and brought

up five living children, who yet live, and God grant they may

long live.

"2. Because she will take upon herself and pay the debts which I

owe and may not be able to pay during my life, which, so far as I

can estimate, may amount to about 450 florins, or perhaps a

little more.

"3. But most of all, because I will not have her dependent on the

children, but the children on her; that they may hold her in

honor, and submit themselves to her as God has commanded. For I

see well and observe, how the devil, by wicked and envious

mouths, heats and excites children, even though they be pious,

against this command; especially when the mothers are widows, and

the sons get wives, and the daughters get husbands, and again

_socrus murum, nurus socrum_. For I hold that the mother will be

the best guardian for her own children, and will use what little

property and goods she may have, not for their disadvantage and

injury, but for their good and improvement, since they are her

own flesh and blood, and she carried them under her heart.

"And if, after my death, she should find it necessary or

desirable to marry again (for I can not pretend to set limits to

the will or providence of God), yet I trust and herewith express

my confidence that she will conduct herself toward our mutual

children as becometh a mother, and will faithfully impart to them

property, and do whatever else is right.

"And herewith I humbly pray my most gracious lord, his grace Duke

John Frederick, elector of Saxony, graciously to guard and

protect the above-named gifts and property.

"I also entreat all my good friends to be witnesses for my dear

Catey, and help to defend her should any good-for-nothing mouth

reprove and slander her, as if she had secretly some personal

property of which she would defraud the poor children. For I

testify there is no personal property except the plate and

jewelry enumerated above.

"Finally, I beg, since in this will or testament I have not used

legal forms or words (and thereto I have my reasons), that every

one may let me be the person that I am in truth, namely, openly

and known both in heaven and earth, and in hell, and let me have

respect and authority enough so that I may be trusted and

believed more than any lawyer. For so God the Father of all

mercies hath entrusted to me, a poor, miserable, condemned

sinner, the Gospel of His dear Son, and therein thus far I have

behaved and conducted myself truly and faithfully, and it has

made much progress in the world through me, and I am honored as a

teacher of truth, notwithstanding the curse of the Pope and the

wrath of emperors, kings, princes, priests, and all kinds of

devils; much rather then let me be believed in this little

matter, especially as here in my hand which is very well known;

and I hope it may be enough, when it can be said and proved that

this is the serious and deliberate desire of Dr. Martin Luther

(who is God's lawyer and witness of His Gospel) to be proved by

his own hand and seal, Sept. 16, 1542."

LUCRETIA MOTT (see 8th resolution) thought it important that we

should not disclaim the antagonism that woman's present position

rendered it necessary she should assume. Too long had wrongs and

oppressions existed without an acknowledged wrong-doer and

oppressor. It was not until the slaveholder was told, "thou art

the man," that a healthful agitation was brought about. Woman is

told that the fault is in herself, in too willingly submitting to

her inferior condition; but, like the slave, she is pressed down

by laws in the making of which she has had no voice, and crushed

by customs that have grown out of such laws. She can not rise,

therefore, while thus trampled in the dust. The oppressor does

not see himself in that light until the oppressed cry for

deliverance.

In commenting on the will just read, she further said:

The extract from Luther's will which has been read, while it

gives evidence of the appreciation of the services of his wife,

to a certain extent, and manifests a generous disposition to

reward her as a faithful wife, still only proves the degrading

relation she bore to her husband. There is no recognition of her

equal right to their joint earnings. While the wife is obliged to

accept as a gift that which in justice belongs to her, however

generous the boon, she is but an inferior dependent.

The law of our State and of New York, has within a few years been

so amended that the wife has some control over a part of her

property. Much yet remains to be done; and if woman "contend

earnestly" for the right, man will co-operate with her in

adjusting all her claims. We have only to look back a few years,

to satisfy ourselves that the demands already made are met in a

disposition to redress the grievances. When a delegation of women

to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, could find no

favor in London, what were the reasons assigned for the

exclusion? Not that the right of representation was not as much

woman's as man's, but that "they would be ridiculed in the

morning papers."

Daniel O'Connell felt the injustice done to those delegates, and

in a letter on the subject to me, expressed his deep regret, that

owing to business engagements, he was not able to attend the

Convention and take part in the discussion.[68]

Dr. Bowring advocated the admission of the delegates at that

time; and afterward in a letter to this country, said: "How often

have I regretted that the woman's question, to me of singular

interest, was launched with so little preparation, so little

knowledge of the manner in which it had been entangled, by the

fears of some and the follies of others! But, bear up! for the

coming of those women will form an era in the future history of

philanthropic daring. They made a deep, if not a wide impression;

and have created apostles, if as yet they have not multitudes of

followers. The experiment was well worth making. It honored

America--it will instruct England. If in some matters of high

civilization you are behind us, in this matter of courageous

benevolence how far are you before us!"

Since that time women have fairly entered the field as students

of medicine and as physicians, as editors and lecturers, engaged

in schools of design, and in the taking of daguerres, as well as

in some other works of art, and in holding Conventions in several

of the States of our Union for the advocacy of our entire claims.

A National Society has been formed; and the proceedings of these

Conventions and Society meetings have been fairly reported, and

have received favorable notices in many of the papers of this

country, as well as in the _Westminster Review_ in England.

FRANCES D. GAGE said that allusion had been made in the address

to the popular sentiment, that men are what their mothers made

them. She repelled this sentiment as an indignity to her sex.

