The Woman's Rights agitation, while entirely separate from
Abolitionism, owes its origin to the interest this subject excited in
the hearts and minds of American women; and to Sarah and Angelina
Grimké must be accorded the credit of first making the woman question
one of reform. Their broad views, freely expressed in their New York
meetings, opened up the subject of woman's duties under the existing
state of public sentiment, and, in connection with the revelations made
concerning the condition of her white and colored sisters at the South,
and the frantic efforts used to prevent her from receiving these
revelations, she soon began to see that she had some moral obligations
outside of her home sphere and her private circle. At first her only
idea of aid in the great cause was that of prayer, which men
universally granted was her especial privilege, even encouraging her to
pray for them; but it must be private prayer--prayer in her own
closet--with no auditor but the God to whom she appealed. As soon as it
became public, and took the form of petitions to legislatures and to
Congress, the reprobation began. The enemies of freedom, fully
realizing woman's influence, opposed her interference at every point;
and when a Southern representative declared from his seat that women
had no right to send up petitions to Congress he was sustained by the
sycophantic response which came from the North, that slavery was a
political question, with which women had nothing to do. Angelina Grimké
answered this so fully and so eloquently in her "Appeal to Northern
Women," that no doubt could have been left in the minds of those who
read it, not only of woman's right, but of her duty to interfere in
this matter. The appeal is made chiefly to woman's tenderest and
holiest feelings, but enough is said of her rights to show whither
Angelina's own reflections were leading her, and it must have turned
the thoughts of many other women in the same direction. A passage or
two may be quoted as examples.
"Every citizen should feel an intense interest in the political
concerns of the country, because the honor, happiness and well-being of
every class are bound up in its politics, government, and laws. Are we
aliens because we are women? Are we bereft of citizenship because we
are the mothers, wives, and daughters of a mighty people? Have women no
country--no interests staked on the public weal--no partnership in a
nation's guilt and shame? Has woman no home nor household altars, nor
endearing ties of kindred, nor sway with man, nor power at the
mercy-seat, nor voice to cheer, nor hand to raise the drooping, or to
bind the broken?... The Lord has raised up men whom he has endowed with
'wisdom and understanding, and knowledge,' to lay deep and broad the
foundations of the temple of liberty. This is a great moral work in
which they are engaged. No war-trumpet summons to the field of battle;
but Wisdom crieth without, 'Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him
bring an offering.' Shall woman refuse her response to the call? Was
she created to be a helpmeet for man--his sorrows to divide, his joys
to share, and all his toils to lighten by her willing aid, and shall
she refuse to aid him with her prayers, her labors, and her counsels
too, at such a time, in such a cause as this?"
There had been, from the beginning of the anti-slavery agitation, no
lack of women sympathizers with it. Some of the best and brightest of
the land had poured forth their words of grief, of courage, and of hope
through magazines and newspapers, in prose and in verse, and had proved
their willingness to suffer for the slave, by enduring unshrinkingly
ridicule and wrath, pecuniary loss and social ostracism. All over the
country, in almost every town and village, women labored untiringly to
raise funds for the printing of pamphlets, sending forth lecturers and
for the pay of special agents. They were regular attendants also on the
anti-slavery meetings and conventions, often outnumbering the men, and
privately made some of the best suggestions that were offered. But so
strong and general was the feeling against women speaking in any public
place, that, up to the time when Sarah and Angelina Grimké began their
crusade, it was an almost unheard of thing for a woman to raise her
voice in any but a church prayer-meeting. During the sittings of the
Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia, in 1833, which was attended by
a number of women, chiefly Friends, Lucretia Mott, though she had had
experience in speaking in Quaker meetings, timidly arose one day, and,
in fear lest she might offend, ventured to propose an amendment to a
certain resolution. With rare indulgence and good sense, Beriah Green,
the president of the convention, encouraged her to proceed; and May, in
his "Recollections," says: "She made a more impressive and effective
speech than any other that was made in the convention, excepting only
the closing address of our president."
Two other ladies, Esther Moore and Lydia White, emboldened by Mrs.
Mott's example, afterwards said a few words on one or two occasions,
but these were the only infringements, during all those early years of
agitation, of St. Paul's oft-quoted injunction.
