History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 1/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
MASSACHUSETTS.
During the Revolutionary period, the country was largely indebted to the women of Massachusetts. Their patriotism was not only shown in the political plans of Mercy Otis Warren,
[1] and the sagacious counsels of Abigail Smith Adams, but by the action of many other women whose names history has not preserved. It was a woman who sent Paul Revere on his famous ride from Boston to Concord, on the night of April 18, 1775, to warn the inhabitants of the expected invasion of the British on the morrow. The church bells pealing far and near on the midnight air, roused tired sleepers hurriedly to arm themselves against the invaders of their homes.
During the war two women of Concord dressed in men's clothing, captured a spy bearing papers which proved of the utmost importance to the patriot forces.
During these early days, the women of various Colonies — Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts — formed Anti-Tea Leagues. In Providence, R. I., young ladies took the initiative; twenty-nine daughters of prominent families, meeting under the shade of the sycamore trees at Roger Williams' spring, there resolving to drink no more tea until the duty upon it was repealed. The name of one of these young ladies, Miss Coddington, has been preserved, to whose house they all adjourned to partake of a frugal repast; hyperion[2] taking the place of the hated bohea. In Newport, at a gathering of ladies, where both hyperion and bohea were offered, every lady present refused the hated bohea, emblem of political slavery. In Boston, early in 1769, the matrons of three hundred families bound themselves to use no more tea until the tax upon it was taken off. The young ladies also entered into a similar covenant, declaring they took this step, not from personal motives, but from a sense of patriotism and a regard for posterity.[3] Liberty, as alone making life of value, looked as sweet to them as to their fathers. The Women's Anti-Tea Leagues of Boston were formed nearly five years previous to the historic "Boston Tea Party," when men disguised as Indians, threw the East India Company's tea overboard, and six years before the declaration of war.
American historians ignoring woman after man's usual custom, have neglected to mention the fact that every paper in Boston was suspended during its invasion by the British, except the chief rebel newspapers of New England, The Massachusetts Gazette and North Boston News-Letter, owned and edited by a woman, Margaret Draper.
They make small note of Women's Anti-Tea Leagues, and the many instances of their heroism during the Revolutionary period, equaling, as they did, any deeds of self-sacrifice and bravery that man himself can boast.
The men of Boston, in 1773, could with little loss to themselves, throw overboard a cargo of foreign tea, well knowing that for the last five years this drink had not been allowed in their houses by the women of their own families. Their reputation for patriotism was thus cheaply earned in destroying what did not belong to them and what was of no use to them. Their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters drank raspberry, sage, and birch, lest by the use of foreign tea they should help rivet the chains of oppression upon their country. Why should not the American Revolution have been successful, when women so nobly sustained republican principles, taking the initiative in self-sacrifice and pointing the path to man by patriotic example.
In Massachusetts, as in other States, were also formed associations known as "Daughters of Liberty."[4]
These organizations did much to fan the nascent flames of freedom.
The first naval battle of the Revolution was fought at Machias, Maine, then a part of Massachusetts. An insult having been offered its inhabitants, by a vessel in the harbor, the men of the surrounding country joined with them to avenge this indignity to their "Liberty Tree," arming themselves, from scarcity of powder, with scythes, pitchforks, and other implements of peace. At a settlement some twenty miles distant, a quantity of powder was discovered, after the men had left for Machias. What was to be done, was the immediate question. Every able-bodied man had already left, only small boys and men too aged or too infirm for battle having remained at home. Upon that powder reaching them the defeat of the British might depend. In this emergency the heroism of woman was shown. Two young girls, Hannah and Rebecca Weston, volunteered their services. It was no holiday excursion for them, but a trip filled with unseen dangers. The way led through a trackless forest, the route merely indicated by blazed trees. Bears, wolves, and wild-cats were numerous. The distance was impossible to be traversed in a single day; these young girls must spend the night in that dreary wilness. Worse than danger from wild animals, was that to be apprehended from Indians, who might kill them, or capture and bear them away to some distant tribe. But undauntedly they set out on their perilous journey, carrying twenty pounds of powder. They reached Machias in safety, before the attack on the British ship, finding their powder a most welcome and effective aid in the victory which soon crowned the arms of the Colonists. The heroism of these young girls was far greater than if they had fought in the ranks, surrounded by companions, 'mid the accompaniments of beating drums, waving flags, and all the paraphernalia of war.
In the war of 1812 two young girls of Scituate, Rebecca and Abigail W. Bates, by their wit and sagacity, prevented the landing of the enemy at this point. [5] Congress, during its session of 1880, nearly seventy years afterward, granted them pensions, just as from extreme age they were about to drop into the grave.
Though it is not considered important to celebrate the virtues of the Pilgrim Mothers in gala days, grand dinners, toasts, and speeches, yet a little retrospection would enable us to exhume from the past, many of their achievements worth recording. More facts than we have space to reproduce, testify to the heroism, religious zeal, and literary industry of the women who helped to build up the early civilization of New England. Their writings, for some presumed on authorship, are quaint and cumbrous; but in those days, when few men published books, it required marked courage for women to appear in print at all. They imitated the style popular among men, and received much attention for their literary ability. Charles T. Congdon, as the result of his explorations through old book-stores, has brought to light some of these early writers.
In 1630, Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, known as quite a pretentious writer, came to Boston with her husband, Simon Bradstreet, Governor of Massachusetts. Her first work was entitled "The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America." The first edition was published in London in 1650, and the first Boston edition was published in 1678. If Mrs. Bradstreet loved praise, she was fortunate in her time and position. It would have been in bad taste, as it would have been bad policy, not to eulogize the poems of the Governor's wife. She was frequently complimented in verse as bad as her own. Tier next great epic was entitled "A Complete Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons of the Year, together with an exact epitome of the Four Monarchies, viz: the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman." "Glad as we were," says the owner, "to obtain this book at a considerable price, we are still gladder of the privilege of closing it." Although this lady had eight children, about whom she wrote some amusing rhymes, she found time in the wilds of America to perpetuate also these ponderous-titled poems.
Phillis Wheatly, a colored girl, also wrote poetry in Colonial Boston, years before our Declaration of Independence startled the world. She was brought from Africa, and sold in the slave market of Boston, when only six years old. Mr. Sparks, the biographer of Washington, thinks "that the poems contained in her published volume, exhibit the most favorable evidence on record, of the capacity of the African intellect for improvement." When the Rev. George Whitefield died, at Newburyport, Mass., in 1770, the same writer from whom we quote these facts, says: "It was quite natural, his demise being much talked of in religious families, that our sable Phillis should burst into monody. That expression of grief I have before me. Of the most rhetorical preacher of his age, it is not inspiring to read:
"He prayed that grace in every heart might dwell.
He longed to see America excel."
Phillis married badly, and died at the age of thirty-one, in 1784, utterly impoverished, leaving three little children. Her own copy of her poems is in the library of Harvard College. When she died it was sold for her husband's debts.
In a letter thanking her for an acrostic on himself, General Washington said: "If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so gifted by the muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations."
Was there ever any story, which had such a hold upon the readers of a generation, as "Charlotte Temple"? It is said 25,000 copies were sold soon after publication — an enormous sale for that day. Mrs. Rowson, who wrote the book, was a daughter of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy; she was an actress in Philadelphia, and afterward kept a school in Boston for young ladies, where she died, in 1824, Her seminary was highly recommended.
Women in the last age naturally drifted into the didactic. They should have the credit of trying always to be useful. They go through so many pages, seeking to give the little people some notion of botany, of natural history, of other branches of human intelligence. There is no book cleverer in its way than Miss Hannah Adams "History of New England," of which the second edition was published in Boston in 1807. The object of this lady was, as she tells us in the preface, "to impress the minds of young persons with veneration for those eminent men to whom their posterity are so highly indebted." All the tradition is that Miss Adams was a wonderfully learned lady. She is best known by her "History of the Jews." She wrote pretty good English, of which this may be considered a specimen: "Exalted from a feeble state to opulence and independence, the Federal Americans are now recognized as a nation throughout the globe." To a sentence so admirably formed, possibly there is nothing to add.
MISTRESS ANNE HUTCHINSON.
Mistress Anne Hutchinson, founder of the Antinomian party of New England, was a woman who exerted great influence upon the religious and political free thought of those colonies. She was the daughter of an English clergyman, and with her husband, followed Pastor Cotton, to whom she was much attached, to this country in 1634, and was admitted a member of the Boston church, becoming a resident of Massachusetts one hundred and forty years before the Revolutionary war. She was of commanding intellect, and exerted a powerful influence upon the infant colony.
It was a long established custom for the brethren of the Boston church to hold, through the week, frequent public meetings for religious exercises. Women were prohibited from taking part in these meetings, which chafed the free spirit of Mistress Hutchinson, and soon she called meetings of the sisters, where she repeated the sermons of the Lord's day, making comments upon them. Her illustrations of Scripture were so new and striking that the meetings were rendered more interesting to the women than any they had attended. At first the clergy approved, but as the men attracted by the fame of her discourses, crowded into her meetings, they began to perceive danger to their authority; the church was passing out of their control. Her doctrines, too, were alarming. She taught the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each believer, its inward revelations, and that the conscious judgment of the mind should be the paramount authority. She was the first woman in America to demand the right of individual judgment upon religious questions. Her influence was very great, yet she was not destined to escape the charge of heresy.
The first Synod in America was called upon her account. It convened August 30, 1637, sat three weeks, and proclaimed eighty-two errors extant; among them the tenets taught by Mistress Hutchinson. She was called before the church and ordered to retract upon twenty-nine points. The infant colony was shaken by this discussion, which took on a political aspect.[6] Mistress Hutchinson remained steadfast, and was sustained by many important people, among whom was the young Governor Vane.
Church and State became united in their opposition to Mistress Anne Hutchinson. The fact that she presumed to teach men, was prominently brought up, and in November, 1637, she was arbitrarily tried before the Massachusetts General Court upon a joint charge of sedition and heresy. She was examined for two days by the Governor and prominent members of the clergy. The Boston Church, which knew her worth, sustained her, with the exception of five members, one of them the associate pastor, Wilson. But the country churches and clergy were against her, and she was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment and banishment.
As the winter was very severe, she was allowed to remain in Roxbury until spring, when she joined Roger Williams in Rhode Island, where she helped form a body-politic, democratic in principle, in which no one was "accounted delinquent for doctrine." Mistress Hutchinson thus helped to dissever Church and State, and to found religious freedom in the United States.
After her residence in Rhode Island, four men were sent to reclaim her, but she would not return. Upon the death of her husband she moved, for greater security, to "The Dutch Colony," and died somewhere in the State of New York.
Thus, through the protracted struggle of the American Colonies for religious and political freedom, woman bravely shared the dangers and persecutions of those eventful years. As spy in the enemy's camp; messenger on the battle-field; soldier in disguise; defender of herself and children in the solitude of those primeval forests; impris'oned for heresy; burned, hung, drowned as a witch: what suffering and anxiety has she not endured! what lofty heroism has she not exemplified!
And when the crusade against slavery in our republic was inaugurated in 1830, another Spartan band of women stood ready for the battle, and the storm of that fierce conflict, surpassing in courage, moral heroism, and conscientious devotion to great principles, all that woman in any age had done or dared. With reverent lips we mention the names of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lydia Mana Child, Maria Weston Chapman, Mary S. Parker, Abby Kelly, whose burning words of rebuke aroused a sleeping nation to a newborn love of liberty. To their brave deeds, pure lives, and glowing eloquence, we pay our tributes of esteem and admiration.
To such as these Jet South Carolina and Massachusetts build future monuments, not in Quincy granite, or Parian marble, but in more enduring blessing to the people; inviolable homesteads for the laborer; free schools and colleges for boys and girls, both black and white; justice and mercy in the alms-house, jail, prison, and the marts of trade, thus securing equal rights to all.
WOMAN'S EARLY POLITICAL RIGHTS.
In Massachusetts, women voted at an early day. First, under the Old Province Charter, from 1691 to 1780, for all elective officers; second, they voted under the Constitution for all elective officers except the Governor, Council, and Legislature, from 1780 to 1785. The Bill of Rights, adopted with the Constitution of 1780, declared that all men were born free and equal. Upon this, some slaves demanded their freedom, and their masters yielded.[7] Restrictions upon the right of suffrage were very great in this State; church membership alone excluded for thirty years three-fourths of the male inhabitants from the ballot-box.[8]
That women exercised the right of suffrage amid so many restrictions, is very significant of the belief in her right to the ballot, by those early Fathers.[9]
THE FIRST STEP IN MASSACHUSETTS.
Woman's rights petitions were circulated in Massachusetts as early as 1848. Mary Upton Ferrin, of Salem, in the spring of that year, consulting Samuel Merritt, known as "the honest lawyer of Salem," in regard to the property rights of married women, and the divorce laws, learned that the whole of the wife's personal property belonged to the husband, as also the improvements upon her real estate; and that she could only retain her silver and other small valuables by secreting them, or proving them to have been loaned to her. To such deception did the laws of Massachusetts, like those of most States, based on the Old Common Law idea of the wife's subjection to the husband, compel the married woman in case she desired to retain any portion of her own property.
Mrs. Ferrin reported the substance of the above conversation to Mrs. Phebe King,[10] of Danvers, who at once became deeply interested, saying, "If such are the laws by which women are governed, every woman in the State should sign a petition to have them altered."
"Will you sign one if drawn up?" queried Mrs. Ferrin.
"Yes," replied Mrs. King, "and I should think every woman would sign such a petition."
As the proper form of petitions was something with which women were then quite unfamiliar, the aid of several gentlemen was asked, among them Hon. D. P. King and Judge John Heartley, but all refused.
Miss Betsy King then suggested that Judge Pitkin[11] possessed sufficient influence to have the laws amended without the trouble of petitioning the Legislature. Strong in their faith that the enactment of just laws was the business of legislative bodies, these ladies believed they but had to bring injustice to the notice of a law-maker in order to have it done away. Therefore, full of courage and hope, Judge Pitkin was respectfully approached. But, to their infinite astonishment, he replied:
"The law is very well as it is regarding the property of married women. Women are not capable of taking care of their own property; they never ought to have control of it. There is already a law by which a woman can have her property secured to her."
