Some other Friends were much opposed to the use of slave products, but

the Society in general "had no concern" on this point. Lucretia Mott

used "free goods," and thought that Elias' preaching such extreme

doctrines on all these practical reforms, had their effect in the

division. To refuse to pay taxes, or to use any "slave produce,"

involved more immediate and serious difficulties, than any theoretical

views of the hereafter, and even Friends may be pardoned for feeling

some interest in their own pecuniary independence. To see their

furniture, cattle, houses, lands, all swept away for exorbitant taxes,

seemed worse than paying a moderate one to start with. From these

quotations from the great reformer and religious leader, we see how

fully Mrs. Mott accepted his principles; not because they were his

principles, for she called no man master, but because she felt them to

be true. In her diary she says:

My sympathy was early enlisted for the poor slave by the

class-books read in our schools, and the pictures of the

slave-ship, as published by Clarkson. The ministry of Elias Hicks

and others on the subject of the unrequited labor of slaves, and

their example in refusing the products of slave labor, all had

effect in awakening a strong feeling in their behalf.

The unequal condition of woman in society, also early impressed

my mind. Learning while at school that the charge for the

education of girls was the same as that for boys, and that when

they became teachers women received but half as much as men for

their services, the injustice of this was so apparent, that I

early resolved to claim for my sex all that an impartial Creator

has bestowed.

The Temperance reform too engaged my attention; and for more than

forty years I have practiced total abstinence from all

intoxicating drinks.

The cause of Peace has had a share of my efforts; leading to the

ultra non-resistance ground; that no Christian can consistently

uphold a government based on the sword, or relying on that as an

ultimate resort.

The oppression of the working classes by existing monopolies, and

the lowness of wages often engaged my attention; and I have held

many meetings with them, and heard their appeals with compassion,

and a great desire for a radical change in the system which makes

the rich richer, and the poor poorer. The various associations

and communities, tending to greater equality of condition, have

had from me a hearty God-speed.

But the millions of down-trodden slaves in our land being the

most oppressed class, I have felt bound to plead their cause, in

season and out of season, to endeavor to put my soul in their

souls' stead, and to aid in every right effort for their

immediate emancipation. This duty was impressed upon me at the

time I consecrated myself to that Gospel which anoints to "preach

deliverance to the captive," to "set at liberty them that are

bruised." From that time the duty of abstinence, as far as

practicable, from slave-grown products was so clear that I

resolved to make the effort "to provide things honest" in this

respect. Since then, our family has been supplied with free

labor, groceries, and to some extent, with cotton goods unstained

by slavery.

The labors of the devoted Benjamin Lundy, and his "Genius of

Universal Emancipation," published in Baltimore, added to the

untiring exertions of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others in

England, including Elizabeth Heyrick, whose work on slavery

aroused them to a change in their mode of action; and of William

Lloyd Garrison, in Boston, prepared the way for a Convention in

Philadelphia, to take the ground of immediate, not gradual

emancipation, and to impress the duty of unconditional liberty

without expatriation.

December 3, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in

Philadelphia. Among the sixty-two people present were Lucretia Mott,

Lydia White, and Esther Moore, Rev. Beriah Green in the chair. In

reading and discussing their Declaration of Sentiments, Mrs. Mott

wishing to make some suggestions, asked the chairman in her modest way

if she might speak. Mr. Green promptly and enthusiastically responded,

"Certainly, certainly, say all you are moved to say." She at once

proposed to strike out two words from one sentence in the Declaration,

"We may be personally defeated, but our principles never (can be)."

One readily sees how much stronger the sentence is made by striking

out the last two words. The quickness of Mrs. Mott in grasping the

sentiment and phraseology of a resolution or appeal was always

remarkable in our conventions. Mr. Garrison, who wrote the

anti-slavery Declaration, readily accepted her amendment. When the

members were asked for their signatures, as James Mott pen in hand

stood near the desk, Thomas Shipley said that before signing it would

be well to consider, as it would bring down on their heads terrible

persecutions and great losses in their business relations. He said he

should sign it himself, but he would advise James Mott and others to

pause. The moment Mr. Shipley ceased speaking, Lucretia, in a brave

inspiring tone said, "James, put down thy name," which he quickly did,

joining in the general smile of satisfaction.

Soon after the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, at a social gathering one

evening, Dr. Moore in conversation with Mrs. Mott strongly condemned

the fanaticism and impolicy of the Abolitionists, and especially the

women; he said they should do all their reform work through the

Friends' meeting. Being much excited, in the course of his remarks, he

became very insulting. Mrs. Mott patiently reasoned with him for

awhile; at last becoming very indignant, she arose, and leaving him

remarked: "All I have to say to thee in parting is, 'Get thee behind

me, Satan.'" He immediately took his hat and in silence left the

house. Lucretia Mott ante-dated even Mr. Garrison in her protests

against slavery. Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia, says he heard her as

early as 1829 preach against slavery, on several occasions in the

colored church.

In 1833, says Mrs. Mott, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery

Society was formed, and being actively associated in the efforts

for the slaves' redemption, I have traveled thousands of miles in

this country, holding meetings in some of the slave States, have

been in the midst of mobs and violence, and have shared

abundantly in the odium attached to the name of an uncompromising

modern Abolitionist, as well as partaken richly of the sweet

return of peace, attendant on those who would "undo the heavy

burdens and let the oppressed go free; and break every yoke."

In 1840, a World's Anti-Slavery Convention was called in London.

Women from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were delegates to

that Convention. I was one of the number; but, on our arrival in

England, our credentials were not accepted, because we were

women. We were, however, treated with the greatest courtesy and

attention, as strangers, and were admitted to chosen seats as

spectators and listeners, while our right of membership was

denied. This brought the woman question more into view, and an

increase of interest on the subject has been the result. In this

work, too, I have engaged heart and hand; as my labors, travels,

and public discourses evince. The misrepresentation, ridicule,

and abuse heaped upon this, as well as other reforms, do not in

the least deter me from my duty. To those whose name is cast out

as evil for the truth's sake, it is a small thing to be judged of

man's judgment.

This imperfect sketch may give some idea of the mode of life of

one who has found it "good to be always zealously affected in a

good thing."

When, as an enthusiastic Abolitionist, Mrs. Mott crossed the ocean to

take part in the deliberations of the World's Anti-Slavery

Convention, the last drop in her cup of sorrow was the humiliation she

was called to suffer on account of sex. The vote by which this

injustice was perpetrated, was due to the overwhelming majority of the

clergy, who, with Bible in hand, swept all before them. No man can

fathom the depths of rebellion in woman's soul when insult is heaped

upon her sex, and this is intensified when done under the hypocritical

assumption of divine authority. This fresh baptism into woman's

degradation impelled the current of her thoughts into a new channel,

and returning home, she, with a few friends as rebellious as herself,

called the first Woman's Rights Convention. To this cause she brought

a zeal unknown before, as here she could see the wrongs of a class

from a purely subjective point of view.

There are often periods in the lives of earnest, imaginative beings,

when some new book or acquaintance comes to them like an added sun in

the heavens, lighting the darkest recesses and chasing every shadow

away. Thus came Lucretia Mott to me, at a period in my young days when

all life's problems seemed inextricably tangled; when, like Noah's

dove on the waters, my soul found no solid resting-place in the whole

world of thought. The misery of the multitude was too boundless for

comprehension, too hopeless for tender feeling; despair supplanted all

other emotions, and the appalling views of the future threw their dark

shadows over the sweetest and most innocent pleasures of life. Before

meeting Mrs. Mott, I had heard a few men of liberal opinions discuss

various political, religious, and social theories, but with my first

doubt of my father's absolute wisdom, came a distrust of all men's

opinions on the character and sphere of woman; and I naturally

inferred that if their judgments were unsound on a question I was sure

I did understand, they were quite likely to be so on those I did not.

Hence, I often longed to meet some woman who had sufficient confidence

in herself to frame and hold an opinion in the face of opposition, a

woman who understood the deep significance of life to whom I could

talk freely; my longings were answered at last.

In June, 1840, I met Mrs. Mott for the first time, in London. Crossing

the Atlantic in company with James G. Birney, then the Liberty Party

candidate for President, soon after the bitter schism in the

anti-slavery ranks, he described to me as we walked the deck day after

day, the women who had fanned the flames of dissension, and had

completely demoralized the anti-slavery ranks. As my first view of

Mrs. Mott was through his prejudices, no prepossessions in her favor

biased my judgment. When first introduced to her at our hotel in Great

Queen Street, with the other ladies from Boston and Philadelphia who

were delegates to the World's Convention, I felt somewhat embarrassed,

as I was the only lady present who represented the "Birney faction,"

though I really knew nothing of the merits of the division, having

been outside the world of reforms. Still, as my husband and my cousin,

Gerrit Smith, were on that side, I supposed they would all have a

feeling of hostility toward me. However, Mrs. Mott, in her sweet,

gentle way, received me with great cordiality and courtesy, and I was

seated by her side at dinner.

No sooner were the viands fairly dispensed, than several Baptist

ministers began to rally the ladies on having set the Abolitionists

all by the ears in America, and now proposing to do the same thing in

England. I soon found that the pending battle was on woman's rights,

and that unwittingly I was by marriage on the wrong side. As I had

thought much on this question in regard to the laws, Church action,

and social usages, I found myself in full accord with the other

ladies, combating most of the gentlemen at the table; our only

champion, George Bradburn, was too deaf to hear a word that was said.

In spite of constant gentle nudgings by my husband under the table,

and frowns from Mr. Birney opposite, the tantalizing tone of the

conversation was too much for me to maintain silence. Calmly and

skillfully Mrs. Mott parried all their attacks, now by her quiet humor

turning the laugh on them, and then by her earnestness and dignity

silencing their ridicule and sneers. I shall never forget the look of

recognition she gave me when she saw by my remarks that I fully

comprehended the problem of woman's rights and wrongs. How beautiful

she looked to me that day.

I had always regarded a Quaker woman, as one does a Sister of Charity,

a being above ordinary mortals, ready to be translated at any moment.

I had never spoken to one before, nor been near enough to touch the

hem of a garment. Mrs. Mott was to me an entire new revelation of

womanhood. I sought every opportunity to be at her side, and

continually plied her with questions, and I shall never cease to be

grateful for the patience and seeming pleasure with which she fed my

hungering soul. Seeing the lions in London together, on one occasion

with a large party we visited the British Museum, where it is supposed

all people go to see the wonders of the world. On entering, Mrs. Mott

and myself sat down near the door to rest for a few moments, telling

the party to go on, that we would follow. They accordingly explored

all the departments of curiosities, supposing we were slowly following

at a distance; but when they returned, after an absence of three

hours, there we sat in the same spot, having seen nothing but each

other, wholly absorbed in questions of theology and social life. She

had told me of the doctrines and divisions among "Friends," of the

inward light, of Elias Hicks, of Channing, of a religion of practical

life, of Mary Wollstonecroft, her social theories, and her demands of

equality for women. I had been reading Combe's "Constitution of Man"

and "Moral Philosophy," Channing's works, and Mary Wollstonecroft,

though all tabooed by orthodox teachers, but I had never heard a woman

talk what, as a Scotch Presbyterian, I had scarcely dared to think.

On the following Sunday I went to hear Mrs. Mott preach in a Unitarian

church. Though I had never heard a woman speak, yet I had long

believed she had the right to do so, and had often expressed the idea

in private circles; but when at last I saw a woman rise up in the

pulpit and preach as earnestly and impressively as Mrs. Mott always

did, it seemed to me like the realization of an oft-repeated happy

dream. The day we visited the Zoological Gardens, as we were admiring

the gorgeous plumage of some beautiful birds, one of our gentlemen

opponents remarked, "You see, Mrs. Mott, our Heavenly Father believes

in bright colors. How much it would take from our pleasure if all the

birds were dressed in drab." "Yes," said she, "but immortal beings do

not depend on their feathers for their attractions. With the infinite

variety of the human face and form, of thought, feeling, and

affection, we do not need gorgeous apparel to distinguish us.