What mother, she asked, ever taught her son to drink rum, gamble,

swear, smoke, and chew tobacco? The truth was, that the boy was

virtually taught to regard his mother as inferior, and that it

was not manly to follow her instructions. When he left the

hearth-stone he was beyond her reach. He found men, and those,

too, in elevated stations, addicted to vulgar and vicious

practices, and he was liable, in forgetfulness of all that his

mother had taught him, to fall into such habits himself. Men

allowed grog-shops to be set up on the street corners, and

permitted gambling-houses to exist, to tempt the boy from the

path of virtue; and when the mothers asked for the abatement of

these evils, they were told to keep in their sphere. In the town

where she resided (McConnellsville, Morgan Co., Ohio), the women

sent a large petition to the court asking that grog-shops might

not be licensed. The judge thereupon remarked that "woman's place

was in the nursery and the parlor, and that when she interfered

with public affairs, or set herself up as an instructor of the

courts, she was out of her sphere." Thus men perpetuate

institutions which undermine the influence of the mothers, and

corrupt the morals of the sons. The boys were, therefore, in many

cases, what men made them. True, there were some cases in which

the mother, by superior power, shaped the destiny of her sons, in

spite of adverse influences. Such cases were not the rule, but

the exception. Mothers, generally, could not exert their full

influence over their sons, unless they were permitted to stand by

them as the equals of their fathers in all relations of life.

The following address, written by Ann Preston, and adopted as an

exposition of the principles and purposes of the Convention, was

impressively read by the author:

ANN PRESTON'S ADDRESS.

The question is repeatedly asked by those who have thought but

little upon the subject of woman's position in society, "What

does woman want more than she possesses already? Is she not

beloved, honored, guarded, cherished? Wherein are her rights

infringed, or her liberties curtailed?"

Glowing pictures have been drawn of the fitness of the present

relations of society, and of the beauty of woman's dependence

upon the protecting love of man, and frightful visions have been

evoked of the confusion and perversion of nature which would

occur if the doctrine of the equal rights of man and woman was

once admitted.

The idea seems to prevail that movements for the elevation of

woman arise, not from the legitimate wants of society, but from

the vague restlessness of unquiet spirits; not from the serene

dictates of wisdom, but from the headlong impulses of fanaticism.

We came not here to argue the question of the relative strength

of intellect in man and woman; for the reform which we advocate

depends not upon its settlement. We place not the interests of

woman in antagonism to those of her brother, for

"The woman's cause is man's:

They rise or sink together,

Dwarfed or God-like, bond or free."

We maintain not that woman should lose any of that refinement and

delicacy of spirit which, as a celestial halo, ever encircles the

pure in heart. We contend not that she shall become noisy and

dictatorial, and abjure the quiet graces of life. We claim not

that she, any more than her brother, should engage in any

vocation or appear in any situation to which her nature and

abilities are not fitted. But we ask for her, as for man,

equality before the law, and freedom to exercise all her powers

and faculties under the direction of her own judgment and

volition.

When a woman dies, leaving behind her a husband and children, no

appraisers come into the desolated home to examine the effects;

the father is the guardian of his offspring; the family relation

is not invaded by law. But when a man dies the case is entirely

different; in the hour of the widow's deep distress strangers

come into the house to take an inventory of the effects,

strangers are appointed to be the guardians of her children, and

she, their natural care-taker, thenceforth has no legal direction

of their interests; strangers decide upon the propriety of the

sale of the property--earned, perhaps, by her own and her

husband's mutual efforts--and her interest in the estate is

coolly designated as the "widow's incumbrance!" In the extremity

of her bereavement there is piled upon her, not only the dread of

separation from her children, but that of being sent homeless

from the spot where every object has been consecrated by her

tenderest affections.

Nor is the practical working of this law better than its theory;

all over the country there are widows who have been made doubly

desolate by its provisions--widows separated from their children,

who, if they had had the disposal of their own and their

husbands' mutual property, might have retrieved their

circumstances, and kept the household band together. We ask for

such change in public sentiment as shall procure the repeal of

this oppressive law.

We ask that woman shall have free access to vocations of profit

and honor, the means of earning a livelihood and independence for

herself! As a general rule, profitable employments are not

considered open to woman, nor are her business capabilities

encouraged and developed by systematic training. Gloomy must be

the feelings of the father of a family of young daughters, when

he is about to bid farewell to the world, if he is leaving them

without the means of pecuniary support. Their brothers may go out

into society and gain position and competency; but for them there

is but little choice of employment, and, too often, they are left

with repressed and crippled energies to pine and chafe under the

bitter sense of poverty and dependence.

Their pursuits are to be determined, not by their inclination,

judgment, and ability, as are those of man, but by the popular

estimate of what is proper and becoming. In Turkey public

delicacy is outraged if a woman appears unveiled beyond the walls

of the harem; in America a sentiment no less arbitrary presumes

to mark out for her the precise boundaries of womanly propriety;

and she who ventures to step beyond them, must do it at the peril

of encountering low sneers, coarse allusions, and the withering

imputation of want of feminine delicacy.

Even for the same services woman generally receives less than

man. The whole tendency of our customs, habits, and teaching, is

to make her dependent--dependent in outward circumstances,

dependent in spirit.

As a consequence of her fewer resources, marriage has been to her

the great means of securing position in society. Thus it is that

this relation--which should ever be a "holy sacrament," the

unbiased and generous election of the free and self-sustained

being--too often is degraded into a mean acceptance of a shelter

from neglect and poverty! We ask that woman shall be trained to

unfold her whole nature; to exercise all her powers and

faculties.

It is said that the domestic circle is the peculiar province of

woman; that "men are what mothers make them." But how can that

woman who does not live for self-culture and self-development,

who has herself no exalted objects in life, imbue her children

with lofty aspirations, or train her sons to a free and glorious

manhood? She best can fulfill the duties of wife and mother, who

is fitted for other and varied usefulness.

The being who lives for one relation only can not possess the

power and scope which are required for the highest excellence

even in that one. If the whole body is left without exercise, one

arm does not become strong; if the tree is stunted in its growth,

one branch does not shoot into surpassing luxuriance.

That woman whose habits and mental training enable her to assist

and sustain her husband in seasons of difficulty, and whose

children rely on her as a wise counselor, commands a life-long

reverence far deeper and dearer than can be secured by transient

accomplishments, or the most refined and delicate imbecility! All

women are not wives and mothers, but all have spirits needing

development, powers that grow with their exercise.