"But not one woman in fifty knows of the existence of such a law," was the reply.
"They ought to know it; it is no fault of the law if they don't. I do not think the Legislature will alter the law regarding divorce. If they do, they will make it more stringent than it now is."
Repulsed, but not disheartened, Mrs. Ferrin herself drew up several petitions, circulated them, obtaining many hundred signatures of old and young; though finding the young more ready to ask for change than those inured to ill-usage and injustice. Many persons laughed at her; but knowing it to be a righteous work, and deeming laughter healthful to those indulging in it, Mrs. Ferrin continued to circulate her petitions.
They were presented to the Legislature by Rev. John M. Usher, a Universalist minister of Lynn, and member of the lower House. Although too late in the session for action, these petitions form the initiative step for Woman Suffrage in Massachusetts.
Early the next fall, similar petitions were circulated. It was determined to attack the Legislature in such good season, that lateness of time would not again be brought up as an excuse for non-attention to the prayers of women. Mrs. King's interest continued unabated, and through her advice, Mrs. Ferrin prepared an address to accompany the petitions. Hon. Charles W. Upham, minister of the First Unitarian church of Salem, afterward Representative in Congress, was State Senator that year. From him they received much encouragement. "TI concur with you in every sentiment," said he, "but please re-write your address, making two of it; one in the form of a memorial to the Legislature, and the other, an address to the Judiciary Committee, to whom your petitions will be referred.' These two documents will be found to suggest most of the important demands, afterward made in every State, for a change of laws relating to woman. The fallacy of "sacredness "for these restrictive laws was shown; the rights of humanity as superior to any outside authority, asserted; and justice made the basis of the proposed reformation. The right of woman to trial by a jury of her peers was claimed, followed by the suggestion that woman is capable of making the laws by which she is governed. The memorial excited much attention, and was printed by order of the Legislature, though the possibility of a woman having written it was denied.[12]
But in 1850, as in 1849, no action was taken, the petitioners having "leave to withdraw." Petitions of a similar character were again circulated throughout Salem and Danvers, in 1850, '51, 752, 758, making six successive years, in each of which the petitioners had "leave to withdraw," as the only reply to their prayers for relief. The Hon. Mr. Upham, however, remained woman's steadfast friend through all this period, and Mrs. Phebe Upton King was as constantly found among the petitioners.
In 1852 the petitions were signed only by ladies over sixty years of age, women of large experience and matured judgment, whose prayers should have received at least respectful consideration from the legislators of the State. We give the appeal accompanying their petition:
Gentlemen: — Your petitioners, who are tax-payers and originators of these petitions, are upwards of three-score years; ten of them are past three-score years and ten; three of them three-score and twenty. If length of days, a knowledge of the world and the rights of man and woman entitle them to a respectful hearing, few, if any, have prior or more potent claims, for reason has taught them what individual rights are, experience, what woman and her children suffer for the want of just protection in those, and humanity impels them once more to appear before you, it may be for the last tire. Let not their gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave for the want of this justice in your power to extend, as have several of their number whose names are no longer to be found with theirs, whose voices can plead never more in behalf of your own children and those of your constituents.
In 1853 a petition[13] bearing only Mrs. King's name was presented. In 1854 the political organization called the "Know Nothings" came into power, and although no petition was presented, a Dill securing the control of their own property to all women married subsequent to the passage of the law, was passed. The power to make a will without the husband's consent, was also secured to wives, though not permitted to thus will more than one-half of their personal property. This law also gave to married women having no children, whose husbands should die without a will, five thousand dollars, and one-half of the remainder of the husband's property. The following year the Divorce Law[14] was amended, and shortly thereafter two old ladies, nearly seventy years of age, having no future marriage in view, but solely influenced by a desire to secure their own property to their own children, which without such divorce they would be unable to do, although one of their husbands had not provided for his wife in twenty years, nor the other in thirty years, availed themselves of its new privileges.
The first change in the tyrannous laws of Massachusetts was really due to the work of this one woman, Mary Upton Ferrin, who for six years, after her own quaint method, poured the hot shot of her earnest conviction of woman's wrongs into the Legislature. In circulating petitions, she traveled six hundred miles, two-thirds of this distance on foot. Much money was expended besides her time and travel, and her name should be remembered as that of one of the brave pioneers in this work.
Although two thousand petitions were sent into the Constitutional Convention of 1853, from other friends of woman's enfranchisement in the State, Mrs. Ferrin totally unacquainted with that step, herself petitioned this body for an amendment to the Constitution securing justice to women, referring to the large number of petitions sent to the Legislature during the last few years for this object. Working as she did, almost unaided and alone, Mrs. Ferrin is an exemplification of the dissatisfaction of women at this period with unjust laws.[15]
MRS. FERRIN'S ADDRESS TO THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE IN 1850.
Should a woman make her will without her husband's consent in writing, it is of no use. It is as just and proper that a woman should dispose of her own property to her own satisfaction as that a man should dispose of his. In many cases she is as competent, and sadly to be pitied if not in many cases more so. And even with her husband's consent she can not bequeath to him her real estate. She can sell it with his consent, but the deeds must pass and be recorded, and then, if the husband pleases, he can take the money and buy the property back again. Does justice require that a man and his wife should use so much deception, and be at so much unnecessary expense and trouble, to settle their own private affairs to their own satisfaction — affairs which do not in the least affect any other individual? Reason, humanity, and common sense answer — No!
"All men are created free and equal," and all women are born subject to laws which they have neither the power to make or to repeal, but which they are taxed, directly or indirectly, to support, and many of which are a disgrace to humanity and ought to be forthwith abolished. A woman is compelled by circumstances to work for less than' half an ordinary man can earn, and yet she is as essential to the existence, happiness, and refinement of society as is man.
We are told "a great deal has already been done for woman;" in return we would tender our grateful acknowledgments, with the assurance that when ours is the right, we will reciprocate the favor. Much that has been done, does not in the least affect those who are already married; and not one in ten of those who are not married, will ever be apprised of the existence of the laws by which they might be benefited. Few, if any, would marry a man so incompetent as in their opinion to render it necessary to avail themselves of such laws; neither would any spirited man knowingly marry a woman who considered him so incompetent; hence, instead of being a blessing, much labor and expense accrue to those who desire to avail themselves of their benefit; and such a step often induces the most bitter contention.
We are told "the Bible does not provide for divorce except for one offence." Neither does the Bible prohibit divorce for any other justifiable cause. Inasmuch as men take the liberty to legislate upon other subjects of which the Bible does, and does not, take particular notice, so likewise are they equally at liberty to legislate and improve upon this, when the state of society demands it ... A woman who has a good husband glides easily along under his protection, while those who have bad husbands, of which, alas! there are too many, are not aware of the depths of their degradation until they suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves, through the influence of the law, totally destitute, condemned to hopeless poverty and servitude, with an ungrateful tyrant fora master. No respectable man with a decent woman for a wife, will eyer demean himself so much as to insult or abuse his wife. Wherever such a state of things exists, it is a disgrace to the age and to society, by whomsoever practiced, encouraged, or protected, whether public or private — whether social, political, or religious.
A very estimable and influential lady, whose property was valued at over $150,000, married a man, in whom she had unbounded, but misplaced confidence, as is too often the case; consequently the most of her property was squandered through intemperance and dissipation, before she was aware of the least wrong-doing. So deeply was she shocked by the character of her husband, that she soon found I premature grave, leaving several small children to be reared and educated upon the remnant of her scattered wealth.
Nearly twelve years since, a woman of a neighboring town, whose husband had forsaken her, hired a man to carry her furniture in a wagon to her native place, with her family, which consisted of her husband's mother, herself, and six children, the eldest of which was but twelve years old. On her arrival there, she had only food enough for one meal, and nine-pence left. During the summer, in consequence of hardships and deprivations, she was taken violently sick, being deprived of her reason for several weeks. Her husband had not, as yet, appeared to offer her the least assistance, although apprised of her situation. But, being an uncommonly mean man, he had sold her furniture, piece by piece, and reduced her to penury, so that nothing but the aid of her friends and her own exertions, saved her and her family from the alms-house.
Says the law to this heroic woman, "What, though your property is squandered, your health and spirits broken, and you have six small children, besides yourself and your husband's mother to support! After five years of incessant toil in humility and degradation, why should not your lord and master intrude his loathsome person, like a blood-sucker upon your vitals, never offering you any assistance; and should your precarious life be protracted to that extent of time, for twenty dollars you can buy a divorce from bed and board, and have your property secured to you. Such, Madam, is your high privilege. Complain then not to us, lest instead of alleviating your sufferings, we strengthen the cords that already bind you."
The moral courage of the "Hero of the Battle-field" would shrink in horror from scenes like these; but such is the fate of woman, to whom God grant no future "hell."
In case a man receives a trifle from a departed friend or any other source, the wife's signature is not required. Recently a poor man left his daughter twenty dollars, of which her husband allowed her ten, retaining the remainder for acknowledging its receipt. It was probably the only ten dollars the woman ever received, except for her own exertions, which were constantly required to supply the necessities of her family, her husband being very intemperate and abusive, often pulling her by the ears so as to cause the blood to flow freely.
No bodily pain, however intense, can compare with the mental suffering which we witness and experience, and which would long since have filled our Insane Asylums to overflowing, were it not for the unceasing drudgery to which we are subjected, in order to save ourselves and families from starvation.
Often does the drunkard bestow upon his wife from one to a dozen children to rear and support until old enough to render her a little assistance, when they are compelled to seek service in order to clothe themselves decently, and often are their earnings, with those of their mother, appropriated to pay for rum, tobacco, gambling, and other vices. "Say not that we exaggerate these evils; neither tongue nor pen can do it!" says the unfortunate wife of a man whose moral character, so far as she knew, was unimpeachable, but who proved to be an insufferable tyrant, depriving her of the necessaries of life, and often ordering her out of the house which her friends provided for them to live in, using the most abusive epithets which ingenuity, or the want of it, could suggest. Intemperance degraded the character of the man with whom she lived as long as apprehensions for the safety of her life would warrant; from the fact that her health was rapidly failing under the severity and deprivation to which she was subjected, and the repeated threats of violence to her own life and that of her friends. "But one step farther and you drive us to desperation | Sooner would I pour out my heart's blood, drop by drop, than suffer again what I have hitherto experienced, or that my female friends should suffer as I have done, and [ know that many of them do. Yet, neither sacrifice, sympathy, argument, or influence can avail us anything under existing circumstances."
Such an appeal from helpless, down-trodden humanity. though it were made to a council of the most benighted North American savages, would not pass unheeded. Shall it be made in vain to you?
To many of us death would be a luxury compared to what we suffer in consequence of the abusive treatment we receive from unprincipled men, which existing laws sanction and encourage by their indiscriminate severity, and with which we are told "it would be difficult to meddle on account of their sacredness and sublimity." The idea is sufficiently ludicrous to excite the risibility of the most grave. Though the sublime and the ridiculous may be too nearly allied for females to distinguish the difference, unjust inequality is to them far more contemptible than sacred, having thus far been ungraciously subjected to it. Well may we be called "the weaker sex" if the error in judgment is ours, although we have intellect and energy enough not to respect the circumstances under which we are placed, nor the powers which would designedly inflict such injustice upon us.
Debased indeed would a man consider himself to employ a woman to plead his cause, with a woman for judge and twelve women for jurors. How much less degraded are women when exposed to a similar assembly of men, who have for them neither interest, sympathy, nor respect, subjected as they are to insolent questions and the uncharitable remarks of an indifferent multitude.
It is urged that women are ignorant of the laws. They are sufficiently enlightened to comprehend the meaning of justice — a far more important thing — which admits of neither improvement nor modification, but is applicable to every emergency. With the perceptibility that some can boast, it would require but a short time for them to enact laws sufficient to govern themselves, which is all that the most aspiring can covet; convinced as they are that, as in families, so likewise in government, the mild, indulgent parent who would consult the greatest good of the greatest number, is rewarded with agreeable and honorable children; while the one who is unjust, partial, and severe, is proportionably recompensed for his indiscretion.
In regard to unjust imprisonment we are told, "It is of too rare occurrence to require legal enactments." How many a devoted wife, mother, and child can tell a far different story. Who of us or our children is secure from false accusation and imprisonment, or, perhaps, an ignominious death upon the gallows, to screen some miserable villain from justice? Witnesses, lawyers, judges, jurors, and executioners are paid for depriving innocent persons of their time, liberty, health, and reputation, which, to many, is dearer than life, while the guilty one escapes, and society, when too late, laments the sad catastrophe. The life-blood of many a victim demands not only justice for the guilty, but protection for the innocent.FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION IN WORCESTER,
October 23d and 24th, 1850.
The Conventions in New York and Ohio, though not extensively advertised, nor planned with much deliberation, for in both cases they were hastily decided upon, yet their novelty attracted much attention, and drew large audiences. Those who had long seen and felt woman's wrongs, were now for the first time inspired with the hope that something might be done for their redress by organized action. When Massachusetts decided to call a convention, the initiative steps were well considered, as there were many men and women in that State trained in the anti-slavery school, skilled in managing conventions, who were also interested in woman's enfranchisement. But to the energy and earnestness of Paulina Wright Davis, more than to any other one person, we may justly accord the success of the first Conventions in Massachusetts.
In describing the preliminary arrangements in a report read in the second decade meeting in New York in 1870, she says:
"In May, 1850, a few women in Boston attending an Anti-Slavery meeting, proposed that all who felt interested in a plan for a National Woman's Rights Convention, should consult in the anteroom. Of the nine who went out into that dark, dingy room, a committee of seven were chosen to do the work. Worcester was the place selected, and the 23d and 24th of October the appointed time. However, the work soon devolved upon one person.[16] Illness hindered one, duty to a brother another, duty to the slave a third, professional engagements a fourth, the fear of bringing the gray hairs of a father to the grave prevented another from serving; but the pledge was made, and could not be withdrawn.