When Sarah and Angelina Grimké accepted the invitation of the Female
Anti-Slavery Society of Boston, to come and labor there, they found
friends on every hand--women of the highest culture and purest
religion, eager to hear them, not only concerning what their eyes had
witnessed in that land of worse than Egyptian bondage, but ready to be
enlightened upon their own duties and rights in the matter of moral
reform, and as willing as resolute to perform them. Without experience,
as the sisters were, we can hardly be surprised that they should have
been carried beyond their original moorings, and have made what many of
their best friends felt was a serious mistake, in uniting the two
causes, thus laying upon abolitionists a double burden, and a
responsibility to which the great majority of them were as much opposed
as were their bitterest enemies. But no movement in this direction was
made for some time. Indeed, it seems to have grown quite naturally out
of, or been forced forward by, the alarm among men, and the means they
took to frighten and warn women away from the dangerous topic.
The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention met early in June, 1837. In
writing about it to Jane Smith, Angelina first touches upon the dawning
feeling on this woman question. She says:--
"We had Stanton and Burleigh, Colver and Birney, Garrison and Goodell,
etc. Their eloquence was no less delightful to the ear than the
soundness of their doctrine was comforting to the heart.... A peace
resolution was brought up, but this occasioned some difficulty on
account of non-resistance here meaning a repudiation of civil
government, and of course we cannot expect many to be willing to do
this.... At Friend Chapman's, where we spent a social evening, I had a
long talk with the brethren on the rights of women, and found a very
general sentiment prevailing that it is time our fetters were broken.
L. Child and Maria Chapman strongly supported this view; indeed, very
many seem to think a new order of things is very desirable in this
respect.... And now, my dear friend, in view of these things, I feel
that it is not the cause of the slave only that we plead, but the cause
of woman as a moral, responsible being, and I am ready to exclaim, 'Who
is sufficient for these things?' These holy causes must be injured if
they are not helped by us. I see not to what point all these things are
leading us. But one thing comforts me: I do feel as though the Lord had
sent us, and as if I was leaning on his arm."
And in this reliance, in a meek and lowly spirit, impelled not by
inclination, but by an overpowering sense of duty, these gentle women,
fully realizing the singularity of their position, prepared to enter
upon entirely new scenes of labor, encompassed by difficulties
peculiarly trying to their delicate natures.
A series of public meetings was arranged for them as soon as the
Convention adjourned, and the first was held in Dorchester, in the town
hall, to which they repaired upon finding the number of those who
wished to hear them too great to be accommodated in a private house.
Their next was in Boston on the following afternoon. Angelina's heart
here almost failed her as she glanced over the assemblage of women of
all classes, and thought of the responsibility resting upon her. It was
at this meeting that a reverend gentleman set the example, which was
followed by two or three other men, of slyly sliding into a back seat
to hear for himself what manner of thing this woman's speaking was.
Satisfied of its superior quality, and alarmed at its effects upon the
audience, he shortly afterwards took great pains to prove that it was
unscriptural for a woman to speak in public.
As the meetings were held at first only in the daylight, there was
little show of opposition for some time. The sisters went from one town
to another, arousing enthusiasm everywhere, and vindicating, by their
power and success, their right to speak. Angelina's letters to Jane
Smith contain memoranda of all the meetings she and Sarah held during
that summer and fall. It is surprising that they were able to endure
such an amount of mental and physical labor, and maintain the
constantly increasing eagerness to hear them. Before the end of the
first week, she records:--"Nearly thirty men present, pretty easy to
speak." A few days later the number of men had increased to fifty, with
"great openness on their part to hear."
After having held meetings every day, their audience numbering from one
hundred and fifty to one thousand, Angelina records on the 21st July,
at Lynn:--
"In the evening of the same day addressed our first mixed audience.
Over one thousand present, great openness to hear, and ease in
speaking."
