By human rights we mean natural rights, and upon that ground we

claim our rights, and upon that ground they have already been

conceded by the Declaration of Independence, in that first great

and immutable truth which is proclaimed in that instrument, "that

all men are created equal," and that therefore all are entitled

to "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness." Our claims are based upon that

great and immutable truth, the rights of all humanity. For is

woman not included in that phrase, "all men are created free and

equal"? Is she not included in that expression? Tell us, ye men

of the nation, ay, ye wise law-makers and law-breakers of the

nation, whether woman is not included in that great Declaration

of Independence? And if she is, what right has man to deprive her

of her natural and inalienable rights? It is natural, it is

inherent, it is inborn, it is a thing of which no one can justly

deprive her. Upon that just and eternal basis do we found our

claims for our rights; political, civil, legal, social,

religious, and every other.

But, at the outset, we claim our equal political rights with man,

not only from that portion of the Declaration of Independence,

but from another, equally well-established principle in this

country, that "taxation and representation are inseparable."

Woman, everybody knows, is taxed; and if she is taxed, she ought

to be represented.

I will simply here throw out a statement of these principles upon

which our claims are based; and I trust each separate resolution

will be taken up by this Convention, fully canvassed and

commented upon, so as to show it not only an abstract right, but

a right which can be wisely made practical.

Again, it is acknowledged in this country, and it is eternally

true, that "all the just powers of government are derived from

the consent of the governed." If so, then, as woman is a subject

of government, she ought to have a voice in enacting the laws. If

her property is taxed to maintain government, she ought to have a

voice in forming that government. If she has to pay taxes to

maintain government, she ought to have a voice in saying how

those taxes shall be applied.

On these grounds we make our claims, on natural, humane, eternal,

and well-recognized laws and principles of this republic. On

these grounds we ask man to meet us, and meet us in the spirit of

inquiry, in the spirit of candor and honesty, as rational human

beings ought to meet each other, face to face, and adduce

arguments, if they can, to convince us that we are not included

in that great Declaration of Independence; that although it is a

right principle that taxation and representation are inseparable,

yet woman ought to be taxed, and ought not to be represented; and

that although it is an acknowledged principle that all just power

of government is derived from the consent of the governed, yet

woman should be governed without her consent. Let them meet us

fairly and openly; let them meet us like rational men, men who

appreciate their own freedom, and we will hear them. If they can

convince us that we are wrong, we will give up our claims; but if

we can convince them that we are right in claiming our rights, as

they are in claiming theirs, then we expect them in a spirit of

candor and honesty to acknowledge it.

Joseph Dugdale read several letters, which, as usual, seemed to be

something of a bore to the audience. When he finished, Lucretia Mott

suggested that if there were any more lengthy epistles to be read, it

would be well for the secretaries to look them over, and omit all that

in their wisdom might not be worth reading.

Lucy Stone, from the Business Committee, read a series of

resolutions,[70] and as some one from the audience called, "Louder!"

she remarked that if ladies would keep their bonnets tied down over

their ears, they must not ask others to find lungs of sufficient power

to penetrate the heavy pasteboard and millinery over them. She spoke

briefly on the resolutions, and the steadily increasing interest in

the subject of woman's rights.

Hannah Tracy Cutler gave a report of Illinois, Frances Dana Gage of

Missouri, and Susan B. Anthony of New York.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, of Massachusetts, said he had a matter of

business to present. Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis being too ill to attend

the Convention, Mr. Higginson read a letter from her sister, Mary K.

Spaulding, suggesting the establishment of a newspaper in the city of

New York as "the national organ" of the Woman's Rights movement. He

doubted the wisdom of such a step, and after setting forth the expense

of a central organ and the great danger of its creating a schism, he

offered the following resolutions:

_Resolved_, That in the opinion of this Convention it is not

expedient, at present, to establish a newspaper as The National

Organ of the Woman's Rights Movement.

_Resolved_, That it is expedient to appoint a Committee who shall

provide for the preparation and publication, in widely circulated

journals, facts and arguments relating to the cause.

Mrs. MOTT approved of the resolutions, and said they had arrived

at a similar conclusion in the Syracuse Convention; she fully

concurred in the views of Mr. Higginson.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON replied, that if organization for any good

cause be right, it was right for this. Every reform movement

needs an organ of its own. And this cause needs a paper of the

most radical character; that shall make no compromises with

popular prejudices; far above the paralyzing influences of Church

and State.

Mrs. MOTT said she did not oppose organization, but was in favor

of individual freedom and responsibility. _The Liberator_, Mr.

Garrison's paper, has done far more good than _The Anti-Slavery

Standard_, the organ of the Anti-Slavery movement.

Mr. GARRISON said _The Liberator_ was not simply an anti-slavery

paper, but an advocate of general reform.

Remarks were made on this point by Elizabeth Paxton, Susan H. Cox,

George P. Davis, and George Sunter, of Canada.

LUCY STONE advocated the resolutions; her experience in the

anti-slavery cause had taught her a lesson of wisdom for this

movement. We are rich in principle and enthusiasm, but not in

silver and gold, and therefore should avoid taking on our

shoulders a national organ. Widely circulated journals are now

open to us, in which we can express our opinions with freedom and

without expense. There is nothing so strong as individual purpose

and freedom to carry it out. The papers established by Mrs.

Davis and Mrs. Bloomer are good, and she hoped the friends would

give generously to their support.

The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

of New York; Paulina Wright Davis, of Rhode Island; Thomas Wentworth

Higginson and Lucy Stone, of Massachusetts; and Oliver Johnson, of New

York, were appointed as the Committee to superintend the work.

LUCY STONE said she had a new item of business to propose. She

knew that those who came to these Conventions went away feeling

stronger and better. She held in her hand a pamphlet containing

five tracts; one from Wendell Phillips, one from Theodore Parker,

one from _The Westminster Review_, by Mrs. John Stuart Mill, one

from Mr. Higginson, and last, but not least, one from Mrs. C. I.

H. Nichols, which should be distributed. They were able papers,

and all interested in the movement should exert themselves to

circulate them. The people only wanted light.

Another mode of disseminating the principles was by stories

illustrating the wrongs of women under the present laws. The

right of a woman to what she earns; to the custody of her person;

to the guardianship of her children, and all of her other rights,

should be illustrated in fiction. Prizes should be offered for

the best stories upon these subjects. She pledged herself to

raise $500 for the purpose. She pointed to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to

show what fiction could accomplish, and trusted that action would

be taken upon the subject before the Convention adjourned.

Mr. GARRISONarose to say "ditto to Lucy Stone." In regard to

"Uncle Tom's Cabin," it was known that Mrs. Stowe was induced to

write it from a request of Dr. Bailey, of _The National Era_, to

write a story for his paper. And he thought that such an offer

might now call forth something to aid the cause of woman. He

praised the tracts to which Miss Stone alluded.

The PRESIDENT appointed Wendell Phillips, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

and Mary Channing Higginson, the Committee on prize tracts.[71]

Mrs. TRACY CUTLER read an invitation from the Female Medical

College for the members of the Convention to visit that

institution and attend its lectures, and took the opportunity to

compliment Philadelphia as being the first city, not only in the

United States, but in the world, to establish a Medical College

for Women.

Dr. ANN PRESTON gave an interesting report of The Woman's Medical

College; of all the persecutions women had encountered in

securing a medical education and entering that profession. She

noted the signs of a growing liberality with satisfaction.

The Rev. HENRY GREW, of Philadelphia, then appeared upon the

platform, and said he was sorry to differ from the general tone

of the speakers present, but he felt it to be his duty to give

his views on the questions under consideration. His opinions as

to woman's rights and duties were based on the Scriptures. He

quoted numerous texts to show that it was clearly the will of God

that man should be superior in power and authority to woman; and

asserted that no lesson is more plainly and frequently taught in

the Bible, than woman's subjection.

Mrs. CUTLER replied at length, and skillfully turned every text

he had quoted directly against the reverend gentleman, to the

great amusement of the audience. She showed that man and woman

were a simultaneous creation, with equal power and glory on their

heads, and that dominion over the fowl of the air, the fish of

the sea, and every creeping thing on the earth was given to them,

and not to man alone. The time has come for woman to read and

interpret Scripture for herself; too long have we learned God's

will from the lips of man and closed our eyes on the great book

of nature, and the safer teaching of our own souls. It is a pity

that those who would recommend the Bible as the revealed will of

the all-wise and benevolent Creator, should uniformly quote it on

the side of tyranny and oppression. I think we owe it to our

religion and ourselves to wrest it from such hands, and proclaim

the beautiful spirit breathed through all its commands and

precepts, instead of dwelling so much on isolated texts that have

no application to our day and generation.

Mrs. MOTT said: It is not Christianity, but priestcraft that has

subjected woman as we find her. The Church and State have been

united, and it is well for us to see it so. We have had to bear

the denunciations of these reverend (irreverend) clergymen, as in

New York, of late. But if we look to their authority to see how

they expound the text, quite likely we shall find a new reading.

Why, when John Chambers returned to Philadelphia from the World's

Temperance Convention at New York, he gave notice that he would

give an address, and state the rights of woman as defined by the

Bible. Great allowance has been made by some of the speakers in

this Convention, on account of his ignorance, and certainly this

was charitable. But I heard this discourse. I heard him bring up

what is called the Apostolic prohibition, and the old Eastern

idea of the subjection of wives; but he kept out of view some of

the best ideas in the Scriptures.

Blame is often attached to the position in which woman is found.

I blame her not so much as I pity her. So circumscribed have been

her limits that she does not realize the misery of her condition.

Such dupes are men to custom that even servitude, the worst of

ills, comes to be thought a good, till down from sire to son it

is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. Woman's existence is

maintained by sufferance. The veneration of man has been

misdirected, the pulpit has been prostituted, the Bible has been

ill-used. It has been turned over and over as in every reform.

The temperance people have had to feel its supposed

denunciations. Then the anti-slavery, and now this reform has

met, and still continues to meet, passage after passage of the

Bible, never intended to be so used. Instead of taking the truths

of the Bible in corroboration of the right, the practice has

been, to turn over its pages to find example and authority for

the wrong, for the existing abuses of society. For the usage of

drinking wine, the example of the sensualist Solomon, is always

appealed to. In reference to our reform, even admitting that Paul

did mean preach, when he used that term, he did not say that the

recommendation of that time was to be applicable to the churches

of all after-time. We have been so long pinning our faith on

other people's sleeves that we ought to begin examining these

things daily ourselves, to see whether they are so; and we should

find on comparing text with text, that a very different

construction might be put upon them. Some of our early Quakers

not seeing how far they were to be carried, became Greek and

Hebrew scholars, and they found that the text would bear other

translations as well as other constructions. All Bible

commentators agree that the Church of Corinth, when the apostle

wrote, was in a state of great confusion. They fell into

discussion and controversy; and in order to quiet this state of

things and bring the Church to greater propriety, the command was

given out that women should keep silence, and it was not

permitted them to speak, except by asking questions at home. In

the same epistle to the same Church, Paul gave express directions

how women shall prophesy, which he defines to be preaching,

"speaking to men," for "exhortation and comfort." He recognized

them in prophesying and praying. The word translated servant, is

applied to a man in one part of the Scripture, and in another it

is translated minister. Now that same word you will find might be

applied to Phebe, a deaconess. That text was quoted in the sermon

of John Chambers, and he interlarded it with a good many of his

ideas, that women should not be goers abroad, and read among

other things "that their wives were to be teachers." But properly

translated would be "deaconesses."

It is not so Apostolic to make the wife subject to the husband as

many have supposed. It has been done by law and public opinion

since that time. There has been a great deal said about sending

missionaries over to the East to convert women who are immolating

themselves on the funeral pile of their husbands. I know this may

be a very good work, but I would ask you to look at it. How many

women are there now immolated upon the shrine of superstition and

priestcraft, in our very midst, in the assumption that man only

has a right to the pulpit, and that if a woman enters it she

disobeys God; making woman believe in the misdirection of her

vocation, and that it is of divine authority that she should be

thus bound. Believe it not, my sisters. In this same epistle the

word "prophesying" should be "preaching"--"preaching godliness,"

etc. On the occasion of the first miracle which it is said Christ

wrought, a woman went before Him and said, "Whatsoever he biddeth

you do, that do." The woman of Samaria said, "Come and see the

man who told me all the things that ever I did."