"The call was prepared, an argument in itself, and sent forth with earnest private letters in all directions. It covered the entire question, as it now stands before the public. Though moderate in tone, carefully guarding the idea of the absolute unity of interests and of the destiny of the two sexes which nature has established, it still gave the alarm to conservatism.
"Letters, curt, reproachful, and sometimes almost insulting, came with absolute refusals to have the names of the writers used, or added to the swelling list already in hand. There was astonishment at the temerity of the writer in presenting such a request.
"Some few there were, so cheering and so excellent, that it is but justice to give extracts from them:
"You do me but justice in supposing me deeply interested in the question of woman's elevation. Catherine M. Sedgwick.'
"'The new movement has my fullest sympathy, and my name is at its service. "'William Henry Channing.'
"None came with such perfect and entire fullness as the one from which I quote the closing paragraph:
"'Yes, with all my heart I give my name to your noble call."'Elizabeth Cady Stanton.'
"Ann Green Phillips,
"'Wendell Phillips.'
"Rey. Samuel J. May's letter, full of the warmest sympathy, well deserves to be quoted entire, but space forbids; suffice it that we have always known just where to find him.
"'Your business is to launch new ideas — not one of them will ever be wrecked or lost. Under the dominion of these ideas, right practice must gradually take the place of wrong, and the first we shall know we shall find the social swallowing up the political, and the whole governing its parts.
| "'With genuine respect, your co-worker, | |
| "Mrs. Paulina W. Davis. | Elizur Wright.' |
"Letters from Gerrit Smith, Joshua R. Giddings, John G. Whittier, Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, Caroline Kirkland, Ann Estelle Lewis, Jane G. Swisshelm, William Elder, Rev. Thomas Brainard, and many others, expressive of deep interest, are before us.
"The Convention came together in the bright October days, a solemn, earnest crowd of noble men and women.
"One great disappointment fell upon us. Margaret Fuller, toward whom many eyes were turned as the future leader in this Movement, was not with us. The 'hungry, ravening sea,' had swallowed her up, and we were left to mourn her guiding hand — her royal presence. To her, I, at least, had hoped to confide the leadership of this movement. It can never be known if she would have accepted it; the desire had been expressed to her by letter; but be that as it may, she was, and still is, a leader of thought; a position far more desirable than a leader of numbers.
"The Convention was called to order by Mrs. Sarah H. Earl,[17] of Worcester, and a permanent list of officers presented in due order, and the whole business of the Convention was conducted in a parliamentary manner. Mrs. Earl, to whose memory we pay tribute today as one gone before, not lost, was one of the loveliest embodiments of womanhood I have ever known. She possessed a rare combination of strength, gentleness, and earnestness, with a childlike freedom and cheerfulness. I miss to-day her clear voice, her graceful self-poise, her calm dignity.
"From our midst another is missing: Mrs. Sarah Tyndale, of Philadelphia — one of the first to sign the call. Indeed, the idea of such a convention had often been discussed in her home, more than two years before, a home where every progressive thought found a cordial welcome. To this noble woman, who gave herself to this work with genuine earnestness, it is fitting that we pay a tribute of affectionate respect. She was, perhaps, more widely known than any other woman of her time for her practical talents; having conducted one of the largest business houses in her native city for nearly a quarter of a century. Genial and largely hospitable, there was for her great social sacrifice in taking up a cause so unpopular; but she had no shrinking from duty, however trying it might be. Strong and grand as she was, in her womanly nature, she had nevertheless the largest and tenderest sympathies for the weak and erring. She was prescient, philosophical, just, and generous. The mother of a large family, who gathered around to honor and bless her, she had still room in her heart for the woes of the world, and the latter years of her life were given to earnest, philanthropic work. We miss to-day her sympathy, her wise counsel, her great, organizing power.
"Many others there are, whose names well deserve to be graven in gold, and it is cause of thanksgiving to God that they are still present with us, their lives speaking better than words. Some are in the Far West, doing brave service there; others are across the water; others are withheld by cares and duties from being present; but we would fain hope none are absent from choice.
"Profound feeling pervaded the entire audience, and the talent displayed in the discussions, the eloquence of women who had never before spoken in public, surprised even those who expected most. Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols, of Vermont, made a profound impression. There was a touching, tender pathos in her stories which went home to the heart; and many eyes, all unused to tears, were moistened as she described the agony of the mother robbed of her child by the law.
"Abby H. Price, large-hearted and large-brained, gentle and strong, presented an address on the social question not easily forgotten, and seldom to the present time bettered.
"Lucy Stone, a natural orator, with a silvery voice, a heart warm and glowing with youthful enthusiasm; Antoinette L. Brown, a young minister, met firmly the Scriptural arguments; and Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, earnest for the medical education of woman, gave variety to the discussions of the Convention.
"In this first national meeting the following resolution was passed, which it may be proper here to reiterate, thus showing that our present demand has always been one and the same:
"Resolved, That women are clearly entitled to the right of suffrage, and to be considered eligible to office; the omission to demand which, on her part, is palpable recreancy to duty, and a denial of which is a gross usurpation on the part of man, no longer to be endured; and that every party which claims to represent the humanity, civilization, and progress of the age, is bound to inscribe on its banners, "Equality before the Law, without distinction of Sex or Color."
"From North to South the press found these reformers wonderfully ridiculous people. The 'hen convention' was served up in every variety of style, till refined women dreaded to look into a newspaper. Hitherto man had assumed to be the conscience of woman, now she indicated the will to think for herself; hence all this odium. But, however the word was preached, whether for wrath or conscience sake, we rejoiced and thanked God.
"In July, following this Convention, an able and elaborate notice appeared in the Westminster Review. This notice, candid in tone and spirit, as it was thorough and able in discussion, successfully vindicated every position we assumed, reaffirmed and established the highest ground taken in principle or policy by our movement. The wide-spread circulation and high authority of this paper told upon e public mind, both in Europe and this country. It was at the time supposed to be by Mr. John Stuart Mill. Later we learned at it was from the pen of his noble wife, to whom be all honor for us coming to the aid of a struggling cause. I can pay no tribute her memory so beautiful as the following extract from a letter recently received from her husband:
"'I am very glad to hear of the step in advance made by the Rhode Island Legislature in constituting a Board of Women for some important administrative purposes. Your intended proposal, that women be impaneled on every jury where women are to be tried, seems to me very good, and calculated to place the injustice to which women are at present subjected, by the entire legal system, in a very striking light.
| "I am, dear madam, yours sincerely. | |
| "'Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis. | J. S. Mill.' |
"Immediately after the reports were published, they were sent to various persons in Europe, and before the second Convention was held, letters of cheer were received from Harriet Martineau, Marion Reid, and others.
"Thus encouraged, we felt new zeal to go on with a work which had challenged the understanding and constrained the hearts of the best and soundest thinkers in the nation; had given an impulse to the women of England and of Sweden — for Frederika Bremer had quoted from our writings and reported our proceedings; our words had been like an angel's visit to the prisoners of State in France and to the wronged and outraged at home!
"Many letters were received from literary women in this country as well as abroad. If not always ready to be identified with the work, they were appreciative of its good effects, and, like Nicodemus, they came by night to inquire 'how these things could be' Self-interest showed them the advantages accruing from the recognition of equality — self-ism held them silent before the world till the reproach should be worn away; but we credit them with a sense of justice and right, which prompts them now to action. The rear guard is as essential in the army as the advance; each should select the place best adapted to their own powers."
As Mrs. Davis has fallen asleep since writing the above, we have thought best to give what seemed to her the salient points of that period in her own words.
October 23, 1850, a large audience assembled in Brinley Hall, Worcester, Mass. The Convention was called to order by Sarah H. Earle, of Worcester. Nine States were represented. There were Garrison, Phillips, Burleigh, Foster, Pillsbury, leaders in the antislavery struggle; Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth representing the enslaved African race. The Channings, Sargents, Parsons, Shaws, from the liberal pulpit and the aristocracy of Boston. From Ohio came Mariana and Oliver Johnson, who had edited the Anti-Slavery Bugle, that sent forth many a blast against the black laws of that State, and many a stirring call for the woman's conventions. From Ohio, too, came Ellen and Marion Blackwell, sisters of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Pennsylvania sent its Lucretia Mott, its Darlingtons, Plumlys, Hastings, Millers, Hicks, who had all taken part in the exciting divisions among the "Friends," as a sect. On motion of Mariana Johnson, a temporary chairman was chosen, and a nominating committee appointed, which reported the following list of officers adopted by the Convention:
President — Paulina Wright Davis, R. I.
Secretaries — Hanna M. Darlington, Pa.; Joseph C. Hathaway, N. Y.
The Call of the Convention was read. It contains so good a digest of the demands then made, in language so calm and choice, in thought so clear and philosophical, that we give it entire, that the women of the future may see how well their mothers understood their rights, and with what modesty and moderation they pressed their wrongs on the consideration of their rulers.
THE CALL.
The upward tending spirit of the age, busy in an hundred forms of effort for the world's redemption from the sins and sufferings which oppress it, has brought this one, which yields to none in importance and urgency, into distinguished prominence. One-half the race are its immediate objects, and the other half are as deeply involved, by that absolute unity of interest and destiny which Nature has established between them. The neighbor is near enough to involve every human being in a general equality of rights and community of interests; but men and women in their reciprocities of love and duty, are one flesh and one blood; mother, sister, wife, and daughter come so near the heart and mind of every man, that they must be either his blessing or his bane. Where there is such mutuality of interests, such an interlinking of life, there can be no real antagonism of position and action. The sexes should not, for any reason or by any chance, take hostile attitudes toward each other, either in the apprehension or amendment of the wrongs which exist in their necessary relations; but they should harmonize in opinion and co-operate in effort, for the reason that they must unite in the ultimate achievement of the desired reformation.
Of the many points now under discussion, and demanding a just settlement, the general question of woman's rights and relations comprehends these: Her education — literary, scientific, and artistic; her avocations — industrial, commercial, and professional; her interests — pecuniary, civil, and political; ina word, her rights as an individual, and her functions as a citizen.
No one will pretend that all these interests, embracing as they do all that is not merely animal in a human life, are rightly understood, or justly provided for in the existing social order. Nor is it any more true that the constitutional differences of the sexes which should determine, define, and limit the resulting differences of office and duty, are adequately comprehended and practically observed.
Woman has been condemned for her greater delicacy of physical organization, to inferiority of intellectual and moral culture, and to the forfeiture of great social, civil, and religious privileges. In the relation of marriage she has been ideally annihilated and actually enslaved in all that concerns her personal and pecuniary rights, and even in widowed and single life, she is oppressed with such limitation and degradation of labor and avocation, as clearly and cruelly mark the condition of a disabled caste. But by the inspiration of the Almighty, the beneficent spirit of reform is roused to the redress of these wrongs.
The tyranny which degrades and crushes wives and mothers sits no longer lightly on the world's conscience; the heart's home-worship feels the stain of stooping at a dishonored altar. Manhood begins to feel the shame of muddying the springs from which it draws its highest life, and womanhood is everywhere awakening to assert its divinely chartered rights and to fulfill its noble-t duties. It is the spirit of reviving truth and righteousness which has moved upon the great deep of the public heart and aroused its redressing justice, and through it the Providence of God is vindicating the order and appointments of His creation.
The signs are encouraging; the time is opportune. Come, then, to this Convention. It is your duty, if you are worthy of your age and country. Give the help of your best thought to separate the light from the darkness. Wisely give the protection of your name and the benefit of your efforts to the great work of settling the principles, devising the methods, and achieving the success of this high and holy movement.This call was signed by eighty-nine leading men and women of six States.[18]
On taking the chair, Mrs. Davis said:
Its intended changes are to be wrought in the intimate texture of all societary organizations, without violence or any form of antagonism. It seeks to replace the worn-out with the living and the beautiful, so as to reconstruct without overturning, and to regenerate without destroying.
Our claim must rest on its justice, and conquer by its power of truth. We take the ground that whatever has been achieved for the race belongs to it, and must not be usurped by any class or caste. The rights and liberties of one human being can not be made the property of another, though they were redeemed for him or her by the life of that other; for rights can not be forfeited by way of salvage, and they are, in their nature, unpurchasable and inalienable. We claim for woman a full and generous investiture of all the blessings which the other sex has solely, or by her aid, achieved for itself. We appeal from man's injustice and selfishness to his principles and affections.It was cheering to find in the very beginning many distinguished men ready to help us to the law, gospel, social ethics, and philosophy involved in our question. A letter from Gerrit Smith to William Lloyd Garrison says:
Peterboro, N. Y., Oct. 16, 1850.
My Dear Sir: — I this evening received from my friend H. H. Van Amringe, of Wisconsin, the accompanying argument on woman's rights. It is written by himself. He is, as you are aware, a highly intellectual man. He wishes me to present this argument to the Woman's Convention which is to be held in Worcester. Permit me to do so through yourself.
My excessive business engagements compel me to refuse all invitations to attend public meetings not in my own county. May Heaven's richest blessings rest on the Convention.
Very respectfully and fraternally yours, Gerrit Smith.
Mr. Van Amringe's paper on "Woman's Rights in Church and State" was read and discussed, and a large portion of it printed in the regular report of the proceedings.
The papers read by the women, in style and argument, were in no way inferior to those of the men present.
Letters were read from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rev. Samuel J. May, L. A. Hine, Elizur Wright, O.S. Eowler, Esther Ann Lukens, Margaret Chappel Smith, Nancy M. Baird, Jane Cowen, Sophia L. Little, Elizabeth Wilson, Maria L. Varney, and Milfred A. Spaford.[19]
Mrs. Abby H. Price, of Hopedale, made an address on the injustice of excluding girls from the colleges, the trades and the professions, and the importance of training them to some profitable labor, and thus to protect their virtue, dignity, and self-respect by securing their pecuniary independence.
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, of Boston, the first woman who practiced medicine in this country, spoke on the medical education of women.
Sarah Tyndale, a successful merchant in Philadelphia, on the business capacity of woman.