Moreover, if it is fitting that woman should dress in every color of

the rainbow, why not man also? Clergymen, with their black clothes and

white cravats, are quite as monotonous as the Quakers."

I remember on one occasion the entire American delegation were invited

to dine with Samuel Gurney, a rich Quaker banker. He had an elegant

place, a little out of London. The Duchess of Sutherland and Lord

Morpeth, who had watched our anti-slavery struggle in this country

with great interest, were quite desirous of meeting the American

Abolitionists, and had expressed the wish to call on them at this

time. Standing near Mrs. Mott when the coach and four gray horses with

the six out-riders drove up, Mr. Gurney, in great trepidation, said,

"What shall I do with the Duchess?" "Give her your arm," said Mrs.

Mott, "and introduce her to each member of the delegation." A

suggestion no commoner in England would have presumed to follow. When

the Duchess was presented to Mrs. Mott, her gracious ease was fully

equaled by that of the simple Quaker woman. Oblivious to all

distinctions of rank, she talked freely and wisely on many topics, and

proved herself in manner and conversation the peer of the first woman

in England. Mrs. Mott did not manifest the slightest restraint or

embarrassment during that marked social occasion. No fictitious

superiority ever oppressed her, neither did she descend in familiar

surroundings from her natural dignity, but always maintained the

perfect equilibrium of respect for herself and others.

I found in this new friend a woman emancipated from all faith in

man-made creeds, from all fear of his denunciations. Nothing was too

sacred for her to question, as to its rightfulness in principle and

practice. "Truth for authority, not authority for truth," was not only

the motto of her life, but it was the fixed mental habit in which she

most rigidly held herself. It seemed to me like meeting a being from

some larger planet, to find a woman who dared to question the opinions

of Popes, Kings, Synods, Parliaments, with the same freedom that she

would criticise an editorial in the _London Times_, recognizing no

higher authority than the judgment of a pure-minded, educated woman.

When I first heard from the lips of Lucretia Mott that I had the same

right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin, and John Knox had, and

the same right to be guided by my own convictions, and would no doubt

live a higher, happier life than if guided by theirs, I felt at once a

new-born sense of dignity and freedom; it was like suddenly coming

into the rays of the noon-day sun, after wandering with a rushlight in

the caves of the earth. When I confessed to her my great enjoyment in

works of fiction, dramatic performances, and dancing, and feared from

underneath that Quaker bonnet (I now loved so well) would come some

platitudes on the demoralizing influence of such frivolities, she

smiled, and said, "I regard dancing a very harmless amusement"; and

added, "the Evangelical Alliance that so readily passed a resolution

declaring dancing a sin for a church member, tabled a resolution

declaring slavery a sin for a bishop."

Sitting alone one day, as we were about to separate in London, I

expressed to her my great satisfaction in her acquaintance, and

thanked her for the many religious doubts and fears she had banished

from my mind. She said, "There is a broad distinction between religion

and theology. The one is a natural, human experience common to all

well-organized minds. The other is a system of speculations about the

unseen and the unknowable, which the human mind has no power to grasp

or explain, and these speculations vary with every sect, age, and type

of civilization. No one knows any more of what lies beyond our sphere

of action than thou and I, and we know nothing." Everything she said

seemed to me so true and rational, that I accepted her words of wisdom

with the same confiding satisfaction that did the faithful Crito

those of his beloved Socrates. And yet this pure, grand woman was

shunned and feared by the Orthodox Friends throughout England. While

in London a rich young Quaker of bigoted tendencies, who made several

breakfast and tea parties for the American delegates, always omitted

to invite Mrs. Mott. He very politely said to her on one occasion when

he was inviting others in her presence, "Thou must excuse me,

Lucretia, for not inviting thee with the rest, but I fear thy

influence on my children!!"

On several occasions when we all met at social gatherings in London,

Elizabeth Fry studiously avoided being in the same apartment with

Lucretia Mott. If Mrs. Mott was conversing with a circle of friends on

the lawn, Mrs. Fry would glide into the house. If Mrs. Mott entered at

one door, Mrs. Fry walked out the other. She really seemed afraid to

breathe the same atmosphere. On another occasion, at William Ball's,

at Tottenham, when more circumscribed quarters made escape impossible,

it was announced that Mrs. Fry felt a concern to say something to

those present. When all was silent she knelt and prayed, pouring forth

a solemn Jeremiad against the apostasy and infidelity of the day in

language so pointed and personal, that we all felt that Mrs. Mott was

the special subject of her petition. She accepted the intercession

with all due humility, and fortunately for the harmony of the occasion

was not moved to pray for Mrs. Fry, that she might have more love and

charity for those who honestly differed with her on unimportant points

of theology. How hateful such bigotry looks to those capable of

getting outside their own educational prejudices. How pitiable, that

even good people should thus allow themselves to ostracise and

persecute those who hold different opinions from their own. Elizabeth

Fry was not afraid to mingle in Newgate prison with the scum of the

earth, but she was afraid to touch the hem of Lucretia Mott's garment.

If Mrs. Fry felt that she had a higher truth, how did she know that

she might not influence Mrs. Mott for good? Lucretia was never afraid

of anybody. Nothing would have pleased her better than to compare her

pearls of thought and faith with Elizabeth Fry.

Visiting in many Quaker families during our travels in England, I was

amazed to hear Mrs. Mott spoken of as a most dangerous woman. Again

and again I was warned against her influence. She was spoken of as an

infidel, a heretic, a disturber, who had destroyed the peace in the

Friends Society in Pennsylvania, and thrown a firebrand into the

World's Convention, and that in a recent speech in London she quoted

sentiments from Mary Wollstonecroft and Thomas Paine. Having just

learned to worship Lucretia Mott as the embodiment of all that was

noble and charming in womanhood, the terrible fear that she inspired

among English "Friends" filled me with sorrow and surprise. I never

ventured to mention her name in their homes unless they first

introduced it.

Sitting in the World's Convention one day after half the world had

been voted out, when Joseph Sturge, a wealthy Quaker, occupied the

chair, I suggested to Mrs. Mott a dangerous contingency. Said I,

"Suppose in spite of the vote of excommunication the Spirit should

move you to speak, what could the chairman do, and which would you

obey? the Spirit or the Convention?" She promptly replied, "Where the

Spirit of God is, there is liberty."

Many anecdotes are told of Mrs. Mott's rigid economy, such as sewing

together the smallest rags to be woven into carpets, and writing

letters on infinitesimal bits of paper; but it must not be inferred

from this peculiarity that she was penurious, as she was generous in

her charities, and in the support of every good cause. Considering her

means and the self-denial she practiced in her personal expenses, her

gifts were lavish. Alfred Love, President of the Peace Society, who

frequently received letters from Mrs. Mott, says: "The one before me

is two and a half inches wide by two and a quarter inches long,

written on both sides, and contains one hundred and forty-one words,

and treats of seven distinct matters, and disposes of them in good

order, apologizing for her apparent economy of paper, and enclosing a

contribution of five dollars for a benevolent object." Though she

always dressed in Quaker costume, she attached no special significance

to it as a means of grace. One Sunday morning at a religious meeting,

she was in her accustomed seat in the gallery, when a young man, a

stranger to many, spoke in behalf of Peace. At the close of the

meeting some one who could not see the speaker asked Lucretia Mott his

name, and added: "Does he wear a standing collar and dress plain?" She

replied in her happy, cheerful manner, "Well, really I did not look to

see, I was too much interested in what he said to look at the cut of

his coat."

'Mid all the differences, dissensions, and personal antagonisms,

through the years we have labored together in the Woman's Rights

movement, I can not recall one word or occasion in which Mrs. Mott's

influence has not been for harmony, good-will, and the broadest

charity. She endured too much persecution herself ever to join in

persecuting others. In every reform she stood in the fore-front of the

battle. Wherever there was a trying emergency to be met, there you

could rely on Lucretia Mott. She never dodged responsibility nor

disagreeable occasions. At one time when excitement on the divorce

question ran high in New York, and there was a great hue and cry about

free love on our platform, I was invited to speak before the

Legislature on the bill then pending asking "divorce for drunkenness."

We chose the time at the close of one of our Conventions, that Mrs.

Mott might be present, which she readily consented to do, and promised

to speak if she felt moved. She charged Ernestine Rose and myself not

to take too radical ground, in view of the hostility to the bill, but

to keep closely to the merits of the main question. I told her she

might feel sure of me, as I had my speech written, and I would read it

to her, which I did, and received her approval.

The time arrived for the hearing, and a magnificent audience greeted

us at the Capitol. The bill was read, I made the opening speech, Mrs.

Rose followed. We had asked for the modification of certain statutes

and the passage of others making the laws more equal for man and

woman. Mrs. Mott having listened attentively to all that was said, and

coming to the conclusion that with eighteen different causes for

divorce in the different States, there might as well be no laws at all

on the question, she arose and said, that "she had not thought

profoundly on this subject, but it seemed to her that no laws whatever

on this relation would be better than such as bound pure, innocent

women in bondage to dissipated, unprincipled men. With such various

laws in the different States, and fugitives from the marriage bond

fleeing from one to another, would it not be better to place all the

States on the same basis, and thus make our national laws

homogeneous?" She was surprised on returning to the residence of Lydia

Mott, to hear that her speech was altogether the most radical of the

three. The bold statement of "no laws," however, was so sugar-coated

with eulogies on good men and the sacredness of the marriage relation,

that the press complimented the moderation of Mrs. Mott at our

expense. We have had many a laugh over that occasion.

An amusing incident occurred the first year, 1869, we held a

Convention in Washington. Chaplain Gray, of the Senate, was invited to

open the Convention with prayer. Mrs. Mott and I were sitting close

together, with our heads bowed and eyes closed, listening to the

invocation. As the chaplain proceeded, he touched the garden scene in

Paradise, and spoke of woman as a secondary creation, called into

being for the especial benefit of man, an afterthought with the

Creator. Straightening up, Mrs. Mott whispered to me, "I can not bow

my head to such absurdities." Edward M. Davis, in the audience,

noticed his mother's movements, and knowing that what had struck his

mind had no doubt disturbed hers also, he immediately left the hall,

returning shortly after Bible in hand, that he might confound the

chaplain with the very book he had quoted. He ascended the platform

just as Mr. Gray said "amen," and read from the opening chapter of

Genesis, the account of the simultaneous creation of man and woman, in

which dominion was given to both alike over every living thing. After

Mr. Davis made a few pertinent remarks on the allegorical character of

the second chapter of Genesis, Mrs. Mott followed with a critical

analysis of the prayer, and the portion of the Scripture read by her

son, showing the eternal oneness and equality of man and woman, the

union of the masculine and feminine elements, like the positive and

negative magnetism, the centripetal and centrifugal forces in nature,

pervading the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, the whole world

of thought and action, as there could have been no perpetuation of

creation without these elements equal and eternal in the Godhead. The

press commented on the novelty of reviewing an address to the throne

of grace, particularly when uttered by the chaplain of Congress. Mrs.

Mott remarked on these criticisms, "If we can teach clergymen to be as

careful what they say to God as to man, our Conventions at the capital

will be of great service to our representatives."

As a writer Mrs. Mott was clear and concise; her few published

sermons, her charming private letters and diary, with what those who

knew her best can remember, are all of her thoughts bequeathed to

posterity. As a speaker she was calm, clear, and unimpassioned;

indulged but little in wit, humor, or pathos, but by her good common

sense and liberality on all questions, by her earnestness and

simplicity, she held the most respectful attention of her audiences.

Hence an occasional touch of humor or sarcasm, or an outburst of

eloquent indignation came from her with great power. She had what the

Friends call unction; that made the most radical utterances from her

lips acceptable. In her conversation she was original and brilliant,

earnest and playful. Such was her persuasiveness of voice and manner

that opinions received with hisses from another speaker, were

applauded when uttered by Mrs. Mott.

