History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
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Title: History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
Editor: Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Susan B. Anthony
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Release date: February 7, 2009 [eBook #28020]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
Edited by
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AND MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.
Illustrated with Steel Engravings.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. I.
1848-1861.
"GOVERNMENTS DERIVE THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED."
[Illustration: FRANCES WRIGHT (with autograph).]
Second Edition.
Susan B. Anthony.
Rochester, N. Y.: Charles Mann.
London: 25 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.
Paris. G. Fischbacher, 33 Rue De Seine.
1889.
Copyright, 1881, by
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and
Matilda Joslyn Gage.
Copyright, 1887, by Susan B. Anthony.
THESE VOLUMES
ARE
AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
TO THE
Memory of
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT,
FRANCES WRIGHT, LUCRETIA MOTT, HARRIET MARTINEAU, LYDIA MARIA CHILD,
MARGARET FULLER, SARAH AND ANGELINA GRIMKÉ, JOSEPHINE S. GRIFFING,
MARTHA C. WRIGHT, HARRIOT K. HUNT, M.D., MARIANA W. JOHNSON,
ALICE AND PHEBE CAREY, ANN PRESTON, M.D., LYDIA MOTT,
ELIZA W. FARNHAM, LYDIA F. FOWLER, M.D.,
PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS,
Whose Earnest Lives and Fearless Words, in Demanding
Political Rights for Women, have been,
in the Preparation of these Pages,
a Constant Inspiration
TO
The Editors.
PREFACE.
In preparing this work, our object has been to put into permanent
shape the few scattered reports of the Woman Suffrage Movement still
to be found, and to make it an arsenal of facts for those who are
beginning to inquire into the demands and arguments of the leaders of
this reform. Although the continued discussion of the political rights
of woman during the last thirty years, forms a most important link in
the chain of influences tending to her emancipation, no attempt at its
history has been made. In giving the inception and progress of this
agitation, we who have undertaken the task have been moved by the
consideration that many of oar co-workers have already fallen asleep,
and that in a few years all who could tell the story will have passed
away.
In collecting material for these volumes, most of those of whom we
solicited facts have expressed themselves deeply interested in our
undertaking, and have gladly contributed all they could, feeling that
those identified with this reform were better qualified to prepare a
faithful history with greater patience and pleasure, than those of
another generation possibly could.
A few have replied, "It is too early to write the history of this
movement; wait until our object is attained; the actors themselves can
not write an impartial history; they have had their discords,
divisions, personal hostilities, that unfit them for the work."
Viewing the enfranchisement of woman as the most important demand of
the century, we have felt no temptation to linger over individual
differences. These occur in all associations, and may be regarded in
this case as an evidence of the growing self-assertion and
individualism in woman.
Woven with the threads of this history, we have given some personal
reminiscences and brief biographical sketches. To the few who, through
ill-timed humility, have refused to contribute any of their early
experiences we would suggest, that as each brick in a magnificent
structure might have had no special value alone on the road-side, yet,
in combination with many others, its size, position, quality, becomes
of vital consequence; so with the actors in any great reform, though
they may be of little value in themselves; as a part of a great
movement they may be worthy of mention--even important to the
completion of an historical record.
To be historians of a reform in which we have been among the chief
actors, has its points of embarrassment as well as advantage. Those
who fight the battle can best give what all readers like to know--the
impelling motives to action; the struggle in the face of opposition;
the vexation under ridicule; and the despair in success too long
deferred. Moreover, there is an interest in history written from a
subjective point of view, that may compensate the reader in this case
for any seeming egotism or partiality he may discover. As an
autobiography is more interesting than a sketch by another, so is a
history written by its actors, as in both cases we get nearer the soul
of the subject.
We have finished our task, and we hope the contribution we have made
may enable some other hand in the future to write a more complete
history of "the most momentous reform that has yet been launched on
the world--the first organized protest against the injustice which has
brooded over the character and destiny of one-half the human race."
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
PRECEDING CAUSES.
CHAPTER II.
WOMAN IN NEWSPAPERS.
CHAPTER III.
THE WORLD'S ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, LONDON, JUNE 13, 1840.
Individualism rather than Authority--Personal appearance of
Abolitionists--Attempt to silence Woman--Doable battle against the
tyranny of sex and color--Bigoted Abolitionists--James G. Birney likes
freedom on a Southern plantation, but not at his own fireside--John
Bull never dreamt that Woman would answer his call--The venerable
Thomas Clarkson received by the Convention standing--Lengthy debate on
"Female" delegates--The "Females" rejected--William Lloyd Garrison
refusing to sit in the Convention 50
CHAPTER IV.
NEW YORK.
The First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, July 19-80,
1848--Property Bights of Women secured--Judge Fine, George Geddes,
and Mr. Hadley pushing the Bill through--Danger of meddling with
well-settled conditions of domestic happiness--Mrs. Barbara Hertell's
will--Richard Hunt's tea-table--The eventful day--James Mott
President--Declaration of sentiments--Convention in Rochester--
Opposition with Bible arguments 63
CHAPTER V.
MRS. COLLINS' REMINISCENCES.
The first Suffrage Society--Methodist class-leader whips his
wife--Theology enchains the soul--The status of women and slaves the
same--The first medical college opened to women--Petitions to the
Legislature laughed at, and laid on the table--Dependence woman's best
protection; her weakness her sweetest charm--Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's
letter--Sketch of Ernestine L. Rose 88
CHAPTER VI.
OHIO.
The promised land of fugitives--"Uncle Tom's Cabin"--Salem Convention,
1850--Akron, 1851--Massilon, 1853--The address to the women of
Ohio--The Mohammedan law forbidding pigs, dogs, women, and other
impure animals to enter a Mosque--The _New York Tribune_--Cleveland
Convention, 1853--Hon. Joshua K. Giddings--Letter from Horace
Greeley--A glowing eulogy to Mary Wollstonecraft--William Henry
Channing's Declaration--The pulpit and public sentiment--President Asa
Mahan debates--The Rev. Dr. Nevin pulls Mr. Garrison's nose--
Antoinette L. Brown describes her exit from the World's Temperance
Convention--Cincinnati Convention, 1855--Jane Elizabeth Jones'
Report, 1861 101
CHAPTER VII.
REMINISCENCES BY CLARINA I. HOWARD NICHOLS.
VERMONT: Editor _Windham County Democrat_--Property Laws, 1847 and
1849--Address to the Legislature on school suffrage, 1852.
WISCONSIN: Woman's State Temperance Society--Lydia F. Fowler in
company--Opposition of Clergy--"Woman's Rights" wouldn't
do--Advertised "Men's Rights."
KANSAS: Free State Emigration, 1854--Gov. Robinson and
Senator Pomeroy--Woman's Rights speeches on Steamboat, and at
Lawrence--Constitutional Convention, 1859--State Woman Suffrage
Association--John O. Wattles, President--Aid from the Francis Jackson
Fund--Canvassing the State--School Suffrage gained.
MISSOURI: Lecturing at St. Joseph, 1858, on Col. Scott's
Invitation--Westport and the John Brown raid, 1859--St. Louis,
1854--Frances D. Gage, Rev. Wm. G. Eliot, and Rev. Mr. Weaver 171
CHAPTER VIII.
MASSACHUSETTS.
Women in the Revolution--Anti-Tea Leagues--Phillis Wheatley--Mistress
Anne Hutchinson--Heroines in the Slavery Conflict--Women Voting under
the Colonial Charter--Mary Upton Ferrin Petitions the Legislature in
1848--Woman's Rights Convention in 1850, '51--Letter of Harriet
Martineau from England--Letter of Jeannie Deroine from a Prison Cell
in Paris--Editorial from _The Christian Enquirer_--_The Una_, edited
by Paulina Wright Davis--Constitutional Convention in 1858--Before the
Legislature in 1857--Harriot K. Hunt's Protest against Taxation--Lucy
Stone's Protest against the Marriage Laws--Boston Conventions--
Theodore Parker on Woman's Position 201
CHAPTER IX.
INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.
Indiana Missionary Station--Gen. Arthur St. Clair--Indian
surprises--The terrible war-whoop--One hundred women join the army,
and are killed fighting bravely--Prairie schooners--Manufactures in
the hands of women--Admitted to the Union in 1816--Robert Dale
Owen--Woman Suffrage Conventions--Wisconsin--C. L. Sholes' report 290
CHAPTER X.
PENNSYLVANIA.
William Penn--Independence Hall--British troops--Heroism of
women--Lydia Darrah--Who designed the Flag--Anti-slavery movements in
Philadelphia--Pennsylvania Hall destroyed by a mob--David Paul
Brown--Fugitives--Millard Fillmore--John Brown--Angelina Grimké--Abby
Kelly--Mary Grew--Temperance in 1848--Hannah Darlington and Ann
Preston before the Legislature--Medical College for Women in
1850--Westchester Woman's Rights Convention, 1852--Philadelphia
Convention, 1854--Lucretia Mott answers Richard H. Dana--Jane Grey
Swisshelm--Sarah Josepha Hale--Anna McDowell--Rachel Foster searching
the records--Sketch of Angelina Grimké 320
CHAPTER XI.
LUCRETIA MOTT.
Eulogy at the Memorial Services held at Washington by the National
Woman Suffrage Association, January 19, 1881. By Elizabeth Cady
Stanton 407
CHAPTER XII.
NEW JERSEY.
Tory feeling in New Jersey--Hannah Arnett rebuked the traitor
spirit--Mrs. Dissosway rejects all proposals to disloyalty--Triumphal
arch erected by the ladies of Trenton in honor of Washington--His
letter to the ladies--The origin of Woman Suffrage in New Jersey--A
paper read by William A. Whitehead before the Historical
Society--Defects in the Constitution of New Jersey--A singular
pamphlet called "Eumenes"--Opinion of Hon. Charles James Fox--Mr.
Whitehead reviewed 441
CHAPTER XIII.
MRS. STANTON'S REMINISCENCES.
Mrs. Stanton's and Miss Anthony's first meeting--An objective view of
these ladies from a friend's standpoint--A glimpse at their private
life--The pronunciamentos they issued from the fireside--Mrs. Wright,
Mrs. Seward, Mrs. Worden, Mrs. Mott, in council--How Mrs. Worden
voted--Ladies at Newport dancing with low necks and short sleeves, and
objecting to the publicity of the platform--Senator Seward discussing
Woman's Rights at a dinner-party--Mrs. Seward declares herself a
friend to the reform--A magnetic circle in Central New York--Matilda
Joslyn Gage: her early education and ancestors--A series of
Anti-Slavery Conventions from Buffalo to Albany--Mobbed at every
point--Mayor Thatcher maintains order in the Convention at the
Capital--Great excitement over a fugitive wife from the insane
asylum--The Bloomer costume--Gerrit Smith's home 456
CHAPTER XIV.
NEW YORK.
First Steps in New York--Woman's Temperance Convention, Albany,
January, 1852--New York Woman's State Temperance Society, Rochester,
April, 1852--Women before the Legislature pleading for a Maine
Law--Women rejected as Delegates to Men's State Conventions at Albany
and Syracuse, 1852; at the Brick Church Meeting and World's
Temperance Convention In New York, 1853--Horace Greeley defends the
Rights of Women In _The New York Tribune_--The Teachers' State
Conventions--The Syracuse National Woman's Rights Convention,
1852--Mob in the Broadway Tabernacle Woman's Rights Convention through
two days, 1853--State Woman's Rights Convention at Rochester,
December, 1853--Albany Convention, February, 1854, and Hearing before
the Legislature demanding the Right of Suffrage--A State Committee
appointed--Susan B. Anthony General Agent--Conventions at Saratoga
Springs, 1854, '55, '59--Annual State Conventions with Legislative
Hearings and Reports of Committees, until the War--Married Women's
Property Law, 1860--Bill before the Legislature Granting Divorce for
Drunkenness--Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed oppose it--Ernestine L.
Rose, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Address the
Legislature in favor of the Bill--Robert Dale Owen defends the Measure
in _The New York Tribune_--National Woman's Rights Conventions in New
York City, 1856, '58, '59, '60--Status of the Woman's Rights Movement
at the Opening of the War, 1861 472
CHAPTER XV.
WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.
Woman under old religions--Woman took part in offices of early
Christian Church Councils--Original sin--Celibacy of the clergy--Their
degrading sensuality--Feudalism--Marriage--Debasing externals and
daring ideas--Witchcraft--Three striking points for consideration--
Burning of Witches--Witchcraft in New England--Marriage with
devils--Rights of property not recognized in woman--Wife
ownership--Women legislated for as slaves--Marriage under the Greek
Church--The Salic and Cromwellian eras--The Reformation--Woman under
monastic rules in the home--The Mormon doctrine regarding woman; its
logical result--Milton responsible for many existing views in regard
to woman--Woman's subordination taught to-day--The See trial--Right
Rev. Coxe--Rev. Knox-Little--Pan-Presbyterians--Quakers not as liberal
as they have been considered--Restrictive action of the Methodist
Church--Offensive debate upon ordaining Miss Oliver--The Episcopal
Church and its restrictions--Sunday-school teachings--Week-day school
teachings--Sermon upon woman's subordination by the President of a
Baptist Theological Seminary--Professor Christlieb of Germany--"Dear,
will you bring me my shawl?"--Female sex looked upon as a
degradation--A sacrilegious child--Secretary Evarts, in the
Beecher-Tilton trial, upon woman's subordination--Women degraded in
science and education--Large-hearted men upon woman's degradation--
Wives still sold in the market-place as "mares," by ahalter around
their necks--Degrading servile labor performed by woman in Christian
countries--A lower degradation--"Queen's women"--"Government
women"--Interpolations in the Bible--Letter from Howard Crosby,
D.D., LL.D. 752
APPENDIX 801
LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
VOL. I.
FRANCES WRIGHT Frontispiece
ERNESTINE L. WRIGHT page 97
FRANCES D. GAGE 129
CLARINA HOWARD NICHOLS 193
PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS 273
LUCRETIA MOTT 369
ANTOINETTE L. BROWN 449
AMELIA BLOOMER 497
SUSAN B. ANTHONY 577
MARTHA C. WRIGHT 641
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON 721
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE 753
INTRODUCTION.
The prolonged slavery of woman is the darkest page in human history. A
survey of the condition of the race through those barbarous periods,
when physical force governed the world, when the motto, "might makes
right," was the law, enables one to account, for the origin of woman's
subjection to man without referring the fact to the general
inferiority of the sex, or Nature's law.
Writers on this question differ as to the cause of the universal
degradation of woman in all periods and nations.
One of the greatest minds of the century has thrown a ray of light on
this gloomy picture by tracing the origin of woman's slavery to the
same principle of selfishness and love of power in man that has thus
far dominated all weaker nations and classes. This brings hope of
final emancipation, for as all nations and classes are gradually, one
after another, asserting and maintaining their independence, the path
is clear for woman to follow. The slavish instinct of an oppressed
class has led her to toil patiently through the ages, giving all and
asking little, cheerfully sharing with man all perils and privations
by land and sea, that husband and sons might attain honor and success.
Justice and freedom for herself is her latest and highest demand.
Another writer asserts that the tyranny of man over woman has its
roots, after all, in his nobler feelings; his love, his chivalry, and
his desire to protect woman in the barbarous periods of pillage, lust,
and war. But wherever the roots may be traced, the results at this
hour are equally disastrous to woman. Her best interests and happiness
do not seem to have been consulted in the arrangements made for her
protection. She has been bought and sold, caressed and crucified at
the will and pleasure of her master. But if a chivalrous desire to
protect woman has always been the mainspring of man's dominion over
her, it should have prompted him to place in her hands the same
weapons of defense he has found to be most effective against wrong and
oppression.
It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's
slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and
religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some
weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for
centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the
progress of civilization, have reached complete equality. And did we
not also see the great changes in woman's condition, the marvelous
transformation in her character, from a toy in the Turkish harem, or a
drudge in the German fields, to a leader of thought in the literary
circles of France, England, and America!
In an age when the wrongs of society are adjusted in the courts and at
the ballot-box, material force yields to reason and majorities.
Woman's steady march onward, and her growing desire for a broader
outlook, prove that she has not reached her normal condition, and that
society has not yet conceded all that is necessary for its attainment.
Moreover, woman's discontent increases in exact proportion to her
development. Instead of a feeling of gratitude for rights accorded,
the wisest are indignant at the assumption of any legal disability
based on sex, and their feelings in this matter are a surer test of
what her nature demands, than the feelings and prejudices of the sex
claiming to be superior. American men may quiet their consciences with
the delusion that no such injustice exists in this country as in
Eastern nations, though with the general improvement in our
institutions, woman's condition must inevitably have improved also,
yet the same principle that degrades her in Turkey, insults her in
this republic. Custom forbids a woman there to enter a mosque, or call
the hour for prayers; here it forbids her a voice in Church Councils
or State Legislatures. The same taint of her primitive state of
slavery affects both latitudes.
The condition of married women, under the laws of all countries, has
been essentially that of slaves, until modified, in some respects,
within the last quarter of a century in the United States. The change
from the old Common Law of England, in regard to the civil rights of
women, from 1848 to the advance legislation in most of the Northern
States in 1880, marks an era both in the status of woman as a citizen
and in our American system of jurisprudence. When the State of New
York gave married women certain rights of property, the individual
existence of the wife was recognized, and the old idea that "husband
and wife are one, and that one the husband," received its death-blow.
From that hour the statutes of the several States have been steadily
diverging from the old English codes. Most of the Western States
copied the advance legislation of New York, and some are now even more
liberal.
The broader demand for political rights has not commanded the thought
its merits and dignity should have secured. While complaining of many
wrongs and oppressions, women themselves did not see that the
political disability of sex was the cause of all their special
grievances, and that to secure equality anywhere, it must be
recognized everywhere. Like all disfranchised classes, they begun by
asking to have certain wrongs redressed, and not by asserting their
own right to make laws for themselves.
Overburdened with cares in the isolated home, women had not the time,
education, opportunity, and pecuniary independence to put their
thoughts clearly and concisely into propositions, nor the courage to
compare their opinions with one another, nor to publish them, to any
great extent, to the world.
It requires philosophy and heroism to rise above the opinion of the
wise men of all nations and races, that to be unknown, is the highest
testimonial woman can have to her virtue, delicacy and refinement.
A certain odium has ever rested on those who have risen above the
conventional level and sought new spheres for thought and action, and
especially on the few who demand complete equality in political
rights. The leaders in this movement have been women of superior
mental and physical organization, of good social standing and
education, remarkable alike for their domestic virtues, knowledge of
public affairs, and rare executive ability; good speakers and writers,
inspiring and conducting the genuine reforms of the day; everywhere
exerting themselves to promote the best interests of society; yet they
have been uniformly ridiculed, misrepresented, and denounced in public
and private by all classes of society.