Those who are best acquainted with the state of society know that

there is, at this time, a vast amount of unhappiness among women

for want of free outlets to their powers; that thousands are

yearning for fuller development, and a wider field of usefulness.

The same energies which in man find vent in the professions, and

in the thousand forms of business and study, must find an

ennobling channel in woman, else they will be frittered away in

trifles, or turned into instruments to prey upon their possessor.

To follow the empty round of fashion, to retail gossip and

scandal, to be an ornament in the parlor or a mere drudge in the

kitchen, to live as an appendage to any human being, does not

fill up nor satisfy the capacities of a soul awakened to a sense

of its true wants, and the far-reaching and mighty interests

which cluster around its existence.

We protest against the tyranny of that public sentiment which

assigns any arbitrary sphere to woman. God has made the happiness

and development of His creatures to depend upon the free exercise

of their powers and faculties. Freedom is the law of beauty,

written by His fingers upon the human mind, and the only

condition upon which it can attain to its fall stature, and

expand in its natural and beautiful proportions.

It is recognized, in reference to man, that his judgment,

opportunities, and abilities are the proper measure of his

sphere. "The tools to him who can use them." But the same

principles are not trusted in their application to woman, lest,

forsooth, she should lose her feminine characteristics, and, like

the lost Pleiad, forsake her native sphere!

It seems to be forgotten that the laws of nature will not be

suspended; that the human mind, when released from pressure, like

water, must find its own level; that woman can not, if she would,

cast away her nature and instincts; that it is only when we are

left free to obey the inward attractions of our being that we

fall into our natural places, and move in our God-appointed

orbits.

We ask that none shall dare to come in between woman and her

Maker, and with unhallowed hands attempt to plant their shallow

posts and draw their flimsy cords around the Heaven-wide sphere

of an immortal spirit! We maintain that God has not so failed in

His adaptations as to give powers to be wasted, talents to be

wrapped in a napkin; and that the possession of faculties and

capabilities is the warrant of nature, the command of the

All-Wise for their culture and exercise.

We believe that the woman who is obeying the convictions of her

own soul, and whose ability is commensurate with her employment,

is ever in her own true sphere; whether in her quiet home she is

training her children to nobleness and virtue, or is standing as

a physician by the bed of sickness and sorrow; whether, with

Elizabeth Fry, she is preaching the gospel of glad tidings to the

sad dwellers in prison, or like the Italian, Lauri Bassi, is

filling a professor's chair and expounding philosophy to admiring

and instructed listeners.

While we demand for woman a more complete physical, intellectual,

and moral education, as the means of strengthening and

beautifying her own nature, and of ennobling the whole race, we

also ask for a more elevated standard of excellence and moral

purity in man; and we maintain that if there is any place of

resort or employment in society, which necessarily would sully

the delicacy of woman's spirit, in that, man also must be

contaminated and degraded. Woman indeed should wear about her,

wherever she moves, the protecting investment of innocence and

purity; but not less is it requisite that he, who is the

companion of her life, should guard his spirit with the same

sacred and beautiful covering.

We believe that woman, as an accountable being, can not

innocently merge her individuality in that of her brother, or

accept from him the limitations of her sphere. In all life's

great extremities she also is thrown upon her inward resources,

and stands alone. Man can not step in between her and the

"accusing angel" of her own conscience; alone in the solitude of

her spirit she must wrestle with her own sorrows; none can walk

for her "the valley of the shadow of death!" When her brother

shall be able to settle for her accountabilities, and "give to

God a ransom for her soul," then, and not till then, may she

rightly commit to him the direction of her powers and activities.

We ask, in fine, for the application of the fundamental

principles of Christianity and republicanism to this, as to all

other questions of vital importance; and appealing to all who

desire the progression and happiness of the whole race, we ask

them, as magnanimous men and true women, to examine this subject

in the spirit of a generous and candid investigation.

RUSH PLUMLY said: Although institutions which recognize all the

rights of all classes of the people, and allow scope for the

growth and activity of every faculty, must, in their very nature,

increase in power and permanence; yet, compared with the duration

of things, the oldest nations and the best founded governments

have had but an ephemeral existence, appearing, maturing, and

decaying with startling rapidity and endless succession.

No form has been exempt from this national mortality.

Theocracies, oligarchies, monarchies, despotisms, republics, have

arisen, flourished, and vanished into history or tradition. So

inevitable does the successive ruin appear, that we have

incorporated into our religious faith the idea that limitation,

conflict, and decay, rather than expansion, permanence, and

peace, are inherent in all human governments, and, in despair man

postpones his hope of national, as well as of individual

stability and happiness, to some future existence.

For results so certain and so universal among all people, in

every age, there must be some profound and radical cause which

religion and philosophy have not discovered, or for which they

have proposed no remedy. It is not sufficient to say that these

are consequences of human imperfection; that we know; but whence

arises the imperfection? It does not satisfy us to assert that

they proceed from the depravity of man; how came he depraved? Nor

is it more consoling to declare that all human institutions must

change and perish. Why must they? Human institutions, if founded

upon eternal principles, become divine, and may be immortal; it

is not the human, but the inhuman institutions which perish; not

humanity, but inhumanity which fills the earth with strife and

blood.

No! there is behind and below all these imaginary causes, a real

cause for the degeneracy of the race. It may be traced to the

long continued disregard of the laws of God in relation to woman,

and the retribution is worked out physiologically upon the whole

nature of man, reaching every tissue of his body and every

faculty of his mind.

It is a law of God, well understood, that whenever and wherever

any community forcibly depresses any class of its people below

the general level, it not only injures and degrades that class,

but is itself injured, degraded, and deranged in exact proportion

to the wrong it perpetrates. Whenever we crowd any portion of our

fellow-beings into an abyss of ignorance and servitude, we are

drawn irresistibly, by their weight, to the brink of the same

gulf.

If this be the inevitable result of the oppression of an

individual, or a class, how much more forcibly must it apply when

one-half the world, the "mothers of the living," are made subject

to systematic deprivation of rights and tyrannous restriction in

the exercise of high and noble faculties.