This, so briefly mentioned, was the beginning of the revolution in
sentiment respecting woman's sphere, which, though it was met at the
outset with much the same spirit which opposed abolitionism, soon
spread and became a principle of reform as conscientiously and as ably
advocated as any other, moral or political. Neither Sarah nor Angelina
had any idea of starting such a revolution, but when they found it
fairly inaugurated, and that many women had long privately held the
same views as they did and were ready to follow in their lead, they
bravely accepted, and to the end of their lives as bravely sustained
all the responsibilities their opinions involved. They were the
pioneers in the great cause of political freedom for women, and opened
the way in the true pioneer spirit. The clear sense of justice and the
broad humanity which inspired their trenchant rebukes and fervid
appeals not only enlightened and encouraged other women, but led to
inquiry into various wrongs practised towards the sex which had up to
that time been suffered in silence and in ignorance, or in despair of
any possibility of relief. The peculiar tenderness of Sarah Grimké's
nature, and her overflowing sympathy with any form of suffering, led
her, earlier than Angelina, to the consideration of the necessity of
some organized system of protection of helpless women and children;
and, from the investigation of the impositions and abuses to which they
were subjected, was evolved, without much difficulty, the doctrine of
woman's equality before the law, and her right to a voice on every
subject of public interest, social or political. Sarah's published
letters during the summer of 1837 show her to have been as deeply
interested in this reform as in abolitionism, and to her influence was
certainly due the introduction of the "Woman Question" into the
anti-slavery discussions. That this question was as yet a secondary one
in Angelina's mind is evident from what she writes to Jane Smith about
this time. She says: "With regard to speaking on the rights of woman,
it has really been wonderful to me that though, everywhere I go, I meet
prejudice against our speaking, yet, in addressing an audience, I never
think of referring to it. I was particularly struck with this two days
ago. Riding with Dr. Miller to a meeting at Franklin, I found, from
conversation with him, that I had a great amount of prejudice to meet
at that town, and very much in his own mind. I gave him my views on
women's preaching, and verily believe I converted him, for he said he
had no idea so much could be adduced from the Bible to sustain the
ground I had taken, and remarked: 'This will be quite new to the
people, and I believe they will gladly hear these things,' and pressed
me so much to speak on the subject at the close of my lecture that I
was obliged to promise I would if I could remember to do so. After
speaking two hours, we returned to his house to tea, and he asked: 'Why
did you not tell the people why you believed you had a right to speak?'
I had entirely forgotten all about it until his question revived the
conversation we had on the road. Now I believe the Lord orders these
things so, driving out of my mind what I ought not to speak on. If the
time ever comes when this shall be a part of my public work, then I
shall not be able to forget it."
But to return to the meeting at Lynn. We are told that the men present
listened in amazement. They were spell-bound, and impatient of the
slightest noise which might cause the loss of a word from the speakers.
Another meeting was called for, and held the next evening. This was
crowded to excess, many going away unable to get even standing-room.
"At least one hundred," Angelina writes, "stood around the doors, and,
on the outside of each window, men stood with their heads above the
lowered sash. Very easy speaking indeed."
But now the opposers of abolitionism, and especially the clergy, began
to be alarmed. It amounted to very little that (to borrow the language
of one of the newspapers of the day) "two fanatical women, forgetful of
the obligations of a respected name, and indifferent to the feelings of
their most worthy kinsmen, the Barnwells and the Rhetts, should, by the
novelty of their course, draw to their meetings idle and curious
women." But it became a different matter when men, the intelligent,
respectable and cultivated citizens of every town, began to crowd to
hear them, even following them from one place to another, and giving
them loud and honest applause. Then they were adjudged immodest, and
their conduct denounced as unwomanly and demoralizing. Their devotion
to principle, the purity of their lives, the justice of the cause they
pleaded, the religious stand-point from which they spoke, all were
overlooked, and the pitiless scorn of Christian men and women of every
sect was poured down upon them. Nor should we wonder when we remember
that, at that time, the Puritan bounds of propriety still hedged in the
education and the training of New England women, and limited the views
of New England men. Even many of the abolitionists had first to hear
Sarah and Angelina Grimké to be convinced that there was nothing
unwomanly in a woman's raising her voice to plead for those helpless to
plead for themselves. So good a man and so faithful an anti-slavery
worker as Samuel J. May confesses that his sense of propriety was a
little disturbed at first. Letters of reproval, admonition, and
persuasion, some anonymous, some signed by good conscientious people,
came to the sisters frequently. Clergymen denounced them from their
pulpits, especially warning their women members against them. Municipal
corporations refused the use of halls for their meetings, and threats
of personal violence came from various quarters. Friends especially
felt outraged. The New England Yearly Meeting went so far as to advise
the closing of meeting-house doors to all anti-slavery lecturers and
the disownment the sisters had long expected now became imminent.