Woman's political equality with man is the legitimate outgrowth of the
fundamental principles of our Government, clearly set forth in the
Declaration of Independence in 1776, in the United States Constitution
adopted in 1784, in the prolonged debates on the origin of human
rights in the anti-slavery conflict in 1840, and in the more recent
discussions of the party in power since 1865, on the 13th, 14th, and
15th Amendments to the National Constitution; and the majority of our
leading statesmen have taken the ground that suffrage is a natural
right that may be regulated, but can not be abolished by State law.
Under the influence of these liberal principles of republicanism that
pervades all classes of American minds, however vaguely, if suddenly
called out, they might be stated, woman readily perceives the
anomalous position she occupies in a republic, where the government
and religion alike are based on individual conscience and
judgment--where the natural rights of all citizens have been
exhaustively discussed, and repeatedly declared equal.
From the inauguration of the government, representative women have
expostulated against the inconsistencies between our principles and
practices as a nation. Beginning with special grievances, woman's
protests soon took a larger scope. Having petitioned State
legislatures to change the statutes that robbed her of children,
wages, and property, she demanded that the Constitutions--State and
National--be so amended as to give her a voice in the laws, a choice
in the rulers, and protection in the exercise of her rights as a
citizen of the United States.
While the laws affecting woman's civil rights have been greatly
improved during the past thirty years, the political demand has made
but a questionable progress, though it must be counted as the chief
influence in modifying the laws. The selfishness of man was readily
enlisted in securing woman's civil rights, while the same element in
his character antagonized her demand for political equality.
Fathers who had estates to bequeath to their daughters could see the
advantage of securing to woman certain property rights that might
limit the legal power of profligate husbands.
Husbands in extensive business operations could see the advantage of
allowing the wife the right to hold separate property, settled on her
in time of prosperity, that might not be seized for his debts. Hence
in the several States able men championed these early measures. But
political rights, involving in their last results equality everywhere,
roused all the antagonism of a dominant power, against the
self-assertion of a class hitherto subservient. Men saw that with
political equality for woman, they could no longer keep her in social
subordination, and "the majority of the male sex," says John Stuart
Mill, "can not yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal." The
fear of a social revolution thus complicated the discussion. The
Church, too, took alarm, knowing that with the freedom and education
acquired in becoming a component part of the Government, woman would
not only outgrow the power of the priesthood, and religious
superstitions, but would also invade the pulpit, interpret the Bible
anew from her own stand-point, and claim an equal voice in all
ecclesiastical councils. With fierce warnings and denunciations from
the pulpit, and false interpretations of Scripture, women have been
intimidated and misled, and their religious feelings have been played
upon for their more complete subjugation. While the general principles
of the Bible are in favor of the most enlarged freedom and equality of
the race, isolated texts have been used to block the wheels of
progress in all periods; thus bigots have defended capital punishment,
intemperance, slavery, polygamy, and the subjection of woman. The
creeds of all nations make obedience to man the corner-stone of her
religious character. Fortunately, however, more liberal minds are now
giving us higher and purer expositions of the Scriptures.
As the social and religious objections appeared against the demand for
political rights, the discussion became many-sided, contradictory, and
as varied as the idiosyncrasies of individual character. Some said,
"Man is woman's natural protector, and she can safely trust him to
make laws for her." She might with fairness reply, as he uniformly
robbed her of all property rights to 1848, he can not safely be
trusted with her personal rights in 1880, though the fact that he did
make some restitution at last, might modify her distrust in the
future. However, the calendars of our courts still show that fathers
deal unjustly with daughters, husbands with wives, brothers with
sisters, and sons with their own mothers. Though woman needs the
protection of one man against his whole sex, in pioneer life, in
threading her way through a lonely forest, on the highway, or in the
streets of the metropolis on a dark night, she sometimes needs, too,
the protection of all men against this one. But even if she could be
sure, as she is not, of the ever-present, all-protecting power of one
strong arm, that would be weak indeed compared with the subtle,
all-pervading influence of just and equal laws for all women. Hence
woman's need of the ballot, that she may hold in her own right hand
the weapon of self-protection and self-defense.
Again it is said: "The women who make the demand are few in number,
and their feelings and opinions are abnormal, and therefore of no
weight in considering the aggregate judgment on the question." The
number is larger than appears on the surface, for the fear of public
ridicule, and the loss of private favors from those who shelter, feed,
and clothe them, withhold many from declaring their opinions and
demanding their rights. The ignorance and indifference of the majority
of women, as to their status as citizens of a republic, is not
remarkable, for history shows that the masses of all oppressed
classes, in the most degraded conditions, have been stolid and
apathetic until partial success had crowned the faith and enthusiasm
of the few.
The insurrections on Southern plantations were always defeated by the
doubt and duplicity of the slaves themselves. That little band of
heroes who precipitated the American Revolution in 1776 were so
ostracised that they walked the streets with bowed heads, from a sense
of loneliness and apprehension. Woman's apathy to the wrongs of her
sex, instead of being a plea for her remaining in her present
condition, is the strongest argument against it. How completely
demoralized by her subjection must she be, who does not feel her
personal dignity assailed when all women are ranked in every State
Constitution with idiots, lunatics, criminals, and minors; when in the
name of Justice, man holds one scale for woman, another for himself;
when by the spirit and letter of the laws she is made responsible for
crimes committed against her, while the male criminal goes free; when
from altars where she worships no woman may preach; when in the
courts, where girls of tender age may be arraigned for the crime of
infanticide, she may not plead for the most miserable of her sex; when
colleges she is taxed to build and endow, deny her the right to share
in their advantages; when she finds that which should be her
glory--her possible motherhood--treated everywhere by man as a
disability and a crime! A woman insensible to such indignities needs
some transformation into nobler thought, some purer atmosphere to
breathe, some higher stand-point from which to study human rights.
It is said, "the difference between the sexes indicates different
spheres." It would be nearer the truth to say the difference indicates
different duties in the same sphere, seeing that man and woman were
evidently made for each other, and have shown equal capacity in the
ordinary range of human duties. In governing nations, leading armies,
piloting ships across the sea, rowing life-boats in terrific gales; in
art, science, invention, literature, woman has proved herself the
complement of man in the world of thought and action. This difference
does not compel us to spread our tables with different food for man
and woman, nor to provide in our common schools a different course of
study for boys and girls. Sex pervades all nature, yet the male and
female tree and vine and shrub rejoice in the same sunshine and shade.
The earth and air are free to all the fruits and flowers, yet each
absorbs what best ensures its growth. But whatever it is, it requires
no special watchfulness on our part to see that it is maintained. This
plea, when closely analyzed, is generally found to mean woman's
inferiority.
The superiority of man, however, does not enter into the demand for
suffrage, for in this country all men vote; and as the lower orders of
men are not superior, either by nature or grace, to the higher orders
of women, they must hold and exercise the right of self-government on
some other ground than superiority to women.
Again it is said, "Woman when independent and self-asserting will lose
her influence over man." In the happiest conditions in life, men and
women will ever be mutually dependent on each other. The complete
development of all woman's powers will not make her less capable of
steadfast love and friendship, but give her new strength to meet the
emergencies of life, to aid those who look to her for counsel and
support. Men are uniformly more attentive to women of rank, family,
and fortune, who least need their care, than to any other class. We do
not see their protecting love generally extending to the helpless and
unfortunate ones of earth. Wherever the skilled hands and cultured
brain of woman have made the battle of life easier for man, he has
readily pardoned her sound judgment and proper self-assertion. But the
prejudices and preferences of man should be a secondary consideration,
in presence of the individual happiness and freedom of woman. The
formation of her character and its influence on the human race, is a
larger question than man's personal liking. There is no fear, however,
that when a superior order of women shall grace the earth, there will
not be an order of men to match them, and influence over such minds
will atone for the loss of it elsewhere.
An honest fear is sometimes expressed "that woman would degrade
politics, and politics would degrade woman." As the influence of woman
has been uniformly elevating in new civilizations, in missionary work
in heathen nations, in schools, colleges, literature, and in general
society, it is fair to suppose that politics would prove no exception.
On the other hand, as the art of government is the most exalted of all
sciences, and statesmanship requires the highest order of mind, the
ennobling and refining influence of such pursuits must elevate rather
than degrade woman. When politics degenerate into bitter persecutions
and vulgar court-gossip, they are degrading to man, and his honor,
virtue, dignity, and refinement are as valuable to woman as her
virtues, are to him.
Again, it is said, "Those who make laws must execute them; government
needs force behind it,--a woman could not be sheriff or a policeman."
She might not fill these offices in the way men do, but she might far
more effectively guard the morals of society, and the sanitary
conditions of our cities. It might with equal force be said that a
woman of culture and artistic taste can not keep house, because she
can not wash and iron with her own hands, and clean the range and
furnace. At the head of the police, a woman could direct her forces
and keep order without ever using a baton or a pistol in her own
hands. "The elements of sovereignty," says Blackstone, "are three:
wisdom, goodness, and power." Conceding to woman wisdom and goodness,
as they are not strictly masculine virtues, and substituting moral
power for physical force, we have the necessary elements of government
for most of life's emergencies. Women manage families, mixed schools,
charitable institutions, large boarding-houses and hotels, farms and
steam-engines, drunken and disorderly men and women, and stop street
fights, as well as men do. The queens in history compare favorably
with the kings.
But, "in the settlement of national difficulties," it is said, "the
last resort is war; shall we summon our wives and mothers to the
battle-field?" Women have led armies in all ages, have held positions
in the army and navy for years in disguise. Some fought, bled, and
died on the battle-field in our late war. They performed severe labors
in the hospitals and sanitary department. Wisdom would dictate a
division of labor in war as well as in peace, assigning each their
appropriate department.
Numerous classes of men who enjoy their political rights are exempt
from military duty. All men over forty-five, all who suffer mental or
physical disability, such as the loss of an eye or a forefinger;
clergymen, physicians, Quakers, school-teachers, professors, and
presidents of colleges, judges, legislators, congressmen, State prison
officials, and all county, State and National officers; fathers,
brothers, or sons having certain relatives dependent on them for
support,--all of these summed up in every State in the Union make
millions of voters thus exempted.
In view of this fact there is no force in the plea, that "if women
vote they must fight." Moreover, war is not the normal state of the
human family in its higher development, but merely a feature of
barbarism lasting on through the transition of the race, from the
savage to the scholar. When England and America settled the Alabama
Claims by the Geneva Arbitration, they pointed the way for the future
adjustment of all national difficulties.
Some fear, "If women assume all the duties political equality implies,
that the time and attention necessary to the duties of home life will
be absorbed in the affairs of State." The act of voting occupies but
little time in itself, and the vast majority of women will attend to
their family and social affairs to the neglect of the State, just as
men do to their individual interests. The virtue of patriotism is
subordinate in most souls to individual and family aggrandizement. As
to offices, it is not to be supposed that the class of men now
elected will resign to women their chances, and if they should to any
extent, the necessary number of women to fill the offices would make
no apparent change in our social circles. If, for example, the Senate
of the United States should be entirely composed of women, but two in
each State would be withdrawn from the pursuit of domestic happiness.
For many reasons, under all circumstances, a comparatively smaller
proportion of women than men would actively engage in politics.
As the power to extend or limit the suffrage rests now wholly in the
hands of man, he can commence the experiment with as small a number as
he sees fit, by requiring any lawful qualification. Men were admitted
on property and educational qualifications in most of the States, at
one time, and still are in some--so hard has it been for man to
understand the theory of self-government. Three-fourths of the women
would be thus disqualified, and the remaining fourth would be too
small a minority to precipitate a social revolution or defeat
masculine measures in the halls of legislation, even if women were a
unit on all questions and invariably voted together, which they would
not. In this view, the path of duty is plain for the prompt action of
those gentlemen who fear universal suffrage for women, but are willing
to grant it on property and educational qualifications. While those
who are governed by the law of expediency should give the measure of
justice they deem safe, let those who trust the absolute right
proclaim the higher principle in government, "equal rights to all."
Many seeming obstacles in the way of woman's enfranchisement will be
surmounted by reforms in many directions. Co-operative labor and
co-operative homes will remove many difficulties in the way of woman's
success as artisan and housekeeper, when admitted to the governing
power. The varied forms of progress, like parallel lines, move forward
simultaneously in the same direction. Each reform, at its inception,
seems out of joint with all its surroundings; but the discussion
changes the conditions, and brings them in line with the new idea.
The isolated household is responsible for a large share of woman's
ignorance and degradation. A mind always in contact with children and
servants, whose aspirations and ambitions rise no higher than the roof
that shelters it, is necessarily dwarfed in its proportions. The
advantages to the few whose fortunes enable them to make the isolated
household a more successful experiment, can not outweigh the
difficulties of the many who are wholly sacrificed to its
maintenance.
Quite as many false ideas prevail as to woman's true position in the
home as to her status elsewhere. Womanhood is the great fact in her
life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.
Governments legislate for men; we do not have one code for bachelors,
another for husbands and fathers; neither have the social relations of
women any significance in their demands for civil and political
rights. Custom and philosophy, in regard to woman's happiness, are
alike based on the idea that her strongest social sentiment is love of
children; that in this relation her soul finds complete satisfaction.
But the love of offspring, common to all orders of women and all forms
of animal life, tender and beautiful as it is, can not as a sentiment
rank with conjugal love. The one calls out only the negative virtues
that belong to apathetic classes, such as patience, endurance,
self-sacrifice, exhausting the brain-forces, ever giving, asking
nothing in return; the other, the outgrowth of the two supreme powers
in nature, the positive and negative magnetism, the centrifugal and
centripetal forces, the masculine and feminine elements, possessing
the divine power of creation, in the universe of thought and action.
Two pure souls fused into one by an impassioned love--friends,
counselors--a mutual support and inspiration to each other amid life's
struggles, must know the highest human happiness;--this is marriage;
and this is the only corner-stone of an enduring home. Neither does
ordinary motherhood, assumed without any high purpose or preparation,
compare in sentiment with the lofty ambition and conscientious
devotion of the artist whose pure children of the brain in poetry,
painting, music, and science are ever beckoning her upward into an
ideal world of beauty. They who give the world a true philosophy, a
grand poem, a beautiful painting or statue, or can tell the story of
every wandering star; a George Eliot, a Rosa Bonheur, an Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, a Maria Mitchell--whose blood has flowed to the
higher arches of the brain,--have lived to a holier purpose than they
whose children are of the flesh alone, into whose minds they have
breathed no clear perceptions of great principles, no moral
aspiration, no spiritual life.
Her rights are as completely ignored in what is adjudged to be woman's
sphere as out of it; the woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and
mother. Neither law, gospel, public sentiment, nor domestic affection
shield her from excessive and enforced maternity, depleting alike to
mother and child;--all opportunity for mental improvement, health,
happiness--yea, life itself, being ruthlessly sacrificed. The weazen,
weary, withered, narrow-minded wife-mother of half a dozen
children--her interests all centering at her fireside, forms a painful
contrast in many a household to the liberal, genial, brilliant,
cultured husband in the zenith of his power, who has never given one
thought to the higher life, liberty, and happiness of the woman by his
side; believing her self-abnegation to be Nature's law.
It is often asked, "if political equality would not rouse antagonisms
between the sexes?" If it could be proved that men and women had been
harmonious in all ages and countries, and that women were happy and
satisfied in their slavery, one might hesitate in proposing any change
whatever. But the apathy, the helpless, hopeless resignation of a
subjected class can not be called happiness. The more complete the
despotism, the more smoothly all things move on the surface. "Order
reigns in Warsaw." In right conditions, the interests of man and woman
are essentially one; but in false conditions, they must ever be
opposed. The principle of equality of rights underlies all human
sentiments, and its assertion by any individual or class must rouse
antagonism, unless conceded. This has been the battle of the ages, and
will be until all forms of slavery are banished from the earth.
Philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, alike paint woman the
victim ever of man's power and selfishness. And now all writers on
Eastern civilization tell us, the one insurmountable obstacle to the
improvement of society in those countries, is the ignorance and
superstition of the women. Stronger than the trammels of custom and
law, is her religion, which teaches that her condition is
Heaven-ordained. As the most ignorant minds cling with the greatest
tenacity to the dogmas and traditions of their faith, a reform that
involves an attack on that stronghold can only be carried by the
education of another generation. Hence the self-assertion, the
antagonism, the rebellion of woman, so much deplored in England and
the United States, is the hope of our higher civilization. A woman
growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion,
having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in
Chinese shoes, can not brook any disabilities based on sex alone,
without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it.
The change needed to restore good feeling can not be reached by
remanding woman to the spinning-wheel, and the contentment of her
grandmother, but by conceding to her every right which the spirit of
the age demands. Modern inventions have banished the spinning-wheel,
and the same law of progress makes the woman of to-day a different
woman from her grandmother.
With these brief replies to the oft-repeated objections made by the
opposition, we hope to rouse new thoughts in minds prepared to receive
them. That equal rights for woman have not long ago been secured, is
due to causes beyond the control of the actors in this reform. "The
success of a movement," says Lecky, "depends much less upon the force
of its arguments, or upon the ability of its advocates, than the
predisposition of society to receive it."
CHAPTER I.
PRECEDING CAUSES.
As civilization advances there is a continual change in the standard
of human rights. In barbarous ages the right of the strongest was the
only one recognized; but as mankind progressed in the arts and
sciences intellect began to triumph over brute force. Change is a law
of life, and the development of society a natural growth. Although to
this law we owe the discoveries of unknown worlds, the inventions of
machinery, swifter modes of travel, and clearer ideas as to the value
of human life and thought, yet each successive change has met with the
most determined opposition. Fortunately, progress is not the result of
pre-arranged plans of individuals, but is born of a fortuitous
combination of circumstances that compel certain results, overcoming
the natural inertia of mankind. There is a certain enjoyment in
habitual sluggishness; in rising each morning with the same ideas as
the night before; in retiring each night with the thoughts of the
morning. This inertia of mind and body has ever held the multitude in
chains. Thousands have thus surrendered their most sacred rights of
conscience. In all periods of human development, thinking has been
punished as a crime, which is reason sufficient to account for the
general passive resignation of the masses to their conditions and
environments.
Again, "subjection to the powers that be" has been the lesson of both
Church and State, throttling science, checking invention, crushing
free thought, persecuting and torturing those who have dared to speak
or act outside of established authority. Anathemas and the stake have
upheld the Church, banishment and the scaffold the throne, and the
freedom of mankind has ever been sacrificed to the idea of protection.
So entirely has the human will been enslaved in all classes of society
in the past, that monarchs have humbled themselves to popes, nations
have knelt at the feet of monarchs, and individuals have sold
themselves to others under the subtle promise of "protection"--a word
that simply means release from all responsibility, all use of one's
own faculties--a word that has ever blinded people to its true
significance. Under authority and this false promise of "protection,"
self-reliance, the first incentive to freedom, has not only been lost,
but the aversion of mankind for responsibility has been fostered by
the few, whose greater bodily strength, superior intellect, or the
inherent law of self-development has impelled to active exertion.