I do not propose to detail the disabilities under which woman

suffers. They have been ably depicted by women in this meeting.

But I wish to indicate the breadth and basis of this reform, for

the consideration of those people who suppose it to be a

fractional and transient movement.

Whatever suffering or degradation woman is subjected to, by the

depression of the whole sex below the level of society, reacts

with frightful force upon man; who is thus compelled to

compensate for the cruel and mistaken policy, which, in all time,

has denied to her equal opportunities of education and

development, closed to her those avenues to profit and progress

open to him, ignored her in the Church and State as feeble and

inferior, rejected her counsels, and derided her authority in the

creation of those institutions of society to which not only she,

but her children are to be subject; although, if there be any

induction more striking than another it is this, that a child,

who is the offspring of the physical union of man and woman, can

only be truly educated and nurtured by institutions springing

from the unity of mental and moral elements in the father and

mother.

This universal ignoring of the feminine element pervades not only

the politics, but the religion of every country on earth. Men

worship, as their supreme God, only an embodiment of the

masculine element--"Power," whether in Jove or Jehovah; and ever

in the Christian Trinity or Unity, the same masculine ideal is

maintained. Jesus did, indeed, recognize the feminine element in

His emphatic declaration that "God is Love," but His professed

followers have "not so learned Him," for they not only declare

God to be a triune masculinity, but they have driven woman from

the pulpit, and would dispute with her the place at the cross and

the sepulchre.

The religions of antiquity permitted woman to be a priestess at

the expense of wifehood and maternity, but our Christian

Protestantism denies to her the mission of minister, even with

that penalty. It is true the Catholic Church does recognize women

among its divinities, and it might be a curious and instructive

inquiry, how far that Church owes its perpetuity, despite its

gigantic crimes and crushing despotism, to the recognition of

"Mary the mother of God." In its effort to perpetuate the

servitude of woman, as in other attempts to defend oppression

and falsehood, society has suborned the handmaids of progress,

Religion and Science, to justify its wickedness; the one to prove

inferiority from her organism, the other to add the weight of its

anathema against any effort at equality.

But Nature vindicates herself against the first, by presenting De

Staël, Margaret Fuller, and others; and to the cavilling bigot it

may be said that whoever declared that "man is the head of the

woman," if he designed to justify the present interpretation of

that expression, has forfeited all claim to the apostleship of a

religion whose highest merit it is to equalize the people by

elevating the oppressed. But Paul taught no such doctrine.

The result of all this circumscription of woman has been to

enfeeble and misdirect her faculties, to weaken the influence of

her nature upon society and especially upon her offspring. Driven

from the thousand avenues to wealth and position open to man,

denied access to the best institutions of learning, permitted to

acquire only superficial accomplishments, she is ushered into

society at an age when her brothers are preparing to enter

colleges and halls of learning from which she is excluded, and

thus undeveloped and comparatively helpless, her instincts

vitiated and no freedom for her affinities, she is turned adrift

to encounter obstacles for which she is unprepared, and in the

severe conflict to barter her honor for subsistence; or if she

escape that horrible contingency, to exchange her beauty or her

services for a matrimonial establishment, and thus prepare to

perpetuate human degeneracy.

There are many exceptions to this statement, but the statement is

the rule. From these unequal and discordant relations, and the

feeble and restricted influence of the mother, spring generations

of children who are born constitutionally defective in the

feminine qualities of gentleness, purity, and love; and the utter

rejection of that element in the societary arrangements under

which they grow to manhood, aggravates their inherited

tendencies, until whole nations of warriors founding governments

of blood have filled the earth, and war and rapine have not only

become the occupation and the pastime of man, but have grown into

his religion and become incarnate in the Deities he worships.

It is thus that the seeds of violence and vice are sown with the

germs of the generations, and they spring to a frightful harvest

in each succeeding growth of the race. Millions of human beings

issue into life, pre-ordained--not in the theological, but in the

physiological sense--to violence and crime, and they go forth to

make their calling and election sure. From these the world

recruits its armies, renews its tyrants, refills its slave-pens

and its brothels, populates its prisons, alms-houses, and

asylums. It is in vain to hope for other results while woman,

upon whom, as "mother of the living," depends the progress of

man, is denied any other than a limited and indirect influence in

the fabric of society.

We may abolish slavery, remove intemperance, banish war and

licentiousness, but they will have frightful reproduction in the

elemental discord of our natures; for that which is "in us will

be revealed." Man indicates his condition by the institutions he

creates; they are the issues of the life he lives at the time,

the outward sign of his inward state.

To improve that inward condition, and arrest at their origin

these causes of human degeneracy, is the object of this reform.

It proposes, as before stated, not only to cure, but to prevent

the diseases of the body politic; to place man and woman in such

natural and true relations of equal and mutual development, and

to so sanctify marriage that from their union under the highest

auspices, a regenerate humanity shall not only cease to be

violent and vicious, but shall outgrow the dispositions to

violence and vice.

We know that this is a work for whole generations, but as we

believe it to be radical and effectual, it should be at once

begun. We think the first great step is to clear away the rubbish

of ages from the pathway of woman, to abolish the onerous

restrictions which environ her in every direction, to open to her

the temples of religion, the halls of science and of art, and the

marts of commerce, affording her the same opportunity for

education and occupation now enjoyed by man; no longer, by

corrupt public sentiment and partial legislation, to limit her to

a few and poorly paid pursuits to obtain subsistence and thus

increase her dependence upon the charity of man, nor to deny her

admission to any institution of learning, whose richly endowed

professorships and vast advantages she by her labor has

contributed to create, only to see them monopolized by man. I

know that in answer to this it is urged that she has organic

limits intellectually which deny to her such attainments. It is

sufficient to reply, that under all the disabilities to which she

is subject, her sex has produced De Staël and Margaret Fuller.