Antoinette L. Brown, a graduate of Oberlin College, and a student in Theology, made a logical argument on woman's position in the Bible, claiming her complete equality with man, the simultaneous creation of the sexes, and their moral responsibilities as individual and imperative.
The debates on the resolutions were spicy, pointed, and logical, and were deeply interesting, continuing with crowded audiences through two entire days. In these debates Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Wendell Phillips, William Henry Channing, Ernestine L. Rose, Frederick Douglass, Martha Mowry, Abby Kelly and Stephen Foster, Elizabeth B. Chase, James N. Buffam, Sojourner Truth, Eliab Capron, and Joseph C. Hathaway, took part. As there was no phonographic reporter present, most of the best speaking, that was extemporaneous, can not be handed down to history.
Among the letters to the Convention, there was one quite novel and interesting from Helene Marie Weber,[20] a lady of high literary character, who had published numerous tracts on the Rights of Woman. She contended that the physical development of woman was impossible in her present costume, and that her consequent enfeebled condition made her incapable of entering many of the most profitable employments in the world of work. Miss Weber exemplified her teachings by her practice. She usually wore a dress coat and pantaloons of black cloth; on full-dress occasions, a dark blue dress coat, with plain flat gilt buttons, and drab-colored pantaloons. Her waistcoat was of buff cassimere, richly trimmed with plain, flat-surfaced, gold buttons, exquisitely polished; this was an elegant costume, and one she wore to great advantage. Her clothes were all perfect in their fit, and of Paris make; and her figure was singularly well adapted to male attire. No gentleman in Paris made a finer appearance.
One of the grand results of this Convention was the thought roused in England. A good report of the proceedings in the New York Tribune, for Europe, of October 29, 1850, was read by the future Mrs. John Stuart Mill, then Mrs. Taylor, and at once called out from her pen an able essay in the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, entitled "Enfranchisement of Woman." This attracted the attention of many liberal thinkers, and foremost of these, one of England's greatest philosophers and scholars, the Hon. John Stuart Mill, who became soon after the champion of woman's cause in the British Parliament. The essayist in speaking of this Convention says:
Most of our readers will probably learn, from these pages, for the first time, that there has risen in the United States, and in the most civilized and enlightened portion of them, an organized agitation, on a new question, new not to thinkers, nor to any one by whom the principles of free and popular government are felt, as well as acknowledged; but new, and even unheard of, as a subject for public meetings, and practical political action. This question is the enfranchisement of women, their admission in law, and in fact, to equality in all rights, political, civil, social, with the male citizens of the community.
It will add to the surprise with which many will receive this intelligence, that the agitation which has commenced is not a pleading by male writers and orators for women, those who are professedly to be benefited remaining either indifferent, or ostensibly hostile; it is a political movement, practical in its objects, carried on in a form which denotes an intention to persevere. And it is a movement not merely for women, but by them. . . . .
A succession of public meetings was held, under the name of a "Woman's Rights Convention," of which the President was a woman, and nearly all the chief speakers women; numerously reinforced, however, by men, among whom were some of the most distinguished leaders in the kindred cause of negro emancipation. . . . .
According to the report in the New York Tribune, above a thousand persons were present, throughout, and "if a larger place could have been had, many thousands more would have attended."
In regard to the quality of the speaking, the proceedings bear an advantageous comparison with those of any popular movement with which we are acquainted, either in this country or in America. Very rarely in the oratory of public meetings is the part of verbiage and declamation so small, and that of calm good sense and reason so considerable.
The result of the Convention was in every respect encouraging to those by whom it was summoned; and it is probably destined to inaugurate one of the most important of the movements toward political and social reform, which are the best characteristic of the present age. That the promoters of this new agitation take their stand on principles, and do not fear to declare these in their widest extent, without time-serving or compromise, will be seen from the resolutions adopted by the Convention.[21]After giving an able argument in favor of all the demands made in the Convention, with a fair criticism of some of the weak things uttered there, she concludes by saying:
William Henry Channing, from the Business Committee, suggested a plan for organization and the principles that should govern the movement. In accordance with his views a National Central Committee was appointed, in which every State was represented. [22] Paulina Wright Davis, Chairman; Sarah H. Earle, Secretary; Wendell Phillips, Treasurer. This Convention was a very creditable one in every point of view. The order and perfection of the arrangements, the character of the papers presented, and the sustained enthusiasm, reflect honor on the men and women who conducted the proceedings. The large number of letters addressed to Mrs. Davis show how extensive had been her correspondence, both in the old world and the new. Her wealth, culture, and position gave her much social influence; her beauty, grace, and gentle manners drew around her a large circle of admiring friends. These, with her tall fine figure, her classic head and features, and exquisite taste in dress; her organizing talent and knowledge of the question under consideration, altogether made her so desirable a presiding officer, that she was often chosen for that position.
THE SECOND NATIONAL CONTENTION IN WORCESTER.
In accordance with a call from the Central Committee, the friends of Woman Suffrage assembled again in Brinley Hall, Oct. 15th and 16th, 1851. At an early hour the house was filled, and was called to order by Paulina Wright Davis, who was again chosen permanent President. This Convention was conducted mainly by the same persons who had so successfully managed the proceedings of the previous year. Mrs. Davis, on taking the chair, gave a brief resumé of the steps of progress during the year, and at the close of her remarks, letters were read from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Mann, Angelina Grimke Weld, Frances D. Gage, Estelle Anna Lewis, Marion Blackwell, Oliver Johnson, and Eliza Barney, all giving a hearty welcome to the new idea. Mrs. Emma R. Coe, of the Business Committee, called upon Wendell Phillips to read the resolutions[23] prepared for the consideration of the Convention.
On rising Mr. Phillips said:
It strikes, indeed, a great and vital blow at the whole social fabric of every nation; but this, to my mind, is no argument against it. . . . . Government 'commenced in usurpation and oppression; liberty and civilization at present nothing else than the fragments of rights which the scaffold and the stake have wrung from the strong hands of the usurpers. Every step of progress the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, from stake to stake. . . . . Government began in tyranny and force; began in the feudalism of the soldier and the bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way like a thunderstorm against the organized selfishness of human nature.
And this is the last great protest against the wrong of ages, It is no argument, to my mind, therefore, that the old social fabric of the past is against us. Neither do I feel called upon to show what woman's proper sphere is. In every great reform the majority have always said to the claimant, no matter what he claimed, "You are not fit for such a privilege." Luther asked of the Pope liberty for the masses to read the Bible. The reply was that it would not be safe to trust the masses with the word of God. "Let them try," said the great reformer, and the history of three centuries of development and purity proclaims the result.
The lower classes in France claimed their civil rights; the right to vote, and to a direct representation in government, but the rich and lettered classes cried out, "You can not be made fit." The answer was, "Let us try." That France is not as Spain, utterly crushed beneath the weight of a thousand years of misgovernment, is the answer to those who doubt the ultimate success of the experiment.
Woman stands now at the same door. She says: "You tell me I have no intellect. Give mea chance." "You tell me I shall only embarrass politics; let me try." The only reply is the same stale argument that said to the Jews of Europe: You are fit only to make money; you are not fit for the ranks of the army, or the halls of Parliament.
How cogent the eloquent appeal of Macaulay: "What right have we to take this question for granted? Throw open the doors of this House of Commons; throw open the ranks of the imperial army, before you deny eloquence to the countrymen of Isaiah, or valor to the descendants of the Maccabees."
It is the same now with us. Throw open the doors of Congress; throw open those court-houses; throw wide open the doors of your colleges, and give to the sisters of the De Staéls and the Martineaus the same opportunity for culture that men have, and let the results prove what their capacity and intellect really are. When woman has enjoyed for as many centuries as we have the aid of books, the discipline of life, and the stimulus of fame, it will be time to begin the discussion of these questions: "What is the intellect of woman?" "Is it equal to that of man?" Till then, all such discussion is mere beating of the air, While it is doubtless true, that great minds make a way for themselves, spite of all obstacles, yet who knows how many Miltons have died, "mute and inglorious"? However splendid the natural endowments, the discipline of life, after all, completes the miracle. The ability of Napoleon — what was it? It grew out of the hope to be Cesar, or Marlborough; out of Austerlitz and Jena — out of his battle-fields, his throne, and all the great scenes of that eventful life.
Open to woman the same scenes, immerse her in the same great interests and pursuits, and if twenty centuries shall not produce a woman Charlemagne, or a Napoleon, fair reason will then allow us to conclude that there is some distinctive peculiarity in the intellects of the sexes.
Centuries alone can lay a fair basis for the argument. I believe on this point there is a shrinking consciousness of not being ready for the battle, on the part of some of the stronger sex, as they call themselves; a tacit confession of risk to this imagined superiority, if they consent to meet their sisters in the lecture halls, or the laboratory of science.
My proof of it is this, that the mightiest intellects of the race, from Plato down to the present time, some of the rarest minds of Germany, France, and England, have successively yielded their assent to the fact, that woman is not, perhaps, identically, but equally endowed with man in all intellectual capabilities. It is generally the second-rate men who doubt; doubt because, perhaps, they fear a fair field.
Suppose that woman is essentially inferior to man, she still has rights. Grant that Mrs. Norton[24] never could be Byron; that Elizaheth Barrett never could have written Paradise Lost; that Mrs. Somerville never could be La Place, nor Sirani have painted the Transfiguration. What then? Does that prove they should be deprived of all civil rights?
John Smith will never be, never can be, Daniel Webster. Shall he therefore be put under guardianship, and forbidden to vote? Suppose woman, though equal, does differ essentially in her intellect from man, is that any ground for disfranchising her? Shall the Fultons say to the Raphaels, because you can not make steam engines. therefore you shall not vote? Shall the Napoleons or the Washingtons say to the Wordsworths or the Herschels, because you can not lead armies, and govern States, therefore you shall have no civil rights?The following interesting letter from Harriet Martineau was then read, which we give in full that the reader may see how clearly defined was her position at that early day:
Cromer, England, Aug. 8, 1851.
Paulina Wright Davis:
Dear Madam: — I beg to thank you heartily for your kindness in sending me the Report of the Proceedings of your Woman's Rights Convention. I had gathered what I could from the newspapers concerning it, but I was gratified at being able to read, in a collected form, addresses so full of earnestness and sound truth, as I found most of the speeches to be. I hope you are aware of the interest excited in this country by that Convention, the strongest proof of which is the appearance of an article on the subject in The Westminster Review for July), as thorough-going as any of your own addresses, and from the pen (at least as it is understood here) of one of our very first men, Mr. John S. Mill. I am not without hope that this article will materially strengthen your hands, and I am sure it can not but cheer your hearts.
Ever since I became capable of thinking for myself, I have clearly seen, and I have said it till my listeners and readers are probably tired of hearing it, that there can be but one true method in the treatment of each human being, of sex, of any color, and under any outward circumstances, to ascertain what the powers of that being, to cultivate them to the utmost, and then to see 'what action they will find for themselves. This has pro ably never been done for men, unless in some rare individual cases. It has certainly never been done women, and, till it is done, all debating about what woman's intellect is, all speculation, or laying down the law, as to what is woman's sphere, is a mere beating of the air. A priori conceptions have long been worthless in physical science, and nothing was really effected till the experimental method was clearly made out and strictly applied in practice, and the same principle holds most certainly through the whole range of moral science.
Whether we regard the physical fact of what women are able to do, or the moral fact of what women ought to do, it is equally necessary to abstain from making any decision prior to experiment. We see plainly enough the waste of time and thought among the men who once talked of Nature abhorring a vacuum, or disputed at great length as to whether angels could go from end to end without passing through the middle; and the day will come when it will appear to be no less absurd to have argued, as men and women are arguing now, about what woman ought to do, before it was ascertained what woman can do.
Let us once see a hundred women educated up to the highest point that education at present reaches; let them be supplied with such knowledge as their faculties are found to crave, and let them be free to use, apply, and increase their knowledge as their faculties shall instigate, and it will presently appear what is the sphere of each of the hundred.
One may be discovering comets, like Miss Herschell; one may be laying open the mathematical structure of the universe, like Mrs. Somerville; another may be analyzing the chemical relations of Nature in the laboratory; another may be penetrating the mysteries of physiology; others may be applying science in the healing of diseases; others may be investigating the laws of social relations, learning the great natural laws under which society, like everything else, proceeds; others, again, may be actively carrying out the social arrangements which have been formed under these laws; and others may be chiefly occupied in family business, in the duties of the wife and mother, and the ruler of the household.
If, among the hundred women, a great diversity of powers should appear (which I have no doubt would be the case), there will always be plenty of scope and material for the greatest amount and variety of power that can be brought out. If not — if it should appear that women fall below men in all but the domestic functions — then it will be well that the experiment has been tried; and the trial better go on forever, that woman's sphere may forever determine itself to the satisfaction of everybody. It is clear that education, to be what I demand on behalf of women, must be intended to issue in active life.
A man's medical education would be worth little, if it was not a preparation for practice. The astronomer and the chemist would put little force into their studies, if it was certain that they must leave off in four or five years, and do nothing for the rest of their lives; and no man could possibly feel much interest in political and social morals, if he knew that he must, all his life long, pay taxes, but neither speak nor move about public affairs.
Women, like men, must be educated with a view to action, or their studies can not be called education, and no judgment can be formed of the scope of their faculties. The pursuit must be life's business, or it will be mere pastime or irksome task. This was always my point of difference with one who carefully cherished a reverence for woman, the late Dr. Channing.
How much we spoke and wrote of the old controversy, Influence vs. Office. He would have had any woman study anything that her faculties led her to, whether physical science or law, government and political economy; but he would have her stop at the study. From the moment she entered the hospital as physician and not nurse; from the moment she took her place in a court of justice, in the jury box, and not the witness box; from the moment she brought her mind and her voice into the legislature, instead of discussing the principles of laws at home; from the moment she announced and administered justice instead of looking at it from afar, as a thing with which she had no concern, she would, he feared, lose her influence as an observing intelligence, standing by in a state of purity "unspotted from the world."
My conviction always was, that an intelligence never carried out into action could not be worth much; and that, if all the action of human life was of a character so tainted as to be unfit for women, it could be no better for men, and we ought all to sit down together, to let barbarism overtake us once more.