These things are worthy of note. I do not want to dwell too much

upon Scripture authority. We too often bind ourselves by

authorities rather than by the truth. We are infidel to truth in

seeking examples to overthrow it. The very first act of note that

is mentioned when the disciples and apostles went forth after

Jesus was removed from them, was the bringing up of an ancient

prophecy to prove that they were right in the position they

assumed on that occasion, when men and women were gathered

together on the holy day of Pentecost, when every man heard and

saw those wonderful works which are recorded. Then Peter stood

forth--some one has said that Peter made a great mistake in

quoting the prophet Joel--but he stated that "the time is come,

this day is fulfilled the prophecy, when it is said, I will pour

out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters

shall prophesy," etc.--the language of the Bible is beautiful in

its repetition--"upon my servants and my handmaidens I will pour

out my spirit and they shall prophesy." Now can anything be

clearer than that?

Rev. HENRY GREW again quoted Scripture in reply to Mrs. Mott, and

said the coming of Christ into the world did not restore man and

woman to the original condition of our first parents. If the

position assumed by the women be true, then must the Divine Word

from Genesis to Revelation be set aside as untrue, that woman may

be relieved from the, perhaps, unfortunate limitations that hold

her back in this age of progress.

Mr. HIGGINSON related a story of an old Methodist clergyman who

by chance stepped into a Quaker meeting where he heard a woman

speaking, which so shocked him that he thought Anti-Christ was

now bound to rule. He went home sad. He had four daughters, one

of whom, at the age of sixteen, in a few minutes opened the eyes

of his understanding after he had groped in darkness a long time,

by showing him a passage in the Testament describing a friend of

Paul's at Phillippi, who had four daughters that prophesied. This

girl referred her father to the Greek Testament, and showed him

that the original word, properly translated, means to preach

instead of to prophesy. Before we resort to Scriptural texts we

should be careful to ascertain that they are right, or all

arguments founded on them must fall.

Mr. GREW did not consider that the story of the four daughters

invalidated his position.

Mr. GARRISON said: Consulting the Bible for opinions as to

woman's rights, is of little importance to the majority of this

Convention. We have gone over the whole ground, and placed our

cause upon the decrees of nature. We _know_ that man and woman

are equal in the sight of God. We know that texts and books are

of no importance, and have no taste for the discussion of dry

doctrinal points.

But with the American people the case is different. The masses

believe the Bible directly from God; that it decrees the

inequality of the sexes; and that settles the question. There is

no doubt that there are many persons connected with the

Protestant churches who would be with the movement were it not

for the supposed Bible difficulty. They shudder at anything they

think against the Bible, as against the will of God. Take away

this incubus, and these persons would experience a change in

their views; they would be with us.

In regard to Mr. Grew, Mr. G. said he had long known him and

loved him. He was a man of purity and charity, and he was glad he

had given his views. Yet this kindly man did not stand upon a

solid foundation.

Why go to the Bible to settle this question? As a nation, we have

practically ignored the Bible. The assertion of the equality and

inalienability of the rights of man, in the Declaration of

Independence, includes the whole of the human race. He would

never attempt to prove to an American the right of any man to

liberty. He asserted the fact; and considered that in holding

slaves while they proclaimed liberty to all men, the American

people were hypocrites and tyrants. Mr. Grew goes to St. Paul to

prove that woman is not equal to man. Why go to the Bible? What

question was ever settled by the Bible? What question of theology

or any other department? None that I ever heard of! With this

same version of the Bible, and the same ability to read it, we

find that it has filled all Christendom with theological

confusion. All are Ishmaelites; each man's hand against his

neighbor.

The human mind is greater than any book. The mind sits in

judgment on every book. If there be truth in the book, we take

it; if error, we discard it. Why refer this to the Bible? In this

country, the Bible has been used to support slavery and capital

punishment; while in the old countries, it has been quoted to

sustain all manner of tyranny and persecution. All reforms are

anti-Bible. We must look at all things rationally. We find women

endowed with certain capacities, and it is of no importance if

any book denies her such capacities. Would Mr. Grew say that

woman can not preach, in the face of such a preacher as LUCRETIA

MOTT?

Mrs. MOTT begged leave to substitute friend Grew's own daughter,

Mary Grew, who has already spoken on this platform!! and said,

Mr. Grew himself does not take all the Bible as inspiration, in

which most of the speakers concurred. She expressed her

attachment to the Scriptures, and said many excellent lessons

could be learned from them. She showed the misinterpretations of

the texts quoted by Mr. Grew and others against the equality of

the sexes. Mr. Grew does not take the Bible for his guide,

altogether. Mrs. Mott then quoted St. Paul in regard to marriage,

and said: Why in opposition to that text has Mr. Grew married a

second time? It was because he did not really believe that the

Scriptures were entirely inspired.

EMMA R. COE made a few remarks on the position of the clergy

generally toward this reform, the most beneficent in its results

of any, man has ever yet been called upon to consider. We often

hear it remarked that woman owes so much to Christianity. It can

not be the Christianity that the clergy have proclaimed on our

platform. From them we hear only of woman's degradation and

subjection. We have certainly nothing to be thankful for if such

are the principles Christ came into the world to declare; the

subjection of one-half of the race to the other half, as far as

we are concerned, is no improvement upon the religions of all

nations and ages.

At the close of this protracted discussion on the Bible position of

woman, the following resolutions, presented by Mr. Garrison, were

unanimously adopted:

_Resolved_, That while remembering and gladly acknowledging the

exceptional cases which exist to the contrary, we feel it a duty

to declare in regard to the sacred cause which has brought us

together, that the most determined opposition it encounters is

from the clergy generally, whose teachings of the Bible are

intensely inimical to the equality of woman with man.

_Resolved_, That whatever any book may teach, the rights of no

human being are dependent upon or modified thereby, but are

equal, absolute, essential, inalienable in the person of every

member of the human family, without regard to sex, race, or

clime.

JOHN SIDNEY JONES made a few remarks on the monopoly of the

pulpit.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY wished to remind the friends, before separating,

of one practical measure to be considered in the advancement of

our noble enterprise. For the purpose of holding Conventions,

circulating tracts and petitions, giving prizes for good stories,

supporting newspapers and agents, the first great requisite is

money, and I hope every one present will contribute generously to

help us carry on this grand reform.

Mr. GARRISON seconded Miss Anthony's demand for "the sinews of

war." He said we Americans are a theoretical people, and we are

also a practical people. If the women intend to knock at the door

of every State house to demand their rights, the question must

be argued in a practical way with facts and statistics.

When I undertook to have the gallows abolished in Massachusetts,

I asked the Committee of the Legislature if they wanted a certain

number of Bible texts quoted on each side of the question, they

said, "No, we want facts and statistics; we do not ask the

opinions of Moses and Aaron on this point, but the result of

human experience in the punishment of crime." So in this case;

Legislatures will not ask for nor appreciate Bible arguments;

they will ask for facts as to woman's achievements in education,

industry, and practical usefulness.

JOSEPH DUGDALE, whose special concern always seemed to be the

action of dead men on this question, said it had been his fortune

to be present at the making of the last wills and testaments of

many men, and he never knew of a case where a dying husband would

practically admit that his wife was his equal. He stated a case

in which a husband of his acquaintance proposed to leave a large

property, the inheritance and accumulation of his wife's labors,

to _her_ as long as she remained his widow, and then to divide it

among _his_ family relatives. And yet this husband claimed to

have great admiration and affection for this woman whom he would

deliberately rob of her inheritance from her own father. The

magnanimity of man passes all understanding!

Mrs. PRINCE, a colored woman, invoked the blessing of God upon

the noble women engaged in this enterprise, and said she

understood woman's wrongs better than woman's rights, and gave

some of her own experiences to illustrate the degradation of her

sex in slavery. On a voyage to the West Indies the vessel was

wrecked, and she was picked up and taken to New Orleans. Going up

the Mississippi she saw the terrible suffering of a cargo of

slaves on board, and on the plantations along the shores. On her

return voyage, attached to the steamboat was a brig containing

several hundred slaves, among them a large number of young

quadroon girls with infants in their arms as fair as any lady in

this room.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE spoke at length of the brilliant record of

women in the past in every department of human activity--in art,

science, literature, invention; of their heroism and patriotism

in time of war, and their industry and endurance in many equally

trying emergencies in time of peace. Woman has so fully proved

her equality with man in every position she has filled, that it

is too late now for clergymen on our platform to remand us to the

subjection of the women of Corinth centuries ago. We have learned

too well the lessons of liberty taught in our revolution to

accept now the position of slaves.

Mrs. TRACY CUTLER: It would appear, after all, that we women are

placed pretty much in the condition of the veriest slave. We must

prove our own humanity by exhibiting our skill in work. We must

bring forth our own samples; put them, as it were, on the

auction-block, and thus make our claim to equality of rights a

matter of dollars and cents. Is it here only that woman can touch

man's sympathy? She then described the degraded condition of

women in Europe, and particularly in London, where poverty and

the tyranny of man have driven women to despair, until they were

forced to prostitute their own bodies to procure bread. This

vice, horribly revolting as it is, seems to go hand in hand with

intemperance. She did not wish women to go into the field to be

yoked with mules, or to turn scavenger, to pick up rags and

crusts in the streets to carry home in their aprons. Men bring

the elements to their aid, and we wish women to do the same. She

then adverted to the difference in the labor of the kitchen and

other pursuits open to women. Let the printer advertise for two

girls to set type, and a hundred applications will be made, while

women for the kitchen are very scarce. The reason for this is,

that all other kinds of work are better paid. When woman's labor

is justly remunerated and equally respected in all departments of

industry, there will be no such difference in the supply of help

for the factory, shop, and kitchen.

FRANCES D. GAGE said: The reason why the work of the kitchen is

looked upon as degrading, is because the girl is never taken by

the hand. Where are your philanthropic ladies who assist her?

Where is she to go when her work is done? Does she sit in the

same room with you? Does she eat at the same table? No, to your

shame, she is confined to the basement and the garret. It is not

so much because the pay for kitchen labor is not so good, as it

is chiefly because of the public opinion that they are employed

to _serve_. It is true that there are many who will take a

quarter off the wages of a girl to put a new bow on their own

bonnets. The men are not to be blamed for this; they have enough

sins to answer for.

Mrs. COE said: It would afford women great pleasure to be able to

pay their own expenses on pleasure excursions and to the

concert-room, instead of being always compelled to allow the

gentlemen to foot the bills for them. Women must have equal pay

for equal work. Among the Quakers the sexes stand on an equality,

and everything moves on smoothly and happily.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, after relating several instances of the

injustice of the laws that made the wife subject to the husband,

said: And all these wrongs are to be redressed by appeals to the

State Legislatures. In New York and Ohio the women had already

commenced with every prospect of success. Thousands of petitions

had been sent into both Legislatures asking for suffrage and

equal property rights, and their Committees had granted hearings

to our representatives--Caroline M. Severance, in Ohio; Ernestine

L. Rose, Rev. William Henry Channing, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,

Rev. Antoinette L. Brown, and herself, in New York. And closed

with an earnest appeal to the women of every State to petition,

PETITION, remembering that "what is worth having is worth asking

for," and that "who would be free must themselves strike the

blow."

Frances D. Gage moved that the next National Convention be held at

Cincinnati, Ohio. A gentlemen suggested Washington, to which Mr.

Garrison replied, "We shall go there by and by."[72] After discussion

by Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Rose, and others, the motion was unanimously

adopted. Mrs. Gage then spoke of the Press of the city; its faithful

reports of the proceedings of the Convention, and moved a vote of

thanks. Edward M. Davis begged Mrs. Gage to accept as a substitute the

following resolutions:

_Resolved_, That the thanks of this Convention are due, and are

hereby conveyed, to Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, of New York, for the

courtesy, impartiality, and dignity with which she has presided

over its proceedings.

_Resolved_, That in the crowded and intelligent audiences which

have attended the sessions of this Convention; in the earnest

attention given to its proceedings from the commencement to its

close; in the fair reports of the Press of the city, and in the

spirit of harmony and fraternity which has prevailed amongst its

members, we see evidence of the rapid progress of our cause, and

find incitement to renewed and more earnest efforts in its

behalf.

Thus closed another most successful Convention. Notwithstanding an

admission fee of ten cents during the day and twenty-five at night,

the audiences grew larger every session, until the last evening the

spacious hall, aisles, stairs, and all available standing-room, was

densely packed, and hundreds went away unable to get in.