Obedience and self-sacrifice--the virtues prescribed for subordinate
classes, and which naturally grow out of their condition--are alike
opposed to the theory of individual rights and self-government. But as
even the inertia of mankind is not proof against the internal law of
progress, certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes
invented, in order to intimidate the masses. Hence, the Church made
free thought the worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of
blasphemies; while the State proclaimed her temporal power of divine
origin, and all rebellion high treason alike to God and the king, to
be speedily and severely punished. In this union of Church and State
mankind touched the lowest depth of degradation. As late as the time
of Bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit was obedience
to the temporal power.
All these influences fell with crushing weight on woman; more
sensitive, helpless, and imaginative, she suffered a thousand fears
and wrongs where man did one. Lecky, in his "History of Rationalism in
Europe," shows that the vast majority of the victims of fanaticism and
witchcraft, burned, drowned, and tortured, were women. Guizot, in his
"History of Civilization," while decrying the influence of caste in
India, and deploring it as the result of barbarism, thanks God there
is no system of caste in Europe; ignoring the fact that in all its
dire and baneful effects, the caste of sex everywhere exists, creating
diverse codes of morals for men and women, diverse penalties for
crime, diverse industries, diverse religions and educational rights,
and diverse relations to the Government. Men are the Brahmins, women
the Pariahs, under our existing civilization. Herbert Spencer's
"Descriptive Sociology of England," an epitome of English history,
says: "Our laws are based on the all-sufficiency of man's rights, and
society exists to-day for woman only in so far as she is in the
keeping of some man." Thus society, including our systems of
jurisprudence, civil and political theories, trade, commerce,
education, religion, friendships, and family life, have all been
framed on the sole idea of man's rights. Hence, he takes upon himself
the responsibility of directing and controlling the powers of woman,
under that all-sufficient excuse of tyranny, "divine right." This same
cry of divine authority created the castes of India; has for ages
separated its people into bodies, with different industrial,
educational, civil, religious, and political rights; has maintained
this separation for the benefit of the superior class, and sedulously
taught the doctrine that any change in existing conditions would be a
sin of most direful magnitude.
The opposition of theologians, though first to be exhibited when any
change is proposed, for reason that change not only takes power from
them, but lessens the reverence of mankind for them, is not in its
final result so much to be feared as the opposition of those holding
political power. The Church, knowing this, has in all ages aimed to
connect itself with the State. Political freedom guarantees religious
liberty, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of one's own
conscience, fosters a spirit of inquiry, creates self-reliance,
induces a feeling of responsibility.
The people who demand authority for every thought and action, who look
to others for wisdom and protection, are those who perpetuate tyranny.
The thinkers and actors who find their authority within, are those who
inaugurate freedom. Obedience to outside authority to which woman has
everywhere been trained, has not only dwarfed her capacity, but made
her a retarding force in civilization, recognized at last by statesmen
as a dangerous element to free institutions. A recent writer, speaking
of Turkey, says: "All attempts for the improvement of that nation must
prove futile, owing to the degradation of its women; and their
elevation is hopeless so long as they are taught by their religion
that their condition is ordained of heaven." Gladstone, in one of his
pamphlets on the revival of Catholicism in England, says: "The spread
of this religion is due, as might be expected, to woman;" thus
conceding in both cases her power to block the wheels of progress.
Hence, in the scientific education of woman, in the training of her
faculties to independent thought and logical reasoning, lies the hope
of the future.
The two great sources of progress are intellect and wealth. Both
represent power, and are the elements of success in life. Education
frees the mind from the bondage of authority and makes the individual
self-asserting. Remunerative industry is the means of securing to its
possessor wealth and education, transforming the laborer to the
capitalist. Work in itself is not power; it is but the means to an
end. The slave is not benefited by his industry; he does not receive
the results of his toil; his labor enriches another--adds to the power
of his master to bind his chains still closer. Although woman has
performed much of the labor of the world, her industry and economy
have been the very means of increasing her degradation. Not being
free, the results of her labor have gone to build up and sustain the
very class that has perpetuated this injustice. Even in the family,
where we should naturally look for the truest conditions, woman has
always been robbed of the fruits of her own toil. The influence the
Catholic Church has had on religious free thought, that monarchies
have had on political free thought, that serfdom has had upon free
labor, have all been cumulative in the family upon woman. Taught that
father and husband stood to her in the place of God, she has been
denied liberty of conscience, and held in obedience to masculine will.
Taught that the fruits of her industry belonged to others, she has
seen man enter into every avocation most suitable to her, while she,
the uncomplaining drudge of the household, condemned to the severest
labor, has been systematically robbed of her earnings, which have gone
to build up her master's power, and she has found herself in the
condition of the slave, deprived of the results of her own labor.
Taught that education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she has
been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition,
and to glory in her own degradation. Taught that a low voice is an
excellent thing in woman, she has been trained to a subjugation of the
vocal organs, and thus lost the benefit of loud tones and their
well-known invigoration of the system. Forbidden to run, climb, or
jump, her muscles have been weakened, and her strength deteriorated.
Confined most of the time to the house, she has neither as strong
lungs nor as vigorous a digestion as her brother. Forbidden to enter
the pulpit, she has been trained to an unquestioning reverence for
theological authority and false belief upon the most vital interests
of religion. Forbidden the medical profession, she has at the most
sacred times of her life been left to the ignorant supervision of male
physicians, and seen her young children die by thousands. Forbidden to
enter the courts, she has seen her sex unjustly tried and condemned
for crimes men were incapable of judging.
Woman has been the great unpaid laborer of the world, and although
within the last two decades a vast number of new employments have been
opened to her, statistics prove that in the great majority of these,
she is not paid according to the value of the work done, but according
to sex. The opening of all industries to woman, and the wage question
as connected with her, are most subtle and profound questions of
political economy, closely interwoven with the rights of
self-government.
The revival of learning had its influence upon woman, and we find in
the early part of the fourteenth century a decided tendency toward a
recognition of her equality. Christine of Pisa, the most eminent woman
of this period, supported a family of six persons by her pen, taking
high ground on the conservation of morals in opposition to the general
licentious spirit of the age. Margaret of Angoulême, the brilliant
Queen of Navarre, was a voluminous writer, her Heptaméron rising to
the dignity of a French classic. A paper in the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_, a few years since, by M. Henri Baudrillart, upon the
"Emancipation of Woman," recalls the fact that for nearly four hundred
years, men, too, have been ardent believers in equal rights for woman.
In 1509, Cornelius Agrippa, a great literary authority of his time,
published a work of this character. Agrippa was not content with
claiming woman's equality, but in a work of thirty chapters devoted
himself to proving "the superiority of woman." In less than fifty
years (1552) Ruscelli brought out a similar work based on the Platonic
Philosophy. In 1599, Anthony Gibson wrote a book which in the prolix
phraseology of the times was called, "A Woman's Worth defended against
all the Men in the World, proving to be more Perfect, Excellent, and
Absolute, in all Virtuous Actions, than any man of What Quality
Soever." While these sturdy male defenders of the rights of woman met
with many opponents, some going so far as to assert that women were
beings not endowed with reason, they were sustained by many vigorous
writers among women. Italy, then the foremost literary country of
Europe, possessed many women of learning, one of whom, Lucrezia
Morinella, a Venetian lady, wrote a work entitled, "The Nobleness and
Excellence of Women, together with the Faults and Imperfections of
Men."
The seventeenth century gave birth to many essays and books of a like
character, not confined to the laity, as several friars wrote upon the
same subject. In 1696, Daniel De Foe wished to have an institute
founded for the better education of young women. He said: "We reproach
the sex every day for folly and impertinence, while I am confident had
they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of
less than ourselves." Alexander's History of Women, John Paul Ribera's
work upon Women, the two huge quartos of De Costa upon the same
subject, Count Ségur's "Women: Their Condition and Influence," and
many other works showed the drift of the new age.
The Reformation, that great revolution in religious thought, loosened
the grasp of the Church upon woman, and is to be looked upon as one of
the most important steps in this reform. In the reign of Elizabeth,
England was called the Paradise of Women. When Elizabeth ascended the
throne, it was not only as queen, but she succeeded her father as the
head of the newly-formed rebellious Church, and she held firm grasp on
both Church and State during the long years of her reign, bending
alike priest and prelate to her fiery will. The reign of Queen Anne,
called the Golden Age of English Literature, is especially noticeable
on account of Mary Astell and Elizabeth Elstob. The latter, speaking
nine languages, was most famous for her skill in the Saxon tongue. She
also replied to current objections made to woman's learning. Mary
Astell elaborated a plan for a Woman's College, which was favorably
received by Queen Anne, and would have been carried out, but for the
opposition of Bishop Burnett.
During the latter part of the eighteenth century, there were public
discussions by women in England, under the general head of Female
Parliament. These discussions took wide range, touching upon the
entrance of men into those industries usually assigned to women, and
demanding for themselves higher educational advantages, and the right
to vote at elections, and to be returned members of Parliament.
The American Revolution, that great political rebellion of the ages,
was based upon the inherent rights of the individual. Perhaps in none
but English Colonies, by descendants of English parents, could such a
revolution have been consummated. England had never felt the bonds of
feudalism to the extent of many countries; its people had defied its
monarchs and wrested from them many civil rights, rights which
protected women as well as men, and although its common law, warped by
ecclesiasticism, expended its chief rigors upon women, yet at an early
day they enjoyed certain ecclesiastical and political powers unknown
to women elsewhere. Before the Conquest, abbesses sat in councils of
the Church and signed its decrees; while kings were even dependent
upon their consent in granting certain charters. The synod of Whitby,
in the ninth century, was held in the convent of the Abbess Hilda, she
herself presiding over its deliberations. The famous prophetess of
Kent at one period communicated the orders of Heaven to the Pope
himself. Ladies of birth and quality sat in council with the Saxon
Witas--_i.e._, wise men--taking part in the Witenagemot, the great
National Council of our Saxon ancestors in England. In the seventh
century this National Council met at Baghamstead to enact a new code
of laws, the queen, abbesses, and many ladies of quality taking part
and signing the decrees. Passing by other similar instances, we find
in the reign of Henry III, that four women took seats in Parliament,
and in the reign of Edward I. ten ladies were called to Parliament,
while in the thirteenth century, Queen Elinor became keeper of the
Great Seal, sitting as Lord Chancellor in the _Aula Regia_, the
highest court of the Kingdom. Running back two or three centuries
before the Christian era, we find Martia, her seat of power in London,
holding the reins of government so wisely as to receive the surname of
Proba, the Just. She especially devoted herself to the enactment of
just laws for her subjects, the first principles of the common law
tracing back to her; the celebrated laws of Alfred, and of Edward the
Confessor, being in great degree restorations and compilations from
the laws of Martia, which were known as the "Martian Statutes."
When the American colonies began their resistance to English tyranny,
the women--all this inherited tendency to freedom surging in their
veins--were as active, earnest, determined, and self-sacrificing as
the men, and although, as Mrs. Ellet in her "Women of the Revolution"
remarks, "political history says but little, and that vaguely and
incidentally, of the women who bore their part in the revolution," yet
that little shows woman to have been endowed with as lofty a
patriotism as man, and to have as fully understood the principles upon
which the struggle was based. Among the women who manifested deep
political insight, were Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail Smith Adams, and
Hannah Lee Corbin; all closely related to the foremost men of the
Revolution. Mrs. Warren was a sister of James Otis, whose fiery words
did so much to arouse and intensify the feelings of the colonists
against British aggression. This brother and sister were united to the
end of their lives in a friendship rendered firm and enduring by the
similarity of their intellects and political views. The home of Mrs.
Warren was the resort of patriotic spirits and the headquarters of the
rebellion. She herself wrote, "By the Plymouth fireside were many
political plans organized, discussed, and digested." Her
correspondence with eminent men of the Revolution was extensive and
belongs to the history of the country. She was the first one who based
the struggle upon "inherent rights," a phrase afterward made the
corner-stone of political authority. Mrs. Warren asserted that
"'inherent rights' belonged to all mankind, and had been conferred on
all by the God of nations." She numbered Jefferson among her
correspondents, and the Declaration of Independence shows the
influence of her mind. Among others who sought her counsel upon
political matters were Samuel and John Adams, Dickinson, that pure
patriot of Pennsylvania, Jefferson, Gerry, and Knox. She was the first
person who counseled separation and pressed those views upon John
Adams, when he sought her advice before the opening of the first
Congress. At that time even Washington had no thought of the final
independence of the colonies, emphatically denying such intention or
desire on their part, and John Adams was shunned in the streets of
Philadelphia for having dared to hint such a possibility. Mrs. Warren
sustained his sinking courage and urged him to bolder steps. Her
advice was not only sought in every emergency, but political parties
found their arguments in her conversation. Mrs. Warren looked not to
the freedom of man alone, but to that of her own sex also.
England itself had at least one woman who watched the struggle of
America with lively interest, and whose writings aided in the
dissemination of republican ideas. This was the celebrated Catharine
Sawbridge Macaulay, one of the greatest minds England has ever
produced--a woman so noted for her republican ideas that after her
death a statue was erected to her as the "Patroness of Liberty."
During the whole of the Revolutionary period, Washington was in
correspondence with Mrs. Macaulay, who did much to sustain him during
those days of trial. She and Mrs. Warren were also correspondents at
that time. She wrote several works of a republican character, for home
influence; among these, in 1775. "An Address to the people of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, on the present Important Crisis of Affairs,"
designed to show the justice of the American cause. The gratitude
American's feel toward Edmund Burke for his aid, might well be
extended to Mrs. Macaulay.
Abigail Smith Adams, the wife of John Adams, was an American woman
whose political insight was worthy of remark. She early protested
against the formation of a new government in which woman should be
unrecognized, demanding for her a voice and representation. She was
the first American woman who threatened rebellion unless the rights of
her sex were secured. In March, 1776, she wrote to her husband, then
in the Continental Congress, "I long to hear you have declared an
independency, and, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose
it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the
ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your
ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands.
Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care
and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment
a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in
which we have no voice or representation." Again and again did Mrs.
Adams urge the establishment of an independency and the limitation of
man's power over woman, declaring all arbitrary power dangerous and
tending to revolution. Nor was she less mindful of equal advantages
of education. "If you complain of education in sons, what shall I say
in regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it?" She
expressed a strong wish that the new Constitution might be
distinguished for its encouragement of learning and virtue. Nothing
more fully shows the dependent condition of a class than the methods
used to secure their wishes. Mrs. Adams felt herself obliged to appeal
to masculine selfishness in showing the reflex action woman's
education would have upon man. "If," said she, "we mean to have
heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women."
Thus did the Revolutionary Mothers urge the recognition of equal
rights when the Government was in the process of formation. Although
the first plot of ground in the United States for a public school had
been given by a woman (Bridget Graffort), in 1700, her sex were denied
admission. Mrs. Adams, as well as her friend Mrs. Warren, had in their
own persons felt the deprivations of early educational advantages. The
boasted public school system of Massachusetts, created for boys only,
opened at last its doors to girls, merely to secure its share of
public money. The women of the South, too, early demanded political
equality. The counties of Mecklenberg and Rowan, North Carolina, were
famous for the patriotism of their women. Mecklenberg claims to have
issued the first declaration of independence, and, at the centennial
celebration of this event in May, 1875, proudly accepted for itself
the derisive name given this region by Tarleton's officers, "The
Hornet's Nest of America." This name--first bestowed by British
officers upon Mrs. Brevard's mansion, then Tarleton's headquarters,
where that lady's fiery patriotism and stinging wit discomfited this
General in many a sally--was at last held to include the whole county.
In 1778, only two years after the Declaration of Independence was
adopted, and while the flames of war were still spreading over the
country, Hannah Lee Corbin, of Virginia, the sister of General Richard
Henry Lee, wrote him, protesting against the taxation of women unless
they were allowed to vote. He replied that "women were already
possessed of that right," thus recognizing the fact of woman's
enfranchisement as one of the results of the new government, and it is
on record that women in Virginia did at an early day exercise the
right of voting. New Jersey also specifically secured this right to
women on the 2d of July, 1776--a right exercised by them for more than
a third of a century. Thus our country started into governmental life
freighted with the protests of the Revolutionary Mothers against being
ruled without their consent. From that hour to the present, women have
been continually raising their voices against political tyranny, and
demanding for themselves equality of opportunity in every department
of life.
In 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Women,"
published in London, attracted much attention from liberal minds. She
examined the position of woman in the light of existing civilizations,
and demanded for her the widest opportunities of education, industry,
political knowledge, and the right of representation. Although her
work is filled with maxims of the highest morality and purest wisdom,
it called forth such violent abuse, that her husband appealed for her
from the judgment of her contemporaries to that of mankind. So exalted
were her ideas of woman, so comprehensive her view of life, that
Margaret Fuller, in referring to her, said: "Mary Wollstonecraft--a
woman whose existence proved the need of some new interpretation of
woman's rights, belonging to that class who by birth find themselves
in places so narrow that, by breaking bonds, they become outlaws."
Following her, came Jane Marcet, Eliza Lynn, and Harriet
Martineau--each of whom in the early part of the nineteenth century,
exerted a decided influence upon the political thought of England.
Mrs. Marcet was one of the most scientific and highly cultivated
persons of the age. Her "Conversations on Chemistry," familiarized
that science both in England and America, and from it various male
writers filched their ideas. It was a text-book in this country for
many years. Over one hundred and sixty thousand copies were sold,
though the fact that this work emanated from the brain of a woman was
carefully withheld. Mrs. Marcet also wrote upon political economy, and
was the first person who made the subject comprehensive to the popular
mind. Her manner of treating it was so clear and vivid, that the
public, to whom it had been a hidden science, were able to grasp the
subject. Her writings were the inspiration of Harriet Martineau, who
followed her in the same department of thought at a later period. Miss
Martineau was a remarkable woman. Besides her numerous books on
political economy, she was a regular contributor to the London _Daily
News_, the second paper in circulation in England, for many years
writing five long articles weekly, also to Dickens' _Household Words_,
and the _Westminster Review_. She saw clearly the spirit and purpose
of the Anti-Slavery Movement in this country, and was a regular
contributor to the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_, published in New
York. Eliza Lynn, an Irish lady, was at this time writing leading
editorials for political papers. In Russia, Catharine II., the
absolute and irresponsible ruler of that vast nation, gave utterance
to views, of which, says La Harpe, the revolutionists of France and
America fondly thought themselves the originators. She caused her
grandchildren to be educated into the most liberal ideas, and Russia
was at one time the only country in Europe where political refugees
could find safety. To Catharine, Russia is indebted for the first
proposition to enfranchise the serfs, but meeting strong opposition
she was obliged to relinquish this idea, which was carried to fruition
by her great-grandson, Alexander.