Some one has said that "sagacity, a mental quick-wittedness for

meeting an emergency, a sagacity that might have been called

shrewdness, had it not been for a pervading heart quality that went

with it, was one of her prominent traits." Perhaps a wise diplomacy

might express this quality more nearly. No one knew better than she

how to avoid the sharp angles of a character or an occasion, as the

many anecdotes told of her so fully illustrate.

Returning from England in 1840, in a merchant vessel, a large number

of Irish emigrants were on board in the steerage. On the voyage Mrs.

Mott was moved to hold a religious meeting among them, but the matter

being broached to them, their Catholic prejudices objected. They would

not hear a woman preach, for women priest were not allowed in their

Church. But the spirit that was pressing upon the "woman preacher" for

utterance was not to be prevented from delivering its message without

a more strenuous effort to remove the obstacle. She asked that the

emigrants might be invited to come together to consider with her

whether they would have a meeting. This was but fair and right, and

they came. She then explained how different her idea of a meeting was

from a church service to which they were accustomed; that she had no

thought of saying anything derogatory of that service nor of the

priests who ministered to them; that her heart had been drawn to them

in sympathy, as they were leaving their old homes for new ones in

America; and that she had wanted to address them as to their habits

and aims in their every-day life in such a way as to help them in the

land of strangers to which they were going. And then asking if they

would listen (and they were already listening because her gracious

voice and words so entranced them they could not help it), she said

she would give an outline of what she had wanted to say at the

meeting, and so she was drawn on by the silent sympathy she had

secured until the Spirit's message was delivered; and only the keenest

witted of her Catholic hearers waked up to the fact, as they were

going out, that they had got the preachment from the woman priest

after all.

Presiding at a woman's convention on one occasion, a speaker painted a

very vivid picture in the darkest colors of this nation's injustice to

oppressed classes, and from the experience of other nations not based

upon principle, he foretold the certain downfall of our republic. On

rising, he had said that "he feared he should not be able to do his

theme justice, as he had just risen from a bed of sickness," but

warming up with his subject he rivaled Isaiah in his Jeremiad, and

left his audience in gloom and despair, the president sharing in the

general feeling, for the appeal had been thrilling and terrible. In a

moment, however, Mrs. Mott arose, saying: "I trust our future is not

as hopeless as our faithful friend, Parker Pillsbury, has just

pictured. We must remember he told us in starting that he had just

risen from a bed of sickness, and that may in a measure account for

his gloomy forebodings." The audience burst forth into a roar of

applause and laughter, and the president introduced the next speaker,

seemingly unconscious that she had stabbed the prophet through and

through, and dissipated the effect of his warnings.

Mrs. Mott was frequently chosen the presiding officer of the early

conventions. Though she seldom regarded Cushing's Manual in her

rulings, she maintained order and good feeling by the persuasiveness

and serenity of her voice and manner. Emerson says: "It is not what

the man says, but it is the spirit behind it which makes the

impression." It was this subtle magnetism of the true, grand woman,

ever faithful to her highest convictions of truth, that made her

always respected in every position she occupied. Hers was pure moral

power, for in that frail organization there could be but little of

what is called physical magnetism. Her placid face showed that she was

at peace with herself, the first requisite in a successful leader of

reform. That Mrs. Mott could have maintained her sweetness and charity

to the end, is a marvel in view of the varied and protracted

persecutions she endured.

Rarely have so many different and superior qualities been combined in

one woman. She had great personal beauty; her brow and eye were

remarkable. Although small in stature, it is said of her as it was of

Channing, he too being of diminutive size, that she made you think she

was larger than she was. She had a look of command. The amount of will

force and intelligent power in her small body was enough to direct the

universe; yet she was modest and unassuming and had none of the

personal airs of leadership. Her manners were gentle and

self-possessed under all circumstances. Her conversation, though

generally serious, earnest and logical, was sometimes playful and

always good humored. Her attitude of mind was receptive. She never

seemed to think even in her latest years that she had explored all

truth. Though she had very clearly defined opinions on every subject

that came under her consideration, she never dogmatized.

It was this healthy balance of good qualities that made her great

among other women of genius; and the multiplicity of her interests in

human affairs that kept her fresh and young to the last. The thinkers,

the scholars, the broadest intellects are often the octogenarians,

while the narrow selfish souls dry up in their own channels. One of

her noble sisters in reform has truly said, "Birth made Victoria a

queen, but her own pure, sweet life made Lucretia Mott a queen; queen

of a realm on which the sun never sets, the realm of humanity. If ever

any one inherited the earth it was this blessed Quaker woman."

Space fails me to tell of all the pleasant memories of our forty

years friendship, of the inspiration she has been to those on our

platform, of the bond of union to hold us together, of the innumerable

conventions over which she has presided, of the many long journeys

both North and South to carry the glad tidings of justice, liberty,

and equality to all. A missionary who always traveled at her own

expense, giving her best thoughts freely, asking nothing in return,

neither money, praise, nor honor; for misrepresentation and cruel

persecution were the only return she had for years. Both in religion

and reform hers was a free gospel to the multitude.

As division has been the law in politics, religion, and reform, woman

suffrage proved no exception. But Lucretia Mott and her noble sister,

Martha O. Wright, remained steadfast with those who had taken the

initiative steps in calling the first Convention, and with the larger

and more radical division their sympathies remained, both being

prominent officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association at the

time of their death. They fully endorsed the great lesson of the war,

National protection for United States citizens, applied to woman as

well as to the African race, the doctrine the association to which

they belonged has so successfully advocated at Washington for twelve

years.

Reading the numerous complimentary obituary notices of our long loved

friend, so fair, so tender, so full of praise, we have exclaimed, what

changes the passing years have wrought in the popular estimate of a

woman once considered so dangerous an innovator in the social and

religious world; and yet the Lucretia Mott of to-day is only the

perfected, well-rounded character of half a century ago. But the

slowly moving masses that feared her then as an infidel, a fanatic, an

unsexed woman, have followed her footsteps until a broader outlook has

expanded their moral vision. The "vagaries" of the anti-slavery

struggle, in which she took a leading part, have been coined into law;

and the "wild fantasies" of the Abolitionists are now the XIII., XIV.,

and XV. Amendments to the National Constitution. The prolonged and

bitter schisms in the Society of Friends have shed new light on the

tyranny of creeds and scriptures. The infidel Hicksite principles that

shocked Christendom, are now the corner-stones of the liberal

religious movement in this country. The demand for woman's social,

civil, and political equality--in which she was foremost--laughed at

from the Atlantic to the Pacific, has been recognized in a measure by

courts and legislatures, in Great Britain and the United States. The

old Blackstone code for woman has received its death-blow, and the

colleges, trades, and professions have been opened for her admission.

The name of Lucretia Mott represents more fully than any other in the

nineteenth century, the sum of all womanly virtues. As wife, mother,

friend, she was marked for her delicate sentiments, warm affections,

and steadfast loyalty; as housekeeper, for her rigid economy,

cleanliness, order, and exhaustless patience with servants and

children; as neighbor, for justice and honor in all her dealings; as

teacher, even at the early age of fifteen, for her skill and

faithfulness.

One who has lived eighty-eight years 'mid a young, impressible people

like ours, ever reflecting the exalted virtues of the true woman, the

earnest reformer, the religious teacher, must have left her impress

for good in every relation of life. When we remember that every word

we utter, every act we perform, the individual atmosphere we create

have their effect, not only on all who come within the circle of our

daily life, but through them are wafted to innumerable other circles

beyond, we can in a measure appreciate the far-reaching influence of

one grand life. Great as has been the acknowledged, moral power of

Lucretia Mott, it would have been vastly greater, had her opinions

been legitimately recognized in the laws and constitutions of the

nation; and could she have enjoyed the consciousness of exerting this

direct influence, it would have intensified the holy purpose of her

life. "The highest earthly desire of a ripened mind," says Thomas

Arnold, "is the desire of taking an active share in the great work of

government." Those only who are capable of appreciating this dignity

can measure the extent to which this noble woman has been defrauded as

a citizen of this great Republic. Neither can they measure the loss to

the councils of the nation, of the wisdom of such a representative

woman.

In the manifold tributes to the memory of our beloved friend, we have

yet to see the first mention of her political degradation, which she

so keenly felt and so often deplored on our platform. Why are the

press and the pulpit, with all their eulogiums of her virtues, so

oblivious to the humiliating fact of her disfranchisement? Are

political disabilities, accounted such grievous wrongs to the Southern

aristocrat, to the emancipated slave, to the proud Anglo-Saxon man in

every latitude, of so little value to woman that when a nation mourns

the loss of the grandest representative of our sex, no tear is shed,

no regret expressed, no mention even made of her political

degradation?

We might ask the question why this universal outpouring of tributes to

our venerated friend, exceeding all honors hitherto paid to the great

women of our nation, who, one by one, have passed away It is because

Lucretia Mott was a philanthropist; her life was dedicated to the

rights of humanity. When the poet, the novelist, the philosopher, and

the metaphysican have been forgotten, the memory of the true reformer

will remain engraven on the hearts of the multitude. Behold! the

beauty of yonder fountain, after its upward flight, is where it turns

again to earth, so is the life of one morally beautiful, ever drawn by

a law of its being from the clouds of speculation to the common

interests of humanity.

The question is often asked of us on this platform, will the children

of these reformers take up the work that falls from their hands? It is

more than probable they will not. It is with reformers' children as

others, they seldom follow in the footsteps of their parents. As a

general thing the son of a farmer hates the plow, the son of a lawyer

is not attracted to the bar, nor the son of a clergyman to the pulpit.

The daughter of the pattern housekeeper turns to literature or art,

and the child of the reformer has no heart for martyrdom. It is

philosophical that our sons and daughters should not be here. To a

certain extent they have shared the odium and persecution we have

provoked, they have been ostracised and ignored for heresies they have

never accepted. The humiliation of our children has been the bitterest

drop in the cup of reformers. Look around our platform, not one

representative of the brave band of women who inaugurated this

movement is here! Not one of our kindred has ever yet in these

conventions echoed our demands. Nevertheless we are, and shall be

represented! We see bright new faces; we hear eloquent new voices;

brave young women are gathering round us, to plead our cause in more

august assemblies, and to celebrate the victory at last. These are our

kindred, by holier ties than blood. As their way through life will be

smoother for all our noble friend has dared and suffered, may they by

the same courage and conscientious devotion to principle, shed new

light on the path of those who follow their footsteps. This is the

great moral lesson the life of our dear friend should impress on the

coming generation.

Having known Lucretia Mott, not only in the flush of life, when all

her faculties were at their zenith, but in the repose of advanced age,

her withdrawal from our midst seems as natural and as beautiful as the

changing foliage of some grand oak from the spring-time to the

autumn.

ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE.

The following interesting correspondence in regard to the exclusion of

women from the World's Convention, reveals the fact that the action

was the result, after all, of religious bigotry more than prejudice

against sex. And this opinion is further confirmed by the decided

opposition promptly manifested to Lucretia Mott's proposal to have a

series of meetings for women alone. Some of the Orthodox Friends said

they were afraid, that under the plea of discussing emancipation for

the slave, other subjects might be introduced. Mrs. Mott, desiring to

know what Daniel O'Connell thought of the action of the Convention,

wrote him as follows:

_To Daniel O'Connell, M.P.:_

The rejected delegates from America to the "General Anti-Slavery

Conference," are desirous to have the opinion of one of the most

distinguished advocates of universal liberty, as to the reasons

urged by the majority for their rejection, viz: that the

admission of women being contrary to English usage would subject

them to ridicule, and that such recognition of their acknowledged

principles would prejudice the cause of human freedom.

Permit me, then, on behalf of the delegation, to ask Daniel

O'Connell the favor of his sentiments as incidentally expressed

in the meeting on the morning of the 13th inst., and oblige his

sincere friend,

LUCRETIA MOTT.

LONDON, _sixth mo., 17, 1840_.