Let us remember that behind the chief actors in these Conventions,

there stands in each State, a group of women of stern moral principle,

large experience, refinement and cultivation, filling with honor the

more private walks of life, who, by their sympathy, hospitality, and

generous contributions, are the great sources of support and

inspiration to those on the platform, who represent the ideas they

hold sacred, whose tongues and pens proclaim their thoughts. Among

such in Pennsylvania, let us ever remember Sarah Pugh, Mary Ann

McClintock, Elizabeth Phillips, Anna and Adeline Thomson, Abby and

Gertrude Kimber, Margaretta Forten, Harriet Forten Purvis, Hannah M.

Darlington, Dinah Mendenhall, Sarah Pierce, Elizabeth and Sarah

Miller, and Ruth Dugdale. When success shall at last crown our

efforts, in according due praise to those who have achieved the

victory, such names as these must not be forgotten.

Alice Bradley Neal, of Philadelphia, ridiculed this Woman's Rights

Convention in her husband's[73] paper, and Jane Grey Swisshelm

indignantly replied in her _Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor_ as follows:

Mrs. Neal can not be ignorant that the principal object of the

Convention, and all the agitation about woman's rights, is to

secure to the toiling millions of her own sex a just reward for

their labor; to save them from the alternative of prostitution,

starvation, or incessant life-destroying toil; and yet the whole

subject furnishes her with material for scorn and merriment! Tell

it not in Gath! Publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest

the sons of the Phillistines rejoice that one of the daughters of

Eve, beautiful and gentle, throws down her knitting-pins, and

tries her strength to wield the hammer of old Vulcan to aid them

in forging fetters for the wrists of her unfortunate sisters. We

would that it had been some one else than the gentle Alice Neal

who had volunteered to soil her white hands and sweat her fair

face, laboring in such a blacksmith-shop.

While ever and anon during the last forty years Mrs. Swisshelm has

seized some of these _dilettante_ literary women with her metaphysical

tweezers, and held them up to scorn for their ridicule of the woman

suffrage conventions, yet in her own recently published work in her

mature years, she vouchsafes no words of approval for those who have

inaugurated the greatest movement of the centuries. She complains that

in some of the woman suffrage conventions she attended, there was not

a strict observance of parliamentary rules, and that the resolutions

and speeches were unworthy the occasion. Yet the only time Mrs.

Swisshelm ever honored our platform at a National Convention, her

speech was far below the level of most of the others, and the

resolutions she offered were so verbose and irrelevant, that the

Committee declined to present them to the Convention.

It is quite evident from her last pronunciamento that she has no just

appreciation of the importance and dignity of our demand for justice

and equality. A soldier without a leg is a fact so much more readily

understood, than all women without ballots, and his loss so much more

readily comprehended and supplied, that we can hardly blame any one

for doing the work of the hour, rather than struggling a life-time for

an idea. Hence it is not a matter of surprise that most women are more

readily enlisted in the suppression of evils in the concrete, than in

advocating the principles that underlie them in the abstract, and thus

ultimately doing the broader and more lasting work. On this ground we

can excuse the author of "Half a Century" for giving the reader one

hundred and twenty-five pages of her own work in hospitals and three

to the Woman Suffrage movement, but considering the tone of the three

pages, the advocates of the measure should be thankful she gave no

more.

Mrs. Swisshelm's contempt is only surpassed by Mrs. Hale's "Jeremiad"

over the infidelity of the noble leader of our movement. For a woman

so thoroughly politic and time-serving, who, unlike the great master

she professed to follow, never identified herself with one of the

unpopular reforms of her day, whose pen never by any chance slipped

outside the prescribed literary line of safety, to cheer the martyrs

to truth in her own generation; lamentations from such a source over

Lucretia Mott, are presumptuous and profane. If such a life of

self-sacrifice and devotion to the best interests of humanity; such

courage to stand alone, to do and say the right,'mid persecution,

violence and mobs; such charity and faithfulness in every relation of

life, as daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend; such calm

declining years and peaceful death could all be realized without a

belief in the creed of Sarah Josepha Hale; the philosophical

conclusion is that there may be some Divine light and love outside of

Mrs. Hale's horizon; that her shibboleth may after all not be the true

measure for the highest Christian graces.

Sarah J. Hale, shuddering over the graves of such women as Harriet

Martineau, Frances Wright, Mary Wollstonecroft, George Sand, George

Eliot and Lucretia Mott, might furnish a subject for an artist to

represent as "bigotry weeping over the triumphs of truth."

Nevertheless, as Mrs. Hale lived in Pennsylvania forty years, the

women of that State may rejoice in the fact that in her great work,

"Woman's Record," she has given "Sketches of all the distinguished

women from the Creation to A.D. 1868"; a labor for which our sex owe

her a debt of gratitude. To exhume nearly seventeen hundred women from

oblivion, classify them, and set forth their distinguished traits of

character, was indeed an herculean labor. This is a valuable book of

reference for the girls of to-day. When our opponents depreciate the

achievements of woman they can turn to the "Woman's Record" and find

grand examples of all the cardinal virtues, of success in art,

science, literature, and government.

In Jane Grey Swisshelm, Pennsylvania can boast a successful editor of

a liberal political newspaper during the eventful years of our

anti-slavery struggle. _The Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor_ was

established Jan. 20, 1848. It was owned and edited by Mrs. Swisshelm

for some years; merged into _The Family Journal and Visitor_ in 1852,

in which she was co-editor until 1857, when she removed to Minnesota.

In spite of a few idiosyncrasies, Mrs. Swisshelm is a noble woman, and

her influence has been for good in her day and generation. However

much we may differ from her in some points, we must concede that she

is a strong, pointed writer.

Among the editors of Pennsylvania, Anna E. McDowell deserves mention.

In _The Una_ of January, 1855, we find the following:

THE WOMAN'S ADVOCATE.

We have received the first number of a paper bearing the above

name. It is a fair, handsome sheet, seven columns in width,

edited by Miss Anna E. McDowell, in Philadelphia. It claims to be

an independent paper. Its design is not to press woman's right to

suffrage, but to present her wrongs, and plead for their redress.

It is owned by a joint stock company of women, and is printed and

all the work done by women. We most heartily bid it God-speed,

for the great need of woman now is work, work, that she may eat

honest bread.

Miss McDowell continued her paper several years, and has ever since

been a faithful correspondent in many journals, and now edits a

"Woman's Department" in _The Philadelphia Sunday Republic_. She pleads

eloquently for the redress of all the wrongs of humanity. Jails,

prisons, charitable institutions, the oppression of women and

children, the laborer, the Indian, have all in turn been subjects of

her impartial pen.

Philadelphia was the first city in this country to open her retail

stores to girls as clerks, and among the first to welcome them as

type-setters in the printing offices.

In the city press, from 1849 to 1854, we find the following

announcements, which show the general agitation on woman's

position:

_The Pennsylvania Freeman_: "A Discourse on Woman," to be

delivered by Lucretia Mott, at the Assembly Buildings,

December 17, 1849.

Lectures by Elizabeth Oakes Smith, April 6, 8, and 10, 1853,

on "Manhood," "Womanhood," "Humanity."

_North American and United States Gazette_: Lucretia Mott

will deliver a lecture on the "Medical Education of Woman,"

February 2, 1853.

Horace Mann will lecture on "Woman," February 3, 1853.

_Philadelphia Public Ledger_, January 20, 1854: Lucy Stone

will deliver a lecture on "Woman's Rights," at Musical Fund

Hall, Saturday evening, January 21.

April 12, 1854: Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose will lecture on

Thursday evening, April 13, at Spring Garden Institute, on

"The Education and Influence of Woman"; and on Friday

evening, April 14th, at Sansom Street Hall, on "The Legal

Disabilities of Woman." Tickets, 25 cents.

WOMAN'S MEDICAL COLLEGE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

In September, 1850, in a rented building, No. 229 Arch Street,

Philadelphia, the College began its first session with six pupils;

others were added before the class graduated, so that it then numbered

eight:--Hannah E. Longshore, Ann Preston, Phebe W. May, Susanna H.

Ellis, Anna M. Longshore, Pennsylvania; Martha M. Laurin,

Massachusetts; Angonette A. Hunt, New York; Frances G. Mitchell,

England. Since its foundation, the "Woman's Medical College of

Pennsylvania" has prospered, and on its lists of graduates we see,

among other familiar names, those of Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott (1856),

Dr. Mary J. Scarlett Dixon (1857), and Dr. Emeline H. Cleveland

(1855).

Chief among those interested in placing the medical education of woman

on a sound foundation was Ann Preston. The "Woman's Medical College

of Pennsylvania" was the first ever chartered for this purpose, and

Dr. Preston early became identified with its interests. She was one of

its first students, and a graduate at its first commencement. After

the didactic teaching of the regular college course was well

established, each year showed to her more clearly the necessity for

clinical and hospital instruction, since its students were denied such

advantages in other places; and to Dr. Preston's thorough appreciation

of this need may be traced the very origin of the Woman's Hospital in

Philadelphia. Speaking of her efforts in this direction, she says: "I

went to every one who I thought would give me either money or

influence." She was liberally assisted by many noble and true-hearted

men and women, and at last raised sufficient funds, obtained the

charter, found competent men and women willing to serve as Managers,

and skillful physicians who would act on a Consulting Board; and, when

the Hospital was opened, was herself appointed one of the Managers,

Corresponding Secretary, and Consulting Physician--offices which she

held till her death, April 18, 1872.

At the same time, she was serving with equal fidelity and ability the

College whose advancement had so long been one of the chief interests

of her life. For nineteen years she had been one of its Professors,

for six years Dean of the Faculty, and for four years a member of its

Board of Corporators. She lived long enough to see the fruits of her

labors, and to foresee to some extent the position which both College

and Hospital would hold in the medical world. And when, after her

death, her will was published, the friends of the College and Hospital

found that both institutions had been remembered by endowments.

Almost contemporary in length of days with the Medical College is

another useful institution, The Philadelphia School of Design for

Women, which began its corporate existence the first Monday of

November, 1853. There had previously been a class for women in

connection with the Franklin Institute, and this school was its

further development. It was mainly supported by contributions, the

scholars' fees paying merely for the coal, gas, and other necessaries

of the house. The management of the institution was vested in a Board

of twelve Directors, elected annually, and a Board of twelve Lady

Managers, elected by the Board of Directors at the first stated

meeting after the election; these ladies disburse the money received

at the school, and also that appropriated monthly by the Directors. It

is noticeable in the first report of the School of Design for Women,

that men held the leading positions and received the highest salaries,

but that has since been changed.

That there was no organized action in this State, no woman suffrage

association formed, until after the war, was undoubtedly due to the

fact that the same women were prominent in both the anti-slavery and

woman's rights movements. And as Pennsylvania bordered on three slave

States, the escape of fugitives and their innumerable trials in the

courts, just as the whole system was on the eve of dissolution,

compelled the Philadelphia friends to incessant vigilance in the care

and concealment of the unhappy victims. Thus their hands and thoughts

were wholly occupied until the first gun at Sumter proclaimed freedom

in the United States.

For collecting many of the facts contained in this chapter we are

indebted to Julia and Rachel Foster, daughters of Heron Foster, who

founded _The Pittsburgh Dispatch_. What an inspiring vision it would

have been to the earnest women sitting in that Convention in 1854,

could they in imagination have stretched forward to the bright winter

days of 1881, and seen these two young girls tastefully attired,

enthusiastic in the cause of woman's suffrage, tripping through the

streets of Philadelphia, paper and pencil in hand, intent on some

important errand, now here, now there, climbing up long flights of

stairs into the offices of the various journals, to find out from the

records what Lucretia Mott, Frances Dana Gage, and Ernestine L. Rose

had said over a quarter of a century before, about the rights and

wrongs of women. Turning over the dusty journals hour after hour as

they copied page by page, it would have been a pleasing study to watch

their earnest faces, now sad, now pleased, reflecting with every

changing sentiment they read the feelings of their souls, just as

their diamonds paled and glowed in the changing light.