This period of the eighteenth century was famous for the executions of
women on account of their radical political opinions, Madame Roland,
the leader of the liberal party in France, going to the guillotine
with the now famous words upon her lips, "Oh, Liberty, what crimes are
committed in thy name!" The beautiful Charlotte Corday sealed with her
life her belief in liberty, while Sophia Lapiérre barely escaped the
same fate; though two men, Siéyes and Condorcét, in the midst of the
French Revolution, proposed the recognition of woman's political
rights.
Frances Wright, a person of extraordinary powers of mind, born in
Dundee, Scotland, in 1797, was the first woman who gave lectures on
political subjects in America. When sixteen years of age she heard of
the existence of a country in which freedom for the people had been
proclaimed; she was filled with joy and a determination to visit the
American Republic where the foundations of justice, liberty, and
equality had been so securely laid. In 1820 she came here, traveling
extensively North and South. She was at that time but twenty-two years
of age. Her letters gave Europeans the first true knowledge of
America, and secured for her the friendship of LaFayette. Upon her
second visit she made this country her home for several years. Her
radical ideas on theology, slavery, and the social degradation of
woman, now generally accepted by the best minds of the age, were then
denounced by both press and pulpit, and maintained by her at the risk
of her life. Although the Government of the United States was framed
on the basis of entire separation of Church and State, yet from an
early day the theological spirit had striven to unite the two, in
order to strengthen the Church by its union with the civil power. As
early as 1828, the standard of "The Christian Party in Politics" was
openly unfurled. Frances Wright had long been aware of its insidious
efforts, and its reliance upon women for its support. Ignorant,
superstitious, devout, woman's general lack of education made her a
fitting instrument for the work of thus undermining the republic.
Having deprived her of her just rights, the country was new to find in
woman its most dangerous foe. Frances Wright lectured that winter in
the large cities of the West and Middle States, striving to rouse the
nation to the new danger which threatened it. The clergy at once
became her most bitter opponents. The cry of "infidel" was started on
every side, though her work was of vital importance to the country and
undertaken from the purest philanthropy. In speaking of her
persecutions she said: "The injury and inconvenience of every kind and
every hour to which, in these days, a really consistent reformer
stands exposed, none can conceive but those who experience them. Such
become, as it were, excommunicated after the fashion of the old
Catholic Mother Church, removed even from the protection of law, such
as it is, and from the sympathy of society, for whose sake they
consent to be crucified."
Among those who were advocating the higher education of women, Mrs.
Emma Willard became noted at this period. Born with a strong desire
for learning, she keenly felt the educational disadvantages of her
sex. She began teaching at an early day, introducing new studies and
new methods in her school, striving to secure public interest in
promoting woman's education. Governor Clinton, of New York, impressed
with the wisdom of her plans, invited her to move her school from
Connecticut to New York. She accepted, and in 1819 established a
school in Watervleit, which soon moved to Troy, and in time built up a
great reputation. Through the influence of Governor Clinton, the
Legislature granted a portion of the educational fund to endow this
institution, which was the first instance in the United States of
Government aid for the education of women. Amos B. Eaton, Professor of
the Natural Sciences in the Rensselaer Institute, Troy, at this time,
was Mrs. Willard's faithful friend and teacher. In the early days it
was her custom, in introducing a new branch of learning into her
seminary, to study it herself, reciting to Professor Eaton every
evening the lesson of the next day. Thus she went through botany,
chemistry, mineralogy, astronomy, and the higher mathematics. As she
could not afford teachers for these branches, with faithful study she
fitted herself. Mrs. Willard's was the first girls' school in which
the higher mathematics formed part of the course, but such was the
prejudice against a liberal education for woman, that the first public
examination of a girl in geometry (1829) created as bitter a storm of
ridicule as has since assailed women who have entered the law, the
pulpit, or the medical profession. The derision attendant upon the
experiment of advancing woman's education, led Governor Clinton to say
in his message to the Legislature: "I trust you will not be deterred
by commonplace ridicule from extending your munificence to this
meritorious institution." At a school convention in Syracuse, 1845,
Mrs. Willard suggested the employment of woman as superintendents of
public schools, a measure since adopted in many States. She also
projected the system of normal schools for the higher education of
teachers. A scientific explorer as well as student, she wrote a work
on the "Motive Power in the Circulation of the Blood," in
contradiction to Harvey's theory, which at once attracted the
attention of medical men. This work was one of the then accumulating
evidences of woman's adaptation to medical study.
In Ancient Egypt the medical profession was in the hands of women, to
which we may attribute that country's almost entire exemption from
infantile diseases, a fact which recent discoveries fully
authenticate. The enormous death-rate of young children in modern
civilized countries may be traced to woman's general enforced
ignorance of the laws of life, and to the fact that the profession of
medicine has been too exclusively in the hands of men. Though through
the dim past we find women still making discoveries, and in the feudal
ages possessing knowledge of both medicine and surgery, it is but
recently that they have been welcomed as practitioners into the
medical profession. Looking back scarcely a hundred years, we find
science much indebted to woman for some of its most brilliant
discoveries. In 1736, the first medical botany was given to the world
by Elizabeth Blackwell, a woman physician, whom the persecutions of
her male compeers had cast into jail for debt. As Bunyan prepared his
"Pilgrim's Progress" between prison walls, so did Elizabeth Blackwell,
no-wise disheartened, prepare her valuable aid to medical science
under the same conditions. Lady Montague's discovery of a check to the
small-pox, Madam Boivin's discovery of the hidden cause of certain
hemorrhages, Madam de Condrày's invention of the manikin, are among
the notable steps which opened the way to the modern Elizabeth
Blackwell, Harriot K. Hunt, Clemence S. Lozier, Ann Preston, Hannah
Longshore, Marie Jackson, Laura Ross Wolcott, Marie Zakrzewska, and
Mary Putnam Jacobi, who are some of the earlier distinguished American
examples of woman's skill in the healing art.
Mary Gove Nichols gave public lectures upon anatomy in the United
States in 1838. Paulina Wright (Davis) followed her upon physiology in
1844, using a manikin in her illustrations.[1] Mariana Johnson
followed Mrs. Davis, but it was 1848 before Elizabeth Blackwell--the
first woman to pass through the regular course of medical
study--received her diploma at Geneva.[2] In 1845-6, preceding Miss
Blackwell's course of study, Dr. Samuel Gregory and his brother George
issued pamphlets advocating the education and employment of
women-physicians, and, in 1847, Dr. Gregory delivered a series of
lectures in Boston upon that subject, followed in 1848 by a school
numbering twelve ladies, and an association entitled the "American
Female Medical Education Society." In 1832, Lydia Maria Child
published her "History of Woman," which was the first American
storehouse of information upon the whole question, and undoubtedly
increased the agitation. In 1836, Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish
lady--banished from her native country by the Austrian tyrant, Francis
Joseph, for her love of liberty--came to America, lecturing in the
large cities North and South upon the "Science of Government." She
advocated the enfranchisement of woman. Her beauty, wit, and eloquence
drew crowded houses. About this period Judge Hurlbut, of New York, a
leading member of the Bar, wrote a vigorous work on "Human Rights,"[3]
in which he advocated political equality for women. This work
attracted the attention of many legal minds throughout that State. In
the winter of 1836, a bill was introduced into the New York
Legislature by Judge Hertell, to secure to married women their rights
of property. This bill was drawn up under the direction of Hon. John
Savage, Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, and Hon. John C. Spencer,
one of the revisers of the statutes of New York. It was in furtherance
of this bill that Ernestine L. Rose and Paulina Wright at that early
day circulated petitions. The very few names they secured show the
hopeless apathy and ignorance of the women as to their own rights. As
similar bills[4] were pending in New York until finally passed in
1848, a great educational work was accomplished in the constant
discussion of the topics involved. During the winters of 1844-5-6,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, living in Albany, made the acquaintance of
Judge Hurlbut and a large circle of lawyers and legislators, and,
while exerting herself to strengthen their convictions in favor of the
pending bill, she resolved at no distant day to call a convention for
a full and free discussion of woman's rights and wrongs.
In 1828, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, daughters of a wealthy planter of
Charleston, South Carolina, emancipated their slaves and came North to
lecture on the evils of slavery, leaving their home and native place
forever because of their hatred of this wrong. Angelina was a natural
orator. Fresh from the land of bondage, there was a fervor in her
speech that electrified her hearers and drew crowds wherever she went.
Sarah published a book reviewing the Bible arguments the clergy were
then making in their pulpits to prove that the degradation of the
slave and woman were alike in harmony with the expressed will of God.
Thus women from the beginning took an active part in the Anti-Slavery
struggle. They circulated petitions, raised large sums of money by
fairs, held prayer-meetings and conventions. In 1835, Angelina wrote
an able letter to William Lloyd Garrison, immediately after the Boston
mob. These letters and appeals were considered very effective
abolition documents.
In May, 1837, a National Woman's Anti-Slavery Convention was held in
New York, in which eight States were represented by seventy-one
delegates. The meetings were ably sustained through two days. The
different sessions were opened by prayer and reading of the Scriptures
by the women themselves. A devout, earnest spirit prevailed. The
debates, resolutions, speeches, and appeals were fully equal to those
in any Convention held by men of that period. Angelina Grimke was
appointed by this Convention to prepare an appeal for the slaves to
the people of the free States, and a letter to John Quincy Adams
thanking him for his services in defending the right of petition for
women and slaves, qualified with the regret that by expressing himself
"adverse to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia," he
did not sustain the cause of freedom and of God. She wrote a stirring
appeal to the Christian women of the South, urging them to use their
influence against slavery. Sarah also wrote an appeal to the clergy of
the South, conjuring them to use their power for freedom.
Among those who took part in these conventions we find the names of
Lydia Maria Child, Mary Grove, Henrietta Sargent, Sarah Pugh, Abby
Kelley, Mary S. Parker, of Boston, who was president of the
Convention; Anne Webster, Deborah Shaw, Martha Storrs, Mrs. A. L.
Cox, Rebecca B. Spring, and Abigail Hopper Gibbons, a daughter of that
noble Quaker philanthropist, Isaac T. Hopper.
Abby Kelley was the most untiring and the most persecuted of all the
women who labored throughout the Anti-Slavery struggle. She traveled
up and down, alike in winter's cold and summer's heat, with scorn,
ridicule, violence, and mobs accompanying her, suffering all kinds of
persecutions, still speaking whenever and wherever she gained an
audience; in the open air, in school-house, barn, depot, church, or
public hall; on week-day or Sunday, as she found opportunity. For
listening to her, on Sunday, many men and women were expelled from
their churches. Thus through continued persecution was woman's
self-assertion and self-respect sufficiently developed to prompt her
at last to demand justice, liberty, and equality for herself.
In 1840, Margaret Fuller published an essay in the _Dial_, entitled
"The Great Lawsuit, or Man _vs._ Woman: Woman _vs._ Man." In this
essay she demanded perfect equality for woman, in education, industry,
and politics. It attracted great attention and was afterward expanded
into a work entitled "Woman in the Nineteenth Century." This, with her
parlor conversations, on art, science, religion, politics, philosophy,
and social life, gave a new impulse to woman's education as a
thinker.[5]
"Woman and her Era," by Eliza Woodson Farnham, was another work that
called out a general discussion on the status of the sexes, Mrs.
Farnham taking the ground of woman's superiority. The great social and
educational work done by her in California, when society there was
chiefly male, and rapidly tending to savagism, and her humane
experiment in the Sing Sing (N. Y.), State Prison, assisted by
Georgiana Bruce Kirby and Mariana Johnson, are worthy of mention.
In the State of New York, in 1845, Rev. Samuel J. May preached a
sermon at Syracuse, upon "The Eights and Conditions of Women," in
which he sustained their right to take part in political life, saying
women need not expect "to have their wrongs fully redressed, until
they themselves have a voice and a hand in the enactment and
administration of the laws."
In 1847, Clarina Howard Nichols, in her husband's paper, addressed to
the voters of the State of Vermont a series of editorials, setting
forth the injustice of the property disabilities of married women.
In 1849, Lucretia Mott published a discourse on woman, delivered in
the Assembly Building, Philadelphia, in answer to a Lyceum lecture
which Richard H. Dana, of Boston, was giving in many of the chief
cities, ridiculing the idea of political equality for woman. Elizabeth
Wilson, of Ohio, published a scriptural view of woman's rights and
duties far in advance of the generally received opinions. At even an
earlier day, Martha Bradstreet, of Utica, plead her own case in the
courts of New York, continuing her contest for many years. The
temperance reform and the deep interest taken in it by women; the
effective appeals they made, setting forth their wrongs as mother,
wife, sister, and daughter of the drunkard, with a power beyond that
of man, early gave them a local place on this platform as a favor,
though denied as a right. Delegates from woman's societies to State
and National conventions invariably found themselves rejected. It was
her early labors in the temperance cause that first roused Susan B.
Anthony to a realizing sense of woman's social, civil, and political
degradation, and thus secured her life-long labors for the
enfranchisement of woman. In 1847 she made her first speech at a
public meeting of the Daughters of Temperance in Canajoharie, N. Y.
The same year Antoinette L. Brown, then a student at Oberlin College,
Ohio, the first institution that made the experiment of co-education,
delivered her first speech on temperance in several places in Ohio,
and on Woman's Rights, in the Baptist church at Henrietta, N. Y. Lucy
Stone, a graduate of Oberlin, made her first speech on Woman's Rights
the same year in her brother's church at Brookfield, Mass.
Nor were the women of Europe inactive during these years. In 1824
Elizabeth Heyrick, a Quaker woman, cut the gordian knot of difficulty
in the anti-slavery struggle in England, by an able essay in favor of
immediate, unconditional emancipation. At Leipsic, in 1844, Helene
Marie Weber--her father a Prussian officer, and her mother an English
woman--wrote a series of ten tracts on "Woman's Rights and Wrongs,"
covering the whole question and making a volume of over twelve hundred
pages. The first of these treated of the intellectual faculties; the
second, woman's rights of property; the third, wedlock--deprecating
the custom of woman merging her civil existence in that of her
husband; the fourth claimed woman's right to all political emoluments;
the fifth, on ecclesiasticism, demanded for woman an entrance to the
pulpit; the sixth, upon suffrage, declared it to be woman's right and
duty to vote. These essays were strong, vigorous, and convincing. Miss
Weber also lectured in Vienna, Berlin, and several of the large German
cities. In England, Lady Morgan's "Woman and her Master" appeared;--a
work filled with philosophical reflections, and of the same general
bearing as Miss Weber's. Also an "Appeal of Women," the joint work of
Mrs. Wheeler and William Thomson--a strong and vigorous essay, in
which woman's limitations under the law were tersely and pungently set
forth and her political rights demanded. The active part women took in
the Polish and German revolutions and in favor of the abolition of
slavery in the British West Indies, all taught their lessons of
woman's rights. Madam Mathilde Anneke, on the staff of her husband,
with Hon. Carl Schurz, carried messages to and fro in the midst of
danger on the battle-fields of Germany.
Thus over the civilized world we find the same impelling forces, and
general development of society, without any individual concert of
action, tending to the same general result; alike rousing the minds of
men and women to the aggregated wrongs of centuries and inciting to an
effort for their overthrow.
The works of George Sand, Frederika Bremer, Charlotte Bronté, George
Eliot, Catharine Sedgwick, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, in literature;
Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in poetry;
Angelica Kauffman, Rosa Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer, in art; Mary
Somerville, Caroline Herschell, Maria Mitchell, in science; Elizabeth
Fry, Dorothea Dix, Mary Carpenter, in prison reform; Florence
Nightingale and Clara Barton in the camp--are all parts of the great
uprising of women out of the lethargy of the past, and are among the
forces of the complete revolution a thousand pens and voices herald at
this hour.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As showing woman's ignorance and prejudice, Mrs. Davis used to
relate that when she uncovered her manikin some ladies would drop
their veils because of its indelicacy, and others would run from the
room; sometimes ladies even fainted.
[2] The writer's father, a physician, as early as 1843-4, canvassed
the subject of giving his daughter (Matilda Joslyn Gage) a medical
education, looking to Geneva--then presided over by his old
instructor--to open its doors to her. But this bold idea was dropped,
and Miss Blackwell was the first and only lady who was graduated from
that Institution until its incorporation with the Syracuse University
and the removal of the college to that city.
[3] Judge Hurlbut, with a lawyer's prejudice, first prepared a paper
against the rights of woman. Looking it over, he saw himself able to
answer every argument, which he proceeded to do--the result being his
"Human Rights."
[4] In the New York chapter a fuller account of the discussion and
action upon these bills will be given.
[5] See Appendix.
CHAPTER II.
WOMAN IN NEWSPAPERS.
In newspaper literature woman made her entrance at an early period and
in an important manner. The first _daily_ newspaper in the world was
established and edited by a woman, Elizabeth Mallet, in London, March,
1702. It was called _The Daily Courant_. In her salutatory, Mrs.
Mallet declared she had established her paper to "spare the public at
least half the impertinences which the ordinary papers contain." Thus
the first daily paper was made reformatory in its character by its
wise woman-founder.
The first newspaper printed in Rhode Island was by Anna Franklin in
1732. She was printer to the colony, supplied blanks to the public
officers, published pamphlets, etc., and in 1745 she printed for the
colonial government an edition of the laws comprising three hundred
and forty pages. She was aided by her two daughters, who were correct
and quick compositors. The woman servant of the house usually worked
the press. The third paper established in America was _The Mercury_,
in Philadelphia. After the death of its founder, in 1742, it was
suspended for a week, when his widow, Mrs. Cornelia Bradford, revived
it and carried it on for many years, making it both a literary and a
pecuniary success. The second newspaper started in the city of New
York, entitled the _New York Weekly Journal_, was conducted by Mrs.
Zeuger for years after the death of her husband. She discontinued its
publication in 1748. The _Maryland Gazette_, the first paper in that
colony, and among the oldest in America, was established by Anna K.