16 PALL MALL, _20th June, 1840_.

MADAM:--Taking the liberty of protesting against being supposed

to adopt any of the complimentary phrases in your letter as being

applicable to me, I readily comply with your request to give my

opinion as to the propriety of the admission of the female

delegates into the Convention.

I should premise by avowing that my first impression was strong

against that admission; and I believe I declared that opinion in

private conversation. But when I was called on by you to give my

personal decision on the subject, I felt it my duty to

investigate the grounds of the opinion I had formed; and upon

that investigation I easily discovered that it was founded on no

better grounds than an apprehension of the ridicule it might

excite if the Convention were to do what is so unusual in

England--admit women to an equal share and right of the

discussion. I also without difficulty recognized that this was an

unworthy, and, indeed, a cowardly motive, and I easily overcame

its influence.

My mature consideration of the entire subject convinces me of the

right of the female delegates to take their seats in the

Convention, and of the injustice of excluding them. I do not care

to add that I deem it also impolitic; because, that exclusion

being unjust, it ought not to have taken place even if it could

also be politic. My reasons are:

_First._ That as it has been the practice in America for females

to act as delegates and office-bearers, as well as in common

capacity of members of Anti-Slavery Societies, the persons who

called this Convention ought to have warned the American

Anti-Slavery Societies to confine their choice to males, and for

want of this caution many female delegates have made long

journeys by land and crossed the ocean to enjoy a right which

they had no reason to fear would be withheld from them at the end

of their tedious voyage.

_Secondly._ The cause which is so intimately interwoven with

every good feeling of humanity and with the highest and most

sacred principles of Christianity--the Anti-Slavery cause in

America--is under the greatest, the deepest, the most

heart-binding obligations to the females who have joined the

Anti-Slavery Societies in the United States. They have shown a

passive but permanent courage, which ought to put many of the

male advocates to the blush. The American ladies have persevered

in our holy cause amidst difficulties and dangers, with the zeal

of confessors and the firmness of martyrs; and, therefore,

emphatically they should not be disparaged or discouraged by any

slight or contumely offered to their rights. Neither are this

slight and contumely much diminished by the fact that it was not

intended to offer any slight or to convey any contumely. Both

results inevitably follow from the fact of rejection. This OUGHT

NOT to be.

_Thirdly._ Even in England, with all our fastidiousness, women

vote upon the great regulation of the Bank of England; in the

nomination of its directors and governors, and in all other

details equally with men; that is, they assist in the most

awfully important business--the regulation of the currency of

this mighty Empire--influencing the fortunes of all commercial

nations.

_Fourthly._ Our women in like manner vote at the India House;

that is, in the regulation of the government of more than one

hundred millions of human beings.

_Fifthly._ Mind has no sex; and in the peaceable struggle to

abolish slavery all over the world, it is the basis of the

present Convention to seek success by peaceable, moral, and

intellectual means alone, to the utter exclusion of armed

violence. We are engaged in a strife not of strength, but of

argument. Our warfare is not military; it is Christian. We wield

not the weapons of destruction or injury to our adversaries. We

rely entirely on reason and persuasion common to both sexes, and

on the emotions of benevolence and charity, which are more lovely

and permanent amongst women than amongst men.

In the Church to which I belong the female sex are devoted by as

strict rules and with as much, if not more, unceasing austerity

to the performance (and that to the exclusion of all worldly or

temporal joys and pleasures) of all works of humanity, of

education, of benevolence, and of charity, in all its holy and

sacred branches, as the men. The great work in which we are now

engaged embraces all these charitable categories; and the women

have the same duties, and should, therefore, enjoy the same

rights with men in the performance of their duties.

I have a consciousness that I have not done _my_ duty in not

sooner urging these considerations on the Convention. My excuse

is that I was unavoidably absent during the discussion on the

subject.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, madam,

Your obedient servant,

LUCRETIA MOTT. DANIEL O'CONNELL.

The following earnest and friendly letter from William Howitt, was

highly prized by Mrs. Mott:

LONDON, _June 27, 1840_.

DEAR FRIEND:--....I regret that I was prevented from making a

part of the Convention, as nothing should have hindered me from

stating there in the plainest terms my opinion of the _real

grounds_ on which you were rejected. It is a pity that you were

excluded on the plea of being women; but it is disgusting that

under that plea you were actually excluded as heretics. That is

the real ground, and it ought to have been at once proclaimed and

exposed by the liberal members of the Convention; but I believe

they were not aware of the fact. I heard of the circumstance of

your exclusion at a distance, and immediately said: "Excluded on

the ground that they are women?" No, that is not the real cause;

there is something behind. And what are these female delegates?

Are they orthodox in religion? The answer was "No, they are

considered to be of the Hicksite party of Friends." My reply was,

"That is enough; _there_ lies the real cause, and there needs no

other. The influential Friends in the Convention would never for

a moment tolerate their presence there if they could prevent it.

They hate them because they have dared to call in question their

sectarian dogmas and assumed authority; and they have taken care

to brand them in the eyes of the Calvinistic Dissenters, who form

another large and influential portion of the Convention, as

Unitarians; in their eyes the most odious of heretics."

But what a miserable spectacle is this! The "World's Convention"

converting itself into the fag-end of the Yearly Meeting of the

Society of Friends! That Convention met from various countries

and climates to consider how it shall best advance the sacred

cause of humanity; of the freedom of the race, independent of

caste or color, immediately falls the victim of bigotry; and one

of its first acts is to establish a caste of sectarian opinion,

and to introduce color into the very soul! Had I not seen of late

years a good deal of the spirit which now rules the Society of

Friends, my surprise would have been unbounded at seeing _them_

argue for the exclusion of women from a public assembly, _as

women_. But nothing which they do now surprises me. They have in

this case to gratify their wretched spirit of intolerance, at

once abandoned one of the most noble and most philosophical of

the established principles of their own Society.

That Society claims, and claims justly, to be the first Christian

party which has recognized the great Christian doctrine that

THERE IS NO SEX IN SOULS; that male and female are one in Christ

Jesus. There were Fox and Penn and the first giants of the

Society who dared in the face of the world's prejudices to place

woman in her first rank; to recognize and maintain her moral and

intellectual equality. It was this Society which thus gave to

woman her inalienable rights, her true liberty; which restored to

her the exercise of mind, and the capacity to exhibit before her

assumed ancient lord and master, the highest qualities of the

human heart and understanding; discretion, sound counsel, sure

sagacity, mingled with feminine delicacy, and that beautiful

innate modesty which avails more to restrain its possessor within

the bounds of prudence and usefulness than all the laws of

corrupt society. It was this Society which, at once fearless in

its confidence in woman's goodness and sense of propriety, gave

its female portion its own meetings of discipline, meetings of

civil discussion and transaction of actual and various business.

It was this Society which did more; which permitted its women in

the face of a great apostolic injunction to stand forth in its

churches and preach the Gospel. It has, in fact, sent them out

armed with the authority of its certificates to the very ends of

the earth to preach in public; to visit and persuade in private.

And what has been the consequence? Have the women put their faith

And philosophy to shame? Have they disgraced themselves or the

Society which has confided in them? Have they proved by their

follies, their extravagances, their unwomanly boldness and want

of a just sense of decorum that these great men were wrong? On

the contrary, I will venture to say, and I have seen something of

all classes, that there is not in the whole civilized world a

body of women to be found of the same numbers, who exhibit more

modesty of manner and delicacy of mind than the ladies of the

Society of Friends; and few who equal them in sound sense and

dignity of character. There can be no question that the

recognition of the moral and intellectual equality of the most

lovely and interesting portion of our Society has tended, and

that very materially, to raise them greatly in value as wives, as

bosom friends and domestic counselors, whose inestimable worth is

only discovered in times of trial and perplexity.

And here have gone the little men of the present day, and have

knocked down in the face of the world all that their ancestors,

in this respect, had built up! If they are at all consistent they

must carry out their new principle and sweep it through the

ancient constitution of their own Society. They must at once put

down meetings of discipline among their women; they must call

home such as are in distant countries, or are traversing this,

preaching and visiting families. There must be no appointments of

women to meet committees of men to deliberate on matters of great

importance to the Society. But the fact is, my dear friend, that

bigotry is never consistent except that is always narrow, always

ungracious, and always under plea of uniting God's people,

scattering them one from another, and rendering them weak as

water.

I want to know what religious opinions have to do with a "World's

Convention." Did you meet to settle doctrines, or to conspire

against slavery? Many an august council has attempted to settle

doctrines, and in vain; and you had before you a subject so vast,

so pressing, so momentous, that in presence of its sublimity, any

petty jealousy and fancied idea of superiority ought to have

fallen as dust from the boughs of a cedar. You as delegates, had

to meet this awful fact in the face, and to consider how it

should be grappled with; how the united power of civilized

nations should be brought to bear upon it! The fact that after

nearly a century of gradually growing and accumulating efforts to

put down slavery and the slave trade, little has been done; that

there are now more slaves in the world than ever, and that the

slave trade is far more extensive and monstrous than it was when

Clarkson raised his voice against its extinction; that is a fact

which, if the men who now take the lead in warring on the evil

were truly great men, it would silence in them every other

feeling than that of its enormity, and the godlike resolve that

all hands and all hearts should be raised before Heaven and

united in its spirit to chase this spreading villainy from the

earth speedily and forever. But men, however benevolent, can not

be great men if they are bigots. Bigots are like the peasants who

build their cabins in the mighty palaces of the ancient Cæsars.

The Cæsars who raised the past fabrics are gone, and the power in

which they raised them is gone with them. Poor and little men

raise their huts within those august palace walls, and fancy

themselves the inhabitants of the palaces themselves. So in the

mighty fane of Christianity, bigots and sectarians are

continually rearing their little cabins of sects and parties, and

would fain persuade us, while they fill their own narrow

tenements, that they fill the glorious greatness of Christianity

itself!

It is surely high time that after eighteen hundred years of

Christ's reign we should be prepared to allow each other to hold

an opinion on the most important of all subjects to ourselves! It

is surely time that we opened our eyes sufficiently to see what

is so plain in the Gospel: the sublime difference between the

Spirit of Christ and the spirit of His disciples when they fain

would have made a bigot of Him. "We saw men doing miracles in thy

name; and we forbade them." "Forbid them not, for they who are

not against us are for us." It is not by _doctrines_ that Christ

said His disciples should be known, but by their fruits; and by

the greatest of all fruits--love.

You, dear friend, and those noble women to whom I address myself

when addressing you, have shown in your own country the grand

Christian testimonial of love to mankind in the highest degree.

You have put your lives in your hands for the sake of man's

freedom from caste, color, and mammon; and the greatest disgrace

that has of late years befallen this country is, that you have

been refused admittance as delegates to the Convention met

ostensibly to work that very work for which you have so

generously labored and freely suffered. The Convention has not

merely insulted you, but those who sent you. It has testified

that the men of America are at least far ahead of us in their

opinion of the discretion and usefulness of women. But above all,

this act of exclusion has shown how far the Society of Friends is

fallen from its ancient state of greatness and catholic nobleness

of spirit.

But my time is gone. I have not said one-half, one-tenth,

one-hundredth part of what I could say to you and to your

companions on this subject; but of this be assured, time and your

own delegators will do you justice. The true Christians in all

ages were the heretics of the time; and this I say not because I

believe exactly as you do, for in truth I neither know nor desire

to know exactly how far we think alike. All that I know or want

to know is, that you have shown the grand mark of Christian

truth--love to mankind.

I have heard the noble Garrison blamed that he had not taken his

place in the Convention because you and your fellow-delegates

were excluded. I, on the contrary, honor him for his conduct. In

mere worldly wisdom he might have entered the Convention and

there made his protest against the decision; but in at once

refusing to enter where you, his fellow-delegates, were shut out,

he has made a far nobler protest; not in the mere Convention, but

in the world at large. I honor the lofty principle of that true

champion of humanity, and shall always recollect with delight,

the day Mary and I spent with you and him.