Could the satisfaction of these girls in reading Garrison's stern

logic, Mrs. Mott's repartee and earnest appeal, and all the arguments

by which their opponents had been fairly vanquished; could the

new-born dignity they realized in the conscious possession of rights

and liberties once unknown, confident that full equality could not be

long deferred; could all this have been pre-visioned by the actors in

those scenes, they would have felt themselves fully compensated for

the persecution and ridicule they had endured. And thus the great work

of life goes on; the toils of one generation are the joys of the next.

We have reaped what other hands have planted; let us then in turn sow

bountifully for those who shall follow us, that our children may enter

into a broader inheritance than any legal parchment can bequeath.

ANGELINA GRIMKÉ.

_Reminiscences by E. C. S._

My first introduction to Mrs. Weld was two years after her marriage,

when she and her husband had retired from the stormy scenes of the

anti-slavery conflict, and in their own home found a harbor of rest,

for quiet though useful occupation. In company with my husband and

Charles Stuart, a Scotch Abolitionist, we took one of those long

closely-covered stages peculiar to New Jersey, for a twelve miles

drive to Belleville, where at the door of an old Dutch-built stone

house, Theodore Weld and the famous daughters of South Carolina gave

us a welcome. There was nothing attractive at first sight in those

plain, frail women, except their rich voices, fluent language, and

Angelina's fine dark eyes. The house with its wide hall, spacious

apartments, deep windows, and small panes of glass was severely

destitute of all tasteful, womanly touches, and though neat and

orderly, had a cheerless atmosphere. Neither was there one touch of

the artistic in the arrangement of the ladies' hair and dresses. They

were just then in the Graham dispensation, and the peculiar table

arrangements, with no tray to mark the charmed circle whence the usual

beverages were dispensed, the cold dishes without a whiff of heat, or

steam, gave one a feeling of strangeness; all those delightful

associations gathering round a covered dish and hot beefsteak, the

tea-pot and china cups and saucers, were missing. A cool evening in

the month of May, after a long drive had left us in a condition

peculiarly susceptible to the attractions of something hot and

stimulating; but they came not. There was no catering in this

household to the weaknesses of those who were not yet weaned from the

flesh-pots of Egypt. The sharp edge of our appetite somewhat dulled

with the simple fare, we were thrown on our own resources, and

memories of tea and coffee for stimulus.

After our repast, the high discourse was slightly interrupted by the

appearance of the infant, Charles Stuart Weld, and his formal

presentation to the distinguished gentleman after whom he was named.

And when Mr. Weld told us how near the boy, in the initiative steps of

his existence, came to being sacrificed to a theory, the old stone

walls rang with bursts of laughter.[74] But the chilling environments

of these noble people were modified by the sincere hospitality with

which we were received. My husband and Mr. Weld had been classmates in

Lane Seminary, and were among the students who left that institution

when the discussion of the slavery question was forbidden by the

President, Dr. Lyman Beecher. They talked with zest of those early

days until a late hour. As Charles Stuart and the two sisters were

also good conversationalists, I listened with pleasure and profit, and

during the three days under that roof obtained much general knowledge

of anti-slavery and church history; volumes of information were

condensed in those familiar talks, of lasting benefit to me, who then

knew so little of reforms.

How changed was the atmosphere of that home to me next day. True,

there were still no pictures on the walls, but the beautiful boy in

his bath, the sunlight on his golden hair, with some new grace or

trick each day, surpassed what any brush could trace. No statues

graced the corners; but the well-built Northern hero of many slavery

battles, bound with the silken cords of love and friendship to those

brave women from the South, together sacrificing wealth and fame and

ease for a great principle, formed a group worthy the genius of a

Rogers to portray.

It has been my good fortune to meet these noble friends occasionally

in the course of our busy lives, sometimes under their roof, sometimes

under mine, and as, day by day, the nobility, the transparency, the

unselfishness of their characters have grown upon me, the memories of

the old stone house and its care-worn inmates, have stood transfigured

before me, with almost a celestial radiance. In grouping the main

facts of this eventful life, and analyzing the impelling motives that

made Angelina Grimké the heroic woman she was, I can not serve her

memory better than in giving the beautiful tributes of loving friends

at the close of her life.

Angelina, the youngest daughter of Judge Grimké, of the Supreme Court

of South Carolina, was born in Charleston, S. C., February 20, 1805.

From her earliest years, her sympathies were with the cruelly treated

race around her; and when a child, she had her little bottle of oil,

and other simple medicaments, with which in the darkness she would

steal out of the house to some wretched creature who had been

terribly whipped, and do what she could to assuage his sufferings. At

the age of fourteen, she was asked by the rector of the Episcopal

church to which her family belonged, to be confirmed--a form, she was

told, which all her companions went through as a matter of course. But

she insisted on knowing the meaning of this form, and, on reading it

in the Prayer-Book, she said she could not promise what was there

required. "But it is only a form," she was told. "If with my feelings

and views as they now are, I should go through that form, it would be

a lie. I can not do it." This single-hearted truthfulness, without

regard to personal consequences to herself, was the key to all her

conduct.

Some years afterward, under the influence of an eloquent Presbyterian

preacher, her religious sensibilities were awakened. Her eyes were

opened to a new world. Through deeper and more vital spiritual

experiences, she entered into a new life, which took entire possession

of all her faculties. She joined the Presbyterian church, and carried

into it the fervor and strength of a regenerated nature. She became a

teacher in its Sunday-school, and after a lapse of fifty years, there

came a letter from one of her first Sunday-school scholars, living in

Georgia, to express thanks for the benefits which her instructions had

been to her. Angelina soon endeavored to impress upon the officers of

the church a sense of what they should do for the slaves, but her

pleadings for them found no response. "Could it then," said she, "be a

Church of Christ?"

There was in Charleston at that time a Friends' Meeting-house, where

there were only two worshipers, and they agreed with her in regard to

slavery. For a year she worshiped there in silence. No word was

spoken. The two aged men, and this young, accomplished, attractive

woman, sat there under a canopy of divine silence, sanctified and

blessed to her. At length she felt that her mission there was ended.

Her elder sister, Sarah, had united with the Friends in Philadelphia;

and she joined her in 1830, giving up in agony of heart all the dear

ties that bound her to her home. But even in the Friends'

Meeting-house, her eye was quick to see negro seats where women of the

despised race were still publicly humiliated. She and her sister

seated themselves with them. The Friends were grieved by their

conduct, and called them to account. The sisters replied: "While you

put this badge of degradation on our sisters, we feel that it is our

duty to share it with them."

In 1883, they attached themselves to the American Anti-Slavery

Society, and lent their powerful aid to the work which it was doing.

There was no more effective or eloquent speaker in the cause than

Angelina Grimké. She had not thought at first of speaking in public;

but wherever she was, among friends and neighbors, she sought relief

to her burdened spirit by testifying to the cruel and fatal influences

of slavery. A few women at first came together to meet her and her

sister Sarah. The numbers and the interest increased till she became

widely known. She and her sister talked to them about slavery in their

own parlors. Soon no parlors could hold the throngs that gathered to

hear her. The small vestry of a church was given to her, then a large

vestry. But this was too small, and the body of the church was opened

to the crowd which had been attracted by her. There, on a platform

beneath the pulpit, for the first time she stood and spoke at what

might be called a public meeting, though she spoke only to women. In

the spring of 1837, the sisters went through a similar experience in

Boston, speaking to women only. She went to Lynn to address the women,

and there men crowded in with their wives and daughters. That was the

beginning of women's speaking to promiscuous assemblies in

Massachusetts.

"Hers was the eloquence of a broken heart. As she gave way to the deep

yearnings of affection for the mother that bore her, still a

slaveholder, for her brothers and sisters, a large family circle, and

for all who had been most closely bound to her by ties of kindred and

neighborhood, she must have felt the desolation of a soul disappointed

and broken in its dearest earthly hopes and love. All the sweet and

tender affections which intertwine themselves so inseparably with the

thought of home had been turned into instruments of torture. As she

thought of her native city, and spoke out her feelings toward it, her

language might well remind one of the lamentations of the ancient

prophets, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and

stonest them that are sent unto thee!' But this broken heart had a

higher life and a mightier voice than can be given or taken away by

any earthly affection. While therefore she often spoke with a pathos

which melted and subdued those who listened to her, she also rose into

a loftier strain, and spoke with the mingled love and sternness of a

messenger from God."

Passages like the following may give some idea of the solemnity and

power with which she, who had left all and taken up her cross in

defence of a poor and friendless race, could appeal to assembled

multitudes:

The sufferings of the slaves are not only innumerable, but they

are indescribable. I may paint the agony of kindred torn from

each other's arms, to meet no more in time; I may depict the

inflictions of the blood-stained lash; but I can not describe

the daily, hourly, ceaseless torture, endured by the heart that

is constantly trampled under the foot of arbitrary power. This is

a part of the horrors of slavery which, I believe, no one has

ever attempted to delineate. I wonder not at it; it mocks all

power of language. Who can describe the anguish of that mind

which feels itself impaled upon the iron of arbitrary power--its

living, writhing, helpless victim! every human susceptibility

tortured, its sympathies torn, and stung, and bleeding--always

feeling the death weapon in its heart, and yet not so deep as to

kill that humanity which is made the curse of its existence?

No one who has not been an integral part of a slaveholding

community can have any idea of its abominations. It is a whited

sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Blessed

be God, the angel of truth has descended, and rolled away the

stone from the mouth of the sepulchre, and sits upon it. The

abominations so long hidden are now brought forth before all

Israel and the sun. Yes, the angel of truth sits upon this stone,

and it can never be rolled back again.

There is a spirit abroad in this country which will not consent

to barter principle for an unholy peace--a spirit which will not

hide God's eternal principles of right and wrong, but will stand

erect in the storm of human passion, prejudice, and interest,

holding forth the light of truth in the midst of a crooked and

perverse generation; a spirit which will never slumber nor sleep

till man ceases to hold dominion over his fellow-creatures, and

the trump of universal liberty rings in every forest, and is

re-echoed by every mountain and rock.

"She who spoke in tones like these never lost one of her purely

feminine qualities. Graceful, gentle, retiring, taking upon herself

the lowliest duties as if she had been born to them, this woman, who

stood up that her light might shine on all, and reveal to them the

terrible atrocities of slavery, was like Jeremy Taylor's taper, which

cast ever a modest shadow round itself. She had a very lofty idea of

what a woman should be. 'Whatever it is morally right for a man to do,

it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human

rights. I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for in

Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.' 'Sure I am that woman

is not to be, as she has been, a mere "second-hand agent" in the

regeneration of a fallen world, but the acknowledged equal and

co-worker with man in this glorious work.... Just in proportion as her

moral and intellectual capacities become enlarged, she will rise

higher and higher in the scroll of creation, until she reaches that

elevation prepared for her by her Maker, and upon whose summit she was

originally stationed, only 'a little lower than the angels.'"

In the darkest hours of that fearful conflict with slavery in which

she was engaged, when its advocates were everywhere met with

violence, and threatened with death, she wrote to William Lloyd

Garrison as follows:

I can hardly express to thee the deep and solemn interest with

which I have viewed the violent proceedings of the last few

weeks. Although I expected opposition, yet I was not prepared for

it so soon; it took me by surprise, and I greatly feared the

Abolitionists would be driven back in the first onset and thrown

into confusion. I was afraid of even opening one of thy papers

lest I should see some indications of a compromise, some

surrender, some palliation. But I read thy appeal to the citizens

of Boston, and found my fears were utterly groundless, and that

thou stoodest firm in the midst of the storm, determined to

suffer and to die rather than yield one inch!

Religious persecution always begins with mobs; it is always

unprecedented in any age or country in which it commences, and

therefore there are no laws by which reformers can be punished;

consequently, a lawless band of unprincipled men determine to

take the matter into their hands, and act out in mobs what they

know are the principles of a large majority of those who are too

high in Church and State to condescend to mingle with them,

though they secretly approve and rejoice over their violent

measures. The first martyr who ever died was stoned by a lawless

mob; and, if we look at the rise of various sects--Methodists,

Friends, etc.--we shall find that mobs began the persecution

against them; and it was not until after the people had thus

spoken out their wishes that laws were framed to fine, imprison,

or destroy them. Let us, then, be prepared for the enactment of

laws, even in our free States, against Abolitionists. And how

ardently has the prayer been breathed that God would fit us for

all He is preparing for us!

My mind has been especially turned toward those who are standing

in the fore-front of the battle; and the prayer has gone up for

their preservation, not the preservation of their lives, but the

preservation of their minds in humility and patience, faith,

hope, and charity, that charity which is the bond of perfectness.