Letters were read from Mary Mott, of Auburn, De Kalb County, Indiana;

Paulina Wright Davis, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, William and Mary

Johnson, and a series of resolutions passed.[69] Oliver Johnson took

an active part in the discussions, and at the close of the Convention,

moved a resolution of thanks to the friends who had come from a

distance, and contributed so much to the success of the meeting. The

Convention then adjourned _sine die_.

In 1849, Richard H. Dana, of Boston, well known as a man of rare

literary culture, delivered a lecture on womanhood throughout the

country. He ridiculed the new demand of American women for civil and

political rights, and for a larger sphere of action, and eulogized

Shakespeare's women, especially Desdemona, Ophelia, and Juliet, and

recommended them to his dissatisfied countrywomen as models of

innocence, tenderness, and confiding love in man, for their study and

imitation.

He gave this lecture in Philadelphia, and Lucretia Mott was in the

audience. At the close she asked an introduction, and told him that

while she had been much interested in his lecture, and profited by the

information it contained, she could not respond to his idea of

woman's true character and destiny. "I am very sorry," he replied

quickly, at the first word of criticism, and rushed out of the house,

leaving Mrs. Mott, who had hoped to modify his views, somewhat

transfixed with surprise. In describing the scene to some friends

afterward, she remarked that she had never been treated with more

rudeness by one supposed to understand the rules of etiquette that

should always govern the behavior of a gentleman.

Soon after this, she delivered the following discourse in the Assembly

buildings in Philadelphia. After giving the Bible view of woman's

position as an equal,

LUCRETIA MOTT said: I have not come here with a view of answering

any particular parts of the lecture alluded to, in order to point

out the fallacy of its reasoning. The speaker, however, did not

profess to offer anything like argument on that occasion, but

rather a sentiment. I have no prepared address to deliver to you,

being unaccustomed to speak in that way; but I felt a wish to

offer some views for your consideration, though in a desultory

manner, which may lead to such reflection and discussion as will

present the subject in a true light.

Why should not woman seek to be a reformer? If she is to shrink

from being such an iconoclast as shall "break the image of man's

lower worship," as so long held up to view; if she is to fear to

exercise her reason, and her noblest powers, lest she should be

thought to "attempt to act the man," and not "acknowledge his

supremacy"; if she is to be satisfied with the narrow sphere

assigned her by man, nor aspire to a higher, lest she should

transcend the bounds of female delicacy; truly it is a mournful

prospect for woman. We would admit all the difference, that our

great and beneficent Creator has made, in the relation of man and

woman, nor would we seek to disturb this relation; but we deny

that the present position of woman is her true sphere of

usefulness; nor will she attain to this sphere, until the

disabilities and disadvantages, religious, civil, and social,

which impede her progress, are removed out of her way. These

restrictions have enervated her mind and paralyzed her powers.

While man assumes that the present is the original state designed

for woman, that the existing "differences are not arbitrary nor

the result of accident," but grounded in nature; she will not

make the necessary effort to obtain her just rights, lest it

should subject her to the kind of scorn and contemptuous manner

in which she has been spoken of.

So far from her "ambition leading her to attempt to act the man,"

she needs all the encouragement she can receive, by the removal

of obstacles from her path, in order that she may become the

"true woman." As it is desirable that man should act a manly and

generous part, not "mannish," so let woman be urged to exercise a

dignified and womanly bearing, not womanish. Let her cultivate

all the graces and proper accomplishments of her sex, but let not

these degenerate into a kind of effeminacy, in which she is

satisfied to be the mere plaything or toy of society, content

with her outward adornings, and the flattery and fulsome

adulation too often addressed to her.

[Illustration: LUCRETIA MOTT (with autograph).]

Did Elizabeth Fry lose any of her feminine qualities by the

public walk into which she was called? Having performed the

duties of a mother to a large family, feeling that she owed a

labor of love to the poor prisoner, she was empowered by Him who

sent her forth, to go to kings and crowned heads of the earth,

and ask audience of these, and it was granted her. Did she lose

the delicacy of woman by her acts? No. Her retiring modesty was

characteristic of her to the latest period of her life. It was my

privilege to enjoy her society some years ago, and I found all

that belonged to the feminine in woman--to true nobility, in a

refined and purified moral nature. Is Dorothea Dix throwing off

her womanly nature and appearance in the course she is pursuing?

In finding duties abroad, has any "refined man felt that

something of beauty has gone forth from her"? To use the

contemptuous word applied in the lecture alluded to, is she

becoming "mannish"? Is she compromising her womanly dignity in

going forth to seek to better the condition of the insane and

afflicted? Is not a beautiful mind and a retiring modesty still

conspicuous in her?

Indeed, I would ask, if this modesty is not attractive also, when

manifested in the other sex? It was strikingly marked in Horace

Mann, when presiding over the late National Educational

Convention in this city. The retiring modesty of William Ellery

Channing was beautiful, as well as of many others who have filled

elevated stations in society. These virtues, differing as they

may in degree in man and woman, are of the same nature, and call

forth our admiration wherever manifested.

The noble courage of Grace Darling is justly honored for risking

her own life on the coast of England, during the raging storm, in

order to rescue the poor, suffering, shipwrecked mariner.

Woman was not wanting in courage in the early ages. In war and

bloodshed this trait was often displayed. Grecian and Roman

history have lauded and honored her in this character. English

history records her courageous women too, for unhappily we have

little but the records of war handed down to us. The courage of

Joan of Arc was made the subject of a popular lecture not long

ago by one of our intelligent citizens. But more noble, moral

daring is marking the female character at the present time, and

better worthy of imitation. As these characteristics come to be

appreciated in man too, his warlike acts with all the miseries

and horrors of the battle-ground will sink into their merited

oblivion, or be remembered only to be condemned. The heroism

displayed in the tented field must yield to the moral and

Christian heroism which is shadowed in the signs of our times.