I must apologize for this most hasty and I fear illegible scrawl,

and with our kind regards and best wishes for your safe return to

your native country, and for many years of honorable labor there

for the truth and freedom, I beg to subscribe myself,

Most sincerely your friend,

WILLIAM HOWITT.

Harriet Martineau, who had visited Mrs. Mott when in America, and was

prevented from attending the Convention by illness, wrote as follows:

I can not be satisfied without sending you a line of love and

sympathy. I think much of you amidst your present trials, and

much indeed have I thought of you and your cause since we parted.

May God strengthen you. It is a comfort to me that two of my best

friends, Mrs. Reid and Julia Smith, are there to look upon you

with eyes of love. I hear of you from them, for busy as they are,

they remember me from day to day, and make me a partaker of your

proceedings.... I can not but grieve for you in the

heart-sickness which you have experienced this last week. We must

trust that the spirit of Christ will in time enlarge the hearts

of those who claim his name, that the whites as well as the

blacks will in time be free.

After the Convention, Mrs. Mott visited Miss Martineau, who was an

invalid, staying at Tynemouth, for the benefit of sea air. And on her

return to London, she received another letter, from which we extract

the following:

I felt hardly as if I knew what I was about that morning, but I

was very happy, and I find that I remember every look and word. I

did not make all the use I might of the opportunity; but when are

we ever wise enough to do it? I do not think we shall ever meet

again in this world, and I believe that was in your mind when you

said farewell. I feel that I have derived somewhat from my

intercourse with you that will never die, and I am thankful that

we have been permitted to meet. You will tell the Furnesses

(Rev. Wm. H.) where and how you found me. Tell them of my

cheerful room and fine down and sea. I wish my friends would

suffer for me no more than I do for myself. I hope you have yet

many years of activity and enjoyment before you. My heart will

ever be in your cause and my love with yourself.

In James Mott's published volume, "Three months in Great Britain," he

speaks of many distinguished persons who extended to them most

gracious hospitalities, for although Mrs. Mott had been ostracised by

some of the more bigoted "Friends," others were correspondingly marked

in their attentions. Among such was that noble-hearted young woman,

Elizabeth Pease, of Darlington, who was one of the first to call upon

them on their arrival in London, and the last to bid them farewell on

the morning they sailed from Liverpool; having in company with her

father gone from Manchester for that purpose. Her cultivated mind and

fine talents were devoted to subjects of reform, with an energy and

perseverance rarely equaled.

Ann Knight, another sincere friend and advocate of human rights, was

quite indignant, that a Convention called for such liberal measures

should reject women on the flimsy plea, "that it being contrary to

English usage, it would subject them to ridicule and prejudice their

cause." She was unremitting in her attentions to the American women,

doing many things to make their visit pleasant while in London, and

afterward, entertaining several as guests in her own "quiet home."

Amelia Opie, with her happy face and genial manners, was in constant

attendance at the Convention. On entering one of the sessions, she

accosted Mrs. Mott, saying, "though in one sense the women delegates

were rejected, yet they were held in high esteem, and their coming

would have immense influence on the action of future assemblies."

At the "Crown and Anchor," one evening, the members of the Convention

took a parting cup of tea; nearly five hundred persons were present.

As the resolution excluding women did not extend to this company, Mrs.

Mott gave her views on the use of slave products, which were well

received. In the course of her remarks she referred to the example and

faithfulness of the "Society of Friends," in using as far as possible

the produce of free labor in their families. Josiah Forster, ever

vigilant on the battlements of bigotry, could not allow this allusion

to pass unnoticed, and when Mrs. Mott sat down, he arose and said he

"could not conscientiously refrain from informing the company, that

Mrs. Mott did not represent the Society of Friends. He did so with no

other than feelings of kindness, but,"--when he had proceeded thus far

it was evident he was about to disclaim religious fellowship with

her, and a general burst of disapprobation was manifested by cries of

"down, down! order, order! shame, shame!"--but he finished his

disavowal amidst the confusion, though few heard what he said, neither

did they wish to hear his expressions of intolerance. As soon as he

had finished his speech he left the room, probably displeased that his

feelings met with so little sympathy, or at the manifestation of

dissatisfaction with his remarks.

At a dinner party, at Elizabeth J. Reid's, a few days after, Lady

Byron was one of the company; with whom Mr. and Mrs. Mott had a

previous acquaintance, through a letter of introduction from George

Combe. As Colonel Miller, one of the American delegation, had been in

the Greek war with Lord Byron, and knew him well, several interesting

interviews with the wife and daughter grew out of that acquaintance.

They also visited Dr. Bowring and his interesting family several

times, and on one occasion met there Charles Pelham Villiers, the

leading advocate in Parliament for the modification of their corn

laws. Dr. Bowring was a near neighbor and great admirer of Jeremy

Bentham, and entertained them with many anecdotes of his original

friend. William H. Ashurst, a lawyer of eminence in London, gave them

a cordial welcome to his family circle, where they met William and

Mary Howitt, and Robert Owen, the philanthropist. Mr. Ashurst took an

active part in favor of reducing the postage on letters and papers.

At Birmingham, they passed a few days with their liberal "Friend,"

William Boultbee, and visited several of the great manufacturing

establishments. Here they made the acquaintance of a Catholic priest,

Thomas M. McDonald, a man of broad views and marked liberality. He

tendered Mrs. Mott the use of a large room at his disposal, and urged

her to hold a meeting. At Liverpool, they were the guests of William

Rathbone and family. In Dublin, they met James Houghton, Richard

Allen, Richard Webb, and the Huttons, who entertained them most

hospitably and gave them many charming drives in and about the city.

At Edinburgh, they joined Sarah Pugh and Abby Kimber, who had just

returned from the Continent, and had a cordial reception at the home

of George Thompson. They passed two days with George Combe, the great

phrenologist, who examined and complimented Mrs. Mott's head, as

indicating a strong symmetrical character. They took tea with his

brother, Andrew Combe, the author of that admirable work on "Infancy,"

which has proved a real blessing to many young mothers.

At a meeting in Glasgow, to hear George Thompson on the subject of

British India, Mrs. Mott asked the chairman for the liberty of

addressing the audience for a few minutes, but was denied, though a

colored man, Charles Lenox Remond, of Salem, Massachusetts, was

listened to with attention, as he had been in London and other places,

showing that the unholy prejudice against color was not so bitter in

England as that against sex. George Harris, the minister of the

Unitarian Chapel in Glasgow, cordially extended to Mrs. Mott the use

of his church for a lecture on slavery, which was gladly accepted. The

house was crowded, and there was abundant reason to believe the people

were well pleased. But the small handful of "Friends" in that city did

not suffer so good an opportunity of disclaiming them to pass, and

accordingly had the following communication published in the papers:

_To the Editor of the Glasgow Gazette:_

RESPECTED FRIEND:--Intimation having been given on the 8th,

current, by means of placards extensively posted throughout the

city, that "On Sabbath first, the 9th instant, Mrs. Lucretia

Mott, a minister of the Society of Friends, Philadelphia, would

hold a meeting in the Christian Unitarian Chapel"; and that the

meeting was held and numerously attended by our fellow-citizens,

we deem it right on behalf of the Society of Friends residing in

Glasgow, to inform the public that we hold no religious

fellowship with Lueretia Mott, nor with the body in the United

States called Hicksites, to which she belongs, they not being

recognized by the Society of Friends in the United Kingdom, nor

by those "Friends" with whom we are in connection in America; and

that we do not wish to be in any way identified with, or

considered responsible for any sentiments that Lucretia Mott may

have uttered at the meeting above referred to.

We are, respectfully, thy friends,

WILLIAM SMEAL, WILLIAM WHITE, JOHN MAXWELL,

JAMES SMEAL, EDWARD WHITE.

GLASGOW, _12th of 8th mo., 1840_.

To us who knew, loved, and honored Lucretia Mott for her many virtues,

these manifestations of bigotry, so narrowing and embittering in their

effect on the mind, should be an added warning against that evil

spirit of persecution that has brought such sorrow to mankind. We

sincerely hope these few examples we have endeavored to place in their

true light, may awaken thought in the minds of our readers, and

incline them to renewed charity and a wiser appreciation of what is

and what is not vital in religion. Surely life must ever stand for

more than faith.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] In the midst of our first volume the announcement of the death of

Lucretia Mott, Nov. 11th, 1880, reached us. As she was identified with

so many of the historical events of Pennsylvania, where nearly seventy

years of her life were passed, it is fitting that this sketch should

follow the State in which she resided for so long a period.

CHAPTER XII.

NEW JERSEY.

In 1682, William Penn purchased Eastern Jersey, and under a Governor

of his choosing, Robert Barclay, the colony became a refuge for the

persecuted "Friends." It was no doubt due to the peaceful measures of

William Penn in his dealings with the Indians, that this colony was

free from all troubles with them. The last loyal Governor of New

Jersey--1763--was William Franklin, a natural son of Benjamin

Franklin, and a bitter Tory.

The struggle for independence was at this time interesting and

exciting, and behind the Governor was a strong party for

reconciliation with Great Britain. Besides the Governor's instructions

against independence, the Assembly had resolved on a separate petition

to the King.

Aware of this feeling in New Jersey, Congress sent that illustrious

trio, John Dickinson, John Jay, and George Wythe, to procure a

reversal of their determination. They were courteously received on the

floor, and urged in their addresses that nothing but unity and bravery

in the Colonies would bring Great Britain to terms; that she wanted to

procure separate petitions, but that such a course would break the

union, when the Colonies would be like a rope of sand. The Assembly

yielded to their entreaties, and on the 25th of June, 1776, Governor

Franklin, who opposed the action of Congress, was deposed,[76] and

William Livingston, a true patriot, was elected Governor, and

re-elected for fourteen years.

The intense excitement of this period in New Jersey roused many women

loyal to freedom and the independence of the Colonies to persistent

action. Among these was Hannah Arnett, of Elizabethtown, whose story

was first made public one hundred years after the date of its

occurrence.[77] The latter part of the year 1776 was a period of doubt

and despondency to the patriot troops. Although the Colonies had

declared their independence several months before, the American forces

had since suffered many severe defeats, and it seemed not unlikely

that Great Britain would be victorious in her struggle with the

new-born republic. On the 30th of November, Gen. Howe had issued his

celebrated proclamation offering amnesty and protection to all who,

within sixty days, should declare themselves peaceable British

subjects, and bind themselves to neither take up arms nor encourage

others to do so.

After his victory at Fort Lee, Lord Cornwallis marched his army to New

Jersey, encamping at Elizabethtown. His presence on New Jersey soil so

soon after Gen. Howe's proclamation, and the many defeats of the

patriot army, had a very depressing effect. Of this period Dr. Ashbel

Green wrote: "I heard a man of some shrewdness once say, that when the

British troops overran the State of New Jersey, in the closing part of

the year 1776, the whole population could have been bought for

eighteen pence a head."

But however true this statement may have been of the men of New

Jersey, it could not be justly made in regard to its women, one of

whom, at least, did much to stem the tide of panic so strong at this

point where Cornwallis was encamped. A number of men of Elizabeth

assembled one evening in one of the spacious mansions for which this

place was rather famous, to discuss the advisability of accepting the

proposed amnesty. The question was a momentous one, and the discussion

was earnest and protracted. Some were for accepting this proffer at

once; others hesitated; they canvassed the subject from various

points, but finally decided that submission was all that remained to

them. Their hope was gone, and their courage with it; every remnant of

patriotic spirit seemed swept away in the darkness of the hour. But

there was a listener of whom they were ignorant; a woman, Hannah

Arnett, the wife of the host, sitting at her work in an adjoining

room. The discussion had reached her ears, rousing her intense

indignation. She listened until she could sit still no longer;

springing to her feet she pushed open the parlor door, confronting the

amazed men. The writer from whom we glean these facts, says: "Can you

fancy the scene? A large, low room, with the dark, heavy furniture of

the period, dimly lighted by the tall wax candles and the wood fire

which blazed on the hearth. Around the table the group of men, pallid,

gloomy, dejected, disheartened. In the door-way the figure of the

woman in in antique costume, with which in these Centennial days we

have become so familiar. Can you not fancy the proud poise of her

head, the indignant light of her blue eyes, the crisp, clear tones of

her voice, the majesty, and defiance, and scorn, which clothed her as

with a garment?"