If persecution is the means which God has ordained for the

accomplishment of this great end--emancipation--then, in

dependence upon Him for strength to bear it, I feel as if I could

say, let it come; for it is my deep, solemn conviction that this

is a cause worth dying for. At one time, I thought this system

would be overthrown in blood, with the confused noise of the

warrior; but a hope gleams across my mind that our blood will be

spilt instead of the slaveholders'; that our lives will be taken,

and theirs spared. I say a hope; for of all things I desire to be

spared the anguish of seeing our beloved country desolated with

the horrors of a servile war.

"These words were written by one who was standing not apart in a place

of safety, but in the foremost post of danger, and who knew that she

was as likely as any one to share in the martyrdom which she foresaw.

The spirit which dictated these sentences went through her whole life

as its ruling influence.

"There is the courage of the mariner who buffets the angry waves.

There is the courage of the warrior who marches up to the cannon's

mouth, coolly pressing forward amidst engines of destruction on every

side. But hers was a courage greater than theirs. She not only faced

death at the hands of stealthy assassins and howling mobs in her

loyalty to truth, duty, and humanity, but she encountered

unflinchingly the awful frowns of the mighty consecrated leaders of

society, the scoffs and sneers of the multitude, the outstretched

finger of scorn, and the whispered mockery of pity, standing up for

the lowest of the low. Nurtured in the very bosom of slavery, by her

own observation and thought, of one thing she became certain, that it

was a false, cruel, accursed relation between human beings. And to

this conviction, from the very budding of her womanhood, she was

true."

"Well do I remember," said one, "when, after the American Anti-Slavery

Society, founded in 1838, had battled for a year or two with the

combined forces of the mob, the press, and the commercial, political,

and ecclesiastical authorities, and it was said in the highest

quarters that we had only exasperated the slaveholders, and made all

the North sympathize with them, when the storm of public indignation,

gathering over the whole heavens, was black upon us, and we were

comparatively only a handful, there appeared in the _Anti-Slavery_

office in New York this mild, modest, soft-speaking woman, then in the

prime of her beauty, delicate as the lily-of-the-valley. She placed in

my hands a roll of manuscript, beautifully written. It was her 'Appeal

to the Christian Women of the South.' It was like a patch of blue sky

breaking through that storm cloud." The manuscript was passed round

among the members of our Executive Committee, and read with wet eyes.

The Society printed it in a pamphlet of thirty-six pages, and

circulated it widely. It made its author a forced exile from her

native State, but it touched hearts that had been proof against

everything else. I remember that the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine

for October, 1836, said of it something to this effect:

This eloquent pamphlet is from the pen of a sister of the late

Thomas S. Grimké, of Charleston, S. C. We need hardly say more of

it than that it is written with that peculiar felicity and

unction which characterized the works of her lamented brother.

Among anti-slavery writings there are two classes, one specially

adapted to make new converts, the other to strengthen the old. We

can not exclude Miss Grimké's Appeal from either class. It

belongs pre-eminently to the former. The converts that will be

made by it, we have no doubt, will be not only numerous, but

thorough-going.

"Many of us remember," said another, "with what awakening power such

God-inspired souls have roused us from the apathy of our lives. Some

great wrong, like slavery, over which the world had slept for ages,

becomes thus revealed to the clearer vision. Slavery, war,

intemperance, licentiousness, injustice to woman, have thus one after

another been brought to the light, as violations of God's eternal

laws. The soul of Angelina Grimké, and that of her sister Sarah, were

in vital sympathy with all attempts to reform these great wrongs; but

the one which then had pre-eminence above all was human slavery. All

of us who are advanced in years can recall with what almost

overwhelming effect the appeals of our beloved and lamented Garrison

first came to our minds. The conscience of the community was

slumbering over this sin: his utterances stung it to frenzy. In the

midst of it, and in the heartiest response to his appeals, came the

gentle, calm voices of Sarah and Angelina Grimké, enforcing those

appeals by facts of their own observation and experience. I have said

that their nature was full of tenderness and compassion; but, in

addition to this, Angelina, especially, possessed a rare gift of

eloquence, a calm power of persuasion, a magnetic influence over those

that listened to her, which carried conviction to hearts that nothing

before had reached." "I shall never forget the wonderful manifestation

of this power during six successive evenings in what was then called

the Odeon, at the corner of Franklin and Federal Streets. It was the

old Boston Theater, which had been converted into a music hall, the

four galleries rising above the auditorium all crowded with a silent

audience, carried away with the calm, simple eloquence which narrated

what she and her sister had seen from their earliest days. And yet

this Odeon scene, the audience so quiet and intensely absorbed,

occurred at the most enflamed period of the anti-slavery contest. The

effective agent in this phenomenon was Angelina's serene, commanding

eloquence, a wonderful gift, which enchained attention, disarmed

prejudice, and carried her hearers with her."

WENDELL PHILLIPS said:

Friends, this life carries us back to the first chapter of that great

movement with which the name of Angelina Grimké is associated--when

our cities roared with riot, when William Lloyd Garrison was dragged

through the streets, when Dresser was mobbed in Nashville, and

Mackintosh burned in St. Louis. At that time, the hatred toward

Abolitionists was so bitter and merciless that the friends of Lovejoy

left his grave a long time unmarked; and at last ventured to put, with

his name, on his tombstone, only this piteous entreaty: _Jam parce

sepulto_, "Spare him now in his grave." We were but a handful then,

and our words beat against the stony public as powerless as if against

the north wind. We got no sympathy from most Northern men: their

consciences were seared as with a hot iron. At this time, a young girl

came from the proudest State in the slave-holding section. She come to

lay on the altar of this despised cause, this seemingly hopeless

crusade, both family and friends, the best social position, a high

place in the church, genius, and many gifts. No man at this day can

know the gratitude we felt for this help from such an unexpected

source. After this came James G. Birney from the South, and many able

and influential men and women joined us. At last John Brown laid his

life, the crowning sacrifice, on the altar of the cause. But no man

who remembers 1837 and its lowering clouds will deny that there was

hardly any contribution to the anti-slavery movement greater or more

impressive than the crusade of these Grimké sisters from South

Carolina through the New England States.

Gifted with rare eloquence, she swept the chords of the human heart

with a power that has never been surpassed, and rarely equaled. I well

remember, evening after evening, listening to eloquence such as never

then had been heard from a woman. Her own hard experience, the long,

lonely, intellectual and moral struggle from which she came out

conqueror, had ripened her power, and her wondrous faculty of laying

bare her own heart to reach the hearts of others, shone forth till she

carried us all captive. She was the first woman to whom the halls of

the Massachusetts Legislature were opened. My friend, James C. Alvord,

was the courageous chairman who broke that door open for the

anti-slavery women. It gave Miss Grimké the opportunity to speak to

the best culture and character of Massachusetts; and the profound

impression then made on a class not often in our meetings was never

wholly lost. It was not only the testimony of one most competent to

speak, but it was the profound religious experience of one who had

broken out of the charmed circle, and whose intense earnestness melted

all opposition. The converts she made needed no after-training. It was

when you saw she was opening some secret record of her own experience,

that the painful silence and breathless interest told the deep effect

and lasting impression her words were making on minds, that afterward

never rested in their work.

In 1840, '41, this anti-slavery movement was broken in halves by the

woman question. The people believed in the silence of women. But, when

the Grimkés went through New England, such was the overpowering

influence with which they swept the churches that men did not

remember this dogma till after they had gone. When they left, and the

spell weakened, some woke to the idea that it was wrong for a woman to

speak to a public assembly. The wakening of old prejudice to its

combat with new convictions was a fearful storm. But she bore it, when

it broke at last, with the intrepidity with which she surmounted every

obstacle. By the instinctive keenness of her conscience, she only

needed to see truth to recognize it, as the flower turns to the sun.

God had touched that soul so that it needed no special circumstance,

no word of warning or instruction from those about her; for she was

ever self-poised.

When I think of her, there comes to me the picture of the spotless

dove in the tempest, as she battles with the storm, seeking for some

place to rest her foot. She reminds me of innocence personified in

Spencer's poem. In her girlhood, alone, heart-led, she comforts the

slave in his quarters; mentally struggling with the problems his

position wakes her to. Alone, not confused, but seeking something to

lean on, she grasps the Church, which proves a broken reed. No whit

disheartened, she turns from one sect to another, trying each by the

infallible touchstone of that clear, childlike conscience. The two old

lonely Quakers in their innocence rest her foot awhile. But the eager

soul must work, not rest in testimony. Coming North, at last, she

makes her own religion,--one of sacrifice and toil. Breaking away

from, rising above all forms, the dove floats at last in the blue sky

where no clouds reach.

And thus exiled from her native city, she goes forth with her sister

to seek the spot where she can most effectually strike at the

institution. Were I to single out the moral and intellectual trait

which most won me, it was her serene indifference to the judgment of

those about her. Self-poised, she seemed morally sufficient to

herself. Her instincts were all so clear and right she could trust

their lesson. But a clear, wide, patient submission to all suggestion

and influence preceded opinion, and her public addresses were

remarkable for the fullness and clearness of the arguments they urged.

She herself felt truths, but patiently argued them to others.

The testimony she gave touching slavery was, as she termed it, "the

wail of a broken-hearted child." It was known to a few that the

pictures she drew were of her own fireside. That loving heart! how

stern a sense of duty must have wrung it before she was willing to

open that record! But with sublime fidelity, with entire

self-sacrifice, she gave all she could to the great argument that was

to wake a nation to duty. Listen to the fearful indictment she records

against the system. And this was not slavery in its most brutal,

repulsive form. It was slavery hid in luxury, when refinement seemed

to temper some of its worst elements. But, with keen sense of right,

even a child of a dozen years saw through the veil, saw the system in

its inherent vileness, saw the real curse of slavery in the hardened

heart of the slave-holder.

A few years of active life, extensive and most influential labor, many

sheaves and a rich harvest, God's blessing on her service, then

illness barring her from the platform. How serenely she took up the

cross! So specially endowed; men bowing low so readily to the power

and magic of her words; she could not but have seen the grand

possibilities that were opening before her. How peacefully she

accepted the bond, and set herself to training others for the work

against which her own door was shut! East, West, North, and South,

come up to give testimony that these later years bore ample fruit. How

many souls have cause to thank that enforced silence! I have listened

to such testimonies, spoken sometimes in tears, on the shores of the

Great Lakes and beyond the Mississippi."

From the following facts and anecdotes told by her husband, we see

that Angelina united with the highest moral heroism, the physical

courage and coolness in the hour of danger that but few men can boast.

Theodore D. Weld, in his published sketch, says:

Though high physical courage is also fairly inferrable from her

anti-slavery career, yet only those most with her in life's

practical affairs can appreciate her self-poise in danger. Peril

was to her a sedative; it calmed and girded her, bringing out

every resource, and making self-command absolute. She knew

nothing of that flutter which confuses. Great danger instantly

brought thought and feeling to a focus, and held them there.

Several perilous emergencies in her life are vividly

recalled--such as being overturned while in a carriage with a

child in her arms, the horse meanwhile floundering amid the

_débris_, a shaft broken, and dash-board kicked into splinters.

At another time, shots at the road-side set off the horses in a

run. Seeing her husband, in his struggle to rein them in, jerked

up from his seat and held thus braced and half-standing, she

caught him round the waist, adding her weight to his, and thus

enabled him to pull the harder, till the steady, silent tug upon

the reins tamed down the steeds. Her residence at Belleville, N.

J., had no near neighbors, stood back from the road, and was

nearly hidden by trees and shrubbery. The old stone structure,

dating back to 1700, was known as the "haunted house." Being very

large, with barn, sheds, and several out-houses, it was specially

attractive to stragglers and burglars. Stories had been long

afloat of outrages perpetrated there, among which was a murder a

century before, with a burglary and robbery more recent. We had

not been long there, when one night Angelina, waked by suspicious

noises, listened, till certain that a burglar must be in the

house. Then, stealing softly from the room, she struck a light,

and explored from cellar to attic, looking into closets, behind

doors, and under beds. For a slight, weak woman, hardly able to

lift an empty tea-kettle, thus to dare, shows, whether we call it

courage or presumption, at least the absence of all fear. None

of the family knew of this fact, until an accident long after

revealed it.