My own conviction is, that the natural action of the whole human being occasions not only the most strength, but the highest elevation; not only the warmest sympathy, but the deepest purity. The highest and purest beings among women seem now to be those who, far from being idle, find among their restricted opportunities some means of strenuous action; and [can not doubt that, if an active social career were open to all women, with due means of preparation for it, those who are high and holy now, would be high and holy then, and would be joined by an innumerable company of just spirits from among those whose energies are now pining and fretting in enforced idleness, or unworthy frivolity, or brought down into pursuits and aims which are anything but pure and peaceable.
Tn regard to the old controversy — Influence vs. Office — it appears to me that if Influence is good and Office bad for human morals and character, Man's present position is one of such hardship, as it is almost profane to contemplate; and if, on the contrary, Office is good and a life of Influence is bad, Woman has an instant right to claim that her position be amended.
Yours faithfully, Harriet Martineau.From her letter, we find, that Miss Martineau shared the common Opinion in England that the article in the Westminster Review on the "Enfranchisement of Woman" was written by John Stuart Mill. It was certainly very complimentary to Mrs. Taylor, the real author of that paper, who afterward married Mr. Mill, that it should have been supposed to emanate from the pen of that distinguished philosopher. An amusing incident is related of Mr. Mill, for the truth of which we can not vouch, but report says, that after reading this article, he hastened to read it again to Mrs. Taylor, and passing on it the highest praises, to his great surprise she confessed herself the author.
At this Convention Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith made her first appearance on our platform. She was well known in the literary circles of New York as a writer of merit in journals and periodicals. She defended the Convention and its leaders through the columns of the New York Tribune, and afterward published a series of articles entitled "Woman and her Needs." She early made her way into the Lyceums and some pulpits never before open to woman. Her "Bertha and Lily," a woman's rights novel, and her other writings were influential in moulding popular thought.
Angelina Grimke, familiar with plantation life, spoke eloquently on the parallel between the slave code and the laws for married women.
Mehitable Haskell, of Gloucester, said:
Rebecca B. Spring followed with some pertinent remarks. Mrs. Emma R. Coe reviewed in a strain of pungent irony the State Laws in relation to woman. In discussing the resolutions, Charles List, Esq., of Boston, said:
Mrs. Nichols rejoined: Woman has been waiting for centuries expecting man to go before and lift her up, but he has failed to meet our expectations, and now comes the call that she should first grasp heaven and pull man up after her.
Mrs. Coe said: The signs are truly propitious, when man begins to complain of his wrongs — women not fit to be wives and mothers!
Who placed them in their present position? Who keeps them there? Let woman demand the highest education in our land, and what college, with the exception of Oberlin, will receive her? I have myself lately made such a demand and been refused simply on the ground of sex. Yet what is there in the highest range of intellectual pursuits, to which woman may not rightfully aspire? What is there, for instance, in theology, which she should not strive to learn? Give me only that in religion which woman may and should. become acquainted with, and the rest may go like chaff before the wind.
Lucy Stone said: I think it is not without reason that men complain of the wives and mothers of to-day. Let us look the fact soberly and fairly in the face, and admit that there is occasion to complain of wives and mothers. But while I say this, let me also say that when you can show one woman who is what she onght to be as a wife and a mother, you can show not more than one man who is what he should be as a husband and father. The blame is on both sides. When we add to what woman ought to be for her own sake, this other fact, that woman, by reason of her maternity, must exert a most potent influence over the generations yet to be, there is no language that can speak the magnitud" or importance of the subject that has called us together. He is guilty of giving the world a dwarfed humanity, who would seek to hinder this movement for the elevation of woman; for she is as yet a starved and dependent outcast before the law. In government she is outlawed, having neither voice nor part in it. In the household she is either a ceaseless drudge, or a blank. In the department of education, in industry, let woman's sphere be bounded only by her capacity. We desire there should no walls be thrown about it. Let man read his own soul, and turn over the pages of his own Book of Life, and learn that in the human mind there is always capacity for development, and then let him trust woman to that power of growth, no matter who says nay. Laying her hand on tho helm, let woman steer straight onward to the fulfillment of her own destiny. Let her ever remember, that in following out the high behests of her own soul will be found her exceeding great reward.William Henry Channing then gave the report from the committee on the social relations. Those present speak of it as a very able paper on that complex question, but as it was not published with the proceedings, all that can be found is the following meagre abstract from The Worcester Spy:
Woman should be as free to marry, or remain single, and as honorable in either relation, as man. There should be no stigma attached to the single woman, impelling her to avoid the possibility of such a position, by crushing her self-respect and individual ambition. A true Christian marriage is a sacred union of soul and sense, and the issues flowing from it are eternal. All obstacles in the way of severing uncongenial marriages should be removed, because such unions are unnatural, and must be evil in their results. Divorce in such cases should be honorable, without subjecting the parties to the shame of exposure in the courts, or in the columns of the daily papers.
Much could be accomplished for the elevation of woman by organizations clustering round a social principle, like those already clustered round a religious principle, such as "Sisters of Mercy," "Sisters of Charity," etc. There should be social orders called "Sisters of Honor," having for their object the interests of unfortunate women. From these would spring up convents, where those who have escaped from false marriages and illegal social relations would find refuge. These organizations might send out missionaries to gather the despised Magdalens into safe retreats, and raise them to the level of true womanhood.Mr. Channing spoke at length on the civil and political position of woman, eloquently advocating the rightfulness and expediency of woman's co-sovereignty with man, and closed by reading a very eloquent letter from Jeanne Deroine and Pauline Roland, two remarkable French women, then in the prison of St. Lagare, in Paris, for their liberal opinions.
Just as the agitation for woman's rights began in this country, Pauline Roland began in France a vigorous demand for her rights as a citizen. The 27th of February, 1848, she presented herself before the electoral reunion to claim the right of nominating the mayor of the city where she lived. Having been refused, she claimed in April of the same year the right to take part in the elections for the Constituent Assembly, and was again refused. On April 12, 1849, Jeanne Deroine claimed for woman the right of eligibility by presenting herself as a candidate for the Legislative Assembly, and she sustained this right before the preparatory electoral reunions of Paris. On the 3d of October Jeanne Deroine and Pauline Roland, delegates from the fraternal associations, were elected members of the Central Committee of the Associative Unions. This Central Committee was for the fraternal associations what the Constituent Assembly was for the French Republic in 1848.
Dear Sisters: — Your courageous declaration of Woman's Rights has resounded even to our prison, and has filled our souls with inexpressible joy.
In France the reaction has suppressed the cry of liberty of the women of the future. Deprived, like their brothers, of the Democracy, of the right to civil and political equality, and the fiscal laws which trammel the liberty of the press, hinder the propagation of those eternal truths which must regenerate humanity.
They wish the women of France to found a hospitable tribunal, which shall receive the cry of the oppressed and suffering, and vindicate in the name of humanity, solidarity, the social right for both sexes equally; and where woman, the mother of humanity, may claim in the name of her children, mutilated by tyranny, her right to true liberty, to the complete development and free exercise of all her faculties, and reveal that half of truth which is in her, and without which no social work can be complete.
The darkness of reaction has obscured the sun of 1848, which seemed to rise so radiantly. Why? Because the revolutionary tempest, in overturning at the same time the throne and the scaffold, in breaking the chain of the black slave, forgot to break the chain of the most oppressed of all of the pariahs of humanity.
"There shall be no more slaves," said our brethren. We proclaim universal suffrage. All shall have the right to elect the agents who shall carry out the Constitution which should be based on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Let each one come and deposit his vote; the barrier of privilege is overturned; before the electoral urn there are no more oppressed, no more masters and slaves."
Woman, in listening to this appeal, rises and approaches the liberating urn to exercise her right of suffrage us a member of society. But the barrier of privilege rises also before her. "You must wait," they say. But by this claim alone woman affirms the right, not yet recognized, of the half of humanity — the right of woman to liberty, equality, and fraternity. She obliges man to verify the fatal attack which he makes on the integrity of his principles.
Soon, in fact during the wonderful days of June, 1848, liberty glides from her pedestal in the flood of the victims of the reaction; based on the "right of the strongest," she falls, overturned in the name of "the right of the strongest.":
The Assembly kept silence in regard to the right of one-half of humanity, for which only one of its members.raised his voice, but in vain. No mention was made of the right of woman in a Constitution framed in the name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
It is in the name of these principles that woman comes to claim her Tight to take part in the Legislative Assembly, and to help to form the Jaws which must govern society, of which she is a member.
She comes to demand of the electors the consecration of the principle of equality by the election of a woman, and by this act she obliges man
to prove that the fundamental law which he has formed in the sole name of liberty, equality, and fraternity, is still based upon privilege, and soon privilege triumphs over this phantom of universal suffrage, which, being but half of itself, sinks on the 31st of May, 1850.
But while those selected by the half of the people — by men alone — evoke force to stifle liberty, and forge restrictive laws to establish order by compression, woman, guided by fraternity, foreseeing incessant struggles, and in the hope of putting an end to them, makes an appeal to the laborer to found liberty and equality on fraternal solidarity. The participation of woman gave to this work of enfranchisement an eminently pacific character, and the laborer recognizes the right of woman, his companion in labor.
The delegates of a hundred and four associations, united, without distinction of sex, elected two women, with several of their brethren, to participate equally with them in the administration of the interests of labor, and in the organization of the work of solidarity.
Fraternal associations were formed with the object of enfranchising the laborer from the yoke of spoliage and patronage, but, isolated in the midst of the Old World, their efforts could only produce a feeble amelioration for themselves.
The union of associations based on fraternal solidarity had for its end the organization of labor; that is to say, an equal division of labor, of instruments, and of the products of labor.
The means were, the union of labor, and of credit. among the workers of all professions, in order to acquire the instruments of labor and the necessary materials, and to form a mutual guarantee for the education of their children, and to provide for the needs of the old, the sick, and the infirm.
In this organization all the workers, without distinction of sex or profession, having an equal right to election, and being eligible for all functions, and all having equally the initiative and the sovereign decision in the acts of common interests, they laid the foundation of a new society based on liberty, equality, and fraternity.
It is in the name of law framed by man only — by those elected by privilege — that the Old World, wishing to stifle in the germ the holy work of pacific enfranchisement, has shut up within the walls of a prison those who had founded it — those elected by the laborers.
But the impulse has been given, a grand act has been accomplished. The right of woman has been recognized by the laborers, and they have consecrated that right by the election of those who had claimed it in vain for both sexes, before the electoral urn and before the electoral committees. They have received the true civil baptism, were elected by the laborers to accomplish the mission of enfranchisement, and after having shared their rights and their duties, they share to-day their captivity.
It is from the depths of their prison that they address to you the relation of these facts, which contain in themselves high instruction. It is by labor, it is by entering resolutely into the ranks of the working people, that women will conquer the civil and political equality on which depends the happiness of the world. As to moral equality, has she not conquered it by the power of sentiment? It is, therefore, by the sentiment of the love of humanity that the mother of humanity will find power to accomplish her high mission. It is when she shall have well comprehended the holy law of solidarity — which is not an obscure and mysterious dogma, but a living providential fact — that the kingdom of God promised by Jesus, and which is no other than the kingdom of equality and justice, shall be realized on earth.
Sisters of America! your socialist sisters of France are united with you in the vindication of the right of woman to civil and political equality. We have, moreover, the profound conviction that only by the power of association based on solidarity — by the union of the working-classes of both sexes to organize labor — can be acquired, completely and pacifcally, the civil and political equality of woman, and the social right for all.
It is in this confidence that, from the depths of the jail which still imprisons our bodies without reaching our hearts, we ery to you, Faith, Love, Hope, and send to you our sisterly salutations.
Jeanne Deroine,
Pauline Roland.
Ernestine L. Rose, having known something of European despotism, followed Mr. Channing in a speech of great pathos and power. She said:
But right has not yet asserted her prerogative, for might rules the day; and as every good cause must have its martyrs, why should woman not be a martyr for her cause? But need we wonder that France, governed as she is by Russian and Austrian despotism, does not recognize the rights of humanity in the recognition of the rights of woman, when even here, in this far-famed land of freedom, under a Republic that has inscribed on its banner the great truth that "all men are created free and equal, and endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" — a declaration borne, like the vision of hope, on wings of light to the remotest parts of the earth, an omen of freedom to the oppressed and down-trodden children of man — when, even here, in the very face of this eternal truth, woman, the mockingly so-called "better half" of man, has yet to plead for her rights, nay, for her life. For what is life without liberty, and what is liberty without equality of Tights? And as for the pursuit of happiness, she is not allowed to choose any line of action that might promote it; she has only thankfully to accept what man in his magnanimity decides as best for her to do, and this is what he does not choose to do himself.
Is she then not included in that declaration? Answer, ye wise men of the nation, and answer truly; add not hypocrisy to oppression! Say that she is not created free and equal, and therefore (for the sequence follows on the premise) that she is not entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But with all the audacity arising from an assumed. superiority, you dare not so libel and insult humanity as to say, that she is not included in that declaration; and if she is, then what right has man, except that of might, to deprive woman of the rights and privileges he claims for himself? And why, in the name of reason and justice, why should she not have the same rights? Because she is woman? Humanity recognizes no sex; virtue recognizes no sex; mind recognizes no sex; life and death, pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, recognize no sex. Like man, woman comes involuntarily into existence; like him, she possesses physical and mental and moral powers, on the proper cultivation of which depends her happiness; like him she is subject to all the vicissitudes of life; like him she has to pay the penalty for disobeying nature's laws, and far greater penalties has she to suffer from ignorance of her more complicated nature; like him she enjoys or suffers with her country. Yet she is not recognized as his equal!
In the laws of the land she has no rights; in government she has no voice. And in spite of another principle, recognized in this Republic, namely, that "taxation without representation is tyranny," she is taxed without being represented. Her property may be consumed by taxes to defray the expenses of that unholy, unrighteous custom called war, yet she has no power to give her vote against it. From the cradle to the grave she is subject to the power and control of man. Father, guardian, or husband, one conveys her like some piece of merchandise over to the other.