We can well imagine how terrible all this must have been to their
shrinking, sensitive, and proud spirits. But their courage never
failed, nor was their mighty work for humanity stayed one instant by
this storm of indignation and wrath. Angelina, writing to her dear Jane
an account of some of the opposition to them, says:
"And now, thou wilt want to know how we feel about all these things.
Well, dear, poor enough in ourselves, and defenceless; but rich and
strong in the help which our Master is pleased to give from time to
time, making perfect his strength in our weakness. This is a truly
humbling dispensation, but when I am speaking I am favored to forget
little _I_ entirely, and to feel altogether hidden behind the great
cause I am pleading. Were it not for this, I do not know how I could
face such audiences and such opposition. O Jane, how good it is that we
can cast all our burdens upon the Lord."
And Sarah, writing to Sarah Douglass, says: "They think to frighten us
from the field of duty; but they do not move us. God is our shield, and
we do not fear what man can do unto us," A little further on she says:
"It is really amusing to see how the clergy are arrayed against two
women who are telling the story of the slave's wrongs."
This was before the celebrated "Pastoral Letter" appeared. Sarah's
answer to that in her letters to the N.E. Spectator shows how far the
clergy had gone beyond amusing her.
There were, of course, many church members of every denomination, and
many ministers, in the abolition ranks. Indeed, at some of the
Anti-Slavery Conventions, it was a most edifying sight to see clergymen
of different churches sitting together and working together in harmony,
putting behind them, for the time being, all creeds and dogmas, or,
rather, sinking them all in the one creed taught by the blessed command
to do unto others as they would be done by.
Some of the more conservative of the clergy objected, it is true, to
the great freedom of thought and speech allowed generally in the
Conventions, but this was slight compared to the feeling excited by the
encouragement given to women to take prominent and public part in the
work, even to speaking from the platform and the pulpit.
The general prejudice against this was naturally increased by the
earnest eloquence with which Angelina Grimké pointed out the
inconsistent attitude of ministers and church members towards slavery;
by Sarah's strongly expressed views concerning a paid clergy; and the
indignant protests of both sisters against the sin of prejudice, then
as general in the church as out of it.
The feeling grew very strong against them. They were setting public
sentiment at defiance, it was said; they were seeking to destroy
veneration for the ministers of the Gospel; they were casting contempt
upon the consecrated forms of the Church; and much more of the same
kind. Nowhere, however, did the feeling find decided public expression
until the General Association of Congregational Ministers of
Massachusetts saw proper to pass a resolution of censure against Sarah
and Angelina Grimké, and issued a pastoral letter, which, in the light
and freedom of the present day, must be regarded as a most
extraordinary document, to say the least of it. The opening sentences
show the degree of authority felt and exercised by the clergy at that
time. It maintained that, as ministers were ordained by God, it was
their place and duty to judge what food was best to feed to the flock
over which they had been made overseers by the Holy Ghost; and that, if
they did not preach on certain topics, as the flock desired, the flock
had no right to put strangers in their place to do it; that deference
and subordination were necessary to the happiness of every society, and
peculiarly so to the relation of a people to their pastor; and that the
sacred rights of ministers had been violated by having their pulpits
opened without their consent to lecturers on various subjects of
reform.
All this might pass without much criticism: but it was followed by a
tirade against woman-preachers, aimed at the Grimké sisters especially,
which was as narrow as it was shallow. The dangers which threatened
the female character and the permanent injury likely to result to
society, if the example of these women should be followed, were
vigorously portrayed. Women were reminded that their power was in
their dependence; that God had given them their weakness for their
protection; and that when they assumed the tone and place of man,
as public reformers, they made the care and protection of man seem
unnecessary. "If the vine," this letter fancifully said, "whose
strength and beauty is to lean upon the trellis-work, and half
conceal its clusters, thinks to assume the independence and the
overshadowing nature of the elm, it will not only cease to bear
fruit, but will fall in shame and dishonor into the dust."
Sarah Grimké had just begun a series of letters on the "Province of
Woman" for the _N.E. Spectator_, when this pastoral effusion came out.
Her third letter was devoted to it. She showed in the clearest manner
the unsoundness of its assertions, and the unscriptural and unchristian
spirit in which they were made. The delicate irony with which she also
exposed the ignorance and the shallowness of its author must have
caused him to blush for very shame.