The men were appalled and started at the sight. She seemed like some

avenging angel about to bring them to judgment for the words they had

spoken; and, indeed, such she proved. It was strange to see a woman

thus enter the secret councils of men, and her husband hastily

approaching her, whispered: "Hannah, Hannah, this is no place for you,

we do not want you here just now;" and he tried to take her hand to

lead her from the room. But she pushed him gently back, saying to the

startled group: "Have you made your decision, gentlemen? Have you

chosen the part of men, or traitors?"

They stammered and blundered as they tried to find answer. Things

appeared to them in a new light as this woman so pointedly questioned

them. Their answers were a mixture of excuses and explanations. They

declared the country to be in a hopeless condition; the army starving,

half-clothed, undisciplined, the country poor, while England's trained

troops were backed by the wealth of a thousand years.

Hannah Arnett listened in silence until the last abject word was

spoken, when she rapidly inquired: "But what if we should live after

all?" The men looked at each other, but not word was spoken. "Hannah,

Hannah," cried her husband, "do you not see these are no questions for

you? We are discussing what is best for us all. Women do not

understand these things; go to your spinning-wheel and leave us to

discuss these topics. Do you not see that you are making yourself

ridiculous?"

But Mrs. Arnett paid no heed. Speaking to the men in a strangely

quiet, voice, she said: "Can you not tell me? If, after all, God does

not let the right perish; if America should win in the conflict, after

you have thrown yourselves upon British clemency, where will you be

then?" "Then?" spoke a hesitating voice, "why then, if it ever could

be so, we should be ruined. We must then leave home and country

forever. But the struggle is an entirely hopeless one. We have no men,

no money, no arms, no food, and England has everything."

"No," said Mrs. Arnett, "you have forgotten one thing which England

has not, and which we have--one thing which outweighs all England's

treasures, and that is the right. God is on our side; and every volley

from our muskets is an echo of His voice. We are poor and weak and

few, but God is fighting for us. We counted the cost before we began;

we knew the price and were willing to pay; and now, because for the

time the day is going against us, you would give up all and sneak back

like cravens, to kiss the feet that have trampled upon us! And you

call yourselves men; the sons of those who gave up homes and fortune

and fatherland to make for themselves and for dear liberty a

resting-place in the wilderness! Oh, shame upon you, cowards!"

The words had rushed out in a fiery flood which her husband had vainly

striven to check. Turning to the gentlemen present, Mr. Arnett said:

"I beg you will excuse this most unseemly interruption to our council.

My wife is beside herself, I think. You all know her, and that it is

not her custom to meddle with politics. To-morrow she will see her

folly; but now I beg your patience."

But her words had roused the slumbering manhood of her hearers. Each

began to look upon himself as a craven, and to withdraw from the

position he had taken. No one replied to her husband, and Mrs. Arnett

continued. "Take your protection if you will. Proclaim yourselves

traitors and cowards, false to your country and your God, but horrible

will be the judgment upon your heads and the heads of those that love

you. I tell you that England will never conquer. I know it and feel it

in every fiber of my heart. Has God led us thus far to desert us now?

Will He who led our fathers across the stormy winter seas forsake

their children who have put their trust in Him? For me, I stay with my

country, and my hand shall never touch the hand, nor my heart cleave

to the heart of him who shames her"; and she turned a glance upon her

husband; "Isaac, we have lived together for twenty years, and for all

of them I have been a true and loving wife to you. But I am the child

of God and of my Country, and if you do this shameful thing, I will

never again own you for my husband."

"My dear wife!" he cried, aghast, "you do not know what you are

saying. Leave me for such a thing as this?" "For such a thing as

this!" she cried, scornfully. "What greater cause could there be? I

married a good man and true, a faithful friend, and it needs no

divorce to sever me from a traitor and a coward. If you take your

amnesty you lose your wife, and I--I lose my husband and my home!"

With the last words her voice broke into a pathetic fall, and a mist

gathered before her eyes. The men were deeply moved; the words of Mrs.

Arnett had touched every soul. Gradually the drooping heads were

raised, and eyes grew bright with manliness and resolution. Before

they left the house that night they had sworn a solemn oath to stand

by the cause they had adopted, and the land of their birth through

good or evil, and to spurn as deadliest insult the proffered amnesty

of their tyrannical foe.

Some of the men who met in this secret council afterward fought nobly,

and died upon the field of battle for their country. Others lived to

rejoice when the day of triumph came; but the name of this woman was

found upon no heroic roll, nor is it on the page of any history that

men have since written, although she made heroes of cowards, and

helped to stay the wave of desolation which, in the dark days of '76,

threatened to overwhelm the land.

At one time some British officers quartered themselves at the house of

Mrs. Dissosway, situated at the western end of Staten Island, opposite

Amboy. Her husband was a prisoner; but her brother, Captain Nat.

Randolph, was in the American army, and gave much annoyance to the

tories by his frequent incursions. A tory colonel promised Mrs.

Dissosway to procure the release of her husband on condition of her

prevailing on her brother to stay quietly at home. "And if I could,"

she replied, with a look of scorn, drawing up her tall figure to its

utmost height, "if I could act so dastardly a part, think you General

Washington has but one Captain Randolph in his army?"

At a period when American prospects were most clouded, and New Jersey

overrun by the British, an officer stationed at Borden-town (said to

be Lord Cornwallis) endeavored to intimidate Mrs. Borden into using

her influence over her husband and son, who were absent in the

American army. The officer promised her that if she would induce them

to quit the standard they followed and join the royalists, her

property should be protected; while in case of refusal, her estate

would be ravaged and her elegant mansion destroyed. Mrs. Borden

answered, "Begin your threatened havoc then; the sight of my house in

flames would be a treat to me; for I have seen enough to know that you

never injure what you have power to keep and enjoy. The application of

a torch to my dwelling I should regard as a signal for your

departure." The house was burned in fulfillment of the threat, and the

estate laid waste; but, as Mrs. Borden predicted, the retreat of the

spoiler quickly followed.

During the battle of Monmouth a gunner named Pitcher was killed, and

the call was made for some one to take his place; his wife, who had

followed him to the camp and thence to the field of conflict,

unhesitatingly stepped forward and offered her services. The gun was

so well managed as to draw the attention of General Washington to the

circumstance, and to call forth an expression of his admiration of her

bravery and fidelity to her country. To show his appreciation of her

virtues and her highly valuable services, he conferred on her a

lieutenant's commission. She afterward went by the name of "Captain

Molly."

As early as 1706, Thomas Chalkley, visiting the Conestogae Indians,

near Susquehannah, says: "We treated about having a meeting with them

in a religious way, upon which they called a council, in which they

were very grave, and spoke one after another without any heat or

jarring (and some of the most esteemed of their women do sometimes

speak in their councils). I asked our interpreter why they suffered or

permitted the women to speak; he answered: 'Some women are wiser than

some men.' Our interpreter told me that they had not done anything for

many years without the counsel of an ancient, grave woman, who, I

observed, spoke much in their councils, for I was permitted to be

present, and asked what she said. He replied that she was an empress,

and that they gave much heed to what she said amongst them; that she

then said to them that she looked upon our coming to be more than

natural, because we did not come to buy nor sell nor get gain, but

came in love and respect to them, and desired their well doing both

here and hereafter; and that our meeting among them might be very

beneficial to their young people. She related a dream she had three

days before, and interpreted it, advising them to hear us and

entertain us kindly, etc., which they did.

Chief Justice Green, in behalf of Miss Leake, of Trenton, presented to

the New Jersey Historical Society copies of the correspondence between

Colonel Mawhood of the British forces, and Colonel Hand of the

American army, proposing to the latter to surrender, and each man to

go to his home, etc., dated Salem County, March, 1778. The New Jersey

Historical Society has a photographic copy of a print, contemporary

with the event, representing the triumphal arch erected by the ladies

of Trenton in honor of Washington, on his passage through the place

in April, 1779, and a photographic copy of the following original note

(now in possession of the lady who received it), which was written by

Washington at the time:

General Washington can not leave this place without expressing

his acknowledgements to the Matrons and Young Ladies who received

him in so novel and grateful a manner at the Triumphal Arch in

Trenton, for the exquisite sensations he experienced in that

affecting scene. The astonishing contrast between his former and

actual situation at the same spot, the elegant taste with which

it was adorned for the present occasion, and the innocent

appearance of the _white-robed choir_, who met him with the

gratulatory song, have made such an impression on his remembrance

as he assures them will never be effaced.

TRENTON, _April 21, 1789_.

THE ORIGIN, PRACTICE, AND PROHIBITION OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN NEW

JERSEY.

William A. Whitehead, Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey

Historical Society, read the following paper at their annual meeting,

January 21, 1858:

By the Proprietary laws, the right of suffrage in New Jersey was

expressly to the _free men_ of the province; and in equally

explicit terms a law passed in 1709 prescribing the

qualifications of electors, confined the privilege to male

freeholders having one hundred acres of land in their own right,

or worth fifty pounds, current money of the province, in real and

personal estate, and during the whole of the colonial period

these qualifications remained unaltered.

By the Constitution adopted July 2, 1776, the elective franchise

was conferred upon all inhabitants of this colony, of full age,

who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate in

the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim

a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election; and

the same, or similar language, was used in the different acts

regulating elections until 1790; but I have not discovered any

instance of the exercise of the right by females, under an

interpretation which the full import of the words, "all

inhabitants," was subsequently thought to sanction, during the

whole of this period.

In 1790, however, a revision of the election law then in force

was proposed, and upon the committee of the Legislature to whom

the subject was referred was Mr. Joseph Cooper, of West Jersey, a

prominent member of the Society of Friends. As the regulations of

that society authorized females to vote in matters relating

thereto, Mr. Cooper claimed for them the like privilege in

matters connected with the State, and to support his views,

quoted the provisions of the Constitution as sanctioning such a

course. It was therefore to satisfy him that the committee

consented to report a bill in which the expression, "he or she,"

applied to the voter, was introduced into the section specifying

the necessary qualifications; thus giving a legislative

endorsement of the alleged meaning of the Constitution. Still,

no cases of females voting by virtue of this more definite

provision are on record, and we are warranted in believing that

the women of New Jersey then, as now, were not apt to overstep

the bounds of decorum, or intrude where their characteristic

modesty and self-respect might be wounded.

This law and its supplements were repealed in 1797, and it is

some proof that the peculiar provision under review had not been

availed of to any extent, if at all (as its evil consequences

would otherwise have become apparent), that we find similar

phraseology introduced into the new act. The right of suffrage

was conferred upon "all free inhabitants of this State of full

age," etc., thus adopting the language of the Constitution with

the addition of the word "free," and "no person shall be entitled

to vote in any other township or precinct than that in which he

or she doth actually reside," etc., and in two other places is

the possible difference in the sex of the voters recognized.

The first occasion on which females voted, of which any precise

information has been obtained, was at an election held this year

(1797) at Elizabethtown, Essex County, for members of the

Legislature. The candidates between whom the greatest rivalry

existed, were John Condit and William Crane, the heads of what

were known a year or two later as the "Federal Republican" and

"Federal Aristocratic" parties, the former the candidate of

Newark and the northern portions of the county, and the latter

the candidate of Elizabethtown and the adjoining country, for the

Council. Under the impression that the candidates would poll

nearly the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown leaders

thought that by a bold _coup d'état_ they might secure the

success of Mr. Crane. At a late hour of the day, and, as I have

been informed, just before the close of the poll, a number of

females were brought up, and under the provisions of the existing

laws, allowed to vote; but the manoeuvre was unsuccessful, the

majority for Mr. Condit, in the county, being ninety-three,

notwithstanding. These proceedings were made the topic of two or

three brief articles in the _Newark Sentinel_, in one of which

the fact that "no less than seventy-five women were polled at the

late election in a neighboring borough," was used as a pretended

argument for the admission of females to office, and to service

in the diplomatic corps; while another ironically asserts that

"too much credit can not be given to the Federal leaders of

Elizabethtown for the heroic virtue displayed in advancing in a

body to the poll to support their favorite candidates."