Some years after this, when visiting in a friend's family in the

absence of the parents, she often took the children to ride. Upon

returning one day, she said to the cook, "Maggie, jump in, and

I'll give you a ride." So away they went. Soon a by-road struck

off from the main one. Turning in to explore it, she found that

it ran a long way parallel to the railroad. Suddenly Maggie

screamed: "O missus! I forgot. This is just the time for the

express, and this is the horse that's awful afraid of the cars,

and nobody can hold him. Oh, dear, dear!" Seeing Maggie's fright,

she instantly turned back, saying, "Now, Maggie, if the train

should come before we get back to the turn, do just what I tell

you, and I'll bring you out safe." "Oh, yes, missus! I will! I

will!" "Mark, now. Don't scream; don't touch the reins; don't

jump out; 'twill kill you dead if you do. Listen, and, as soon as

you hear the cars coming, drop down on the bottom of the wagon.

Don't look out; keep your eyes and mouth shut tight. I'll take

care of you." Down flat dropped Maggie on the bottom, without

waiting to hear the train. Soon the steam-whistle screamed in

front, instead of rear, as expected! Short about she turned the

horse, and away he sprang, the express thundering in the rear.

For a mile the road was a straight, dead level, and right along

the track. At utmost speed the frantic animal strained on. On

plunged the train behind. Neither gained nor lost. No sound came

but the rushing of steed and train. It was a race for life, and

the blood horse won. Then, as the road turned from the track up a

long slope, the train shot by, taming the horse's fright; but, as

his blood was up, she kept him hard pushed to the crest of the

slope, then slacked his pace, and headed him homeward. Faithful

Maggie stuck fast to her promise and to the wagon-bottom, until

told, "It's all over," when she broke silence with her

wonderments. When she got home the kitchen rang with

exclamations. That race was long her standing topic, she always

insisting that she wasn't scared a bit, not she, because she

"knew the missus wasn't."

While living in New Jersey, word came that a colored man and his

wife, who had just come to the township, were lying sick of

malignant small-pox, and that none of their neighbors dared go to

them. She immediately sought them out, and found them in a

deplorable plight, neither able to do anything for the other, and

at once became to them eyes, hands, feet, nurse, care-taker and

servant in all needed offices; and thus, relieved in nursing and

watching by a friend, her patients were able, after three days,

to minister in part to each other. Meanwhile, no neighbor

approached them.

Some striking traits were scarcely known, except by her special

intimates; and they were never many. Her fidelity in friendship

was imperishable. Friends might break with her; she never broke

with them, whatever the wrong they had done her. She never stood

upon dignity, nor exacted apology, nor resented an unkindness,

though keenly feeling it; and, if falsely accused, answered

nothing. She never spoke disparagingly of others, unless clearest

duty exacted it. Gossips, tattlers, and backbiters were her

trinity of horrors. Her absolute truthfulness was shown in the

smallest things. With a severe sincerity, it was applied to all

those customs looked upon as mere forms involving no

principle--customs exacting the utterance of what is not meant,

of wishes unfelt, sheer deceptions. She never invited a visit or

call not desired. If she said, "Stay longer," the words voiced a

wish felt. She could not be brought under bondage to any usage or

custom, any party watch-word, or shibboleth of a speculative

creed, or any mode of dress or address. In Charleston, she was

exact in her Quaker costume, because, to the last punctilio, it

was an anti-slavery document; and for that she would gladly make

any sacrifice of personal comfort. But, among the "Friends" in

Philadelphia, she would not wear an article of dress which caused

her physical inconvenience, though it might be dictated by the

universal usage of "Friends." Upon first exchanging the warmth of

a Carolina winter for the zero of a Northern one, she found the

"regulation" bonnet of the "Friends" a very slight protection

from the cold. So she ordered one made of fur, large enough to

protect both head and face. For this departure from usage, she

was admonished, "It was a grief to 'Friends,'" "It looked like

pride and self-will," "It was an evil example," etc. While

adhering strictly to the principles of "Friends," neither she nor

her sister Sarah could conform to all their distinctive usages,

nor accept all their rules. Consequently, their examples were

regarded as quiet protests against some of the settled customs of

the Society. Such they felt bound to make them in word and act.

Thus they protested against the negro-seat in their

meeting-house, by making it their seat. They also felt

constrained to testify against a rule requiring that no Friend

should publish a book without the sanction of the "Meeting for

Sufferings"; so, also, the rule that any one who should marry out

of the Society should, unless penitent, be disowned.

Consequently, when Angelina thus married, she was disowned, as

was Sarah for sanctioning the marriage by her presence. The

committee who "dealt" with them for those violations of the rule,

said that if they would "express regret," they would relieve the

meeting from the painful necessity of disowning them. The sisters

replied that, feeling no regret, they could express none; adding

that, as they had always openly declared their disapproval of the

rule, they could neither regret their violation of it, nor

neglect so fit an occasion for thus emphasizing their convictions

by their acts; adding that they honored the "Friends" all the

more for that fidelity which constrained them to do, however

painful, what they believed to be their duty.

Angelina's "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South" "made her

a forced exile from her native State." As she never voluntarily

spoke of what she had done or suffered, few, if any, of the

Abolitionists, either knew then, or know now, that she was really

exiled by an Act of the Charleston city government. When her

"Appeal" came out, a large number of copies were sent by mail to

South Carolina. Most of them were publicly burned by postmasters.

Not long after this, the city authorities learned that Miss

Grimké was intending to visit her mother and sisters, and pass

the winter with them. Thereupon the mayor of Charleston called

upon Mrs. Grimké, and desired her to inform her daughter that the

police had been instructed to prevent her landing while the

steamer remained in port, and to see to it that she should not

communicate, by letter or otherwise, with any persons in the

city; and, further, that if she should elude their vigilance, and

go on shore, she would be arrested and imprisoned, until the

return of the steamer. Her Charleston friends at once conveyed to

her the message of the mayor, and added that the people of

Charleston were so incensed against her, that if she should go

there, despite the mayor's threat of pains and penalties, she

could not escape personal violence at the bands of the mob. She

replied to the letter, that her going would doubtless compromise

her family; not only distress them, but put them in peril, which

she had neither heart nor right to do; but for that fact, she

would certainly exercise her constitutional right as an American

citizen, and go to Charleston to visit her relatives, and, if for

that the authorities should inflict upon her pains and penalties,

she would willingly bear them, assured that such an outrage would

help to reveal to the free States the fact that slavery defies

and tramples alike constitutions and laws, and thus outlaws

itself.

When the American Anti-Slavery Society wrote to Miss Grimké,

inviting her to visit New York city, and hold meetings in private

parlors with Christian women, on the subject of slavery, upon

reading their letter, she handed it to her sister Sarah, saying,

"I feel this to be God's call. I can not decline it." A long

conversation followed, the details of which I received from Sarah

not long after; and, as they present vividly the marked

characteristics of both sisters, I give in substance such as I

can recall.

S.--But you know that you are constitutionally retiring,

self-distrustful, easily embarrassed. You have a morbid shrinking

from whatever would make you conspicuous.

A.--Yes, you have drawn me to the life. I confess that I have all

that, and yet at times I have nothing of it. I know that I am

diffident about assuming responsibilities; but when I feel that

anything is mine to do, no matter what, then I have no fear.

S.--You are going among strangers, you wear strange garments,

speak in a strange language, will be in circumstances wholly

novel, and about a work that you never attempted, and most of

those who will listen to you have prejudices against

Abolitionists, and also against a woman's speaking to any

audience. Now in all there embarrassing circumstances, and in

your lack of self-confidence when you come to face an

unsympathizing audience, does not it seem likely that you will

find it impossible to speak to edification, and thus will be

forced to give it up altogether?

A.--Yes, it seems presumptuous for me to undertake it; but yet I

can not refuse to do it. The conviction is a part of me. I can

not absolve myself from it. The responsibility is thrust upon me.

I can not thrust it off.

S.--I know you will not and can not. My only desire is for you

deliberately to look at all things just as they are, and give

each its due weight. If, after that, your conviction is

unchanged, with my whole heart I'll help you to carry it out.

There is but one thing more that I think of. If you were to go

upon this mission without the sanction of the "Meeting for

Sufferings," it would be regarded as disorderly, a violation of

the established usage of the Society, and they would probably

feel compelled to disown you. [This was prior to the disownment

that followed the marriage].

A.--As my mind is made up absolutely to go, I can not ask their

leave to go. For their fidelity to their views of duty, I honor

them. It is a grief to me to grieve them, but I have no

alternative. Very unpleasant it will be to be disowned, but

misery to be self-disowned.

S.--I have presented these considerations, that you might

carefully traverse the whole question and count all the costs. I

dare not say a word against your decision. I see that it is

final, and that you can make no other. To me, it is sacred. While

we have been talking, I, too, have made my decision. It is this:

where you go, I will go; what you do, I will to my utmost help

you in doing. We have always thought and wept and prayed

together over this horrible wrong, and now we will go and work

together. There will be a deal to be done in private also; that I

can help you about, and thus you will have the more strength to

give to the meetings.

So Miss Grimké wrote at once to the committee, accepting their

invitation, thanking them for the salary offered, but declining

to receive any; informing them that her sister would accompany

her, and that they should both go exclusively at their own

expense.

In 1864, Mr. and Mrs. Weld removed to Hyde Park, where the sisters

spent the rest of their days. No one who met Angelina there would have

any suspicion of the great work which she had done: she was interested

in her household duties, and the little charities of the neighborhood.

Once, during the war, she was persuaded to go out of her daily

routine, and to attend a small meeting called for the purpose of

assisting the Southern people--freedmen, and those who had formerly

held them in slavery. Very simply and modestly, but very clearly and

impressively, she spoke of the condition of things at the South, of

her friends there, and how we could best help them--all in the most

loving and tender spirit, as if she had only grateful memories of what

they had been, and as if no thought of herself mingled with the

thought of them. The simplicity, directness, and practical good sense

of her speech then, its kindliness toward those who had done her the

greatest wrong, and the entire absence of self-consciousness, made

those who heard her feel that a woman might speak in public without

violating any of the proprieties or prejudices of social traditions

and customs. There was a refinement and dignity about her, an

atmosphere of gentleness and sweetness and strength, which won their

way to the heart. To those who knew her history, there was something

very affecting, sublime, in her absolute self-forgetfulness. As one

who knew her most intimately said, "She seems to have been born in

that mood of mind which made vanity or display impossible. She was the

only person I have ever known who was absolutely free from all

ambition."

Space prevents a fitting record of the noble words and deeds of Sarah

Moore Grimké. She published in 1838, a volume of "Letters on the

Equality of the Sexes," which called out much discussion on woman's

position in both State and Church. The last time Angelina spoke in

public was at the Loyal League Convention in New York in 1863. She

took an active part in the discussion of resolutions, speaking clearly

and concisely on every point, and read a beautiful address she had

prepared--"To the Soldiers of our Second Revolution." All through the

years that Angelina was illustrating woman's capacity on the platform

by holding her audiences spell-bound, Sarah was defending woman's

right to be there with her pen.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution."

[60] Angelina E. Grimké.

[61] This building, the property of Jacob Peirce, was thus imperilled

with his free consent.

[62] The Assembly Buildings, opened to us by the kindness of the

lessee, Mr. John Toy.

[63] She was the positive power of so much anti-slavery work, that

James Russell Lowell spoke of her as "the coiled-up mainspring of the

movement."

[64] In speaking of her, Lydia Maria Child said in her obituary notice

in the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_ of May 11, 1867: "All

survivors of the old Abolition band will remember Thankful Southwick

as one of the very earliest, the noblest, and the most faithful of

that small army of moral combatants who fought so bravely and so

perseveringly for the deliverance of the down-trodden. Mrs. Southwick

was born and educated in the Society of Friends, and to their calmness

of demeanor she added their indomitable persistence in the path of

duty. One of the most exciting affairs that ever occurred in Boston

was known as the 'Baltimore Slave Case.' Two girls had escaped in a

Boston vessel, and when about to be carried back, were brought out on

a writ of 'habeas corpus.' All Boston was in a ferment for and against

the fugitives. The commercial world were determined that this Southern

property should be restored to the white claimants, and the

Abolitionists were determined that it should remain in the possession

of the original owners until a bill of sale from the Almighty could be

produced. By the vigilance and ingenious arrangements of 'Father

Snowden' and Thankful Southwick, at a given signal the slaves were

spirited away from the crowded court-room, and out of the city. The

agent of the slaveholders standing near Mrs. Southwick, and gazing

with astonishment at the empty space, where an instant before the

slaves stood, she turned her large gray eyes upon him and said, 'Thy

prey hath escaped thee.' Wherever working or thinking was to be done

for our righteous cause, there was Thankful Southwick ever ready with

wise counsel and energetic action. She and her excellent husband were

among the very first to sustain Garrison in his unequal contest with

the strong Goliath of slavery. At that time they were in affluent

circumstances, and their money was poured forth freely for the

unpopular cause which had as yet found no adherents among the rich.