At marriage she loses her entire identity, and her being is said to have become merged in her husband. Has nature thus merged it? Has she ceased to exist and feel pleasure and pain? When she violates the laws of her being, does her husband pay the penalty? When she breaks the moral laws, does he suffer the punishment? When he supplies his wants, is it enough to satisfy her nature? And when at his nightly orgies, in the grog-shop and the oyster-cellar, or at the gaming-table, he squanders the means she helped, by her co-operation and economy, to accumulate, and she awakens to penury and destitution, will it supply the wants of her children to tell them that, owing to the superiority of man she had no redress by law, and that as her being was merged in his, so also ought theirs to be? What an inconsistency, that from the moment she enters that compact, in which she assumes the high responsibility of wife and mother, she ceases legally to exist, and becomes a purely submissive being. Blind submission in woman is considered a virtue, while submission to wrong is itself wrong, and resistance to wrong is virtue, alike in woman as in man.
But it will be said that the husband provides for the wife, or in other words, he feeds, clothes, and shelters her! I wish I had the power to make every one before me fully realize the degradation contained in that idea. Yes! he keeps her, and so he does a favorite horse; by law they are both considered his property. Both may, when the cruelty of the owner compels them to, run away, be brought back by the strong arm of the law, and according to a still extant law of England, both may be led by the halter to the market-place, and sold. This is humiliating indeed, but nevertheless true; and the sooner these things are known and understood, the better for humanity. It is no fancy sketch. I know that some endeavor to throw the mantle of romance over the subject, and
treat woman like some ideal existence, not liable to the ills of life. Let those deal in fancy, that have nothing better to deal in; we have to do with sober, sad realities, with stubborn facts.
Again, I shall be told that the law presumes the husband to be kind. affectionate, and ready to provide for and protect his wife. But what right, I ask, has the law to presume at all on the subject? What right has the law to intrust the interest and happiness of one being into the hands of another? And if the merging of the interest of one being into the other is a necessary consequence on marriage, why should woman always remain on the losing side? Turn the tables. Let the identity and interest of the husband be merged in the wife. Think you she would act less generously toward him, than he toward her? Think you she is not capable of as much justice, disinterested devotion, and abiding affection, as he is? Oh, how grossly you misunderstand and wrong her nature! But we desire no such undue power over man; it would be as wrong in her to exercise it as it now is in him. All we claim is an equal legal and social position. We have nothing to do with individual man, be he good or bad, but with the laws that oppress woman. We know that bad and unjust laws must in the nature of things make can so too. If he is kind, affectionate, and consistent, it is because the Kindlier feelings, instilled by a mother, kept warm by a sister, and cherished by a wife, will not allow him to carry out these barbarous laws against woman.
But the estimation she is generally held in, is as degrading as it is foolish. Man forgets that woman can not be degraded without its reacting on himself. The impress of her mind is stamped on him by nature, and the early education of the mother, which no after-training can entirely efface; and therefore, the estimation she is held in falls back with double force upon him. Yet, from the force of prejudice 'against her, he knows it not. Not long ago, I saw an account of two offenders, brought before a Justice of New York. One was charged with ling a pair of boots, for which offense he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment; the other crime was assault and battery upon his wife: he was let off with a reprimand from the judge! With my principles, I am entirely opposed to punishment, and hold, that to reform the erring and remove the causes of evil is much more efficient, as well as just, than to punish. But the judge showed us the comparative value which he set on these two kinds of property. But then you must remember that the boots were taken by a stranger, while the wife was insulted by her legal owner! Here it will be said, that such degrading eases are but few. For the sake of humanity, I hope they are. But as dong as woman shall be oppressed by unequal laws, so long will she be degraded by man.
We have hardly an adequate idea how all-powerful law is in forming public opinion, in giving tone and character to the mass of society. To illustrate my point. look at that infamous, detestable law, which was written in human blood, and signed and sealed with life and liberty, that eternal stain on the statute book of this country, the Fugitive Slave Law. Think you that before its passage, you could have found any in the free States — except a few politicians in the market — base enough to desire such a law? No! no! Even those who took no interest in the slave question, would have shrunk from so barbarous a thing. But no sooner was it passed, than the ignorant mass, the rabble of the self-styled Union Safety Committee, found out that we were a law-loving, law-abiding people! Such is the magic power of Law. Hence the necessity to guard against bad ones. Hence also the reason why we call on the nation to remove the legal shackles from woman, and it will have a beneficial effect on that still greater tyrant she has to contend with, Public Opinion.
Carry out the republican principle of universal suffrage, or strike it from your banners and substitute "Freedom and Power to one half of society, and Submission and Slavery to the other." Give woman the elective franchise. Let married women have the same right to property that their husbands have; for whatever the difference in their respective occupations, the duties of the wife are as indispensable and far more arduous than the husband's. Why then should the wife, at the death of her husband, not be his heir to the same extent that he is heir to her? In this inequality there is involved another wrong. When the wife dies, the husband is left in the undisturbed possession of all there is, and the children are left with him; no change is made, no stranger intrudes on his home and his affliction. But when the husband dies, the widow, at best receives but a mere pittance, while strangers assume authority denied to the wife. The sanctuary of affliction must be desecrated by executors; everything must be ransacked and assessed, lest she should steal something out of her own house; and to cap the climax, the children must be placed under guardians. When the husband dies poor, to be sure, no guardian is required, and the children are left for the mother to care and toil for, as best she may. But when anything is left for their maintenance, then it must be placed in the hands of strangers for safe keeping! The bringing-up and safety of the children are left with the mother, and safe they are in her hands. But a few hundred or thousand dollars can not be intrusted with her!
But, say they, "in case of a second marriage, the children must nb protected in their property." Does that reason not hold as good in the ease of the husband as in that of the wife? Oh, no! When he marries again, he still retains his identity and power to act; but she becomes merged once more into a mere nonentity; and therefore the first husband must rob her to prevent the second from doing so! Make the laws regulating property between husband and wife, equal for both, and all these difficulties would be removed.
According to a late act, the wife has a right to the property she brings at marriage, or receives in any way after marriage. Here is some provision for the favored few; but for the laboring many, there is none. The mass of the people commence life with no other capital than the union of heads, hearts, and hands. To the benefit of this best of capital. the wife has no right. If they are unsuccessful in married life, who suffers more the bitter consequences of poverty than the wife? But if successful, she can not call a dollar her own. The husband may will away every dollar of the personal property, and leave her destitute and penniless, and she has no redress by law. And even where real estate is left she receives but a life-interest in a third part of it, and at her death, she can not leave it to any one belonging to her: it falls back even to the remotest of his relatives. This is law, but where is the justice of it? Well might we say that laws were made to prevent, not to promote, the ends of justice.
In case of separation, why should the children be taken from the protecting care of the mother? Who has a better right to them than she? How much do fathers generally do toward bringing them up? When he comes home from business, and the child is in good humor and handsome trim, he takes the little darling on his knee and plays with it. But when the wife, with the care of the whole household on her shoulders, with little or no help, is not able to put them in the best order, how much does he do for them? Oh, no! Fathers like to have children good natured, well-behaved, and comfortable, but how to put them in that desirable condition is out of their philosophy. Children always depend more on the tender, watchful care of the mother, than of the father. Whether from nature, habit, or both, the mother is much more capable of administering to their health and comfort than the father, and therefore she has the best right to them. And where there is property, it ought to be divided equally between them, with an additional provision from the father toward the maintenance and education of the children.
Much is said about the burdens and responsibilities of married men. Responsibilities indeed there are, if they but felt them; but as to burdens, what are they? The sole province of man seems to be centered in that one thing, attending to some business. I grant that owing to the present unjust and unequal reward for labor, many have to work too hard for a subsistence; but whatever his vocation, he has to attend as much to it before as after marriage. Look at your bachelors, and see if they do not strive as much for wealth, and attend as steadily to business, as married men. No! the husband has little or no increase of burden, and every increase of comfort after marriage; while most of the burdens, cares, pains, and penalties of married life fall on the wife. How unjust and cruel, then, to have all the laws in his favor! If any difference should be made by law between husband and wife, reason, justice, and humanity, if their voices were heard, would dictate that it should be in her favor.
No! there is no reason against woman's elevation, but there are deep-rooted, hoary-headed prejudices. The main cause of them is, a pernicious falsehood propagated against her being, namely, that she is inferior by her nature. Inferior in what? What has man ever done, that woman, under the same advantages, could not do? In morals, bad as she is, she is generally considered his superior. In the intellectual sphere, give her a fair chance before you pronounce a verdict against her. Cultivate the frontal portion of her brain as much as that of man is cultivated, and she will stand his equal at least. Even now, where her mind has been called out at all, her intellect is as bright, as capacious, and as powerful as his, Will you tell us, that women have no Newtons, Shakespeares, and Byrons? Greater natural powers than even those possessed may have been destroyed in woman for want of proper culture, a just appreciation, reward for merit as an incentive to exertion, and freedom of action, without which, mind becomes cramped and stifled, for it can not expand under bolts and bars; and yet, amid all blighting, crushing circumstances — confined within the narrowest possible limits, trampled upon by prejudice and injustice, from her education and position forced to occupy herself almost exclusively with the most trivial affairs — in spite of all these difficulties, her intellect is as good as his. The few bright meteors in man's intellectual horizon could well be matched by woman, were she allowed to occupy the same elevated position. There is no need of naming the De Staëls, the Rolands, the Somervilles, the Wollstonecrofts. the Sigourneys, the Wrights, the Martineaus, the Hemanses, the Fullers, Jagellos, and many more of modern as well as ancient times, to prove her mental powers, her patriotism, her self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of humanity, and the eloquence that gushes from her pen, or from her tongue. These things are too well known to require repetition. And do you ask for fortitude, energy, and perseverance? Then look at woman under suffering, reverse of fortune, and affliction, when the strength and power of man have sunk to the lowest ebb, when his mind is overwhelmed by the dark waters of despair. She, like the tender ivy plant bent yet unbroken by the storms of life, not only upholds her own hopeful courage, but clings around the tempest-fallen oak, to speak hope to his faltering spirit, and shelter him from the returning blast of the storm.
In looking over the speeches of Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Abby Kelly Foster, Clarina Howard Nichols, Antoinette Brown, and Lucy Stone, and the well-digested reports by Paulina Wright Davis on Education, Abby Price on Industry, and William Henry Channing on the Social Relations, comprising the whole range of woman's rights and duties, we feel that the report of one of these meetings settles the question of woman's capacity to reason. At every session of this two days' Convention Brinley Hall was so crowded at an early hour that hundreds were unable to gain admittance. Accordingly, the last evening it was proposed to adjourn to the City Hall; and even that spacious auditorium was crowded long before the hour for assembling. It may be said with truth, that in the whole history of the woman suffrage movement there never was at one time more able and eloquent men and women on our platform, and represented by letter there, than in these Worcester Conventions which called out numerous complimentary comments and editorial notices, notably the following:[From the New York Christian Inquirer, Rev Henry Bellows, D.D., editor.]
THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION AT WORCESTER.
We very well recollect the scorn with which the annual procession of the first Abolitionists was greeted in Boston, some thirty years ago. The children had no conception of the "Bobolition Society," but as of a set of persons making themselves ridiculous for the amusement of the publie; but that "Bobolition Society" has shaken the Union to its center, and filled the world with sympathy and concern. The Woman's Rights Convention is in like manner a thing for honest scorn to point its finger at; but a few years may prove that we pointed the finger, not at an illuminated balloon, but at the rising sun.
We have no hesitation in acknowledging ourselves to be among those who have regarded this movement with decided distrust and distaste. If we have been more free than others to express this disgust, we have perhaps rendered some service, by representing a common sentiment with which this reform has to contend. We would be among the first to acknowledge that our objections have not grown out of any deliberate consideration of the principles involved in the question. They have been founded on instinctive aversion, on an habitual respect for public sentiment, on an irresistible feeling of the ludicrousness of the proposed reform in its details. Certainly social instinct has its proper place in. the judgments we pass on the manners of both sexes. What is offensive: to good taste — meaning by good taste, the taste of the most educated and refined people — has the burden of proof resting upon it when it. claims respect and attention. But we should be the last to assert that questions of right and rights have no appeal from the bar of conventional taste to that of reason.
And however it may have been at the outset, we think the Woman's Rights question has now made good its title to be heard in the superior court. The principles involved in this great question we can not now discuss; but we have a few thoughts upon the attitude of the reformer toward society, which we would respectfully commend to attention. If the female sex is injured in its present position, it is an injury growing out of universal mistake; ay honest error, in which the sexes have conspired, without intentional injustice on one side, or feeling of wrong on the other. Indeed, we could not admit that there had been thus far any wrong or mistake at all, except in details. Mankind have hitherto found the natural functions of the two sexes marking out different spheres for them. Thus far, as we think, the circumstances of the world have compelled a marked division of labor, and a marked difference of culture and political position between the sexes.
The facts of superior bodily strength on the masculine side, and of maternity on the feminine side, small as they are now made to appear, are very great and decisive facts in themselves, and have necessarily governed the organization of society. It is between the sexes, as between the races, the strongest rules; and it has hitherto been supposed to be of service to the common interest of society, that this rule should be legalized and embodied in the social customs of every community. As a fact, woman, by her bodily weakness and her maternal office, was from the first, a comparatively private and domestic creature; her education, from circumstances, was totally different, her interests were different, the sources of her happiness different from man's, and as a fact, all these things, though with important modifications, have continued to be so to this day. The fact has seemed to the world a final one. It has been thought that in her present position, she was in her best position relative to man, which her nature or organization admitted of. That she is man's inferior in respect to all offices and duties requiring great bodily powers, or great moral courage, or great intellectual effort, has been almost universally supposed, — honestly thought too, and without the least disposition to deny her equality, on this account, in the scale of humanity.