Greene in 1767. She did the colony printing and continued the business
till her death, in 1775. Mrs. Hassebatch also established a paper in
Baltimore in 1773. Mrs. Mary K. Goddard published the _Maryland
Journal_ for eight years. Her editorials were of so spirited and
pronounced a character that only her sex saved her from sound
floggings. She took in job work. She was the first postmaster after
the Revolution, holding the office for eight years. Two papers were
early published in Virginia by women. Each was established in
Williamsburg, and each was called _The Virginia Gazette_. The first,
started by Clementina Reid, in 1772, favored the Colonial cause,
giving great offense to many royalists. To counteract its influence,
Mrs. H. Boyle, of the same place, started another paper in 1774, in
the interests of the Crown, and desirous that it should seem to
represent the true principles of the colony, she borrowed the name of
the colonial paper. It lived but a short time. The Colonial _Virginia
Gazette_ was the first paper in which was printed the Declaration of
Independence. A synopsis was given July 19th, and the whole document
the 26th. Mrs. Elizabeth Timothee published a paper in Charleston,
South Carolina, from 1773 to 1775, called _The Gazette_. Anna Timothee
revived it after the Revolution, and was appointed printer to the
State, holding the office till 1792. Mary Crouch also published a
paper in Charleston, S. C., until 1780. It was founded in special
opposition to the Stamp Act. She afterward removed to Salem, Mass.,
and continued its publication for several years. Penelope Russell
printed _The Censor_ in Boston, Mass., in 1771. She set her own type,
and was such a ready compositor as to set up her editorials without
written copy, while working at her case. The most tragical and
interesting events were thus recorded by her. The first paper
published in America, living to a second issue, was the _Massachusetts
Gazette and North Boston News Letter_. It was continued by Mrs.
Margaret Draper, two years after the death of her husband, and was the
only paper of spirit in the colony, all but hers suspending
publication when Boston was besieged by the British. Mrs. Sarah
Goddard printed a paper at Newport, R. I., in 1776. She was a
well-educated woman, and versed in general literature. For two years
she conducted her journal with great ability, afterward associating
John Carter with her, under the name of Sarah Goddard & Co., retaining
the partnership precedence so justly belonging to her. _The Courant_
at Hartford, Ct., was edited for two years by Mrs. Watson, after the
death of her husband, in 1777. In 1784 Mrs. Mary Holt edited and
published the _New York Journal_, continuing the business several
years. She was appointed State printer. In 1798, _The Journal and
Argus_ fell into the hands of Mrs. Greenleaf, who for some time
published both a daily and semi-weekly edition. In Philadelphia, after
the death of her father in 1802, Mrs. Jane Aitkins continued his
business of printing. Her press-work bore high reputation. She was
specially noted for her correctness in proof-reading. The _Free
Enquirer_, edited in New York by Frances Wright in 1828, "was the
first periodical established in the United States for the purpose of
fearless and unbiased inquiry on all subjects." It had already been
published two years under the name of _The New Harmony Gazette_, in
Indiana, by Robert Dale Owen, for which Mrs. Wright had written many
leading editorials, and in which she published serially "A Few Days in
Athens."
Sarah Josepha Hale established a ladies' magazine in Boston in 1827,
which she afterward removed to Philadelphia, there associating with
herself Louis Godey, and assuming the editorship of _Godey's Lady's
Book_. This magazine was followed by many others, of which Mrs.
Kirkland, Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Ellet, Mrs. Sigourney, and women of like
character were editors or contributors. These early magazines
published many steel and colored engravings, not only of fashions, but
reproductions of works of art, giving the first important impulse to
the art of engraving in this country.
Many other periodicals and papers by women now appeared over the
country. Mrs. Anne Royal edited for a quarter of a century a paper
called _The Huntress_. In 1827 Lydia Maria Child published a paper for
children called _The Juvenile Miscellany_, and in 1841 assumed the
editorship of _The Anti-Slavery Standard_, in New York, which she ably
conducted for eight years. _The Dial_, in Boston, a transcendental
quarterly, edited by Margaret Fuller, made its appearance in 1840; its
contributors, among whom were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott,
Theodore Parker, Wm. H. Channing, and the nature-loving Thoreau, were
some of the most profound thinkers of the time. Charlotte Fowler
Wells, the efficient coadjutor of her brothers and husband for the
last forty-two years in the management of _The Phrenological Journal_
and Publishing House of Fowler & Wells in New York city, and since her
husband's death in 1875 the sole proprietor and general manager, has
also conducted an extensive correspondence and written occasional
articles for the _Journal. The Lowell Offering_, edited by the "mill
girls" of that manufacturing town, was established in 1840, and
exercised a wide influence. It lived till 1849. Its articles were
entirely written by the girl operatives, among whom may be mentioned
Lucy Larcom, Margaret Foley, the sculptor, who recently died in Rome;
Lydia S. Hall, who at one time filled an important clerkship in the
United States Treasury, and Harriet J. Hansan, afterward the wife of
W. S. Robinson (Warrington), and herself one of the present workers in
Woman Suffrage. Harriet F. Curtis, author of two popular novels, and
Harriet Farley, both "mill girls," had entire editorial charge during
the latter part of its existence. In Vermont, Clarina Howard Nichols
edited the _Windham County Democrat_ from 1843 to 1853. It was a
political paper of a pronounced character; her husband was the
publisher. Jane G. Swisshelm edited _The Saturday Visitor_, at
Pittsburg, Pa., in 1848. Also the same year _The True Kindred_
appeared, by Rebecca Sanford, at Akron, Ohio. _The Lily_, a temperance
monthly, was started in Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1849, by Amelia
Bloomer, as editor and publisher. It also advocated Woman's Rights,
and attained a circulation in nearly every State and Territory of the
Union. _The Sybil_ soon followed, Dr. Lydia Sayre Hasbrook, editor;
also _The Pledge of Honor_, edited by N. M. Baker and E. Maria
Sheldon, Adrian, Michigan.
In 1849, _Die Frauen Zeitung_, edited by Mathilde Franceska Anneke,
was published in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1850, Lydia Jane Pierson
edited a column of the _Lancaster_ (Pa.) _Gazette_; Mrs. Prewett
edited the _Yazoo_ (Miss.) _Whig_, in Mississippi; and Mrs. Sheldon
the _Dollar Weekly_. In 1851, Julia Ward Howe edited, with her
husband, _The Commonwealth_, a newspaper dedicated to free thought,
and zealous for the liberty of the slave. In 1851, Mrs. C. C. Bentley
was editor of the _Concord Free Press_, in Vermont, and Elizabeth
Aldrich of the _Genius of Liberty_, in Ohio. In 1852, Anna W. Spencer
started the _Pioneer and Woman's Advocate_, in Providence, R. I. Its
motto was, "Liberty, Truth, Temperance, Equality." It was published
semi-monthly, and advocated a better education for woman, a higher
price for her labor, the opening of new industries. It was the
earliest paper established in the United States for the advocacy of
Woman's Rights. In 1853, _The Una_, a paper devoted to the
enfranchisement of woman, owned and edited by Paulina Wright Davis,
was first published in Providence, but afterward removed to Boston,
where Caroline H. Dall became associate editor. In 1855, Anna McDowell
founded _The Woman's Advocate_ in Philadelphia, a paper in which, like
that of Mrs. Anna Franklin, the owner, editor, and compositors were
all women. About this period many well-known literary women filled
editorial chairs. Grace Greenwood started a child's paper called _The
Little Pilgrim_; Mrs. Bailey conducted the _Era_, an anti-slavery
paper, in Washington, D. C., after her husband's death.
In 1868, _The Revolution_, a pronounced Woman's Rights paper, was
started in New York city; Susan B. Anthony, publisher and proprietor,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, editors. Its motto,
"Principles, not policy; justice, not favor; men, their rights and
nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less." In 1870 it passed
into the hands of Laura Curtis Bullard, who edited it two years with
the assistance of Phebe Carey and Augusta Larned, and in 1872 it found
consecrated burial in _The Liberal Christian_, the leading Unitarian
paper in New York. From the advent of _The Revolution_ can be dated a
new era in the woman suffrage movement. Its brilliant, aggressive
columns attracted the comments of the press, and drew the attention of
the country to the reform so ably advocated. Many other papers devoted
to the discussion of woman's enfranchisement soon arose. In 1869, _The
Pioneer_, in San Francisco, Cal., Emily Pitts Stevens, editor and
proprietor. _The Woman's Advocate_, at Dayton, O., A. J. Boyer and
Miriam M. Cole, editors, started the same year. _The Sorosis_ and _The
Agitator_, in Chicago, Ill., the latter owned and edited by Mary A.
Livermore, and _The Woman's Advocate_, in New York, were all alike
short-lived. _L'Amérique_, a semi-weekly French paper published in
Chicago, Ill., by Madam Jennie d'Héricourt, and _Die Neue Zeit_, a
German paper, in New York, by Mathilde F. Wendt, this same year, show
the interest of our foreign women citizens in the cause of their sex.
In 1870, _The Woman's Journal_ was founded in Boston, Lucy Stone,
Julia Ward Howe, and Henry B. Blackwell, editors. _Woodhull and
Claflin's Weekly_, an erratic paper, advocating many new ideas, was
established in New York by Victoria Woodhull and Tennie C. Claflin,
editors and proprietors. _The New Northwest_, in Portland, Oregon, in
1871, Abigail Scott Duniway, editor and proprietor. _The Golden Dawn_,
at San Francisco, Cal., in 1876, Mrs. Boyer, editor.
_The Ballot-Box_ was started in 1876, at Toledo, O., Sarah Langdon
Williams, editor, under the auspices of the city Woman's Suffrage
Association. It was moved to Syracuse in 1878, and is now edited by
Matilda Joslyn Gage, under the name of _The National Citizen and
Ballot-Box_, as an exponent of the views of the National Woman
Suffrage Association. Its motto, "Self-government is a natural right,
and the ballot is the method of exercising that right." Laura de Force
Gordon for some years edited a daily democratic paper in California.
In opposition to this large array of papers demanding equality for
woman, a solitary little monthly was started a few years since, in
Baltimore, Md., under the auspices of Mrs. General Sherman and Mrs.
Admiral Dahlgren. It was called _The True Woman_, but soon died of
inanition and inherent weakness of constitution.
In the Exposition of 1876, in Philadelphia, the _New Century_, edited
and published under the auspices of the Woman's Centennial Committee,
was made-up and printed by women on a press of their own, in the
Woman's Pavilion. In 1877 Mrs. Theresa Lewis started _Woman's Words_
in Philadelphia. For some time, Penfield, N. Y., boasted its
thirteen-year-old girl editor, in Miss Nellie Williams. Her paper, the
_Penfield Enterprise_, was for three years written, set up, and
published by herself. It attained a circulation of three thousand.
Many foreign papers devoted to woman's interests have been established
within the last few years. The _Women's Suffrage Journal_, in England,
Lydia E. Becker, of Manchester, editor and proprietor; the
_Englishwoman's Journal_, in London, edited by Caroline Ashurst Biggs;
_Woman and Work_ and the _Victoria Magazine_, by Emily Faithful, are
among the number. Miss Faithful's magazine having attained a
circulation of fifty thousand. _Des Droits des Femmes_, long the organ
of the Swiss woman suffragists, Madame Marie Goegg, the head, was
followed by the _Solidarite_. _L'Avenir des Femmes_, edited by M. Leon
Richer, has Mlle. Maria Dairésmes, the author of a spirited reply to
the work of M. Dumas, _fils_, on Woman, as its special contributor.
_L'Ésperance_, of Geneva, an Englishwoman its editor, was an early
advocate of woman's cause. _La Donna_, at Venice, edited by Signora
Gualberti Aläide Beccari (a well-known Italian philanthropic name);
_La Cornelia_, at Florence, Signora Amelia Cunino Foliero de Luna,
editor, prove Italian advancement. Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands
must not be omitted from the list of those countries which have
published Woman's Rights papers. In Lima, Peru, we find a paper edited
and controlled entirely by women; its name, _Alborada_, _i.e._, the
Dawn, a South American prophecy and herald of that dawn of justice and
equality now breaking upon the world. The Orient, likewise, shows
progress. At Bukarest, in Romaine, a paper, the _Dekebalos_, upholding
the elevation of woman, was started in 1874. The _Euridike_, at
Constantinople, edited by Emile Leonzras, is of a similar character.
The _Bengalee Magazine_, devoted to the interests of Indian ladies,
its editorials all from woman's pen, shows Asiatic advance.
In the United States the list of women's fashion papers, with their
women editors and correspondents, is numerous and important. For
fourteen years _Harper's Bazaar_ has been ably edited by Mary L.
Booth; other papers of similar character are both owned and edited by
women. _Madame Demorest's Monthly_, a paper that originated the vast
pattern business which has extended its ramifications into every part
of the country and given employment to thousands of women. As
illustrative of woman's continuity of purpose in newspaper work, we
may mention the fact that for fifteen years Fanny Fern did not fail to
have an article in readiness each week for the _Ledger_, and for
twenty years Jennie June (Mrs. Croly) has edited _Demorest's Monthly_
and contributed to many other papers throughout the United States.
Mary Mapes Dodge has edited the _St. Nicholas_ the past eight years.
So important a place do women writers hold, _Harper's Monthly_
asserts, that the exceptionally large prices are paid to women
contributors. The spiciest critics, reporters, and correspondents
to-day, are women--Grace Greenwood, Louise Chandler Moulton, Mary
Clemmer. Laura C. Holloway is upon the editorial staff of the Brooklyn
_Eagle_. The New York _Times_ boasts a woman (Midi Morgan) cattle
reporter, one of the best judges of stock in the country. In some
papers, over their own names, women edit columns on special subjects,
and fill important positions on journals owned and edited by men.
Elizabeth Boynton Harbert edits "The Woman's Kingdom" in the
_Inter-Ocean_, one of the leading dailies of Chicago. Mary Forney
Weigley edits a social department in her father's--John W.
Forney--paper, the _Progress_, in Philadelphia. The political columns
of many papers are prepared by women, men often receiving the credit.
Among the best editorials in the New York _Tribune_, from Margaret
Fuller to Lucia Gilbert Calhoun, have been from the pens of women.
If the proverb that "the pen is mightier than the sword" be true,
woman's skill and force in using this mightier weapon must soon change
the destinies of the world.
CHAPTER III.
THE WORLD'S ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, LONDON, JUNE 12, 1840.
Individualism rather than Authority--Personal appearance of
Abolitionists--Clerical attempt to silence Woman--Double battle
against the tyranny of sex and color--Bigoted Abolitionists--James
G. Birney likes freedom on a Southern plantation, but not at his
own fireside--John Bull never dreamt that Woman would answer his
call--The venerable Thomas Clarkson received by the Convention
standing--Lengthy debate on "Female" delegates--The "Females"
rejected--William Lloyd Garrison refused to sit in the Convention.
In gathering up the threads of history in the last century, and
weaving its facts and philosophy together, one can trace the liberal
social ideas, growing out of the political and religious revolutions
in France, Germany, Italy, and America; and their tendency to
substitute for the divine right of kings, priests, and orders of
nobility, the higher and broader one of individual conscience and
judgment in all matters pertaining to this life and that which is to
come. It is not surprising that in so marked a transition period from
the old to the new, as seen in the eighteenth century, that women,
trained to think and write and speak, should have discovered that
they, too, had some share in the new-born liberties suddenly announced
to the world. That the radical political theories, propagated in
different countries, made their legitimate impress on the minds of
women of the highest culture, is clearly proved by their writings and
conversation. While in their ignorance, women are usually more
superstitious, more devoutly religious than men; those trained to
thought, have generally manifested more interest in political
questions, and have more frequently spoken and written on such themes,
than on those merely religious. This may be attributed, in a measure,
to the fact that the tendency of woman's mind, at this stage of her
development, is toward practical, rather than toward speculative
science.
Questions of political economy lie within the realm of positive
knowledge; those of theology belong to the world of mysteries and
abstractions, which those minds, only, that imagine they have
compassed the known, are ambitious to enter and explore. And yet, the
quickening power of the Protestant Reformation roused woman, as well
as man, to new and higher thought. The bold declarations of Luther,
placing individual judgment above church authority, the faith of the
Quaker that the inner light was a better guide than arbitrary law, the
religious idealism of the Transcendentalists, and their teachings that
souls had no sex, had each a marked influence in developing woman's
self-assertion. Such ideas making all divine revelations as veritable
and momentous to one soul, as another, tended directly to equalize the
members of the human family, and place men and women on the same plane
of moral responsibility.
The revelations of science, too, analyzing and portraying the wonders
and beauties of this material world, crowned with new dignity, man and
woman,--Nature's last and proudest work. Combe and Spurzheim, proving
by their Phrenological discoveries that the feelings, sentiments, and
affections of the soul mould and shape the skull, gave new importance
to woman's thought as mother of the race. Thus each new idea in
religion, politics, science, and philosophy, tending to individualism,
rather than authority, came into the world freighted with new hopes of
liberty for woman.
And when in the progress of civilization the time had fully come for
the recognition of the feminine element in humanity, women, in every
civilized country unknown to each other, began simultaneously to
demand a broader sphere of action. Thus the first public demand for
political equality by a body of women in convention assembled, was a
link in the chain of woman's development, binding the future with the
past, as complete and necessary in itself, as the events of any other
period of her history. The ridicule of facts does not change their
character. Many who study the past with interest, and see the
importance of seeming trifles in helping forward great events, often
fail to understand some of the best pages of history made under their
own eyes. Hence the woman suffrage movement has not yet been accepted
as the legitimate outgrowth of American ideas--a component part of the
history of our republic--but is falsely considered the willful
outburst of a few unbalanced minds, whose ideas can never be realized
under any form of government.
Among the immediate causes that led to the demand for the equal
political rights of women, in this country, we may note three:
1. The discussion in several of the State Legislatures on the property
rights of married women, which, heralded by the press with comments
grave and gay, became the topic of general interest around many
fashionable dinner-tables, and at many humble firesides. In this way
all phases of the question were touched upon, involving the
relations of the sexes, and gradually widening to all human
interests--political, religious, civil, and social. The press and
pulpit became suddenly vigilant in marking out woman's sphere, while
woman herself seemed equally vigilant in her efforts to step outside
the prescribed limits.
2. A great educational work was accomplished by the able lectures of
Frances Wright, on political, religious, and social questions.
Ernestine L. Rose, following in her wake, equally liberal in her
religious opinions, and equally well informed on the science of
government, helped to deepen and perpetuate the impression Frances
Wright had made on the minds of unprejudiced hearers.
3. And above all other causes of the "Woman Suffrage Movement," was
the Anti-Slavery struggle in this country. The ranks of the
Abolitionists were composed of the most eloquent orators, the ablest
logicians, men and women of the purest moral character and best minds
in the nation. They were usually spoken of in the early days as "an
illiterate, ill-mannered, poverty-stricken, crazy set of long-haired
Abolitionists." While the fact is, some of the most splendid specimens
of manhood and womanhood, in physical appearance, in culture,
refinement, and knowledge of polite life, were found among the early
Abolitionists. James G. Birney, John Pierpont, Gerrit Smith, Wendell
Phillips, Charles Sumner, Maria Weston Chapman, Helen Garrison, Ann
Green Phillips, Abby Kelly, Paulina Wright Davis, Lucretia Mott, were
all remarkably fine-looking.