Their commodious house was a caravansary for fugitive slaves, and for

anti-slavery pilgrims from all parts of the country. At the

anniversary meetings when most of the Abolitionists were desirous to

have for their guests, Friend Whittier, the Hon. James G. Birney,

George Thompson, Theodore, or Angelia Weld, Joseph and Thankful

Southwick were quietly looking about for such of the anti-slavery

brothers and sisters as were too little known to be likely to receive

invitations. Always kindly unpretending, clear-sighted to perceive the

right, and faithful in following it wherever it might lead. They were

upright in all their dealings with the world, tender and true in the

relations of private life and the memory they have left is a

benediction."

[65] On a recent visit at the home of Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia,

in talking over those eventful days one evening in company with Daniel

Neale, it was amusing and gratifying to hear those gentlemen dilate on

the grandeur of her bearing through those mobs in Pennsylvania Hall.

It seems on that occasion she had a beautiful crimson shawl thrown

gracefully over her shoulders. One of these gentlemen remarked, "I

kept my eye on that shawl, which could be seen now here, now there,

its wearer consulting with one, cheering another; and I made up my

mind that until that shawl disappeared, every man must stand by his

guns."

[66] Abby Kelly.

[67] Just previous to this Convention Horace Mann, President of

Antioch College, had been giving a lecture through the country, and

made many severe strictures on the false philosophy of the woman

suffrage movement, or rather what he supposed it to be. This was

considered the more damaging because Mr. Mann so strongly favored

co-education. It was as if one in our own camp had suddenly turned

traitor. Among other things he said that our legislative halls were

such bear gardens that they were not fit for women to enter. It is to

this remark reference is made in the debates.

[68] This letter will be found in "Reminiscences of Lucretia Mott," at

the close of this chapter.

[69] See Appendix.

[70] See Appendix.

[71] In accordance with this plan Matilda Joslyn Gage prepared a

story, entitled "The Household," treating different phases of woman's

wrongs, and presented it to the Committee. But as nothing was ever

done to carry out the proposition, the manuscript was returned to the

author, and slumbers in her garret with other rejected manuscripts.

[72] The first National Convention held in Washington was in January,

1869.

[73] Joseph C. Neal.

[74] It seems these inexperienced parents had armed themselves with

the most approved works on the construction and capacities of infants,

in one of which they found the statement that the stomach of a

new-born child could hold only one tablespoonful of milk. Accordingly

the boy was restricted to that amount, once an hour. Although he

protested against this limited supply by constant wailing, and

shrivelled from day to day into a miniature mummy, the system was

pursued, until at last "Sister Sarah," who had had suspicions for some

time that the child's capacity was underrated, thought she would

assume the responsibility of giving him for once all the milk he could

take. What he did do, so far outmeasured what the doctrinaire said he

could do, that the child was happily permitted ever after to decide

for himself. The faith of the trusting parents was thus visibly shaken

in one theory, and I am happy to add, in due time in many others,

regarding the Graham system of dietetics.

CHAPTER XI

LUCRETIA MOTT.

Eulogy at the Memorial Services[75] held in Washington by the

National Woman Suffrage Association, January 19, 1881. By

Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

On the 3d of January, 1793, the little island of Nantucket, fifteen

miles by three and a half, lying far out into the sea on the coast of

Massachusetts, welcomed to its solitude a child destined to be one of

America's most famous women. This was a fitting birthplace for

Lucretia Mott; as the religion and commerce of the island (named for a

woman) had been guided by a woman's brain. In 1708 Mary Starbuck,

known as "The Great Merchant," a woman of remarkable breadth of

intellect, as well as great executive ability, converted the colony to

Quakerism, and vindicated woman's right to interest herself in the

commerce of the world. Perhaps she, like the good genii of old,

brought her gifts to that cradle and breathed into the new life the

lofty inspiration that made this woman the prophet and seer she was.

Here were the descendants of John Wolman, William Rotch, George Fox,

the Macys, the Franklins, the Folgers; and in this pure atmosphere,

and from these distinguished ancestors, Lucretia Mott received her

inheritance. Her father was an honest, sea-faring Quaker. Her mother

belonged to the Folger family, whose culture, genius, common-sense,

and thrift culminated in Benjamin Franklin, and later, in Lucretia

Mott. The resemblance between her head and that of the philosopher and

statesman, was apparent to the most casual observer.

Mrs. Mott says in her diary: "I always loved the good in childhood,

and desired to do the right. In those early years I was actively

useful to my mother, who, in the absence of my father on his long

voyages, was engaged in mercantile business, often going to Boston to

purchase goods in exchange for oil and candles, the staple of the

island. The exercise of women's talents in this line, as well as the

general care which devolved upon them, in the absence of their

husbands, tended to develop and strengthen them mentally and

physically.

"In 1804 my father's family removed to Boston, and in the public and

private schools of that city I mingled with all classes without

distinction. It was the custom then to send the children of such

families to select schools; but my parents feared that would minister

to a feeling of class pride, which they felt was sinful to cultivate

in their children. And this I am glad to remember, because it gave me

a feeling of sympathy for the patient and struggling poor, which but

for this experience I might never have known." Under such humane

influences, with such ancestors and associations, in the public

schools, in the Friends' meeting, on the adventurous island, and in

the suburbs of Boston, the child passed into girlhood, with lessons of

industry and self-denial well learned, and with her life all before.

She lived in a period when women of genius had vindicated their right

to be recognized in art, science, literature, and government, and

through many of the great events that have made the United States a

Nation. It was such a combination of influences that developed

Lucretia Mott into the exceptional woman she was.

In an unlucky hour her father endorsed for a friend, and to save his

honor, was compelled to lose his property. It was a blow from which he

did not recover, and henceforward much of the support of the family

devolved upon the mother, who had remarkable tact, energy, and

courage. Both parents were ambitious for their children, and did all

they could for their education; that was one thing about which all

Quakers were tenacious. In her fourteenth year Lucretia and her elder

sister were sent to "The Nine Partners," a Friends boarding-school in

Dutchess County, New York, and there pursuing her studies with patient

zeal, she remained two years without once going home for a holiday

vacation. At fifteen, a teacher having left, Lucretia was made an

assistant, and at the end of the second year, was tendered the place

of teacher, with the inducement beside, that her services would

entitle a younger sister to her education.

Her well-balanced character enabled her to meet with calmness, all

life's varied trials, of which she had her full share. As one of eight

children in her father's house, with his financial embarrassments, and

sudden death: and afterward with five children of her own, and her

husband's reverses; Lucretia's heroism and strength of mind were

fairly tested. In both of these financial emergencies, she opened a

school, and by her success as a teacher, bridged over the chasm.

In her eighteenth year, Lucretia Coffin and James Mott, according to

Quaker ceremony, became husband and wife, the result of an attachment

formed at boarding-school, which proved to be an exceptionally happy

union, and through their long wedded life, of over half a century,

they remained ever loyal to one another. James Mott, though a Quaker,

was in all personal qualities the very opposite of his wife. He had

the cool judgment, she the enkindling enthusiasm. He had the slow,

sure movement; she the quick, impulsive energy. He enjoyed nothing

more than silence; she nothing more than talking. The one was

completely the complement of the other. She possessed a delicate love

of fun, and was full of dry humor. Once during a visit from her

husband's brother, Richard Mott, of Toledo, Ohio, who like James was a

very silent man, she became suddenly aware of their absence and

started to look for them. Finding them seated on either side of a

large wood fire in the drawing-room, she said, "Oh, I thought you must

both be here it was so quiet."

In speaking of them, Robert Collyer says: "If James and Lucretia had

gone around the world in search of a mate, I think they would have

made the choice which heaven made for them. They had lived together

more than forty years when I first knew them. I thought then, as I

think now, that it was the most perfect wedded life to be found on

earth. They were both of a most beautiful presence. He, large, fair,

with kindly blue eyes, and regular features. She, slight, with dark

eyes and hair. Both, of the sunniest spirit; both, free to take their

own way, as such fine souls always are, and yet their lives were so

perfectly one that neither of them led or followed the other, so far

as one could observe, by the breadth of a line. He could speak well,

in a slow, wise way, when the spirit moved him, and the words were all

the choicer because they were so few. But his greatness, for he was a

great man, lay still in that fine, silent manhood, which would only

break into fluent speech as you sat with him by the bright wood fire

in winter, while the good wife went on with her knitting, putting it

swiftly down a score of times in an hour, to pound a vagrant spark

which had snapped on the carpet, or as we sat under the trees in the

summer twilight. Then James Mott would open his heart to those he

loved, and touch you with wonder at the depth and beauty of his

thoughts; or tell you stories of the city where when a young man he

lived, or of the choice humors of ancient Quakers, who went through

the world esteeming laughter vain, and yet set the whole world which

knew them laughing at their quaint ways and curious fancies."

In his young days, James Mott was a teacher; later on he engaged in

the cotton business, but abandoned it when it was becoming

remunerative, because of its connection with slave labor. He finally

took up the wool business, and retired with a competency some years

before his death, which enabled them to take a trip to Europe, and

afterward live the life of leisure they desired, indulging their

literary tastes. James Mott wrote a very creditable book of their

travels, and Lucretia carried enough observations of foreign life in

her head to fill folios.

Mrs. Mott was a housekeeper of the old school, in so far as everything

from garret to cellar passed under her supervision. She took the

entire care of her children, and although with remarkable economy

supplying the wants and guarding against the wastes of a large family,

she did not allow these necessary cares to absorb all her time and

thought, but cultivated the talents entrusted to her in broader

interests than family life. She felt she had duties in the Church and

the State as well as the home. The time most wives and mothers spend

in gaiety and embroidery, she spent in reading and committing to

memory choice thoughts in poetry and prose. The money others spent in

filling their homes with bric-a-brac she spent in books, and the

result proves the superior wisdom of her course.

When conventions were held in Philadelphia, her house was always

filled with guests. As presiding officer in a woman's convention

nothing escaped her notice. She felt responsible that everything

should be done in good taste and order. Her opinions on woman's

nature, sphere, destiny, were thoroughly digested, and any speaker

that did not come up to her exact ideal, was taken delicately to task

when her turn came to speak. As some one remarks, "she had a playful

way of tapping a speaker in a public meeting, as a skillful driver

touches his horses with the tip end of his whip." Once, says Wendell

Phillips, she tried the experiment on me when I had ventured to say

that one of the drawbacks to the movement, was the indifference of

women themselves. Other speakers too expressed sentiments on which

Mrs. Mott differed from them. When she arose she touched them all

round with her gentle raillery, offending no one, just pronounced

enough in her speech to be effective, and in no way compromising

herself. Glancing at the platform on one occasion in Philadelphia, the

central figure, is Lucretia Mott in Quaker costume, in the zenith of

her refined beauty; around her are grouped James Mott, William Lloyd

Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Robert Purvis,

Charles Burleigh, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances Dana Gage, Hannah Tracy

Cutler, Lydia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Ann Preston, Sarah Pugh, Hannah

Darlington, Mary Grew, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy

Stone, as refined and remarkable an assembly of men and women as could

be found in any European court. Yet these were the people so hated and

ridiculed by the press and the pulpit, whose grand utterances and

spicy debates were stigmatized as "the maudlin sentimentalisms of

unsexed men and women."

But let us follow these friends to the home of Lucretia Mott. A large

house on Arch Street, like all buildings in the city of brotherly

love, with white shutters, marble cappings and steps, and dining-room

on the second floor of the rear building. There are our stern

reformers, round the social board, as genial a group of martyrs as one

could find. Without the shadow of a doubt as to the rightfulness of

their own position, and knowing too that the common sense of the

nation was on their side, they made merry over the bigotry of the

Church, popular prejudices, conservative fears, absurd laws and

customs hoary with age. How they did hold up in their metaphysical

tweezers the representatives of the dead past that ever and anon

ventured upon our platform. With what peals of laughter their

assumptions and contradictions were chopped into mince meat. On this

occasion, William Lloyd Garrison occupied the seat of honor at Mrs.