For in respect to moral sensibility, affections, manners, tastes, and the passive virtues, woman has long been honestly felt to be the superior of man. The political disfranchisement of women, and their seclusion from publicity, have grown out of sincere convictions that their nature and happiness demanded from man an exemption from the cares, and a protection from the perils of the out-of-door world. Mankind, in both its parts, may have been utterly mistaken in this judgment; but it has been nearly universal, and thoroughly sincere, — based thus far, we think, upon staring facts and compulsory circumstances.
In starting a radical reform upon this subject, it is expedient that it should be put, not on the basis of old grievances, but upon the ground of new light, of recent and fresh experiences, of change of circumstances. It may be that the relative position of the sexes is so changed by an advancing civilization, that the time has come for questioning the conclusion of the world respecting woman's sphere. All surprise at opposition to this notion, all sense of injury, all complaint of past injustice. ought to cease. Woman's part has been the part which her actual state made necessary. If another and a better future is opening, let us see it and rejoice in it as a new gift of Providence.
And we are not without suspicion that the time for some great change has arrived. At any rate, we confess our surprise at the weight of the reasoning brought forward by the recent Convention, and shall endeavor henceforth to keep our masculine mind, — full, doubtless, of conventional prejudices, — open to the light which is shed upon the theme.
Meanwhile, we must beg the women who are pressing this reform, to consider that the conservatism of instinct and taste, though not infallible, is respectable and worth attention. The opposition they will receive is founded on prejudices that are not selfish, but merely masculine. It springs from no desire to keep women down, but from a desire to keep them up; from a feeling, mistaken it may be, that their strength, and their dignity, and their happiness, lie in their seclusion from the rivalries, strifes. and public duties of life. The strength and depth of the respect and love for woman, as woman, which characterize this age, can not be overstated. But woman insists upon being respected, as a kindred intellect, a free competitor, and a political equal. And we have suspicions that she may surprise the conservative world by making her pretensions good. Only meanwhile let her respect the affectionate and sincere prejudices, if they be prejudices, which adhere to the other view, a view made honorable, if not proved true, by the experiences of all the ages of the past. We hope to give the whole subject more attention in future. Indeed it will force attention. It may be the solution of many social problems, long waiting an answer, is delayed by the neglect to take woman's case into fuller consideration. The success of the present reform would give an entirely new problem to political and social philosophers! At present we endeavor to hold ourselves in a candid suspense.Judging Dr. Bellows by the above editorial, he had made some progress in one year. A former article from his pen called out the following criticism from Mrs. Ruse:
THE UNA.
In February, 1853, Paulina Wright Davis started a woman's paper called The Una, published in Providence, Rhode Island, with the following prospectus:
The Una could boast for its correspondents some of the ablest men and women in the nation; such as William H. Channing, Elizabeth Peabody, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Rev. A. D. Mayo, Dr. William Elder, Ednah D. Cheney, Caroline H. Dall, Fanny Fern, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Abby H. Price, Marion Finch, of Liverpool, Hon. John Neal, of Portland, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
For some time Mrs. Dall assisted in the editorial department. The Una was the first pronounced Woman Suffrage paper; it lived three years. Glancing over the bound volumes, one may glean much valuable information of what was said and done during that period. We learn that Lady Grace Vandeleur, in person, canvassed the election of Kilrush, Ireland, and from her ladyship's open carriage, addressed a large assemblage of electors on behalf of her husband, the Conservative candidate. She was enthusiastically greeted by the populace.
The Maine Age announces the election of a Miss Rose to the office of Register of Deeds, and remarks: "Before the morning of the twentieth century dawns, women will not simply fill your offices of Register of Deeds, but they will occupy seats in your Legislative Halls, on your judicial benches, and in the executive chair of State and Nation. We deprecate it, yet we perceive its inevitability, and await the shock with firmness and composure."
This same year, The Una narrates the following amusing incident that occurred in the town of P, New Hampshire: It is customary in the country towns for those who choose to do so, to pay their proportion of the highway tax, in actual labor on the roads, at the rate of eight cents an hour, instead of paying money. Two able bodied and strong-hearted women in P., who found it very inconvenient to pay the ready cash required of them, determined to avail themselves of this custom. They accordingly presented themselves to the surveyor of the highway with hoes in their hands, and demanded to be set to work. The good surveyor was sorely puzzled; such a thing as women working out their taxes, had never been heard of, and yet the law made no provision against it. He consulted his lawyer, who advised him that he had no power to refuse. Accordingly the two brave women worked, and worked well, in spreading sand and gravel, saved their pennies, and no doubt felt all the better for their labor.
In the April Number, 1853, we find the following appeal to the citizens of Massachusetts, on the equal political rights of woman:
At such a time it is the right and duty of every one to point out whatever he deems erroneous and imperfect in that instrument, and press its amendment on public attention.
We deem the extension to woman of all civil rights, a measure of vital importance to the welfare and progress of the State. On every principle of natural justice, as well as by the nature of our institutions, she is as fully entitled as man to vote, and to be eligible to office. In governments based on force, it might be pretended with some plausibility, that woman being supposed physically weaker than man, should be excluded from the State. But ours is a government professedly resting on the consent of the governed. Woman is surely as competent to give that consent as man. Our Revolution claimed that taxation and representation should be co-extensive. While the property and labor of women are subject to taxation, she is entitled to a voice in fixing the amount of taxes, and the use of them when collected, and is entitled to a voice in the laws that regulate punishments. It would be a disgrace to our schools and civil institutions, for any one to argue that a Massachusetts woman who has enjoyed the full advantage of all their culture, is not as competent to form an opinion on civil matters, as the illiterate foreigner landed but a few years before upon our shores — unable to read or write — by no means free from early prejudices, and little acquainted with our institutions. Yet such men are allowed to vote.
Woman as wife, mother, daughter, and owner of property, has important rights to be protected. The whole history of legislation so unequal between the sexes, shows that she can not safely trust these to the other sex. Neither have her rights as mother, wife, daughter, laborer, ever received full legislative protection. Besides, our institutions are not based on the idea of one class receiving protection from another; but on the well-recognized rule that each class, or sex, is entitled to such civil rights, as will enable it to protect itself. The exercise of civil rights is one of the best means of education. Interest in great questions, and the discussion of them under momentous responsibility, call forth all the faculties and nerve them to their fullest strength. The grant of these rights on the part of society, would quickly lead to the enjoyment by woman, of a share in the higher grades of professional employment. Indeed, without these, mere book study is often but a waste of time. The learning for which no use is found or anticipated, is too frequently forgotten. almost as soon as acquired. The influence of such a share, on the moral condition of society, is still more important. Crowded now into few employments, women starve each other by close competition; and too often vice borrows overwhelming power of temptation from poverty. Open to women a great variety of employments, and her wages in each will rise; the energy and enterprise of the more highly endowed, will find full scope in honest effort, and the frightful vice of our cities will be stopped at its fountain-head. We hint very briefly at these matters. A circular like this will not allow room for more. Some may think it too soon to expect any action from the Convention. Many facts lead us to think that public opinion is more advanced on this question than is generally supposed. Beside, there can be no time so proper to call public attention to a radical change in our civil polity as now, when the whole framework of our government is to be subjected to examination and discussion. It is never too early to begin the discussion of any desired change. To urge our claim on the Convention, is to bring our question before the proper tribunal, and secure at the same time the immediate attention of the general public. Massachusetts, though she has led the way in most other reforms, has in this fallen behind her rivals, consenting to learn, as to the protection of the property of married women, of many younger States. Let us redeem for her the old pre-eminence, and urge her to set a noble example in this the most important of all civil reforms. To this we ask you to join with us[25] in the accompanying petition to the Constitutional Convention.
In favor of this Appeal Lucy Stone, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, were heard.
We find in The Una the following report of Mr. Higginson's speech before the Committee of the Constitutional Convention on the qualification of voters, June 3, 1853, the question being on the petition of Abby May Alcott, and other women of Massachusetts, that they be permitted to vote on the amendments that may be made to the Constitution.
MR. HIGGINSON'S SPEECH.
I shall therefore abstain from all debate upon the general question, and confine myself to the specific point now before this Committee. I shall waive all inquiry as to the right of women to equality in education, in occupations, or in the ordinary use of the elective franchise. The question before this Committee is not whether women shall become legal voters — but whether they shall have power to say, once for all, whether they wish to become legal voters. Whether, in one word, they desire to accept this Constitution which the Convention is framing.
it is well that the question should come up in this form, since the one efficient argument against the right of women to vote, in ordinary cases, is the plea that they do not wish to do it. "Their whole nature revolts at it." Very well; these petitioners simply desire an opportunity for Massachusetts women to say whether their nature does revolt at it or no.
The whole object of this Convention, as I heard stated by one of its firmest advocates, is simply this: to "make the Constitution of Massachusetts consistent with its own first principles." This is all these petitioners demand. Give them the premises which are conceded in our existing Bill of Rights, or even its Preamble, and they ask no more. I shall draw my few weapons from this source. I know that this document is not binding upon your Convention; nothing is binding upon you but eternal and absolute justice, and my predecessor has taken care of the claims of that. But the Bill of Rights is still the organic law of this State, and I can quote no better authority for those principles which lie at the foundation of all that we call republicanism.
I. My first citation will be from the Preamble, and will establish as Massachusetts doctrine the principle of the Declaration of Independence, that all government owes its just powers to the consent of the governed.
"The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic. .... The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good ..... It is the duty of the people, therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for an equitable mode of making laws, as well as for an impartial interpretation and a faithful execution of them," etc., etc.
Now, women are "individuals"; women are a part of "the people"; women are "citizens," for the Constitution elsewhere distinguishes male citizens. This clause, then, concedes precisely that which your petitioners claim. Observe how explicit it is. The people are not merely to have good laws, well administered; but they must have an equitable mode of making those laws. The reason of this is, that good laws are no permanent security, unless enacted by equitable methods. Your laws: may be the best ever devised; yet still they are only given as a temporary favor, not held as a right, unless the whole people are concerned in their enactment. It is the old claim of despots — that their laws are good. When they told Alexander of Russia that his personal character was as good as a constitution for his people, "then," said he, "I am but a lucky accident." Your constitution may be never so benignant to woman, but that is only a lucky accident, unless you concede the claim of these women to have a share in creating it. Nothing else "is an equitable mode of making laws." But it is too late to choose female delegates to your Convention, and the only thing you can do is to allow women to vote on the acceptance of its results. The claim of these petitioners may be unexpected, but is logically irresistible. If you do not wish it to be renewed, you must remember either to alter or abrogate your Bill of Rights; for the petition is based on that.
The last speaker called this movement a novelty. Not entirely so. The novelty is partly the other way. In Europe, women have direct political power; witness Victoria. It is a false democracy which has taken it away. In my more detailed argument, I have cited many instances of these foreign privileges. In monarchical countries the dividing lines are not of sex, but of rank. A plebeian woman has no political power — nor has her husband. Rank gives it to man, and, also, in a degree, to woman. But among us the only rank is of sex. Politically speaking, in Massachusetts all men are patrician, all women plebeian. All men are equal, in having direct political power; and all women are equal, in having none. And women lose by democracy precisely that which men gain. Therefore I say this disfranchisement of woman, as woman, is a novelty. It is a new aristocracy; for, as De Tocqueville says, wherever one class has peculiar powers, as such, there is aristocracy and oligarchy.
We see the result of this in our general mode of speaking of woman, We forget to speak of her as an individual being, only as a thing. A political writer coolly says, that in Massachusetts, "except criminals and paupers, there is no class of persons who do not exercise the elective franchise." Women are not even a "class of persons." And yet, most readers would not notice this extraordinary omission. I talked the other day with a young radical preacher about his new religious organization. "Who votes yonder it?" said I. "Oh," (he said, triumphantly,) "we go for progress and liberty; anybody and everybody votes." "What!" said I, "women?" "No," said he, rather startled; "I did not think of them when I spoke." Thus quietly do we all talk of "anybody and everybody," and omit half the human race. Indeed, I read in the newspaper, this morning, of some great festivity, that "all the world and his wife" would be there! Women are not a part of the world, but only its "wife." They are not even "the rest of mankind"; they are womankind! All these things show the results of that inconsistency with the first principles of our Constitution of which the friends of this Convention justly complain.
II. So much for the general statement of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights in its Preamble. But one clause is even more explicit. In Section 9, I find the following:
"All the inhabitants of this Commonwealth, having such qualifications as they shall establish by their form of government, have an equal right to elect officers," etc.
As "they" shall establish. Who are they? Manifestly, the inhabitants as a whole. No part can have power, except by the consent of the whole, so far as that consent is practicable. Accordingly, you submit your Constitution for ratification — to whom? Not to the inhabitants of the State, not even to a majority of the native adult inhabitants; for it is estimated that at any given moment — in view of the great number of men emigrating to the West, to California, or absent on long voyages — the majority of the population of Massachusetts is female. You disfranchise the majority, then; the greater part of "the inhabitants" have no share in establishing the form of government, or assigning the qualifications of voters. What worse can you say of any oligarchy? True, your aristocracy is a large one — almost a majority, you may say. But so, in several European nations, is nobility almost in a majority, and you almost hire a nobleman to black your shoes; they are as cheap as generals and colonels in New England. But the principle is the same, whether the privileged minority consists of one or one million.
It is said that a tacit consent has been hitherto given by the absence of open protest? The same argument may be used concerning the black majority in South Carolina. Besides, your new Constitution is not yet made, and there has been no opportunity to assent to it. It will not be identical with the old one; but, even if it were, you propose to ask a renewed consent from men, and why not from women? Is it because a lady's "Yes" is always so fixed a certainty, that it never can be transformed to a "No," at a later period?
But I am compelled, by the fixed period of adjournment (10 a.m.), to cut short my argument, as I have been already compelled to condense it. I pray your consideration for the points I have urged. Believe me, it is easier to ridicule the petition of these women than to answer the arguments which sustain it. And, as the great republic of ancient times did not blush to claim that laws and governments were first introduced by Ceres, a woman, so I trust that the representatives of this noblest of modern commonwealths may not be ashamed to receive legislative suggestions from even female petitioners.On Tuesday, August 12, 1853, in Committee of the Whole, the report that "it is inexpedient to act on the petition" of several parties that women may vote, was taken up.