In the early Anti-Slavery conventions, the broad principles of human
rights were so exhaustively discussed, justice, liberty, and equality,
so clearly taught, that the women who crowded to listen, readily
learned the lesson of freedom for themselves, and early began to take
part in the debates and business affairs of all associations. Woman
not only felt every pulsation of man's heart for freedom, and by her
enthusiasm inspired the glowing eloquence that maintained him through
the struggle, but earnestly advocated with her own lips human freedom
and equality. When Angelina and Sarah Grimke began to lecture in New
England, their audiences were at first composed entirely of women, but
gentlemen, hearing of their eloquence and power, soon began timidly to
slip into the back seats, one by one. And before the public were
aroused to the dangerous innovation, these women were speaking in
crowded, promiscuous assemblies. The clergy opposed to the abolition
movement first took alarm, and issued a pastoral letter, warning their
congregations against the influence of such women. The clergy
identified with anti-slavery associations took alarm also, and the
initiative steps to silence the women, and to deprive them of the
right to vote in the business meetings, were soon taken. This action
culminated in a division in the Anti-Slavery Association. In the
annual meeting in May, 1840, a formal vote was taken on the
appointment of Abby Kelly on a business committee and was sustained by
over one hundred majority in favor of woman's right to take part in
the proceedings of the Society. Pending the discussion, clergymen in
the opposition went through the audience, _urging every woman who
agreed with them, to vote against_ the motion, thus asking them to do
then and there, what with fervid eloquence, on that very occasion,
they had declared a sin against God and Scripture for them to do
anywhere. As soon as the vote was announced, and Abby Kelly's right on
the business committee decided, the men, two of whom were clergymen,
asked to be excused from serving on the committee.
Thus Sarah and Angelina Grimke and Abby Kelly, in advocating liberty
for the black race, were early compelled to defend the right of free
speech for themselves. They had the double battle to fight against the
tyranny of sex and color at the same time, in which, however, they
were well sustained by the able pens of Lydia Maria Child and Maria
Weston Chapman. Their opponents were found not only in the ranks of
the New England clergy, but among the most bigoted Abolitionists in
Great Britain and the United States. Many a man who advocated equality
most eloquently for a Southern plantation, could not tolerate it at
his own fireside.
The question of woman's right to speak, vote, and serve on committees,
not only precipitated the division in the ranks of the American
Anti-Slavery Society, in 1840, but it disturbed the peace of the
World's Anti-Slavery Convention, held that same year in London. The
call for that Convention invited delegates from all Anti-Slavery
organizations. Accordingly several American societies saw fit to send
women, as delegates, to represent them in that august assembly. But
after going three thousand miles to attend a World's Convention, it
was discovered that women formed no part of the constituent elements
of the moral world. In summoning the friends of the slave from all
parts of the two hemispheres to meet in London, John Bull never
dreamed that woman, too, would answer to his call. Imagine then the
commotion in the conservative anti-slavery circles in England, when it
was known that half a dozen of those terrible women who had spoken to
promiscuous assemblies, voted on men and measures, prayed and
petitioned against slavery, women who had been mobbed, ridiculed by
the press, and denounced by the pulpit, who had been the cause of
setting all American Abolitionists by the ears, and split their ranks
asunder, were on their way to England. Their fears of these formidable
and belligerent women must have been somewhat appeased when Lucretia
Mott, Sarah Pugh, Abby Kimber, Elizabeth Neal, Mary Grew, of
Philadelphia, in modest Quaker costume, Ann Green Phillips, Emily
Winslow, and Abby Southwick, of Boston, all women of refinement and
education, and several, still in their twenties, landed at last on the
soil of Great Britain. Many who had awaited their coming with much
trepidation, gave a sigh of relief, on being introduced to Lucretia
Mott, learning that she represented the most dangerous elements in the
delegation. The American clergymen who had landed a few days before,
had been busily engaged in fanning the English prejudices into active
hostility against the admission of these women to the Convention. In
every circle of Abolitionists this was the theme, and the discussion
grew more bitter, personal, and exasperating every hour.
The 12th of June dawned bright and beautiful on these discordant
elements, and at an early hour anti-slavery delegates from different
countries wended their way through the crooked streets of London to
Freemasons' Hall. Entering the vestibule, little groups might be seen
gathered here and there, earnestly discussing the best disposition to
make of those women delegates from America. The excitement and
vehemence of protest and denunciation could not have been greater, if
the news had come that the French were about to invade England. In
vain those obdurate women had been conjured to withhold their
credentials, and not thrust a question that must produce such discord
on the Convention. Lucretia Mott, in her calm, firm manner, insisted
that the delegates had no discretionary power in the proposed action,
and the responsibility of accepting or rejecting them must rest on the
Convention.
At eleven o'clock, the spacious Hall being filled, the Convention was
called to order. The venerable Thomas Clarkson, who was to be
President, on entering, was received by the large audience standing;
owing to his feeble health, the chairman requested that there should
be no other demonstrations. As soon as Thomas Clarkson withdrew,
Wendell Phillips made the following motion:
"That a Committee of five be appointed to prepare a correct list
of the members of this Convention, with instructions to include
in such list, all persons bearing credentials from any
Anti-Slavery body."
This motion at once opened the debate on the admission of women
delegates.
Mr. Phillips: When the call reached America we found that it was
an invitation to the friends of the slave of every nation and of
every clime. Massachusetts has for several years acted on the
principle of admitting women to an equal seat with men, in the
deliberative bodies of anti-slavery societies. When the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society received that paper, it
interpreted it, as it was its duty, in its broadest and most
liberal sense. If there be any other paper, emanating from the
Committee, limiting to one sex the qualification of membership,
there is no proof; and, as an individual, I have no knowledge
that such a paper ever reached Massachusetts. We stand here in
consequence of your invitation, and knowing our custom, as it
must be presumed you did, we had a right to interpret "friends of
the slave," to include women as well as men. In such
circumstances, we do not think it just or equitable to that
State, nor to America in general, that, after the trouble, the
sacrifice, the self-devotion of a part of those who leave their
families and kindred and occupations in their own land, to come
three thousand miles to attend this World's Convention, they
should be refused a place in its deliberations.
One of the Committee who issued the call, said: As soon as we
heard the liberal interpretation Americans had given to our first
invitation, we issued another as early as Feb. 15, in which the
description of those who are to form the Convention is set forth
as consisting of "gentlemen."
Dr. Bowring: I think the custom of excluding females is more
honored in its breach than in its observance. In this country
sovereign rule is placed in the hands of a female, and one who
has been exercising her great and benignant influence in opposing
slavery by sanctioning, no doubt, the presence of her illustrious
consort at an anti-slavery meeting. We are associated with a body
of Christians (Quakers) who have given to their women a great,
honorable, and religious prominence. I look upon this delegation
from America as one of the most interesting, the most
encouraging, and the most delightful symptoms of the times. I can
not believe that we shall refuse to welcome gratefully the
co-operation which is offered us.
The Rev. J. Burnet, an Englishman, made a most touching appeal to the
American ladies, to conform to English prejudices and custom, so far
as to withdraw their credentials, as it never did occur to the British
and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society that they were inviting ladies. It is
better, said he, that this Convention should be dissolved at this
moment than this motion should be adopted.
The Rev. Henry Grew, of Philadelphia: The reception of women as a
part of this Convention would, in the view of many, be not only a
violation of the customs of England, but of the ordinance of
Almighty God, who has a right to appoint our services to His
sovereign will.
Rev. Eben Galusha, New York: In support of the other side of this
question, reference has been made to your Sovereign. I most
cordially approve of her policy and sound wisdom, and commend to
the consideration of our American female friends who are so
deeply interested in the subject, the example of your noble
Queen, who by sanctioning her consort, His Royal Highness Prince
Albert, in taking the chair on an occasion not dissimilar to
this, showed her sense of propriety by putting her Head foremost
in an assembly of gentlemen. I have no objection to woman's being
the neck to turn the head aright, but do not wish to see her
assume the place of the head.
George Bradburn, of Mass.: We are told that it would be outraging
the customs of England to allow women to sit in this Convention.
I have a great respect for the customs of old England. But I ask,
gentlemen, if it be right to set up the customs and habits, not
to say prejudices of Englishmen, as a standard for the government
on this occasion of Americans, and of persons belonging to
several other independent nations. I can see neither reason nor
policy in so doing. Besides, I deprecate the principle of the
objection. In America it would exclude from our conventions all
persons of color, for there customs, habits, tastes, prejudices,
would be outraged by _their_ admission. And I do not wish to be
deprived of the aid of those who have done so much for this
cause, for the purpose of gratifying any mere custom or
prejudice. Women have furnished most essential aid in
accomplishing what has been done in the State of Massachusetts.
If, in the Legislature of that State, I have been able to do
anything in furtherance of that cause, by keeping on my legs
eight or ten hours day after day, it was mainly owing to the
valuable assistance I derived from the women. And shall such
women be denied seats in this Convention? My friend George
Thompson, yonder, can testify to the faithful services rendered
to this cause by those same women. He can tell you that when
"gentlemen of property and standing" in "broad day" and
"broadcloth," undertook to drive him from Boston, putting his
life in peril, it was our women who made their own persons a
bulwark of protection around him. And shall such women be refused
seats here in a Convention seeking the emancipation of slaves
throughout the world? What a misnomer to call this a World's
Convention of Abolitionists, when some of the oldest and most
thorough-going Abolitionists in the world are denied the right to
be represented in it by delegates of their own choice.
And thus for the space of half an hour did Mr. Bradburn, six feet high
and well-proportioned, with vehement gesticulations and voice of
thunder, bombard the prejudices of England and the hypocrisies of
America.
George Thompson: I have listened to the arguments advanced on
this side and on that side of this vexed question. I listened
with profound attention to the arguments of Mr. Burnet, expecting
that from him, as I was justified in expecting, I should hear the
strongest arguments that could be adduced on this, or any other
subject upon which he might be pleased to employ his talents, or
which he might adorn with his eloquence. What are his arguments?
Let it be premised, as I speak in the presence of American
friends, that that gentleman is one of the best controversialists
in the country, and one of the best authorities upon questions of
business, points of order, and matters of principle. What are
the strongest arguments, which one of the greatest champions on
any question which he chooses to espouse, has brought forward?
They are these:
1st. That English phraseology should be construed according
to English usage.
2d. That it was never contemplated by the anti-slavery
committee that ladies should occupy a seat in this
Convention.
3d. That the ladies of England are not here as delegates.
4th. That he has no desire to offer an affront to the ladies
now present.
Here I presume are the strongest arguments the gentleman has to
adduce, for he never fails to use to the best advantage the
resources within his reach. I look at these arguments, and I
place on the other side of the question, the fact that there are
in this assembly ladies who present themselves as delegates from
the oldest societies in America. I expected that Mr. Burnet
would, as he was bound to do, if he intended to offer a
successful opposition to their introduction into this Convention,
grapple with the constitutionality of their credentials. I
thought he would come to the question of title. I thought he
would dispute the right of a convention assembled in
Philadelphia, for the abolition of slavery, consisting of
delegates from different States in the Union, and comprised of
individuals of both sexes, to send one or all of the ladies now
in our presence. I thought he would grapple with the fact, that
those ladies came to us who have no slavery from a country in
which they have slaves, as the representatives of two millions
and a half of captives. Let gentlemen, when they come to vote on
this question, remember, that in receiving or rejecting these
ladies, they acknowledge or despise [loud cries of No, no]. I ask
gentlemen, who shout "no," if they know the application I am
about to make. I did not mean to say you would despise the
ladies, but that you would, by your vote, acknowledge or despise
the parties whose cause they espouse. It appears we are prepared
to sanction ladies in the employment of all means, so long as
they are confessedly unequal with ourselves. It seems that the
grand objection to their appearance amongst us is this, that it
would be placing them on a footing of equality, and that would be
contrary to principle and custom. For years the women of America
have carried their banner in the van, while the men have humbly
followed in the rear. It is well known that the National Society
solicited Angelina Grimke to undertake a mission through New
England, to rouse the attention of the women to the wrongs of
slavery, and that that distinguished woman displayed her talents
not only in the drawing-room, but before the Senate of
Massachusetts. Let us contrast our conduct with that of the
Senators and Representatives of Massachusetts who did not disdain
to hear her. It was in consequence of her exertions, which
received the warmest approval of the National Society, that that
interest sprung up which has awakened such an intense feeling
throughout America. Then with reference to efficient management,
the most vigorous anti-slavery societies are those which are
managed by ladies.
If now, after the expression of opinion on various sides, the
motion should be withdrawn with the consent of all parties, I
should be glad. But when I look at the arguments against the
title of these women to sit amongst us, I can not but consider
them frivolous and groundless. The simple question before us is,
whether these ladies, taking into account their credentials, the
talent they have displayed, the sufferings they have endured, the
journey they have undertaken, should be acknowledged by us, in
virtue of these high titles, or should be shut out for the
reasons stated.
Mr. Phillips, being urged on all sides to withdraw his motion,
said: It has been hinted very respectfully by two or three
speakers that the delegates from the State of Massachusetts
should withdraw their credentials, or the motion before the
meeting. The one appears to me to be equivalent to the other. If
this motion be withdrawn we must have another. I would merely ask
whether any man can suppose that the delegates from Massachusetts
or Pennsylvania can take upon their shoulders the responsibility
of withdrawing that list of delegates from your table, which
their constituents told them to place there, and whom they
sanctioned as their fit representatives, because this Convention
tells us that it is not ready to meet the ridicule of the morning
papers, and to stand up against the customs of England. In
America we listen to no such arguments. If we had done so we had
never been here as Abolitionists. It is the custom there not to
admit colored men into respectable society, and we have been told
again and again that we are outraging the decencies of humanity
when we permit colored men to sit by our side. When we have
submitted to brick-bats, and the tar tub and feathers in America,
rather than yield to the custom prevalent there of not admitting
colored brethren into our friendship, shall we yield to parallel
custom or prejudice against women in Old England? We can not
yield this question if we would; for it is a matter of
conscience. But we would not yield it on the ground of
expediency. In doing so we should feel that we were striking off
the right arm of our enterprise. We could not go back to America
to ask for any aid from the women of Massachusetts if we had
deserted them, when they chose to send out their own sisters as
their representatives here. We could not go back to Massachusetts
and assert the unchangeableness of spirit on the question. We
have argued it over and over again, and decided it time after
time, in every society in the land, in favor of the women. We
have not changed by crossing the water. We stand here the
advocates of the same principle that we contend for in America.
We think it right for women to sit by our side there, and we
think it right for them to do the same here. We ask the
Convention to admit them; if they do not choose to grant it, the
responsibility rests on their shoulders. Massachusetts can not
turn aside, or succumb to any prejudices or customs even in the
land she looks upon with so much reverence as the land of
Wilberforce, of Clarkson, and of O'Connell. It is a matter of
conscience, and British virtue ought not to ask us to yield.
Mr. Ashurst: You are convened to influence society upon a subject
connected with the kindliest feelings of our nature; and being
the first assembly met to shake hands with other nations, and
employ your combined efforts to annihilate slavery throughout the
world, are you to commence by saying, you will take away the
rights of one-half of creation! This is the principle which you
are putting forward.
The Rev. A. Harvey, of Glasgow: It was stated by a brother from
America, that with him it is a matter of conscience, and it is a
question of conscience with me too. I have certain views in
relation to the teaching of the Word of God, and of the
particular sphere in which woman is to act. I must say, whether I
am right in my interpretations of the Word of God or not, that my
own decided convictions are, if I were to give a vote in favor of
females, sitting and deliberating in such an assembly as this,
that I should be acting in opposition to the plain teaching of
the Word of God. I may be wrong, but I have a conscience on the
subject, and I am sure there are a number present of the same
mind.
Captain Wanchope, R. N., delegate from Carlisle: I entreat the
ladies not to push this question too far. I wish to know whether
our friends from America are to cast off England altogether. Have
we not given £20,000,000 of our money for the purpose of doing
away with the abominations of slavery? Is not that proof that we
are in earnest about it?
James C. Fuller: One friend said that this question should have
been settled on the other side of the Atlantic. Why, it was there
decided in favor of woman a year ago.
James Gillespie Birney: It has been stated that the right of
women to sit and act in all respects as men in our anti-slavery
associations, was decided in the affirmative at the annual
meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in May, 1839. It is
true the claim was so decided on that occasion, but not by a
large majority; whilst it is also true that the majority was
swelled by the votes of the women themselves. I have just
received a letter from a gentleman in New York (Louis Tappan),
communicating the fact, that the persistence of the friends of
promiscuous female representation in pressing that practice on
the American Anti-Slavery Society, at its annual meeting on the
twelfth of last month, had caused such disagreement among the
members present, that he and others who viewed the subject as he
did, were then deliberating on measures for seceding from the old
organization.
Rev. C. Stout: My vote is that we confirm the list of delegates,
that we take votes on that as an amendment, and that we
henceforth entertain this question no more. Are we not met here
pledged to sacrifice all but everything, in order that we may do
something against slavery, and shall we be divided on this
_paltry question_ and suffer the whole tide of benevolence to be
stopped by a _straw_? No! You talk of being men, then be men!
Consider what is worthy of your attention.
Rev. Dr. Morrison: I feel, I believe, as our brethren from
America and many English friends do at this moment, that we are
treading on the brink of a precipice; and that precipice is the
awaking in our bosoms by this discussion, feelings that will not
only be averse to the great object for which we have assembled,
but inconsistent, perhaps, in some degree, with the Christian
spirit which, I trust, will pervade all meetings connected with
the Anti-Slavery cause. We have been unanimous against the common
foe, but we are this day in danger of creating division among
heartfelt friends. Will our American brethren put us in this
position? Will they keep up a discussion in which the delicacy,
the honor, the respectability of those excellent females who have
come from the Western world are concerned? I tremble at the
thought of discussing the question in the presence of these
ladies--for whom I entertain the most profound respect--and I am
bold to say, that but for the introduction of the question of
woman's rights, it would be impossible for the shrinking nature
of woman to subject itself to the infliction of such a discussion
as this.
As the hour was late, and as the paltry arguments of the opposition
were unworthy much consideration--as the reader will see from the
specimens given--Mr. Phillips' reply was brief, consisting of the
correction of a few mistakes made by different speakers. The vote was
taken, and the women excluded as delegates of the Convention, by an
overwhelming majority.
George Thompson: I hope, as the question is now decided, that Mr.
Phillips will give us the assurance that we shall proceed with
one heart and one mind.
Mr. Phillips replied: I have no doubt of it. There is no
unpleasant feeling in our minds. I have no doubt the women will
sit with as much interest behind the bar[6] as though the
original proposition had been carried in the affirmative. All we
asked was an expression of opinion, and, having obtained it, we
shall now act with the utmost cordiality.