The lecturer regarded the announcement of woman's achievements,

and the offering of appropriate praise through the press, as a

gross innovation upon the obscurity of female life--he complained

that the exhibition of attainments of girls in schools was now

equal to that of boys, and the newspapers announce that "Miss

Brown received the first prize for English grammar," etc. If he

objected to so much excitement of emulation in schools, it would

be well; for the most enlightened teachers discountenance these

appeals to love of approbation and self-esteem. But while prizes

continue to be awarded, can any good reason be given why the name

of the girl should not be published as well as that of the boy?

He spoke with scorn, that "we hear of Mrs. President so and so;

and committees and secretaries of the same sex." But if women can

conduct their own business, by means of presidents and

secretaries of their own sex, can he tell us why they should not?

They will never make much progress in any moral movement while

they depend upon men to act for them. Do we shrink from reading

the announcement that Mrs. Somerville is made an honorary member

of a scientific association? That Miss Herschel has made some

discoveries, and is prepared to take her equal part in science?

Or that Miss Mitchell, of Nantucket, has lately discovered a

planet, long looked for? I can not conceive why "honor to whom

honor is due" should not be rendered to woman as well as man; nor

will it necessarily exalt her, or foster feminine pride. This

propensity is found alike in male and female, and it should not

be ministered to improperly in either sex.

In treating upon the affections, the lecturer held out the idea

that as manifested in the sexes they were opposite if not

somewhat antagonistic, and required a union as in chemistry to

form a perfect whole. The simile appeared to me far from a

correct illustration of the true union. Minds that can

assimilate, spirits that are congenial, attract one another. It

is the union of similar, not of opposite affections, which is

necessary for the perfection of the marriage bond. There seemed a

want of proper delicacy in his representing man as being bold in

the demonstration of the pure affection of love. In persons of

refinement, true love seeks concealment in man as well as in

woman. I will not enlarge upon the subject, although it formed so

great a part of his lecture. The contrast drawn seemed a fallacy,

as has much, very much, that has been presented in the sickly

sentimental strains of the poet from age to age.

The question is often asked, "What does woman want, more than she

enjoys? What is she seeking to obtain? Of what rights is she

deprived? What privileges are withheld from her?" I answer, she

asks nothing as favor, but as right; she wants to be acknowledged

a moral, responsible being. She is seeking not to be governed by

laws in the making of which she has no voice. She is deprived of

almost every right in civil society, and is a cipher in the

nation, except in the right of presenting a petition. In

religious society her disabilities have greatly retarded her

progress. Her exclusion from the pulpit or ministry, her duties

marked out for her by her equal brother man, subject to creeds,

rules, and disciplines made for her by him, is unworthy her true

dignity.

In marriage there is assumed superiority on the part of the

husband, and admitted inferiority with a promise of obedience on

the part of the wife. This subject calls loudly for examination

in order that the wrong may be redressed. Customs suited to

darker ages in Eastern countries are not binding upon enlightened

society. The solemn covenant of marriage may be entered into

without these lordly assumptions and humiliating concessions and

promises.

There are large Christian denominations who do not recognize

such degrading relations of husband and wife. They ask no aid

from magistrate or clergyman to legalize or sanctify this union.

But acknowledging themselves in the presence of the Highest and

invoking His assistance, they come under reciprocal obligations

of fidelity and affection, before suitable witnesses. Experience

and observation go to prove that there may be as much harmony, to

say the least, in such a union, and as great purity and

permanence of affection, as can exist where the common ceremony

is observed.

The distinctive relations of husband and wife, of father and

mother of a family, are sacredly preserved, without the

assumption of authority on the one part, or the promise of

obedience on the other. There is nothing in such a marriage

degrading to woman. She does not compromise her dignity or

self-respect; but enters married life upon equal ground, by the

side of her husband. By proper education, she understands her

duties, physical, intellectual, and moral; and fulfilling these,

she is a helpmeet in the true sense of the word.

I tread upon delicate ground in alluding to the institutions of

religious Associations; but the subject is of so much importance

that all which relates to the position of woman should be

examined apart from the undue veneration which ancient usage

receives.

"Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone

To reverence what is ancient, and can plead

A course of long observance for its use,

That even servitude, the worst of ills,

Because delivered down from sire to son,

Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing."

So with woman. She has so long been subject to the disabilities

and restrictions with which her progress has been embarrassed,

that she has become enervated, her mind to some extent paralyzed;

and like those still more degraded by personal bondage, she hugs

her chains. Liberty is often presented in its true light, but it

is liberty for man. I would not go so far, either as regards the

abject slave or woman; for in both cases they may be so degraded

by the crushing influences around them, that they may not be

sensible of the blessings of freedom. Liberty is not less a

blessing, because oppression has so long darkened the mind that

it can not appreciate it. I would, therefore, urge that woman be

placed in such a situation in society, by the recognition of her

rights, and have such opportunities for growth and development,

as shall raise her from this low, enervated, and paralyzed

condition, to a full appreciation of the blessing of entire

freedom of mind.

It is with reluctance that I make the demand for the political

rights of women, because this claim is so distasteful to the age.

Woman shrinks, in the present state of society, from taking any

interest in politics. The events of the French Revolution, and

the claim for woman's rights, are held up to her as a warning.

Let us not look at the excesses of women alone, at that period;

but remember that the age was marked with extravagances and

wickedness in men as well as women. Political life abounds with

these excesses and with shameful outrage. Who knows but that if

woman acted her part in governmental affairs, there might be an

entire change in the turmoil of political life? It becomes man to

speak modestly of his ability to act without her. If woman's

judgment were exercised, why might she not aid in making the laws

by which she is governed? Lord Brougham remarked that the works

of Harriet Martineau upon Political Economy were not excelled by

those of any political writer of the present time. The first few

chapters of her "Society in America," her views of a Republic,

and of government generally, furnish evidence of woman's capacity

to embrace subjects of universal interest.

Far be it from me to encourage women to vote, or to take an

active part in politics in the present state of our government.

Her right to the elective franchise, however, is the same, and

should be yielded to her, whether she exercise that right or not.

Would that man, too, would have no participation in a government

recognizing the life-taking principle; retaliation and the sword.