Whittier's muse, too, found the Pastoral Letter a fitting theme for its
vigorous, sympathetic utterances. The poem thus inspired is perhaps one
of the very best among his many songs of freedom. It will be remembered
as beginning thus:--
"So this is all! the utmost reach
Of priestly power the mind to fetter,
When laymen _think_, when women _preach_,
A war of words, a 'Pastoral Letter!'"
Up to this time nothing had been said by either of the sisters in
their lectures concerning their views about women. They had carefully
confined themselves to the subject of slavery, and the attendant
topics of immediate emancipation, abstinence from the use of slave
products, the errors of the Colonization Society, and the sin of
prejudice on account of color. But now that they found their own
rights invaded, they began to feel it was time to look out for the
rights of their whole sex.
The Rev. Amos Phelps, a staunch abolitionist, wrote a private letter
to the sisters, remonstrating earnestly but kindly against their
lecturing to men and women, and requesting permission to publish the
fact of his having done so, with a declaration on their part that they
preferred having female audiences only. Angelina says to Jane Smith:--
"I wish you could see sister's admirable reply to this. We told him we
were entirely willing he should publish anything he felt it right to,
but that we could not consent to his saying in our name that we
preferred female audiences only, because in so saying we should
surrender a fundamental principle, believing, as we did, that as moral
beings it was our duty to appeal to all moral beings on this subject,
without any distinction of sex. He thinks we are throwing a
responsibility on the Anti-Slavery Society which will greatly injure
it. To this we replied that we would write to Elizur Wright, and give
the Executive Committee an opportunity to throw off all such
responsibility by publishing the facts that we had no commission from
them, and were not either responsible to or dependent on them. I wrote
this letter. H.B. Stanton happened to be here at the time; after
reading all the letters, he wrote to Elizur Wright, warning him by no
means to publish anything which would in the least appear to
disapprove of what we were doing. I do not know what the result will
be. My only fear is that some of our anti-slavery brethren will commit
themselves, in this excitement, against _women's rights and duties_
before they examine the subject, and will, in a few years, regret the
steps they may now take. This will soon be an absorbing topic. It must
be discussed whether women are moral and responsible beings, and
whether there is such a thing as male and female virtues, male and
female duties, etc. My opinion is that there is no difference, and
that this false idea has run the ploughshare of ruin over the whole
field of morality. My idea is that whatever is morally right for a man
to do is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but
human rights. I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for
in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.... I am persuaded
that woman is not to be as she has been, a mere second-hand agent in
the regeneration of a fallen world, but the acknowledged equal and
co-worker with man in this glorious work.... Hubbard Winslow of Boston
has just preached a sermon to set forth the proper sphere of our sex.
I am truly glad that men are not ashamed to come out boldly and tell
us just what is in their hearts."
In another letter she mentions that a clergyman gave out a notice of
one of their meetings, at the request, he said, of his deacons, but
under protest; and he earnestly advised his members, particularly the
women, not to go and hear them. At a meeting, also, at Pepperell,
where they had to speak in a barn, on account of the feeling against
them, she mentions that an Orthodox clergyman opened the meeting with
prayer, but went out immediately after finishing, declaring that he
would as soon rob a hen-roost as remain there and hear a woman speak
in public.
This, however, did not prevent the crowding of the barn "almost to
suffocation," and deep attention on the part of those assembled.
In the face of all this censure and ridicule, the two sisters
continued in the discharge of a duty to which they increasingly felt
they were called from on high. The difficulties, inconveniences, and
discomforts to which they were constantly subjected, and of which the
women reformers of the present day know so little, were borne
cheerfully, and accepted as means of greater refinement and
purification for the Lord's work. They were often obliged to ride six
or eight or ten miles through the sun or rain, in stages or wagons
over rough roads to a meeting, speak two hours, and return the same
distance to their temporary abiding-place. For many weeks they held
five and six meetings a week, in a different place every time, were
often poorly lodged and poorly fed, especially the latter, as they ate
nothing which they did not know to be the product of free labor;
taking cold frequently, and speaking when ill enough to be in bed, but
sustained through all by faith in the justice of their cause, and by
their simple reliance upon the love and guidance of an Almighty
Father. The record of their journeyings, as copied by Angelina from
her day-book for the benefit of Jane Smith, is very interesting, as
showing how, in spite of continued opposition to them, anti-slavery
sentiment grew under their eloquent preaching. Wendell Phillips says:
"I can never forget the impulse our cause received when those two
sisters doubled our hold on New England in 1837 and 1838, and made a
name, already illustrious in South Carolina by great services, equally
historical in Massachusetts, in the two grandest movements of our
day."