So discreditable was this occurrence thought, that although

another closely contested election took place the following year,

we do not find any other than male votes deposited then, in Essex

County, or elsewhere, until the Presidential election of 1800,

between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, at which females voted very

generally throughout the State; and such continued to be the

practice until the passage of the act positively excluding them

from the polls. At first the law had been so construed as to

admit single women only, but as the practice extended, the

construction of the privilege became broader and was made to

include females eighteen years old, married or single; and even

women of color. At a contested election in Hunterdon County, in

1802, the votes of two or three such, actually electing a member

of the Legislature. It is remarkable that these proceedings did

not sooner bring about a repeal of the laws which were thought to

sanction them; but that event did not occur until 1807, and it is

noticeable that, as the practice originated in Essex County, so

the flagrant abuses which resulted from it reached their maximum

in that county, and brought about its prohibition.

[Illustration: ANTOINETTE L. BROWN (with autograph).]

The circumstances attendant upon this event afford abundant

matter for a most interesting chapter of local history, which I

am happy to say has been written by a member of the Society (Mr.

James Ross),[78] and will be communicated before long, I trust,

for insertion in our Proceedings. But the scope of this paper

merely calls for a statement of facts. These are as follows:

In the year 1806 a new Court House and Jail were to be erected in

the county of Essex. Strenuous exertions were made to have them

located elsewhere than at Newark, which had been the county town

from a very early period. Sufficient influence was brought to

bear upon the Legislature to secure the passage of an act

(approved November 5th of that year) authorizing a special

election, at which "the inhabitants" of the county, "qualified to

vote in elections for members of the State Legislature," etc.,

were described as the qualified electors to determine by their

votes where the buildings should be located. The contest caused a

great excitement throughout the county, and, under the existing

laws, when the election was held in February, 1807, women of

"full age," whether single or married, possessing the required

property qualification, were permitted by the judges of election

to vote. But as the conflict proceeded, and the blood of the

combatants waxed warmer, the number of female voters increased,

and it was soon found that every single and every married woman

in the county was not only of "full age," but also "worth fifty

pounds proclamation money, clear estate," and as such entitled to

vote if they chose. And not only once, but as often as by change

of dress or complicity of the inspectors, they might be able to

repeat the process.

This was not confined to any one precinct, but was more or less

the case in all, and so apparent were these and many other frauds

that the Legislature at the ensuing session did not hesitate to

sat it aside as having been illegally conducted; and, by

repealing the act authorizing it, left the buildings to be

erected in Newark, to which they legitimately belonged. And, in

order that no future occurrence of the kind should take place, an

act was passed (approved November 16, 1807), the preamble to

which is as follows:

"Whereas, doubts have been raised and great diversities in

practice obtained throughout the State in regard to the admission

of aliens, females, and persons of color or negroes to vote in

elections, as also in regard to the mode of ascertaining the

qualifications of voters in respect to estate; and whereas, it is

highly necessary to the safety, quiet good order and dignity of

the State to clear up the said doubts by an act of the

representatives of the people declaratory of the true sense and

meaning of the Constitution, and to ensure its just execution in

these particulars according to the intent of the framers thereof:

Therefore," etc., etc.

This act confined the right of suffrage to free white male

citizens twenty-one years of age, worth fifty pounds proclamation

money, clear estate; and disposed of the property qualification

by declaring that every person otherwise entitled to vote whose

name should be enrolled on the last tax-lists for the State or

County should be considered as worth the fifty pounds, thus by

legislative enactment determining the meaning of the Constitution

and settling the difficulty. The law remained unchanged until the

adoption of the new Constitution a few years since, which

instrument is equally restrictive as to persons who shall vote,

and removes the property qualification altogether.

Very recently a refusal to respond to a demand for taxes legally

imposed, was received from a distinguished advocate of "Woman's

Rights" in one of the northern counties; who gave as her reasons

"that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation,

which is not only unjust to one-half of the adult population, but

is contrary to our Theory of Government"--and that when the

attention of men is called to the wide difference between their

theory of government and its practice in this particular, that

they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing

taxes on women when they refuse them the right of suffrage.[79]

Similar arguments were advanced by a sister of Richard Henry Lee,

in 1778,[80] when, if ever, they were calculated to receive due

consideration, yet the distinguished Virginian did not hesitate

to show the unreasonableness of the demand; in the course of his

able answer remarking that (setting aside other motive for

restricting the power to males) "perhaps 'twas thought rather out

of character for women to press into those tumultuous assemblages

of men where the business of choosing representatives is

conducted!" And as it is very evident that when in times past the

right was, not only claimed, but exercised in New Jersey, it

never accorded with public sentiment; so it maybe safely

predicted that, as was the case in 1807, "the safety, quiet,

good order, and dignity of the State," will ever call for its

explicit disavowal in times to come.

In his speech at the Woman's Rights Convention, 1853, in New York,

Rev. John Pierpont said: "I can go back forty years; and forty years

ago, when most of my present audience were not in, but behind, their

cradles, passing a stranger, through the neighboring State of New

Jersey, and stopping for dinner at an inn, where the coach stopped, I

saw at the bar where I went to pay, a list of the voters of the town

stuck up. My eye ran over it, and I read to my astonishment the names

of several women. 'What!' I said, 'do women vote here?' 'Certainly,'

was the answer, 'when they have real estate.' Then the question arose

in my mind, why should not women vote: Laws are made regulating the

tenure of real estate, and the essence of all republicanism is, that

they who feel the pressure of the law should have a voice in its

enactment."

DEFECTS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF NEW JERSEY.

In a very singular pamphlet published in Trenton, 1779, called

"Eumenes: A collection of papers on the Errors and Omissions of the

Constitution of New Jersey," the writer is very severe upon the fact

that women were allowed to exercise the same right as the sterner sex;

observing that "Nothing can be a greater mockery of this inalienable

right, than to suffer it to be exercised by persons who do not pretend

any judgment on the subject."[81]

Extract from "Eumenes," page 31, No. 8: "Defects of the Constitution

respecting the Qualification of Electors and Elected":

It will not be denied that a Constitution ought to point out what

persons may elect and who may be elected; and that it should as

distinctly prescribe their several qualifications, and render

those qualifications conformable to justice and the public

welfare. Indeed, on the proper adjustment of the elective

franchise depends, in a great measure, the liberty of the citizen

and the safety of the Government. Upon examination it will be

found that the Constitution requires amendment upon this head in

several particulars.

It has ever been a matter of dispute upon the Constitution,

whether females, as well as males, are entitled to elect officers

of Government. If we were to be guided by the letter of the

charter, it would seem to place them on the same footing in this

particular; and yet, recurring to _political right_ and the

nature of things, a very forcible construction has been raised

against the admission of _women_ to participate in the public

suffrage.

The 4th Article of the Constitution declares that "_all the

inhabitants_ of this colony of full age who are worth fifty

pounds, shall be entitled to vote for representatives."

Those who support the rights of women say, that "all inhabitants"

must mean "_all women_" inhabitants as well as "_all men_."

Whereas, it is urged on the other side that the makers must have

meant "all _male_ inhabitants," and that the expression is to be

restrained so as to arrive at the _intent_ of the framers of the

instrument.

This difference of sentiment has given rise to diversity of

_practice_ on this head, and furnished a pretence from which many

an electioneering trick has resulted. I could refer to instances

which would prove what is advanced, but the people want no

proofs. It is well known that women are admitted or rejected,

just as may suit the views of the persons in direction. The thing

should be rectified. If women are fit persons to take part in

this important franchise, though excluded from other public

functions, it should be expressed in the Constitution. They would

then know their rights, and those rights could not be sported

with to serve the wretched purposes of a party election.

To my mind, without going into an historical or philosophical

deduction of particulars on the subject, it is evident that

women, generally, are neither by nature, nor habit, nor

education, nor by their necessary condition in society, fitted to

perform this duty with credit to themselves or advantage to the

public. In a note the author adds: It is perfectly disgusting to

witness the manner in which women are polled at our elections.

Nothing can be greater mockery of this invaluable and sacred

right, than to suffer it to be exercised by persons who do not

even pretend to any judgment on the subject. The great practical

mischief, however, resulting from their admission under our

present form of government, is that the towns and populous

villages gain an unfair advantage over the country, by the

greater facility they enjoy over the latter in drawing out their

women to the elections. Many important election contests have

been terminated at last by these auxiliaries in favor of

candidates supported by town interests.

I believe that the Convention which framed the Constitution had

no view to the admission of females, either single women or

widows, to elect the public officers. But such is the phraseology

of the Constitution that it seems a violation of it not to admit

their votes. The best constitutions have guarded against mistakes

on this head. Those of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania,

Maryland, Vermont, etc., do not admit of female electors. Whether

this be right or wrong, the objection to our Constitution is,

that it does not settle the point one way or the other with an

absolute certainty. The practice is variable. The generally

received opinion, however, is that the Constitution permits it.

In this state of the matter it is not competent for the

Legislature to interfere. Nothing short of a constitutional

declaration can decide the question; which is, in fact, an

important one, and is growing more and more so to the country in

proportion as the towns and villages increase in numbers and

population. For, independent of the theoretic question, it is

evident that the admission of these votes gives a vast advantage

to the thickly settled places over the more dispersed population

of the country.

In another note the author says: "Mr. Fox in his late harangue in

the British House of Commons, in favor of more _equal_ suffrage,

concedes the unfitness of _females_ to share in elections. He

says no instance of their participation of public suffrage in any

government can be shown; and that this right (which many of his

party hold to be a natural one, though he affects to stop short

of that) is properly denied to the fairest productions of nature.

Of widows and spinsters above twenty-one, there can not, I

imagine, be fewer than 10,000. It is certainly not unimportant to

leave doubtful the rights of so great a number of people."

Mr. Whitehead's report clearly shows three unjust inferences from the

facts stated:

_First._ That all the corruptions of that special election in Essex

County could be traced to the women.

_Second._ That the quiet, good order, and dignity of the State could

be secured only by the restriction of the suffrage to "free white male

citizens worth fifty pounds."

_Third._ "The unreasonableness of the demand" for representation by

women tax-payers.

1st. Tradition shows that the voting early and often in varied

feminine costume, was done by men five feet four, "picked men," not

for their bravery, but for their inferiority. Depriving women of their

right to vote, because the men abused their privilege, under cover of

sex, in 1807, was, however, on the same principle that politicians in

1881 propose to disfranchise the women of Utah, because of their

polygamous relations. That is, punish the women who claim a right to

only one-sixth part of a man's time and affections, because the men

claim six wives apiece. The question naturally suggests itself to any

fair mind, why not deprive the men of the suffrage, and let the women

vote themselves each one husband? Who doubts the fate of the system

under such legislation? Every woman in her normal condition, unless

wholly perverted by the religious dogma of self-sacrifice and

self-crucifixion, desires to own the man she loves as absolutely and

completely, as every man desires to consecrate to himself alone the

woman he loves. So to deprive the women of Essex of their right to

vote to have the county buildings in Elizabeth, because of the undue

excitement and dishonesty of the men, was to punish the best class of

citizens for the crimes of the worst.

2d. The assumption that "free white male citizens worth fifty pounds,"

could legislate for "aliens, women, and negroes," better than those

classes could for themselves, is to deny the fundamental principle of

republicanism; Governments derive their just powers from the consent

of the governed; and to reassert the despotic ideas of the old world

that national safety depends on the wisdom of privileged

orders--nobles, kings, and czars. The experiment in Wyoming has fully

proved that when "free white male citizens" reigned supreme, the polls

there were scenes of drunkenness, violence, and death; men knocking

each other down and putting bullets through each other's brains were

of annual occurrence. But when the suffrage was extended, and women

admitted to the polling booths, quiet, good order, and dignity were

inaugurated.