Would there have been no unpleasant feelings in Wendell Phillips'
mind, had Frederick Douglass and Robert Purvis been refused their
seats in a convention of reformers under similar circumstances? and,
had _they_ listened one entire day to debates on their peculiar
fitness for plantation life, and unfitness for the forum and public
assemblies, and been rejected as delegates on the ground of color,
could Wendell Phillips have so far mistaken their real feelings, and
been so insensible to the insults offered them, as to have told a
Convention of men who had just trampled on their most sacred rights,
that "they would no doubt sit with as much interest behind the bar, as
in the Convention"? To stand in that august assembly and maintain the
unpopular heresy of woman's equality was a severe ordeal for a young
man to pass through, and Wendell Phillips, who accepted the odium of
presenting this question to the Convention, and thus earned the
sincere gratitude of all womankind, might be considered as above
criticism, though he may have failed at one point to understand the
feelings of woman. The fact is important to mention, however, to show
that it is almost impossible for the most liberal of men to
understand what liberty means for woman. This sacrifice of human
rights, by men who had assembled from all quarters of the globe to
proclaim universal emancipation, was offered up in the presence of
such women as Lady Byron, Anna Jameson, Amelia Opie, Mary Howitt,
Elizabeth Fry, and our own Lucretia Mott. The clergy with few
exceptions were bitter in their opposition. Although, as
Abolitionists, they had been compelled to fight both Church and Bible
to prove the black man's right to liberty, conscience forbade them to
stretch those sacred limits far enough to give equal liberty to woman.
The leading men who championed the cause of the measure in the
Convention and voted in the affirmative, were Wendell Phillips, George
Thompson, George Bradburn, Mr. Ashurst, Dr. Bowring, and Henry B.
Stanton. Though Daniel O'Connell was not present during the
discussion, having passed out with the President, yet in his first
speech, he referred to the rejected delegates, paying a beautiful
tribute to woman's influence, and saying he should have been happy to
have added the right word in the right place and to have recorded his
vote in favor of human equality..
William Lloyd Garrison, having been delayed at sea, arrived too late
to take part in the debates. Learning on his arrival that the women
had been rejected as delegates, he declined to take his seat in the
Convention; and, through all those interesting discussions on a
subject so near his heart, lasting ten days, he remained a silent
spectator in the gallery. What a sacrifice for a principle so dimly
seen by the few, and so ignorantly ridiculed by the many! Brave, noble
Garrison! May this one act keep his memory fresh forever in the hearts
of his countrywomen!
The one Abolitionist who sustained Mr. Garrison's position, and sat
with him in the gallery, was Nathaniel P. Rogers, editor of the
_Herald of Freedom_, in Concord, New Hampshire, who died in the midst
of the Anti-Slavery struggle. However, the debates in the Convention
had the effect of rousing English minds to thought on the tyranny of
sex, and American minds to the importance of some definite action
toward woman's emancipation.
As Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wended their way arm in
arm down Great Queen Street that night, reviewing the exciting scenes
of the day, they agreed to hold a woman's rights convention on their
return to America, as the men to whom they had just listened had
manifested their great need of some education on that question. Thus a
missionary work for the emancipation of woman in "the land of the
free and the home of the brave" was then and there inaugurated. As the
ladies were not allowed to speak in the Convention, they kept up a
brisk fire morning, noon, and night at their hotel on the unfortunate
gentlemen who were domiciled at the same house. Mr. Birney, with his
luggage, promptly withdrew after the first encounter, to some more
congenial haven of rest, while the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, from Boston,
who always fortified himself with six eggs well beaten in a large bowl
at breakfast, to the horror of his host and a circle of æsthetic
friends, stood his ground to the last--his physical proportions being
his shield and buckler, and his Bible (with Colver's commentaries) his
weapon of defence.[7]
The movement for woman's suffrage, both in England and America, may be
dated from this World's Anti-Slavery Convention.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The ladies of the Convention were fenced off behind a bar and
curtain, similar to those used in churches to screen the choir from
the public gaze.
[7] Some of the English clergy, dancing around with Bible in hand,
shaking it in the faces of the opposition, grew so vehement, that one
would really have thought that they held a commission from high heaven
as the possessors of all truth, and that all progress in human affairs
was to be squared by their interpretation of Scripture. At last George
Bradburn, exasperated with their narrowness and bigotry, sprang to the
floor, and stretching himself to his full height, said: "Prove to me,
gentlemen, that your Bible sanctions the slavery of woman--the
complete subjugation of one-half the race to the other--and I should
feel that the best work I could do for humanity would be to make a
grand bonfire of every Bible in the Universe."
CHAPTER IV.
NEW YORK.
The First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, July 19-20,
1848--Property Rights of Women secured--Judge Fine, George
Geddes, and Mr. Hadley pushed the Bill through--Danger of
meddling with well-settled conditions of domestic happiness--Mrs.
Barbara Hertell's will--Richard Hunt's tea-table--The eventful
day--James Mott President--Declaration of sentiments--Convention
in Rochester--Clergy again in opposition with Bible arguments.
New York with its metropolis, fine harbors, great lakes and rivers;
its canals and railroads uniting the extremest limits, and controlling
the commerce of the world; with its wise statesmen and wily
politicians, long holding the same relation to the nation at large
that Paris is said to hold to France, has been proudly called by her
sons and daughters the Empire State.
But the most interesting fact in her history, to woman, is that she
was the first State to emancipate wives from the slavery of the old
common law of England, and to secure to them equal property rights.
This occurred in 1848. Various bills and petitions, with reference to
the civil rights of woman, had been under discussion twelve years, and
the final passage of the property bill was due in no small measure to
two facts. 1st. The constitutional convention in 1847, which compelled
the thinking people of the State, and especially the members of the
convention, to the serious consideration of the fundamental principles
of government. As in the revision of a Constitution the State is for
the time being resolved into its original elements in recognizing the
equality of all the people, one would naturally think that a chance
ray of justice might have fallen aslant the wrongs of woman and
brought to the surface some champion in that convention, especially as
some aggravated cases of cruelty in families of wealth and position
had just at that time aroused the attention of influential men to the
whole question. 2d. Among the Dutch aristocracy of the State there was
a vast amount of dissipation; and as married women could hold neither
property nor children under the common law, solid, thrifty Dutch
fathers were daily confronted with the fact that the inheritance of
their daughters, carefully accumulated, would at marriage pass into
the hands of dissipated, impecunious husbands, reducing them and their
children to poverty and dependence. Hence this influential class of
citizens heartily seconded the efforts of reformers, then demanding
equal property rights in the marriage relation. Thus a wise
selfishness on one side, and principle on the other, pushed the
conservatives and radicals into the same channel, and both alike found
anchor in the statute law of 1848. This was the death-blow to the old
Blackstone code for married women in this country, and ever since
legislation has been slowly, but steadily, advancing toward their
complete equality.
Desiring to know who prompted the legislative action on the Property
Bill in 1848, and the names of our champions who carried it
successfully through after twelve years of discussion and petitioning,
a letter of inquiry was addressed to the Hon. George Geddes of the
twenty-second district--at that time Senator--and received the
following reply:
FAIRMOUNT, ONONDAGA CO., N. Y.,}
_November 25, 1880_.}
MRS. MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE:
_Dear Madam_:--I was much gratified at the receipt of your letter
of the 22d inst., making inquiries into the history of the law of
1848 in regard to married women holding property independently of
their husbands. That the "truth of history" may be made plain, I
have looked over the journals of the Senate and Assembly, and
taken full notes, which I request you to publish, if you put any
part of this letter in print.
I have very distinct recollections of the whole history of this
very radical measure. Judge Fine, of St. Lawrence, was its
originator, and he gave me his reasons for introducing the bill.
He said that he married a lady who had some property of her own,
which he had, all his life, tried to keep distinct from his, that
she might have the benefit of her own, in the event of any
disaster happening to him in pecuniary matters. He had found much
difficulty, growing out of the old laws, in this effort to
protect his wife's interests.
Judge Fine was a stately man, and of general conservative
tendencies, just the one to hold on to the past, but he was a
just man, and did not allow his practice as a lawyer, or his
experience on the bench, to obscure his sense of right. I
followed him, glad of such a leader.
I, too, had special reasons for desiring this change in the law.
I had a young daughter, who, in the then condition of my health,
was quite likely to be left in tender years without a father, and
I very much desired to protect her in the little property I might
be able to leave. I had an elaborate will drawn by my old law
preceptor, Vice-Chancellor Lewis H. Sandford, creating a trust
with all the care and learning he could bring to my aid. But when
the elaborate paper was finished, neither he or I felt satisfied
with it. When the law of 1848 was passed, all I had to do was to
burn this will.
In this connection I wish to say that the Speaker of the
Assembly, Mr. Hadley, gave aid in the passage of this law that
was essential. Very near the end of the session of the
Legislature he assured me that if the bill passed the Senate, he
would see that it passed the House. By examining my notes of the
Assembly's action, you will see that the bill never went to a
committee of the whole in that body, but was sent directly to a
select committee to report complete. It was the power of the
Speaker that in this summary manner overrode the usual
legislative forms. The only reason Mr. Hadley gave me for his
zeal in this matter, was that it was a good bill and ought to
pass.
I believe this law originated with Judge Fine, without any
outside prompting. On the third day of the session he gave notice
of his intention to introduce it, and only one petition was
presented in favor of the bill, and that came from Syracuse, and
was due to the action of my personal friends--I presented it
nearly two months after the bill had been introduced to the
Senate.
The reception of the bill by the Senate showed unlooked-for
support as well as opposition. The measure was so radical, so
extreme, that even its friends had doubts; but the moment any
important amendment was offered, up rose the whole question of
woman's proper place in society, in the family, and everywhere.
We all felt that the laws regulating married women's, as well as
married men's rights, demanded careful revision and adaptation to
our times and to our civilization. But no such revision could be
perfected then, nor has it been since. We meant to strike a hard
blow, and if possible shake the old system of laws to their
foundations, and leave it to other times and wiser councils to
perfect a new system.
We had in the Senate a man of matured years, who had never had a
wife. He was a lawyer well-read in the old books, and versed in
the adjudications which had determined that husband and wife were
but one person, and the husband that person; and he expressed
great fears in regard to meddling with this well-settled
condition of domestic happiness. This champion of the past made
long and very able arguments to show the ruin this law must work,
but he voted for the bill in the final decision.
The bill hung along in Committee of the Whole until March 21st,
when its great opponent being absent, I moved its reference to a
select Committee, with power to report it complete; that is,
matured ready for its passage. So the bill was out of the arena
of debate, and on my motion was ordered to its third reading.
In reply to your inquiries in regard to debates that preceded the
action of 1848, I must say I know of none, and I am quite sure
that in our long discussions no allusion was made to anything of
the kind. Great measures often occupy the thoughts of men and
women, long before they take substantial form and become things
of life, and I shall not dispute any one who says that this
reform had been thought of before 1848. But I do insist the
record shows that Judge Fine is the author of the law which
opened the way to clothe woman with full rights, in regard to
holding, using, and enjoying in every way her own property,
independently of any husband.
I add the following extracts taken from the journals of the
Senate and Assembly of 1848, viz:
Senate journal for 1848, p. 35. January 7th. "Mr. Fine gave
notice that he would, at an early day, ask leave to introduce a
bill for the more effectual protection of the property of married
women."
Jan. 8th, p. 47. "Mr. Fine introduced 'the bill,' and it was
referred to the Judiciary Committee," which consisted of Mr.
Wilkin, Mr. Fine, and Mr. Cole.
Feb. 7th, p. 157. Mr. Wilkin reported the bill favorably, and it
was sent to the Committee of the Whole.
Feb. 23d. Mr. Geddes presented the petition of three hundred
citizens of Syracuse praying for the passage of a law to protect
the rights of married women.
March 1st, p. 242. "The Senate spent some time in Committee of
the Whole" on the bill, and reported progress, and had leave to
sit again.
March 3d, p. 250. The Senate again in Committee of the Whole on
this bill.
March 15th, p. 314. The Senate again in Committee of the Whole on
this bill.
March 21st, p. 352. Mr. Lawrence, from Committee of the Whole,
reported the bill with some amendments. "Thereupon ordered that
said bill be referred to a Select Committee consisting of Mr.
Fine, Mr. Geddes, and Mr. Hawley to report complete."
March 21st, p. 354. "Mr. Geddes, from the Select Committee,
reported complete, with amendments, the bill entitled 'An Act for
the more effectual protection of the property of married women,'
which report was laid on the table."
March 28th, p. 420. "On motion of Mr. Geddes, the Senate then
proceeded to the consideration of the report of the Select
Committee on the bill entitled '(as above)', which report was
agreed to, and the bill ordered to a third reading."
March 29th, p. 443. The bill entitled "(as above)" was read the
third time, and passed--ayes, 23; nays, 1, as follows:
_Ayes_--Messrs. Betts, Bond, Brownson, Burch, Coffin, Cole, Cook,
Cornwell, Fine, Floyd, Fox, Fuller, Geddes, S. H. P. Hall,
Hawley, Johnson, Lawrence, Little, Martin, Smith, Wallon, Wilkin,
Williams, 23.
_Nays_--Clark, 1.
April 7th, p. 541. The bill was returned from the Assembly with
its concurrence.
Its history in the Assembly (_see its Journal_):
March 29th, p. 966. A message from the Senate, requesting the
concurrence of the Assembly to "An Act for the more effectual
protection of the property of married women." On motion of Mr.
Campbell, the bill was sent to a Committee consisting of Messrs.
Campbell, Brigham, Myers, Coe, and Crocker, to report complete
(_see page_ 967).
April 1st, page 1025. Mr. Campbell reported in favor of its
passage, p. 1026. Report agreed to by the House.
April 6, p. 1129. Mr. Collins moved to recommit to a Select
Committee for amendment. His motion failed, and the bill passed
(p. 1130). Ayes, 93. Nays, 9.
The Governor put his name to the bill and thus it became a law.
Please reply to me and let me know whether I have made this
matter clear to you.
Very respectfully,
GEO. GEDDES.
When the first bill was introduced by Judge Hertell in 1836, he made a
very elaborate argument in its favor, covering all objections, and
showing the incontestable justice of the measure. Being too voluminous
for a newspaper report it was published in pamphlet form. His wife,
Barbara Amelia Hertell, dying a few years since, by her will left a
sum for the republication of this exhaustive argument, thus keeping
the memory of her husband green in the hearts of his countrywomen, and
expressing her own high appreciation of its value.
Step by step the Middle and New England States began to modify their
laws, but the Western States, in their Constitutions, were liberal in
starting. Thus the discussions in the constitutional convention and
the Legislature, heralded by the press to every school district,
culminated at last in a woman's rights convention.
The _Seneca County Courier_, a semi-weekly journal, of July 14, 1848,
contained the following startling announcement:
SENECA FALLS CONVENTION.
WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.--A Convention to discuss the social,
civil, and religious condition and rights of woman, will be held
in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on Wednesday and
Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July, current; commencing at 10
o'clock A.M. During the first day the meeting will be exclusively
for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public
generally are invited to be present on the second day, when
Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen,
will address the convention.
This call, without signature, was issued by Lucretia Mott, Martha C.
Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Ann McClintock. At this time
Mrs. Mott was visiting her sister Mrs. Wright, at Auburn, and
attending the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Western New York. Mrs.
Stanton, having recently removed from Boston to Seneca Falls, finding
the most congenial associations in Quaker families, met Mrs. Mott
incidentally for the first time since her residence there. They at
once returned to the topic they had so often discussed, walking arm
in arm in the streets of London, and Boston, "the propriety of holding
a woman's convention." These four ladies, sitting round the tea-table
of Richard Hunt, a prominent Friend near Waterloo, decided to put
their long-talked-of resolution into action, and before the twilight
deepened into night, the call was written, and sent to the Seneca
County Courier. On Sunday morning they met in Mrs. McClintock's parlor
to write their declaration, resolutions, and to consider subjects for
speeches.[8] As the convention was to assemble in three days, the time
was short for such productions; but having no experience in the _modus
operandi_ of getting up conventions, nor in that kind of literature,
they were quite innocent of the herculean labors they proposed. On the
first attempt to frame a resolution; to crowd a complete thought,
clearly and concisely, into three lines; they felt as helpless and
hopeless as if they had been suddenly asked to construct a steam
engine. And the humiliating fact may as well now be recorded that
before taking the initiative step, those ladies resigned themselves to
a faithful perusal of various masculine productions. The reports of
Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions were examined, but all
alike seemed too tame and pacific for the inauguration of a rebellion
such as the world had never before seen. They knew women had wrongs,
but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased from
the fact that they themselves were fortunately organized and
conditioned; they were neither "sour old maids," "childless women,"
nor "divorced wives," as the newspapers declared them to be. While
they had felt the insults incident to sex, in many ways, as every
proud, thinking woman must, in the laws, religion, and literature of
the world, and in the invidious and degrading sentiments and customs
of all nations, yet they had not in their own experience endured the
coarser forms of tyranny resulting from unjust laws, or association
with immoral and unscrupulous men, but they had souls large enough to
feel the wrongs of others, without being scarified in their own flesh.
After much delay, one of the circle took up the Declaration of 1776,
and read it aloud with much spirit and emphasis, and it was at once
decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight changes such
as substituting "all men" for "King George." Knowing that women must
have more to complain of than men under any circumstances possibly
could, and seeing the Fathers had eighteen grievances, a protracted
search was made through statute books, church usages, and the customs
of society to find that exact number. Several well-disposed men
assisted in collecting the grievances, until, with the announcement of
the eighteenth, the women felt they had enough to go before the world
with a good case. One youthful lord remarked, "Your grievances must be
grievous indeed, when you are obliged to go to books in order to find
them out."
The eventful day dawned at last, and crowds in carriages and on foot,
wended their way to the Wesleyan church. When those having charge of
the Declaration, the resolutions, and several volumes of the Statutes
of New York arrived on the scene, lo! the door was locked. However, an
embryo Professor of Yale College was lifted through an open window to
unbar the door; that done, the church was quickly filled. It had been
decided to have no men present, but as they were already on the spot,
and as the women who must take the responsibility of organizing the
meeting, and leading the discussions, shrank from doing either, it was
decided, in a hasty council round the altar, that this was an occasion
when men might make themselves pre-eminently useful. It was agreed
they should remain, and take the laboring oar through the Convention.
James Mott, tall and dignified, in Quaker costume, was called to the
chair; Mary McClintock appointed Secretary, Frederick Douglass, Samuel
Tillman, Ansel Bascom, E. W. Capron, and Thomas McClintock took part
throughout in the discussions. Lucretia Mott, accustomed to public
speaking in the Society of Friends, stated the objects of the
Convention, and in taking a survey of the degraded condition of woman
the world over, showed the importance of inaugurating some movement
for her education and elevation. Elizabeth and Mary McClintock, and
Mrs. Stanton, each read a well-written speech; Martha Wright read some
satirical articles she had published in the daily papers answering the
diatribes on woman's sphere. Ansel Bascom, who had been a member of
the Constitutional Convention recently held in Albany, spoke at length
on the property bill for married women, just passed the Legislature,
and the discussion on woman's rights in that Convention. Samuel
Tillman, a young student of law, read a series of the most
exasperating statutes for women, from English and American jurists,
all reflecting the _tender mercies_ of men toward their wives, in
taking care of their property and protecting them in their civil
rights.