Angelina's eloquence must have been something marvellous. The sweet,
persuasive voice, the fluent speech, and occasionally a flash of the
old energy, were all we who knew her in later years were granted, to
show us what had been; but it was enough to confirm the accounts given
by those who had felt the power of her oratory in those early times.
Says Wendell Phillips: "I well remember evening after evening
listening to eloquence such as never then had been heard from a woman.
She swept the chords of the human heart with a power that has never
been surpassed and rarely equalled."
Mr. Lincoln, in whose pulpit she lectured in Gardiner, says: "Never
before or since have I seen an audience so held and so moved by any
public speaker, man or woman; and never before or since have I seen a
Christian pulpit so well filled, nor in the pews seen such absorbed
hearers."
Robert F. Walcutt testifies in the same manner. "Angelina," he says,
"possessed a rare gift of eloquence, a calm power of persuasion, a
magnetic influence over those who listened to her, which carried
conviction to hearts that nothing before had reached. I shall never
forget the wonderful manifestation of this power during six successive
evenings, in what was then called the Odeon. It was the old Boston
Theatre, which had been converted into a music hall; the four
galleries rising above the auditorium all crowded with a silent
audience carried away with the calm, simple eloquence which narrated
what she and her sister had seen from their earliest days. And yet
this Odeon scene, the audience so quiet and intensely absorbed,
occurred at the most enflamed period of the anti-slavery contest. The
effective agent in this phenomenon was Angelina's serene, commanding
eloquence, a wonderful gift, which enchained attention, disarmed
prejudice, and carried her hearers with her."
Another, who often heard her, speaks of the gentle, firm, and
impressive voice which could ring out in clarion tones when speaking
in the name of the Lord to let the oppressed go free.
Many travelled long distances to hear her. Mechanics left their shops,
and laborers came in out of the field, and sat almost motionless
throughout her meetings, showing impatience only when the lecture was
over and they could hear no more. Sarah's speaking, though fully as
earnest, was not nearly so effective as Angelina's. She was never very
fluent, and cared little for the flowers of rhetoric. She could state
a truth in clear and forcible terms, but the language was unvarnished,
sometimes harsh, while the manner of speaking was often embarrassed.
She understood and felt her deficiencies, and preferred to serve the
cause through her pen rather than through her voice. Writing to Sarah
Douglass, in September, 1837, she says:--
"That the work in which we are engaged is in a peculiar manner dear
Angelina's, I have no doubt. God called and qualified her for it by
deep travail of spirit. I do not think my mind ever passed through the
preparation hers did, and I regard my being with her more as an
evidence of our dear Saviour's care for us, than a design that I
should perform a conspicuous part in this labor of love. Hence,
although at first I was permitted to assist her, as her strength
increased and her ability to do the work assigned her was perfected, I
was more and more withdrawn from the service. Nor do I think anyone
ought to regret it. My precious sister has a gift in lecturing, in
reasoning and elucidating, so far superior to mine, that I know the
cause is better pleaded if left entirely in her hands. My spirit has
not bowed to this dispensation without prayer for resignation to being
thus laid aside, but since I have been enabled to take the above view,
I have been contented to be silent, believing that so is the will of
God."
Sarah's religious anxieties seem all to have vanished before the
absorbing interest of her new work. She had no longer time to think of
herself, or to stand and question the Lord on every going-out and
coming-in. She relied upon Him as much as ever, but she understood Him
better, and had more faith in His loving-kindness. In a letter to T.
D. Weld, she says:--
"For many years I have been inquiring the way to Zion, and now I know
not but I shall have to surrender all or many long-cherished points of
religion, and come back to the one simple direction: 'Follow after
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.'"
All her letters show how much happier she was under her new
experiences. Angelina thus writes of her:--
"Sister Sarah enjoys more real comfort of mind than I ever saw her
enjoy before, and it is delightful to be thus yoked with her in this
work."