3d. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." James Otis said: "To

tax a man's property without his consent, is in effect disfranchising

him of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush,

after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at the pleasure

of another?" Is not such injustice as grievous to woman as man? Does

the accident of sex place woman outside of all ordinary principles of

law and justice? It is the essence of cruelty and tyranny to take her

hard earnings without her consent, blocked as her way is to wealth and

independence, to make sidewalks, highways, and bridges; to build

jails, prisons, and alms-houses, the legitimate outgrowth of the

whisky traffic, which she abhors. On what principle of republican

government is one class of tax-payers thus defrauded of one of the

most sacred rights of citizenship? What logical argument can be made

to prove "the unreasonableness of this demand," for one class above

all others? Principles of justice, to have any value or significance,

must be universal in their application to all humanity.

4th. As to the point made by "Eumenes," "that women are not fit

persons to take part in government," "that they do not even pretend to

any judgment on the subject," we have simply to say that the writer's

prejudices contradict all the facts of our common experience. Women

are so pre-eminently fitted for government, that the one fear in all

ages among men has been lest by some chance they should be governed by

women; and the smaller the man the greater the fear.

Blackstone says "the elements of sovereignty are three: 'Wisdom,

Goodness, and Power.'" Admitting for the sake of argument that "Power"

in this connection means physical force, the distinctive point of male

superiority, and not moral power, which may be equal in both sexes,

all must concede the remaining necessary elements to woman as well as

man. Who so bold, or blind, as to deny wisdom and goodness, the chief

elements of beneficent government, to woman, with the long record of

illustrious and saintly characters gilding every page of history

before him?

Whatever doubts the women known to the author of "Eumenes" might have

had as to their own capacities; the women of to-day do assume to know

that they are more capable of self-government than men are, and that

they understand the principles that underlie a republic far better

than the vast majority of foreigners now crowding our shores, the

Right Honorable James Charles Fox to the contrary notwithstanding.

Yea, without danger of contradiction, we may say there are women in

this nation even now, who understand the political issues of this hour

quite as well as those who stand at the head of our government.

We are very apt to accept popular assertions ofttimes repeated as

truisms, and in this way man's superiority has passed into a proverb,

and the sex in general believe it. When Milton penned the line, "God,

thy will, thou mine," and made his Eve thus reverently submissive to

her Adam, he little thought of bright girls in the nineteenth century,

well versed in science, philosophy, and the languages, sitting in the

senior class of a college of the American republic, laughing his male

conceit to scorn.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] The _New York Tribune_, Feb. 19, 1881, gives the following

interesting facts: "William Franklin, the illegitimate son of

Benjamin, who was long a resident of New York and hereabout, conducted

in person his father's postal system. At Amboy, or Perth Amboy, a

little town of once high aristocratic standing, which dozes on the

edge of the Jersey hills and overlooks the oyster groves of Prince's

Bay, began the Post-Office of North America under John Hamilton in

1694. It was a private patent, and he sold it to the Government. Many

years afterward William Franklin settled at the same place, where once

his father passed in Hamilton's day a footsore vagrant pressing from

Boston to Philadelphia to get bread. There the younger Franklin reared

a 'palace,' and lived in it as Governor of New Jersey till his

adherence to the Crown, that had done better for him than his

father--made him an exile and a captive. He was sent under guard to

East Windsor, Conn., and his jail was made in the house of Captain

Ebenezer Grant there, of the family of President Grant's ancestors,

and he was prohibited the use of pen, ink, and paper--a needless

punishment to a man who had delivered so many letters to others."

[77] In the _New York Observer_, 1876.

[78] After a diligent search for Mr. James Ross and his promised

"interesting chapter of local history," we learned that the author was

in his grave, and that from his posthumous papers this valuable

document had not yet been exhumed by his literary executor.

[79] The following letter contains the sentiments referred to in the

text:

ORANGE, N. J., _Dec. 18, 1858_.

MR. MANDEVILLE, TAX COLLECTOR, SIR:--Enclosed I return my tax

bill, without paying it. My reason for doing so is, that women

suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only

unjust to one-half the adult population, but is contrary to our

theory of government. For years some women have been paying their

taxes under protest, but still taxes are imposed, and

representation is not granted. The only course now left us is to

refuse to pay the tax. We know well what the immediate result of

this refusal must be.

But we believe that when the attention of men is called to the

wide difference between their theory of government and its

practice, in this particular, they can not fail to see the mistake

they now make, by imposing taxes on women, while they refuse them

the right of suffrage, and that the sense of justice which is in

all good men, will lead them to correct it. Then we shall

cheerfully pay our taxes--not till then.

Respectfully, LUCY STONE.

[80] See _Washington National Intelligencer_ for Oct. 15, 1857, and

_Historical Magazine_, Vol. I., page 360.

[81] _Frank Leslie's Magazine_, Feb., 1877.

CHAPTER XIII.

REMINISCENCES.

BY E. C. S.

The reports of the Conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N.

Y., in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most

important part in the new movement--Susan B. Anthony, who for her

courage and executive ability was facetiously called by William Henry

Charming, the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching

in the Academy at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful

valley of the Mohawk.

"The Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those

conventions, startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the

novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend

her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents

and sisters having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as

very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and

reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery and

temperance reforms, and was an active member of an organization called

"The Daughters of Temperance," and had spoken a few times in their

public meetings. But the new gospel of "Woman's Rights," found a ready

response in her mind, and from that time her best efforts have been

given to the enfranchisement of woman.

It was in the month of May, of 1851, that I first met Miss Anthony.

That was to both of us an eventful meeting, that in a measure

henceforth shaped our lives. As our own estimate of ourselves and our

friendship may differ somewhat from that taken from an objective point

of view, I will give an extract from what a mutual friend wrote of us

some years ago:

Miss Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable and life-long

advocate of temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights, has

been, since 1851, Mrs. Stanton's intimate associate in

reformatory labors. These celebrated women are of about equal

ages, but of the most opposite characteristics, and illustrate

the theory of counterparts in affection by entertaining for each

other a friendship of extraordinary strength.

Mrs. Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant; Miss Anthony

is a thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains

and great hearts; neither has any selfish ambition for

celebrity; but each vies with the other in a noble enthusiasm,

for the cause to which they are devoting their lives.

Nevertheless, to describe them critically, I ought to say that

opposites though they be, each does not so much supplement the

other's difficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus

they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and at the same

time diminish each other's discretion.

But whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one, or the

impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are

evermore as white as the light. The good that they do is by

design; the harm by accident. These two women sitting together in

their parlors, have for the last thirty years been diligent

forgers of all manner of projectiles, from fire works to

thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into

the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious,

and political assemblies, sometimes to the pleasant surprise and

half welcome of the members, more often to the bewilderment and

prostration of numerous victims; and in a few signal instances,

to the gnashing of angry men's teeth. I know of no two more

pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country! Nor will they

themselves deny the charge. In fact this noise-making twain are

the two sticks of a drum for keeping up what Daniel Webster

called "the rub-a-dub of agitation."

How well I remember the day I first met my life-long friend. George

Thompson and William Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery

meeting in Seneca Falls, Miss Anthony came to attend it. These

gentlemen were my guests. Walking home after the adjournment, we met

Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting to

greet us. There she stood with her good earnest face and genial smile,

dressed in gray silk, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale

blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her

thoroughly, and why I did not at once invite her home with me to

dinner, I do not know. She accuses me of that neglect and never has

forgiven me, as she wished to see and hear all she could of our noble

friends. I suppose my mind was full of what I had heard, or my coming

dinner, or the probable behavior of three mischievous boys who had

been busily exploring the premises while I was at the meeting. That I

had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical

experiments these young savages might try, the reader will admit when

informed of some of their performances.[82]

It is often said by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has

been my good angel, always pushing and guiding me to work, that but

for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I

have; and on the other hand, it has been said that I forged the

thunderbolts and she fired them. Perhaps all this is in a measure

true. With the cares of a large family, I might in time, like too many

women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had

not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary

labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform, complacently

deciding questions in which women had an equal interest, without an

equal voice, readily roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand

in the midst of their assembly.

Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I

knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam were to be set by

the ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau

stuffed with facts was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John

Smith and the Hon. Richard Roe had said, false interpretations of

Bible texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut

out of some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some

disgraceful trial, injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from

stockings and puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write

articles for papers, or a petition to the Legislature, letters to the

faithful here and there, stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or

Massachusetts, call on _The Lily_, _The Una_, _The Liberator_, and

_The Standard_, to remember our wrongs as well as those of the slave.

We never met without issuing a pronunciamento on some question.

We were at once fast friends, in thought and sympathy we were one, and

in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In

writing we did better work together than either could alone. While she

is slow and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am

the better writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and

statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and together we have made

arguments that have stood unshaken by the storms of thirty long years:

arguments that no man has answered. Our speeches may be considered the

united product of our two brains.

So entirely one are we, that in all our associations, ever side by

side on the same platform, not one feeling of jealousy or envy has

ever shadowed our lives. We have indulged freely in criticism of each

other when alone, and hotly contended whenever we have differed, but

in our friendship of thirty years there has never been a break of one

hour. To the world we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each

other. Like husband and wife, each has the feeling that we must have

no differences in public. Thus united, at an early day we began to

survey the State and nation, the future field of our labors. We read

with critical eyes the proceedings of Congress and Legislatures, of

General Assemblies and Synods, of Conferences and Conventions, and

discovered that in all alike the existence of woman was entirely

ignored.

Night after night by an old-fashioned fireplace we plotted and planned

the coming agitation, how, when, and where each entering wedge could

be driven, by which woman might be recognized, and her rights secured.

Speedily the State was aflame with disturbances in temperance and

teachers' conventions, and the press heralded the news far and near

that women delegates had suddenly appeared demanding admission in

men's conventions; that their rights had been hotly contended session

after session, by liberal men on the one side; the clergy and learned

professors on the other; an overwhelming majority rejecting the women

with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought

over and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States,

until the bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was

thoroughly tested. Every right achieved: to enter a college; to study

a profession; to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform

measure, was contended for inch by inch.

Many of those enjoying all these blessings, now complacently say, "If

these pioneers in reform, had only pressed their measures more

judiciously; in a more ladylike manner; in more choice language; in a

more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so

rudely." We give in these pages enough of the characteristics of these

women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry,

and position, to show that no power could have met the prejudice and

bigotry of that period more successfully than they did, who so bravely

and persistently fought and conquered them.

True, those gentlemen were all quite willing that women should join

their societies and churches, to do the drudgery, to work up the

enthusiasm in fairs and revivals, conventions and flag presentations,

to pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being

members of their various organizations, to beg money for the church,

circulate petitions from door to door, to visit saloons, to pray with

or defy rum-sellers, to teach school at half-price, and sit round the

outskirts of a hall like so many wall flowers in teachers' State

Conventions; but they would not allow them to sit on the platform,

address the assembly, nor vote for men and measures.

Those who had learned the first lessons of human rights from the lips

of Beriah Green, Samuel J. May, and Gerrit Smith, would not accept any

such position. When women abandoned the temperance reform, all

interest in the question gradually died out in the State, and

practically nothing was done in New York for nearly twenty years.

Gerrit Smith made one or two attempts toward an "anti-dram-shop

party," but as women could not vote they felt no interest in the

measure, and failure was the result.

I soon convinced my new friend that the ballot was the key to the

situation, that when we had a voice in the laws we should be welcomed

to any platform. In turning the intense earnestness and religious

enthusiasm of this great-souled woman into this one channel, I soon

felt the power of my convert in goading me forever forward to more

untiring work. Soon fastened heart to heart with hooks of steel in a

friendship that thirty years of confidence and affection have steadily

strengthened, we have labored faithfully together.