"Every leaf we have seen, connects its work with the entire and
accumulated result of the work of its predecessors. Dying, it
leaves its own small but well-labored thread; adding, if
imperceptibly, yet essentially, to the strength, from root to
crest, of the trunk on which it has lived, and fitting that trunk
for better service to the next year's foliage."
Let these words, printed on my titlepage, show the modesty of my aim,
and the conscientious steadfastness of my purpose. As the leaf is to the
tree, so is the individual to society. Tear away a single leaf from the
towering crest, and the trunk does not seem to suffer: nevertheless, one
small thread withers, one channel dries up, one source of beauty and use
fails; and, from that moment, a certain sidewise tendency marks the
growth.
To compact carefully one "well-labored thread," is all that I have
sought to do,--to write a little book, that women might be won to read,
as conscientiously as if it were a heavy tome, to be endlessly consulted
by the bench.
In writing these three lectures, I feel quite sure that I must have made
use of many significant expressions borrowed from those who have broken
the way for me. For many years an extemporaneous lecturer on this and
kindred topics, I have so wrought certain modes of expression into the
fabric of my thought, that I do not _know_ where to put my
quotation-marks. To Mrs. Hugo Reed, for instance, I know I must be
under great obligations; and I can only hope, that she will trust me
with her thoughts and words as generously as I desire to trust all my
readers with mine. It is little matter who does the work, so that it be
done; but I owe to one author, in particular, something like an
explanation.
A few days before the third of these lectures was delivered in Boston
(that is, before Jan. 23, 1861), a gentleman from Paris brought me from
Madame d'Héricourt a book called "La Femme Affranchie," an answer to
Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, and Comte, which its author kindly desired
I should translate for the American market. Unable to comply with her
request, some weeks elapsed before I opened the book. I was struck with
the energy, self-possession, and rapidity with which she seized the
various points of the subject, with the thoroughness of her assault, and
the temper of her argument. I did not sympathize in all her methods or
conclusions; but I was interested to observe, that, in what I had then
written and publicly spoken of the relations between suffrage and
humanity, I had, in several instances, used her very words, or she had
used mine. I did not alter my manuscript; but, with better times, we may
hope for a translation of her spirited volumes, and the public will then
do justice to her precedence.
I have been anxious to have positive proof of my conjecture in regard to
the authorship of the "Lawe's Resolution of the Rights of Women;" but
persevering endeavors in England, in several directions, have only left
the matter as it stands in the text. It would be very interesting to
know something of the private history of the man who wrote that book.
In the first of the following lectures, I have ventured a rhetorical
allusion to the blue-laws of Connecticut. Since it went to press, I have
seen it stated, on high authority, that any American writer who should
"profess to believe in the existence of the blue-laws of New Haven would
simply proclaim himself a dunce;" and the "Saturday Review" has been
handled without gloves for taking this existence for granted.
I never supposed that the term "blue" applied to the color of the paper
on which such laws were printed, any more than I supposed "blue
Presbyterianism" referred to the color of the presbyters' gowns. I
supposed it was the outgrowth of a popular sarcasm, descriptive, not of
a "veritable code," nor of a "practical code unpublished," but of such
portions of the general code as were repugnant to common sense, and the
genial nature of man. This I still think will be found to be the case;
and it is certainly to Connecticut divines and Connecticut newspapers
that we owe the popular impression.
It was in the forty-sixth year of the independence of the United States
that S. Andrus & Co., of Hartford, published a volume purporting to be a
compendium of early judicial proceedings in Connecticut, and especially
of that portion of the proceedings of the Colony of New Haven commonly
called the "blue-laws." Charles A. Ingersoll, Esq., testified to the
correctness of these copies of the ancient record.
As I quote this title wholly from memory, I am unable to say whether the
colony ever fined a bishop for kissing his own wife on Sunday; but I
have read more than once of such fines; and, if no laws remain
unrepealed on the Connecticut statute-book quite as absurd in their
spirit and general tendency, there are many on those of Massachusetts
and New Hampshire: so I shall let my rhetorical flourish stand.
To my English friends, to Mr. Herndon of Illinois, Mr. Higginson, and
Samuel F. Haven, Esq., of Worcester, I owe my usual acknowledgments for
books lent, and service proffered, with a generosity and graceful
readiness cheering to remember.
Nor will I omit, in what may be a last opportunity, to bear faithful
testimony to the assistance rendered, in all my studies of this sort, by
my friend, Mr. John Patton, of Montreal. No single person has helped me
so much, so wisely, or so well.
In order to secure technical accuracy, my manuscript and proofs have
been subjected to the revision of my friend, the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall.
The principal alteration which Mr. Sewall has made, has been the
substitution of the word "suffrage" for that of "franchise;" which
latter I used in the Continental fashion. I prefer it to "suffrage,"
because it seems to have a broader signification; but I yield it to his
suggestion.
I would gladly have dedicated this volume to the memory of the late John
W. Browne, whose pure purpose and eminent gifts made me rejoice, while
he was living, to call him friend. As, however, he never read the whole
of the manuscript, I have given it a dedication "to the friends of
forsaken women," which no one, who knew him well, will fail to perceive
includes him.
BOSTON, Sept. 1, 1861.