It is unworthy a Christian nation. But when in the diffusion of

light and intelligence a Convention shall be called to make

regulations for self-government on Christian principles, I can

see no good reason why women should not participate in such an

assemblage, taking part equally with man.

Professor Walker, of Cincinnati, in his "Introduction to American

Law," says: "With regard to political rights, females form a

positive exception to the general doctrine of equality. They have

no part or lot in the formation or administration of government.

They cannot vote or hold office. We require them to contribute

their share in the way of taxes to the support of government, but

allow them no voice in its direction. We hold them amenable to

the laws when made, but allow them no share in making them. This

language applied to males would be the exact definition of

political slavery; applied to females custom does not teach us so

to regard it." Woman, however, is beginning so to regard it.

He further says: "The law of husband and wife, as you gather it

from the books, is a disgrace to any civilized nation. The theory

of the law degrades the wife almost to the level of slaves. When

a woman marries, we call her condition coverture, and speak of

her as a _femme covert_. The old writers call the husband baron,

and sometimes in plain English, lord.... The merging of her name

in that of her husband is emblematic of the fate of all her legal

rights. The torch of Hymen serves but to light the pile on which

these rights are offered up. The legal theory is, that marriage

makes the husband and wife one person, and that person is the

husband. On this subject, reform is loudly called for. There is

no foundation in reason or expediency for the absolute and

slavish subjection of the wife to the husband, which forms the

foundation of the present legal relations. Were woman, in point

of fact, the abject thing which the law in theory considers her

to be when married, she would not be worthy the companionship of

man."

I would ask if such a code of laws does not require change? If

such a condition of the wife in society does not claim redress?

On no good ground can reform be delayed. Blackstone says: "The

very being and legal existence of woman is suspended during

marriage; incorporated or consolidated into that of her husband

under whose protection and cover she performs everything."

Hurlbut, in his Essay upon Human Rights, says: "The laws touching

the rights of women are at variance with the laws of the Creator.

Rights are human rights, and pertain to human beings without

distinction of sex. Laws should not be made for man or for

woman, but for mankind. Man was not born to command, nor woman to

obey.... The law of France, Spain, and Holland, and one of our

own States, Louisiana, recognizes the wife's right to property,

more than the common law of England.... The laws depriving woman

of the right of property are handed down to us from dark and

feudal times, and are not consistent with the wiser, better,

purer spirit of the age. The wife is a mere pensioner on the

bounty of her husband. Her lost rights are appropriated to

himself. But justice and benevolence are abroad in our land

awakening the spirit of inquiry and innovation; and the Gothic

fabric of the British law will fall before it, save where it is

based upon the foundation of truth and justice."

May these statements lead you to reflect upon this subject, that

you may know what woman's condition is in society, what her

restrictions are, and seek to remove them. In how many cases in

our country the husband and wife begin life together, and by

equal industry and united effort accumulate to themselves a

comfortable home. In the event of the death of the wife the

household remains undisturbed, his farm or his workshop is not

broken up or in any way molested. But when the husband dies he

either gives his wife a portion of their joint accumulation, or

the law apportions to her a share; the homestead is broken up,

and she is dispossessed of that which she earned equally with

him; for what she lacked in physical strength she made up in

constancy of labor and toil, day and evening. The sons then

coming into possession of the property, as has been the custom

until of later time, speak of having to keep their mother, when

she in reality is aiding to keep them. Where is the justice of

this state of things? The change in the law of this State and of

New York in relation to the property of the wife, goes to a

limited extent toward the redress of these wrongs which are far

more extensive and involve much more than I have time this

evening to point out.

On no good ground can the legal existence of the wife be

suspended during marriage, and her property surrendered to her

husband. In the intelligent ranks of society the wife may not in

point of fact be so degraded as the law would degrade her;

because public sentiment is above the law. Still, while the law

stands, she is liable to the disabilities which it imposes. Among

the ignorant classes of society, woman is made to bear heavy

burdens, and is degraded almost to the level of the slave. There

are many instances now in our city, where the wife suffers much

from the power of the husband to claim all that she can earn with

her own hands. In my intercourse with the poorer class of people,

I have known cases of extreme cruelty from the hard earnings of

the wife being thus robbed by the husband, and no redress at law.

An article in one of the daily papers lately presented the

condition of needle-women in England. There might be a

presentation of this class in our own country which would make

the heart bleed. Public attention should be turned to this

subject in order that avenues of more profitable employment may

be opened to women. There are many kinds of business which women,

equally with men, may follow with respectability and success.

Their talents and energies should be called forth, and their

powers brought into the highest exercise. The efforts of women in

France are sometimes pointed to in ridicule and sarcasm, but

depend upon it, the opening of profitable employment to women in

that country is doing much for the enfranchisement of the sex.

In England and America it is not an uncommon thing for a wife to

take up the business of her deceased husband and carry it on with

success.

Our respected British Consul stated to me a circumstance which

occurred some years ago, of an editor of a political paper having

died in England; it was proposed to his wife, an able writer, to

take the editorial chair. She accepted. The patronage of the

paper was greatly increased, and she a short time since retired

from her labors with a handsome fortune. In that country,

however, the opportunities are by no means general for woman's

elevation.

In visiting the public school in London a few years since, I

noticed that the boys were employed in linear drawing, and

instructed upon the black-board in the higher branches of

arithmetic and mathematics; while the girls, after a short

exercise in the mere elements of arithmetic, were seated during

the bright hours of the morning, stitching wristbands. I asked

why there should be this difference made; why the girls too

should not have the black-board? The answer was, that they would

not probably fill any station in society requiring such

knowledge.

The demand for a more extended education will not cease until

girls and boys have equal instruction in all the departments of

useful knowledge. We have as yet no high-school in this State.

The normal school may be a preparation for such an establishment.