The Declaration having been freely discussed by many present, was
re-read by Mrs. Stanton, and with some slight amendment adopted.
DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the
earth a position different from that which they have hitherto
occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to
such a course.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights
governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer
from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the
institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they were accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under
absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this
government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them
to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To
prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to
the elective franchise.
He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which
she had no voice.
He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most
ignorant and degraded men--both natives and foreigners.
Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the
elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in
the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages
she earns.
He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can
commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the
presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is
compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to
all intents and purposes, her master--the law giving him power to
deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the
proper causes, and in case of separation, to whom the
guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly
regardless of the happiness of women--the law, in all cases,
going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and
giving all power into his hands.
After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single,
and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a
government which recognizes her only when her property can be
made profitable to it.
He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and
from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty
remuneration. He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and
distinction which he considers most honorable to himself. As a
teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.
He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough
education, all colleges being closed against her.
He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a subordinate
position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the
ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public
participation in the affairs of the Church.
He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a
different code of morals for men and women, by which moral
delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only
tolerated, but deemed of little account in man.
He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as
his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs
to her conscience and to her God.
He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her
confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to
make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the
people of this country, their social and religious
degradation--in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and
because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and
fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that
they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges
which belong to them as citizens of the United States.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small
amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we
shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our
object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the
State and National legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the
pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will
be followed by a series of Conventions embracing every part of
the country.
The following resolutions were discussed by Lucretia Mott, Thomas and
Mary Ann McClintock, Amy Post, Catharine A. F. Stebbins, and others,
and were adopted:
WHEREAS, The great precept of nature is conceded to be, that "man
shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness." Blackstone
in his Commentaries remarks, that this law of Nature being
coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course
superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the
globe, in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of
any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid,
derive all their force, and all their validity, and all their
authority, mediately and immediately, from this original;
therefore.
_Resolved_, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true
and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great
precept of nature and of no validity, for this is "superior in
obligation to any other."
_Resolved_, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such
a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which
place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to
the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or
authority.
_Resolved_, That woman is man's equal--was intended to be so by
the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she
should be recognized as such.
_Resolved_, That the women of this country ought to be
enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that
they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring
themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their
ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.
_Resolved_, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself
intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority,
it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak and teach,
as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.
_Resolved_, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and
refinement of behavior that is required of woman in the social
state, should also be required of man, and the same
transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man
and woman.
_Resolved_, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety,
which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a
public audience, comes with a very ill-grace from those who
encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in
the concert, or in feats of the circus.
_Resolved_, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the
circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted
application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that
it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great
Creator has assigned her.
_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the women of this country to
secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective
franchise.
_Resolved_, That the equality of human rights results necessarily
from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and
responsibilities.
_Resolved, therefore_, That, being invested by the Creator with
the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of
responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right
and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous
cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the
great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her
right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in
private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any
instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper
to be held; and this being a self-evident truth growing out of
the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or
authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary
sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident
falsehood, and at war with mankind.
At the last session Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following
resolution:
_Resolved_, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the
zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the
overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to
woman an equal participation with men in the various trades,
professions, and commerce.
The only resolution that was not unanimously adopted was the ninth,
urging the women of the country to secure to themselves the elective
franchise. Those who took part in the debate feared a demand for the
right to vote would defeat others they deemed more rational, and make
the whole movement ridiculous.
But Mrs. Stanton and Frederick Douglass seeing that the power to
choose rulers and make laws, was the right by which all others could
be secured, persistently advocated the resolution, and at last carried
it by a small majority.
Thus it will be seen that the Declaration and resolutions in the very
first Convention, demanded all the most radical friends of the
movement have since claimed--such as equal rights in the universities,
in the trades and professions; the right to vote; to share in all
political offices, honors, and emoluments; to complete equality in
marriage, to personal freedom, property, wages, children; to make
contracts; to sue, and be sued; and to testify in courts of justice.
At this time the condition of married women under the Common Law, was
nearly as degraded as that of the slave on the Southern plantation.
The Convention continued through two entire days, and late into the
evenings. The deepest interest was manifested to its close.
The proceedings were extensively published, unsparingly ridiculed by
the press, and denounced by the pulpit, much to the surprise and
chagrin of the leaders. Being deeply in earnest, and believing their
demands pre-eminently wise and just, they were wholly unprepared to
find themselves the target for the jibes and jeers of the nation. The
Declaration was signed by one hundred men, and women, many of whom
withdrew their names as soon as the storm of ridicule began to break.
The comments of the press were carefully preserved,[9] and it is
curious to see that the same old arguments, and objections rife at the
start, are reproduced by the press of to-day. But the brave protests
sent out from this Convention touched a responsive chord in the hearts
of women all over the country.
Conventions were held soon after in Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana,
Pennsylvania, and at different points in New York.
Mr. Douglass, in his paper, _The North Star_, of July 28, 1848, had
the following editorial leader:
THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN.--One of the most interesting events of the
past week, was the holding of what is technically styled a
Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. The speaking,
addresses, and resolutions of this extraordinary meeting were
almost wholly conducted by women; and although they evidently
felt themselves in a novel position, it is but simple justice to
say that their whole proceedings were characterized by marked
ability and dignity. No one present, we think, however much he
might be disposed to differ from the views advanced by the
leading speakers on that occasion, will fail to give them credit
for brilliant talents and excellent dispositions. In this
meeting, as in other deliberative assemblies, there were frequent
differences of opinion and animated discussion; but in no case
was there the slightest absence of good feeling and decorum.
Several interesting documents setting forth the rights as well as
grievances of women were read. Among these was a Declaration of
Sentiments, to be regarded as the basis of a grand movement for
attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of
women. We should not do justice to our own convictions, or to the
excellent persons connected with this infant movement, if we did
not in this connection offer a few remarks on the general subject
which the Convention met to consider and the objects they seek to
attain. In doing so, we are not insensible that the bare mention
of this truly important subject in any other than terms of
contemptuous ridicule and scornful disfavor, is likely to excite
against us the fury of bigotry and the folly of prejudice. A
discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far
more complacency by many of what are called the _wise_ and the
_good_ of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of
women. It is, in their estimation, to be guilty of evil thoughts,
to think that woman is entitled to equal rights with man. Many
who have at last made the discovery that the negroes have some
rights as well as other members of the human family, have yet to
be convinced that women are entitled to any. Eight years ago a
number of persons of this description actually abandoned the
anti-slavery cause, lest by giving their influence in that
direction they might possibly be giving countenance to the
dangerous heresy that woman, in respect to rights, stands on an
equal footing with man. In the judgment of such persons the
American slave system, with all its concomitant horrors, is less
to be deplored than this _wicked_ idea. It is perhaps needless to
say, that we cherish little sympathy for such sentiments or
respect for such prejudices. Standing as we do upon the
watch-tower of human freedom, we can not be deterred from an
expression of our approbation of any movement, however humble,
to improve and elevate the character of any members of the human
family. While it is impossible for us to go into this subject at
length, and dispose of the various objections which are often
urged against such a doctrine as that of female equality, we are
free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold woman to
be justly entitled to all we claim for man. We go farther, and
express our conviction that all political rights which it is
expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for woman. All
that distinguishes man as an intelligent and accountable being,
is equally true of woman; and if that government only is just
which governs by the free consent of the governed, there can be
no reason in the world for denying to woman the exercise of the
elective franchise, or a hand in making and administering the
laws of the land. Our doctrine is that "right is of no sex." We
therefore bid the women engaged in this movement our humble
Godspeed.
THE ROCHESTER CONVENTION, AUGUST 2, 1848.
Those who took part in the Convention at Seneca Falls, finding at the
end of the two days, there were still so many new points for
discussion, and that the gift of tongues had been vouchsafed to them,
adjourned, to meet in Rochester in two weeks. Amy Post, Sarah D. Fish,
Sarah C. Owen, and Mary H. Hallowell, were the Committee of
Arrangements. This Convention was called for August 2d, and so well
advertised in the daily papers, that at the appointed hour, the
Unitarian Church was filled to overflowing.
Amy Post called the meeting to order, and stated that at a gathering
the previous evening in Protection Hall, Rhoda De Garmo, Sarah Fish,
and herself, were appointed a committee to nominate officers for the
Convention, and they now proposed Abigail Bush, for President; Laura
Murray, for Vice-President; Elizabeth McClintock, Sarah Hallowell, and
Catherine A. F. Stebbins, for Secretaries. Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton,
and Mrs. McClintock, thought it a most hazardous experiment to have a
woman President, and stoutly opposed it.
To write a Declaration and Resolutions, to make a speech, and debate,
had taxed their powers to the uttermost; and now, with such feeble
voices and timid manners, without the slightest knowledge of Cushing's
Manual, or the least experience in public meetings, how could a woman
preside? They were on the verge of leaving the Convention in disgust,
but Amy Post and Rhoda De Garmo assured them that by the same power by
which they had resolved, declared, discussed, debated, they could also
preside at a public meeting, if they would but make the experiment.
And as the vote of the majority settled the question on the side of
woman, Abigail Bush took the chair, and the calm way she assumed the
duties of the office, and the admirable manner in which she discharged
them, soon reconciled the opposition to the seemingly ridiculous
experiment.
The proceedings were opened with prayer, by the Rev. Mr. Wicher, of
the Free-will Baptist Church. Even at that early day, there were many
of the liberal clergymen in favor of equal rights for women. During
the reading of the minutes of the preliminary meeting by the
Secretary, much uneasiness was manifested concerning the low voices of
women, and cries of "Louder, louder!" drowned every other sound, when
the President, on rising, said:
Friends, we present ourselves here before you, as an oppressed
class, with trembling frames and faltering tongues, and we do not
expect to be able to speak so as to be heard by all at first, but
we trust we shall have the sympathy of the audience, and that you
will bear with our weakness now in the infancy of the movement.
Our trust in the omnipotency of right is our only faith that we
shall succeed.
As the appointed Secretaries could not be heard, Sarah Anthony Burtis,
an experienced Quaker school-teacher, whose voice had been well
trained in her profession, volunteered to fill the duties of that
office, and she read the reports and documents of the Convention with
a clear voice and confident manner, to the great satisfaction of her
more timid coadjutors.
Several gentlemen took part in the debates of this Convention. Some in
favor, some opposed, and others willing to make partial concessions to
the demands as set forth in the Declaration and Resolutions. Frederick
Douglass, William C. Nell, and William C. Bloss advocated the
emancipation of women from all the artificial disabilities, imposed by
false customs, creeds, and codes. Milo Codding, Mr. Sulley, Mr.
Pickard, and a Mr. Colton, of Connecticut, thought "woman's sphere was
home," and that she should remain in it; he would seriously deprecate
her occupying the pulpit.
Lucretia Mott replied, that the gentleman from New Haven had objected
to woman occupying the pulpit, and indeed she could scarcely see how
any one educated in New Haven, Ct., could think otherwise than he did.
She said, we had all got our notions too much from the clergy, instead
of the Bible. The Bible, she contended, had none of the prohibitions
in regard to women; and spoke of the "honorable women not a few,"
etc., and desired Mr. Colton to read his Bible over again, and see if
there was anything there to prohibit woman from being a religious
teacher. She then complimented the members of that church for opening
their doors to a Woman's Eights Convention, and said that a few years
ago, the Female Moral Reform Society of Philadelphia applied for the
use of a church in that city, in which to hold one of their meetings;
they were only allowed the use of the basement, and on condition that
none of the women should speak at the meeting. Accordingly, a D.D. was
called upon to preside, and another to read the ladies' report of the
Society.
Near the close of the morning session, a young bride in traveling
dress,[10] accompanied by her husband, slowly walked up the aisle, and
asked the privilege of saying a few words, which was readily granted.
Being introduced to the audience, she said, on her way westward,
hearing of the Convention, she had waited over a train, to add her
mite in favor of the demand now made, by the true women of this
generation:
It is with diffidence that I speak upon this question before us,
not a diffidence resulting from any doubt of the worthiness of
the cause, but from the fear that its depth and power can be but
meagerly portrayed by me.... Woman's rights--her civil
rights--equal with man's--not an equality of moral and religious
influence, for who dares to deny her that?--but an equality in
the exercise of her own powers, and a right to use all the
sources of erudition within the reach of man, to build unto
herself a name for her talents, energy, and integrity. We do not
positively say that our intellect is as capable as man's to
assume, and at once to hold, these rights, or that our hearts are
as willing to enter into his actions; for if we did not believe
it, we would not contend for them, and if men did not believe it,
they would not withhold them with a smothered silence.... In
closing, she said: There will be one effect, perhaps unlooked
for, if we are raised to equal administration with man. It will
classify intellect. The heterogeneous triflings which now, I am
very sorry to say, occupy so much of our time, will be neglected;
fashion's votaries will silently fall off; dishonest exertions
for rank in society will be scorned; extravagance in toilet will
be detested; that meager and worthless pride of station will be
forgotten; the honest earnings of dependents will be paid;
popular demagogues crushed; impostors unpatronized; true genius
sincerely encouraged; and, above all, pawned integrity redeemed!
And why? Because enfranchised woman then will feel the burdens of
her responsibilities, and can strive for elevation, and will
reach all knowledge within her grasp.... If all this is
accomplished, man need not fear pomposity, fickleness, or an
unhealthy enthusiasm at his dear fireside; we can be as dutiful,
submissive, endearing as daughters, wives, and mothers, even if
we hang the wreath of domestic harmony upon the eagle's talons.
Thus for twenty minutes the young and beautiful stranger held her
audience spell-bound with her eloquence, in a voice whose pathos
thrilled every heart. Her husband, hat and cane in hand, remained
standing, leaning against a pillar near the altar, and seemed a most
delighted, nay, reverential listener. It was a scene never to be
forgotten, and one of the most pleasing incidents of the Convention.
Sarah Owen read an address on woman's place and pay in the world of
work. In closing, she said:
An experienced cashier of this city remarked to me that women
might be as good book-keepers as men; but men have monopolized
every lucrative situation, from the dry-goods merchant down to
whitewashing. Who does not feel, as she sees a stout, athletic
man standing behind the counter measuring lace, ribbons, and
tape, that he is monopolizing a woman's place, while thousands of
rich acres in our western world await his coming? This year, a
woman, for the first time, has taken her place in one of our
regular medical colleges. We rejoice to hear that by her dignity
of manner, application to study, and devotion to the several
branches of the profession she has chosen, she has secured the
respect of her professors and class, and reflected lasting honor
upon her whole sex. Thus we hail, in Elizabeth Blackwell, a
pioneer for woman in this profession.
It is by this inverted order of society that woman is obliged to
ply the needle by day and by night, to procure even a scanty
pittance for her dependent family. Let men become producers, as
nature has designed them, and women be educated to fill all those
stations which require less physical strength, and we should soon
modify many of our social evils. I am informed by the
seamstresses of this city, that they get but thirty cents for
making a satin vest, and from twelve to thirty for making pants,
and coats in the same proportion. Man has such a contemptible
idea of woman, that he thinks she can not even sew as well as he
can; and he often goes to a tailor, and pays him double and even
treble for making a suit, when it merely passes through his
hands, after a woman has made every stitch of it so neatly that
he discovers no difference. Who does not see gross injustice in
this inequality of wages and violation of rights? To prove that
woman is capable of prosecuting the mercantile business, we have
a noble example in this city in Mrs. Gifford, who has sustained
herself with credit. She has bravely triumphed over all obloquy
and discouragement attendant on such a novel experiment, and made
for herself an independent living.
In the fields of benevolence, woman has done great and noble
works for the safety and stability of the nation. When man shall
see the wisdom of recognizing a co-worker in her, then may be
looked for the dawning of a perfect day, when woman shall stand
where God designed she should, on an even platform with man
himself.
Mrs. Roberts, who had been requested to investigate the wrongs of the
laboring classes, and to invite that oppressed portion of the
community to attend the Convention, and take part in its
deliberations, made some appropriate remarks relative to the
intolerable servitude and small remuneration paid to the working-class
of women. She reported the average price of labor for seamstresses to
be from 31 to 38 cents a day, and board from $1.25 to $1.50 per week
to be deducted therefrom, and they were generally obliged to take half
or more in due bills, which were payable in goods at certain stores,
thereby obliging them many times to pay extortionate prices.
Mrs. Galloy corroborated the statement, having herself experienced
some of the oppressions of this portion of our citizens, and expressed
her gratitude that the subject was claiming the attention of this
benevolent and intelligent class of community. It did not require much
argument, to reconcile all who took part in the debates, to woman's
right to equal wages for equal work, but the gentlemen seemed more
disturbed as to the effect of equality in the family. With the old
idea of a divinely ordained head, and that, in all cases, the man,
whether wise or foolish, educated or ignorant, sober or drunk, such a
relation to them did not seem feasible. Mr. Sully asked, when the two
heads disagree, who must decide? There is no Lord Chancellor to whom
to apply, and does not St. Paul strictly enjoin obedience to husbands,
and that man shall be head of the woman?
Lucretia Mott replied that in the Society of Friends she had never
known any difficulty to arise on account of the wife's not having
promised _obedience_ in the marriage contract. She had never known any
mode of decision except an appeal to reason; and, although in some of
the meetings of this Society, women are placid on an equality, none of
the results so much dreaded had occurred. She said that many of the
opposers of Woman's Rights, who bid us to obey the bachelor St. Paul,
themselves reject his counsel. He advised them not to marry. In
general answer she would quote, "One is your master, even Christ."
Although Paul enjoins silence on women in the Church, yet he gives
directions how they should appear when publicly speaking, and we have
scriptural accounts of honorable women not a few who were religious
teachers, viz: Phebe, Priscilla, Tryphena, Triphosa, and the four
daughters of Philip, and various others.
Mrs. Stanton thought the gentleman might be easily answered; saying
that the strongest will or the superior intellect now governs the
household, as it will in the new order. She knew many a woman, who, to
all intents and purposes, is at the head of her family.
Mr. Pickard asked who, after marriage, should hold the property, and
whose name should be retained. He thought an umpire necessary. He did
not see but all business must cease until the consent of both parties
be obtained. He saw an impossibility of introducing such rules into
society. The Gospel had established the unity and oneness of the
married pair.
Mrs. Stanton said she thought the Gospel, rightly understood, pointed
to a oneness of equality, not subordination, and that property should
be jointly held. She could see no reason why marriage by false creeds
should be made a degradation to woman; and, as to the name, the custom
of taking the husband's name is not universal. When a man has a bad
name in any sense, he might be
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