Mott's right hand, and led the conversation which the hostess always

skillfuly managed to make general. When seated around her board, no

two-and-two side talk in monotone was ever permissible; she insisted

that the good things said should be enjoyed by all. At the close of

the meal, while the conversation went briskly on, with a neat little

tray and snowy towel, she washed up the silver and china as she

uttered some of her happiest thoughts. James Mott at the head of the

table maintained the dignity of his position, ever ready to throw in a

qualifying word, when these fiery reformers became too intense.

Theirs was the ideal home, perfect in its appointments, and where

discussion on all subjects took the widest range. Being alike in

search of truth, one felt no fear of shocking them. Those accustomed

to see priests and bigots, whenever a doubt was expressed as to any of

their cherished opinions, rise and leave the room with a deeply

wounded expression, were surprised to see James and Lucretia Mott

calmly discussing with guests, their own most cherished creeds, and

questioning the wisdom of others in turn. Freedom was not a deity in

their home to be worshiped afar off, but the patron saint of the

household, influencing all who entered there, giving her benedictions

to each at every feast.

Their home was the castle of safety for runaway slaves, and the

paradise of the unfortunate. All knew that if the mistress met them

empty handed, she would cheer their lonely hearts with kind words,

recognizing their humanity, and with sure promise of some future

consideration. Her house was a resort too for people of distinction.

When Frederika Bremer, Harriet Martineau, Lord Morpeth, Lord and Lady

Amberley, visited this country, the reformers were the people they

desired to see, and chief among them Lucretia Mott, after whom Lady

Amberley named her first daughter. Thus titled foreigners, scholars,

and politicians often met at her fireside. I have frequently heard

Gerrit Smith describe a call he once made there. In a conversation of

an hour, she was interrupted half a dozen times with applications for

charity. At last, in came the glorious Fanny Kemble, meeting Mrs. Mott

in a manner that clearly showed they were warm and well-known friends;

and soon came Frederick Douglass. There sat the millionaire

philanthropist, the world-renowned actor, the grandest representative

of slavery, and the fearless disciple of Elias Hicks. I doubt if the

Quaker City ever unveiled so magnificent a tableaux for the pen of an

artist.

In her diary Mrs. Mott says: "At twenty-five years of age, surrounded

with a family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life of

devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in the 'Society of

Friends,' receiving every encouragement from those in authority until

the separation amongst us in 1827, when my convictions led me to

adhere to those who believed in the sufficiency of the light within,

resting on 'truth for authority rather than authority for truth.' The

popular doctrine of original sin never commended itself to my reason

or conscience, except on the theory of original holiness also. I

searched the Scriptures daily, ofttimes finding a construction of the

text wholly different from that which had been pressed on our

acceptance. The highest evidence of a sound faith being the practical

life of the Christian, I have felt a far greater interest in the moral

movements of the age than in any theological discussion."

In 1818 she began to preach in "Friends' Meeting," and through New

England, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, she spoke at an early

day on the tenets of her sect. She affiliated with the branch called

"Hicksite," or "Unitarian Quakers." As Mrs. Mott was a disciple of

Elias Hicks, we can get some insight as to her religious faith by a

few extracts from different points in his creed as stated by himself.

In one of his sermons he says:

As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God.

What is the Spirit of God? It is the light and life in the soul

of man. All that men and books can do is to point us to this

great principle which is only to be known in our own souls. The

way to arrive at a knowledge of this divine love and divine

light, and to fulfill the whole law, is to love all the creation

of God, and do right to all men and beasts.

Again he speaks of the divine love and divine light which he says

are one, indivisibly one. The Lord is love, and love may be

considered as comprehending all His power and all His wisdom; but

goodness is the most proper term that we can apply. Every one, he

says, is enlightened by the same divine light that enlightened

Jesus, and we receive it from the same source. He had the

fullness of it as we have our several allotments. All the varied

names given in Scripture to this divine light and life such as,

"Emmanuel," "Jesus," "Sent of God," "Great Prophet," "Christ our

Lord," "Grace," "Unction," "Anointed," mean one and the same

thing, and are nothing less nor more than the spirit and power of

God in the soul of man as his Creator, Preserver, Condemner,

Redeemer, Saviour, Sanctifier, and Justifier.

The Hicksites differed from the other Friends in that they placed the

light within above all external authority, while the Orthodox Friends

make the Scriptures the surer guide, though some make the written word

and inner light of equal authority. In a letter to John C. Sanders, in

1828, Elias Hicks says:

Not all the books ever written, nor all the miracles recorded in

the Scriptures, nor all other external evidence of what kind

soever, has ever revealed God (who is an eternal invisible

Spirit) to any one of the children of men. Heaven is not a fixed

place above, nor hell below, but both are states of the soul. The

blood of Christ shed upon the cross has no more power to cleanse

us from sin than the blood of bullocks and rams poured out on

Jewish altars could cleanse that people from their sins. We must

know Christ within us to save us from sin; men depend so much on

the crucifixion that they heed not the light within.

This wonderful prophet and seer was seventy-nine years old when the

separation began in Philadelphia. The division in this country created

great excitement among the Quakers in England, who were very active in

their hostility to Elias Hicks and his doctrines. Some of them came to

America to bear their testimony. Among others, Annie Braithwaite

traveled extensively and addressed Friends' meetings. Mrs. Mott states

that on one occasion when she was present, the English Quakeress, in

preaching salvation by the blood of Christ, had spoken with more than

usual unction and enthusiasm. As soon as she finished a profound

silence reigned. Elias Hicks, slowly rising and removing his hat, said

in deep inspired tones: "Friends, to the Christ that never was

crucified; to the Christ that never was slain; to the Christ that can

not die. I commend you."

Many of the professed followers of Elias Hicks lacked the courage and

conscience to maintain his principles when the magnetism of his direct

influence was withdrawn by his death. Hence even in that division of

the Friends to which she belonged, Mrs. Mott encountered much

opposition, especially for her public identification with unpopular

reforms. Many would have gladly seen her withdraw from their

membership, and others were desirous that she should be disowned. But

she understood her own rights and Friends Discipline too well to

violate a single rule. Although her enemies kept close watch, they

never caught her off her guard. At the time of the division, she

remarked to an acquaintance: "It seemed to me almost like death at

first to be shut out of the Friends Meeting where I had loved to go

for religious communion, to see the cold averted looks from those

whose confidence I once enjoyed, to be shunned as unworthy of notice;

all this was hard to endure, but it was the price I paid for being

true to the convictions of my own soul."

Her spiritual life was deep and earnest, but entirely her own. It was

intuitional, not emotional. It was expressed in her love for man in

God, and not God in creeds and ceremonies. She prized the free

sentiments of William Ellery Channing, read his works with avidity,

and always had some volume of his at hand. The Life of Rev. Joseph

Blanco White, a rare book, was for years one of the companions of her

solitude. It was thoroughly worn, and the margin covered with her

notes and marks of approval. Dean Stanley and Buckle's "History of

Civilization" were favorites with her also. Cowper's "Task" and

Young's "Night Thoughts," which had been her text-books at "Nine

Partners," never lost their charm for her. She could repeat pages of

them. In her last days she read "The Light of Asia" with intense

pleasure. When she had already passed her eighty-seventh year, Susan

B. Anthony visiting her, says: "She read aloud to us from that

charming poem until after eleven o'clock at night." Her conversation,

as well as her public addresses, were sprinkled with beautiful and apt

citations from her favorite authors, as it was the habit of her life

to commit to memory sentiments she most valued in poetry and prose.

It was not possible that a woman like Lucretia Mott should keep

silence in the churches, no matter what Paul might say to the

contrary, because that great brain was created to think, that noble

heart to beat through making and moulding speech, and those fine gray

eyes to see what the prophets in all times have seen. I can not

imagine her as one of the silent sisters who though having something

to say, dare not say it though to save her own soul or the souls of

those about her.

An old friend in Lancaster County, says Robert Collyer, told me

of his first hearing her in the early days when as yet she was

almost unknown. It had been a dreary time among Friends up

there, and being a man who did not care for the traditions of

"first day" and "fourth day," he was getting tired of silence.

One "first day" he went to his meeting expecting nothing as

usual, and pretty sure he would not be disappointed. Nor was he

for a time. But presently a young woman arose in the high seat he

had never seen before, whose presence touched him with strange

new expectations. She looked, he said, as one who had no great

hold on life, and began to speak in low tones, with just a touch

of hesitation as of one feeling after her thought, and there was

a tremor in her voice as if she felt the burden of the spirit.

But she soon found her way out of this, and then he said he began

to hold his breath. He had never heard such speaking in all his

life, so born of conviction, so radiant with that inward light

for which he had been waiting, that he went home feeling as he

supposed they must have felt in the olden time who thought they

had heard an angel.

I once heard such an outpouring. It was at a woods-meeting up

among the hills where quite a number of us had our say, and then

my friend's turn came. She was well on in years then, but the old

fire still burned clear, and God's breath touched her out of

heaven and she prophesied. I suppose she spoke for two hours, but

after the first moment she never faltered or failed to hold the

multitude spell-bound, and waiting on her words. Yet there was

not the least hint of premeditation, while there was boundless

wealth of meditation in her deep, pregnant thoughts. I have said

she prophesied, no other term would answer to her speech. Her

eyes had seen the coming glory of the Lord, and she testified

that she had seen; and this was all the more wonderful to me,

because it was the habit of her mind in later years to reason, as

President McCosh does, from premise to conclusion. But she had

seen a vision there sitting in the August splendor with the voice

of God's presence whispering in the trees, and the vision had set

the heart high above the brain. These were care-worn and

work-worn folks she saw about her with knotted hands resting on

the staff, or folded quietly on the lap. They had nearly done the

good day's work, and now preacher and prophet were needed to tell

them what that day's work meant, where they keep the books for

us, and so it was not a speech, but a psalm of life.

Mrs. Mott was safe at all points in taking Elias Hicks for a teacher

of morals, as he was pronounced on every reform. On the question of

woman's rights, he says:

If Paul said of women preachers what we find in Corinthians and

Timothy, I judge that he had no allusion at all to their

preaching or prophesying in the churches; and if he had, we have

no right to admit it as sound doctrine, as it contradicts a

number of his own declarations (and the general testimony of

Scripture), which are more rational and clear, as in the

fourteenth chapter of Romans; and in Philippians where he speaks

of the women who labored with him in the Gospel; and in 1st

Corinthians where he speaks of women praying and prophesying; and

Paul assures us that male and female are one in Christ. Also

under the law there were prophetesses as well as prophets, and

the effusion of the Spirit in the latter days as prophesied by

Joel was to be equally on sons and daughters, servants and

handmaids. To believe otherwise is irrational and inconsistent

with the divine attributes, and would charge the Almighty with

partiality and injustice to one-half of His rational creation.

Therefore I believe it would be wrong to admit it, although

asserted in the most plain and positive manner by men or angels.

In our last conflict with Great Britain, Elias Hicks called the

attention of "Friends" to a faithful support of their testimony

against war and injustice, desiring them to maintain their

Christian liberties against encroachment of the secular powers,

laws having been enacted levying taxes for the support of the

war. At one meeting there was considerable altercation; as some

Friends who refused payment had been distrained some three or

four fold more than the tax demanded, while others complied, paid

the tax, and justified themselves in so doing. On this point his

mind was deeply exercised and he labored to encourage Friends to

faithfulness to exalt their testimonies for the Prince of Peace.

Elias Hicks preached against slavery both in Maryland and

Virginia. He says of a meeting in Baltimore that he especially

addressed slave-holders. Further, he opposed the use of

slave-grown goods. At a meeting in Providence, R. I., he said he

was moved to show the great and essential difference there is

between the righteousness of man comprehended in his laws,

customs, and traditions, and the righteousness of God which is

comprehended in pure, impartial, unchangeable justice. They who

continue this traffic, and enrich themselves, by the labor of

these deeply oppressed Africans, violate these plain principles

of justice, and no cunning sophistical reasoning in the wisdom of

this world can justify them, or silence the convictions of

conscience.