In the late convention for general education, it was cheering to

hear the testimony borne to woman's capabilities for head

teachers of the public schools. A resolution there offered for

equal salaries to male and female teachers when equally

qualified, as practiced in Louisiana. I regret to say, was

checked in its passage by Bishop Potter; by him who has done so

much for the encouragement of education, and who gave his

countenance and influence to that Convention. Still, the fact of

such a resolution being offered, augurs a time coming for woman

which she may well hail. At the last examination of the public

schools in this city, one of the alumni delivered an address on

Woman, not as is too common in eulogistic strains, but directing

the attention to the injustice done to woman in her position in

society in a variety of ways, the unequal wages she receives for

her constant toil, etc., presenting facts calculated to arouse

attention to the subject.

Women's property has been taxed equally with that of men's to

sustain colleges endowed by the States; but they have not been

permitted to enter those high seminaries of learning. Within a

few years, however, some colleges have been instituted where

young women are admitted upon nearly equal terms with young men;

and numbers are availing themselves of their long denied rights.

This is among the signs of the times, indicative of an advance

for women. The book of knowledge is not opened to her in vain.

Already is she aiming to occupy important posts of honor and

profit in our country. We have three females editors in our

State, and some in other States of the Union. Numbers are

entering the medical profession; one received a diploma last

year; others are preparing for a like result.

Let woman then go on, not asking favors, but claiming as right,

the removal of all hindrances to her elevation in the scale of

being; let her receive encouragement for the proper cultivation

of all her powers, so that she may enter profitably into the

active business of life; employing her own hands in ministering

to her necessities, strengthening her physical being by proper

exercise and observance of the laws of health. Let her not be

ambitious to display a fair hand and to promenade the

fashionable streets of our city, but rather, coveting earnestly

the best gifts, let her strive to occupy such walks in society as

will befit her true dignity in all the relations of life. No fear

that she will then transcend the proper limits of female

delicacy. True modesty will be as fully preserved in acting out

those important vocations, as in the nursery or at the fireside

ministering to man's self-indulgence. Then in the marriage union,

the independence of the husband and wife will be equal, their

dependence mutual, and their obligations reciprocal.

In conclusion, let me say, with Nathaniel P. Willis: "Credit not

the old-fashioned absurdity that woman's is a secondary lot,

ministering to the necessities of her lord and master! It is a

higher destiny I would award you. If your immortality is as

complete, and your gift of mind as capable as ours of increase

and elevation, I would put no wisdom of mine against God's

evident allotment. I would charge you to water the undying bud,

and give it healthy culture, and open its beauty to the sun; and

then you may hope that when your life is bound up with another,

you will go on equally and in a fellowship that shall pervade

every earthly interest."

NATIONAL CONVENTION IN PHILADELPHIA.

October 18, 1854, the Fifth National Convention was held in Sansom

Street Hall, where a large audience, chiefly of ladies, assembled at

an early hour.

At half-past ten o'clock Lucretia Mott made her appearance on the

platform, accompanied by several ladies and gentlemen, notably Lucy

Stone in Bloomer costume. She was the observed of all observers; the

neatness of her attire, and the grace with which she wore it, did much

to commend it to public approval. The press remarked that the officers

of the Convention were all without bonnets, and that many ladies in

the audience had their knitting-work. "A casual visitor," says _The

Bulletin_, "would have been impressed with the number and character of

this assembly, both among the actors and spectators. Every variety of

age, sex, race, color, and costume were here represented. Bloomers

were side by side with the mouse-colored gowns and white shawls of the

wealthy Quaker dames, and genteelly dressed ladies of the latest Paris

fashion."

The house was crowded, and on the steps ascending the platform were

seated William Lloyd Garrison and James Mott, side by side with men of

the darkest hue. The colored people scattered through the audience

seemed quite at their ease, and were evidently received on grounds of

perfect equality, which was the subject of much comment by outsiders.

Mrs. Frances D. Gage, President of the last Convention at Cleveland,

called the assembly to order, and read

THE CALL.

In accordance with a vote passed at the adjournment of the

Woman's Rights Convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, in October,

1853, the Fifth National Convention will be held in Philadelphia,

October 18th, to continue three days. The subjects for

consideration will be the Equal Right of Woman to all the

advantages of education, literary, scientific, artistic; to full

equality in all business avocations, industrial, commercial,

professional; briefly, all the rights that belong to her as a

citizen.

This wide range of subjects for discussion can not fail to awaken

the attention of all classes; hence we invite all persons

irrespective of sex or color to take part in the deliberations of

the Convention, and thus contribute to the progress of truth and

the redemption of humanity.

On behalf of the Central Committee,

PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS, _President_.

ANTOINETTE L. BROWN, _Secretary_.

The following officers were chosen for the Convention:

PRESIDENT.--Ernestine L. Rose, of New York.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.--Lucretia Mott, Philadelphia; Frances D. Gage,

Missouri; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts; Martha C.

Wright, New York; Thomas Garrett, Delaware; Hannah Tracy Cutler,

Illinois; Robert Purvis; Pennsylvania; John O. Wattles, Indiana;

Marenda B. Randall, Vermont; George Sunter, Canada.

SECRETARIES.--Joseph A. Dugdale, Abby Kimber, Hannah M.

Darlington.

BUSINESS COMMITTEE.--Lucy Stone, William Lloyd Garrison, Myra

Townsend, Mary P. Wilson, Sarah Pugh, Lydia Mott, Mary Grew.

FINANCE COMMITTEE.--Susan B. Anthony, James Mott, Ruth Dugdale,

Rebecca Plumbly.

Mrs. Rose, on taking the chair, said:

There is one argument which in my estimation is the argument of

arguments, why woman should have her rights; not on account of

expediency, not on account of policy, though these too show the

reasons why she should have her rights; but we claim--I for one

claim, and I presume all our friends claim--our rights on the

broad ground of human rights; and I for one again will say, I

promise not how we shall use them. I will no more promise how we

shall use our rights than man has promised before he obtained

them, how he would use them. We all know that rights are often

abused; and above all things have human rights in this country

been abused, from the very fact that they have been withheld from

half of the community.