But with Sarah's wider, fuller sympathies came bitter regrets over the
spiritual bondage which had kept her idle and useless so long. And
yet, in spite of all, her heart still clung to the Society of Friends,
and the struggle to give them up, to resign the long-cherished hope of
being permitted to preach among them the unsearchable riches of
Christ, was very great. But conscientious and true to her convictions
even here, as her own eyes had been mercifully opened to the faults of
this system of religion, she must do what she could to help others.
Under a solemn sense of responsibility, she wrote and printed a
pamphlet exposing the errors of the Quaker Church, and showing the
withering influence it exerted over all moral and religious progress.
For this, she doubted not, she would be at once disowned; but Friends
seem to have been very loth to part with the two rebellious subjects,
who had certainly given them much trouble, but in whom they could not
help feeling a certain pride of ownership. They showed their
willingness to be patient yet a little while longer.
All through the summer and early fall, the meetings were continued
with slightly decreasing opposition, and continued abuse from press
and pulpit and "good society." Sarah still bore her share of the
labors, frequently speaking an hour at a time, and taking charge
chiefly of the legal side of the question of slavery, while the moral
and religious sides were left for Angelina. At Amesbury, Angelina
writes:--
"We met the mother, aunt, and sister of brother Whittier. They
received us at their sweet little cottage with sincere pleasure, I
believe, they being as thoroughgoing as their dear J.G.W., whom they
seem to know how to value. He was absent, serving the good cause in
New York."
At an evening meeting they held at Amesbury, a letter was handed
Angelina, which stated that some gentlemen were present, who had just
returned from the South, and had formed very different opinions from
those of the lecturers, and would like to state them to the meeting.
Sarah read the letter aloud, and requested the gentlemen to proceed
with their remarks. Two arose, and soon showed how little they really
knew, and how close an affinity they felt with slave-holders. A
discussion ensued, which lasted an hour, when Angelina went on with
her lecture on the "Dangers of Slavery." When it was over, the two
gentlemen of Southern sympathies requested that another opportunity be
granted for a free discussion of the subject. This was agreed to, and
the 19th of the month, August, settled upon.
This was another and a great step forward, and when known gave rise to
renewed denunciations, the press being particularly severe against
such an unheard-of thing, which, it was declared, would not be
tolerated if the Misses Grimké were not members of the Society of
Friends. The abolitionists, however, rallied to their support, H.B.
Stanton even proposing to arrange some meeting where he and they could
speak together. But even Angelina shrank from such an irretrievable
committal on his part as this would be, and did not think the time had
yet come for such an anomaly. On the 19th they returned to Amesbury,
and Angelina writes that great excitement prevailed, and that many had
come from neighboring towns to hear two _Massachusetts men defend_
slavery against the accusations of two _Southern women_. "May the
blessed Master," she adds, "stand at our right hand in this trying and
uncommon predicament."
Two evenings were given to the discussion, the hall being packed both
evenings, many, even ladies, standing the whole time. Angelina gives
no details about it, as, she says, she sends a paper with a full
account to Jane Smith; but we may judge of the interest it excited
from the fact that the people urged a continuance of the discussion
for two more evenings, which, however, the sisters were obliged to
decline. Angelina adds:--
"Everyone is talking about it; but we have given great offence on
account of our womanhood, which seems to be as objectionable as our
abolitionism. The whole land seems aroused to discussion on the
province of woman, and I am glad of it. We are willing to bear the
brunt of the storm, if we can only be the means of making a breach in
the wall of public opinion, which lies right in the way of woman's
true dignity, honor, and usefulness. Sister Sarah does preach up
woman's rights most nobly and fearlessly, and we find that many of our
New England sisters are prepared to receive these strange doctrines,
feeling, as they do, that our whole sex needs emancipation from the
thraldom of public opinion. What dost thou think of some of _them
walking_ two, four, six, and eight miles to attend our meetings?"
This preaching of the much-vexed doctrine was, however, done chiefly
in private, indeed altogether so by Angelina. Sarah's nature was so
impulsive that she could not always refrain from putting in a stroke
for her cherished views when it seemed to fit well into the argument
of a lecture. What prominent abolitionists thought of the subject in
its relation to the anti-slavery cause, and especially what T.D. Weld
and John G. Whittier thought, must be told in another chapter.