Mr. Keyes, of Abington, paid a warm tribute to the virtues and abilities of the fairer sex, and was willing to concede that they were to some extent oppressed and denied their rights; but he did not believe the granting of the privileges these petitioners claimed would tend to elevate or ameliorate their condition. Woman exerted great power by the exercise of her feminine graces and virtues, which she would lose the moment she should step beyond her proper sphere and mingle in the affairs of State!
Mr. Whitney, of Boylston, believed that the same reasoning that would deny the divine right of kings to govern men without their consent, would also deny a similar right of men over women. The Committee had given the best of reasons for granting the prayer of the petitioners, and then reported that they have leave to withdraw. He expatiated on the grievances to which women are subjected, and concluded by moving as an amendment to the report, that the prayer of the petitioners ought to be granted.
The Committee then rose, and had leave to sit again. Wednesday the first business of importance was the taking up in Committee of the report "leave to withdraw," relative to giving certain privileges to women. Question on the amendment of Mr. Whitney to amend the conclusion of the report, by inserting "that the prayer of the petitioners be granted." Debate ensued on the subject between Messrs. Marvin, of Winchendon; Kingman, of West Bridgewater; when the question was taken, and Mr. Whitney's amendment rejected. Mr. Marvin then moved to substitute "inexpedient to act" for "leave to withdraw"; which was adopted. The Committee then rose, and recommended the adoption of the report as amended, by a vote of 108 to 44.The prejudices of the 108 outweighed a!l the able arguments made by those who represented the petitioners, and all the great principles of justice on which a true republic is based.
We find the following comments on the character and duties of the gentlemen who composed the Convention, from the pen of Mr. Higginson, in The Una of June, 1853:
To the members of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention:
But at that moment, there lay within the brain of the young Genoese a dream. which although denounced by prelates and derided by statesmen. was yet destined to add another half to the visible earth; so there is brooding in the soul of this generation, a vision of the greatest of all political discoveries, which, when accepted, will double the intellectual resources of society, and give a new world, not to Castile and Leon only, but to Massachusetts and the human race.
And lastly, as we owe the labor and the laurels of Columbus only to the liberal statesmanship of a woman, it is surely a noble hope, that the future Isabellas of this Nation may point the way for their oppressed sisters of Europe to a suffrage truly universal, and a political freedom bounded neither by station nor by sex.Elizabeth Oakes Smith, writing in The Una, says of this historical occasion:
NEW ENGLAND WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.
Boston, Friday, June 2, 1854.
This Convention assembled the day on which poor Anthony Burns was consigned to hopeless bondage;[26] and though many friends of the woman movement remained in the streets to see his surrender, still at an early hour the hall was literally crowded with earnest men and women, whom a deep interest in the cause had drawn together. Sarah H. Earle, of Worcester, was chosen President; Lucy Stone, Chairman of the Business Committee, reported the resolutions, among which we find the following:
William Lloyd Garrison, Emma R. Coe, Josephine S. Griffing, Wendell Phillips, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Rev. S. 8. Griswold, Sarah Pellet, Abby Kelly Foster, Mrs. Morton, and Lucy Stone took part in the debates. Letters were received from Thomas W. Higginson, Rey. A. D. Mayo, Paulina Wright Davis, Mrs. Nichols, and Sarah Crosby. Francis Jackson,[27] of Boston, made a contribution of $50. Committees were appointed from each of the New England States to circulate petitions for securing a change in the laws regulating the property of married women, and limiting the right of suffrage to men. All the sessions drew crowded audiences, and the enthusiasm was sustained to the end. The sympathy fur Burns intensified the feelings of those present against all forms of oppression. Those who had witnessed the military parade through the streets of Boston to drive the slave — a minister of the Baptist denomination in his southern home — from the land of the Pilgrims where he had sought refuge, were roused to plead with new earnestness and power for equal rights to all without distinction of sex or color.
WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION IN BOSTON.
Sept. 19 and 20, 1855.
This Convention was fully attended through six sessions, and gave great satisfaction to all engaged in it. After its close, its officers received such expressions of interest from persons not previously enlisted in the cause, as to convince them that a lasting impression was made. The attendance was the best that Boston could furnish in intelligence and respectability, and to a greater degree 'than usual clerical. Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis was again chosen President. Business Committee — Dr. William F. Channing, Caroline II. Dall, Wendell Phillips, and Caroline M. Severance. Among the Vice-Presidents we find the names of Harriot K. Hunt and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Caroline H. Dall, Ellen M. Tarr, and Paulina Wright Davis presented carefully prepared digests of the laws of several of the New England States. Mrs. Davis said:
In 1844 a bill was introduced into the Legislature of this State (Rhode Island) by Hon. Wilkins Updike, securing to married women their property "under certain regulations." The step was a progressive one, and hailed at that time as a bright omen for the future. Other States have followed the example, and the right of woman to some control of her property has been recognized. In 1847 Vermont passed similar enactments; in 1848-49, Connecticut, New York, and Texas; in 1850-52, Alabama and Maine; in 1853, New Hampshire, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa followed. But the provisions "under certain regulations" left married women almost as helpless as before.
Mrs. Davis further says: If in 1855, from the practical workings of these statutes, we find ourselves compelled to pronounce them despotic in spirit, degrading and tyrannical in effect, we do not the less give honor to the man who was so far in advance of his age as to conceive the idea of raising woman a little in the scale of being.
We have always claimed the honor for New York as being first in this matter, because the Property Bill was presented there in 1836, and when finally passed in 1848, was far more liberal than in any other State; and step by step her legislation was broadened, until 1860 the revolution was complete, securing to married women their own inheritance absolutely, to use, will, and dispose of as they see tit; to do business in their name, make contracts, sue, and be sued.
The speakers on the first day of this Convention were Wendell Phillips, Thomas W. Higginson, and Lucy Stone; on the second morning, Caroline H. Dall, Antoinette L. Brown, and Susan B. Anthony. The evening closed with a lecture from Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a poem by Elizabeth Oakes Smith. No report of the debates was preserved.
In a letter to her family Susan B. Anthony, under date of Sept. 27th, says:
On Saturday morning, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Garrison and Sarah Pugh, I visited Mount Auburn. What a magnificent resting-place this is! We could not find Margaret Fuller's monument, which I regretted. I spent Sunday with Charles Lenox Remond; we drove to Lynn with matchless steeds to hear Theodore Parker preach. What a sermon! our souls were filled. We discussed its excellence at James Buffum's, where, with other friends, we dined. Visited the steamer Africa next day, in which Ellen Blackwell was soon to sail for Liverpool.
Monday Mr. Garrison escorted me to Charlestown: we stood on the very spot where Warren fell, and mounted the interminable staircase to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, where we had an extensive view of the harbor and surrounding country. Then we called on Theodore Parker; found him up three flights of stairs in his library, covering that whole floor of his house; the room is lined all round with books to the very top — 16,000 volumes — and there, at a large table in the center of the apartment, sat the great man himself. It really seemed audacious in me to be ushered into such a presence, and on such a commonplace errand, to ask him to come to Rochester to speak in a course of lectures [ am planning. But he received me with such kindness and simplicity, that the awe I felt on entering was soon dissipated. I then called on Wendell Phillips, in his sanctum, for the same purpose. I have invited Ralph Waldo Emerson by letter, and all three have promised to come. In the evening, with Mr. Jackson's son James, the most diffident and sensitive man I ever saw, Miss B and I went to the theater to see Dussendoff, the great tragedian, play Hamlet. The theater is new,the scenery beautiful, and, in spite of my Quaker training, I find T enjoy all these worldly amusements intensely.
Returning to Worcester. I attended the Anti-Slavery Bazaar. I suppose there were many beautiful things exhibited, but I was so absorbed in the conversation of Mr. Higginson, Samuel May, Jr., Sarah Earle, Cousin Dr. Seth Rogers, Stephen and Abby Foster, that I really forgot to take a survey of the tables. The next day Charles F. Hovey drove me out to the home of the Fosters, where we had a pleasant call.
Francis Jackson and Charles F. Hovey, though neither speakers nor writers, yet they furnished the "sinews of war." None contributed more generously than they to all the reforms of their times. They were the first men to make a bequest to our movement. To them we are indebted for the money that enabled us to carry on the agitation for years. Beside giving liberally from time to time, Francis Jackson left $5,000 in the hands of Wendell Phillips, which he managed and invested so wisely, that the fund was nearly doubled. Charles F. Hovey left $50,000 to be used in anti-slavery, woman suffrage, and free religion. With the exception of $1,000 from Lydia Maria Child, we have yet to hear of a woman of wealth who has left anything for the enfranchisement of her sex. Almost every daily paper heralds the fact of some large bequest to colleges, churches, and charities by rich women, but it is proverbial that they never remember the Woman Suffrage movement that underlies in importance all others.
HEARING BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, MARCH, 1857.
Rev. James Freeman Clarke was the first speaker. He said: Gentlemen, the question before you is, Shall the women of Massachusetts have equal rights with the men? The fundamental principles of the Constitution set forth equal rights to all. A large portion of the property of Massachusetts is owned by women, probably one-third of the whole amount, and yet they are not represented, though compelled to pay taxes. It has been said they are represented by their husbands. So it was said that the American colonies were represented in the British Parliament, but the colonies were not contented with such representation; neither are women contented to be represented by men. As long as we put woman's name on the tax-list we should put it in the ballot-box.
Wendell Phillips said: Self-government was the foundation of our institutions. July 4, 1776, sent the message round the world that every man can take care of himself better than any one else can do it for him. If you tax me, consult me. If you hang me, first try me by a jury of my own peers. What I ask for myself, I ask for woman. In the banks a woman, as a stockholder, is allowed to vote. In the Bank of England, in the East India Company, in State Street, her power is felt, her voice controls millions.
Three hundred years ago it was said woman had no right to profess any religion, as it would make discord in the family if she differed from her husband. The same conservatism warns us of the danger of allowing her any political opinions.
Lucy Stone said: The argument that the wife, having the right of suffrage, would cause discord in the family, is entirely incorrect. When men wish to procure the vote of a neighbor, do they not approach them with the utmost suavity, and would not the husband who wished to influence the wife's vote be far more gracious than usual? She instanced the heroic conduct of Mrs. Patton, who navigated her husband's ship into the harbor of San Francisco, as an argument in favor of woman's power of command and of government. The captain and mate lying ill with a fever, she had the absolute control of both vessel and crew. Mrs. Stone's speech was comprehensive and pointed, and called forth frequent applause.Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, a woman of wealth and position, protested every year against being compelled to pay taxes while not recognized in the government.
DR. HUNT'S PROTEST OF 1852.
To Frederick W. Tracy, Treasurer, and the Assessors, and other Authorities of the city of Boston, and the Citizens generally:
That the rights and interests of the female part of the community are sometimes forgotten or disregarded in consequence of their deprivation of political rights, is strikingly evinced, as appears to your remonstrant, in the organization and administration of the city public schools. Though there are open in this State and neighborhood, a great multitude of colleges and professional schools for the education of boys and young men, yet the city has very properly provided two High-Schools of its own, one Latin, the other English, in which the "male graduates" of the Grammar Schools may pursue their education still farther at the public expense. And why is not a like provision made for the girls? Why is their education stopped short, just as they have attained the age best fitted for progress, and the preliminary knowledge necessary to facilitate it, thus giving the advantage of superior culture to sex, not to mind?
The fact that our colleges and professional schools are closed against females, of which your remonstrant has had personal and painful experience; having been in the year 1847, after twelve years of medical practice in Boston, refused permission to attend the lectures of Harvard Medical College. That fact would seem to furnish an additional reason why the city should provide, at its own expense, those means of superior education which, by supplying our girls with occupation and objects of interest, would not only save them from lives of frivolity and emptiness, but which might open the way to many useful and lucrative pursuits, and so raise them above that degrading dependence, so fruitful a source of female misery.
Reserving a more full exposition of the subject to future occasions, your remonstrant, in paying her tax for the current year, begs leave to protest against the injustice and inequalities above pointed out. —
This is respectfully submitted, Harriot K. Hunt,
32 Green Street, Boston, Mass.
Harriot K. Hunt commenced the practice of medicine at the age of thirty, in 1835; twelve years after, was refused admission to Harvard Medical Lectures. She often said that as her love element had all centered in her profession, she intended to celebrate her silver wedding, which she did, in the summer of 1860. Her house was crowded with a large circle of loving friends, who decorated it with flowers and many bridal offerings, thus expressing their esteem and affection for the first woman physician, who had done so much to relieve the sufferings of women and children. The degree of M.D. was conferred on her by "The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania," in 1853. Her biographer says she honored the title more than the title could her.
MARRIAGE OF LUCY STONE UNDER PROTEST.
I never perform the marriage ceremony without a renewed sense of the iniquity of our present system of laws in respect to marriage; a system by which "man and wife are one, and that one is the husband." It was with my hearty concurrence, therefore, that the following protest was read and signed, as a part of the nuptial ceremony; and I send it to you, that others may be induced to do likewise.
Rev. Thommas Wentworth Higginson.
PROTEST.
While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest especially against the laws which give to the husband:
1. The custody of the wife's person.
2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.
3. The sole ownership of her personal, and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon her, or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, lunatics, and idiots.
4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.
5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent an interest in the property of his deceased wife, than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.
6. Finally, against the whole system by which "the legal existence of the wife is suspended during marriage," so that in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her residence, nor can she make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property. We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law; that until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws, by every means in their power. We believe that where domestic difficulties arise, no appeal should be made to legal tribunals under existing laws, but that all difficulties should be submitted to the equitable adjustment of arbitrators mutually chosen. Thus reverencing law, we enter our protest against rules and customs which are unworthy of the name, since they violate justice, the essence of law.
| (Signed), | Henry B. Blackwell, | |
| Worcester Spy, 1855. | Lucy Stone. |
To the above The Liberator appended the following:
This was a timely protest against the whole idea of the old Blackstone code, which made woman a nonentity in marriage. Lucy Stone took an equally brave step in refusing to take her husband's name, respecting her own individuality and the name that represented it. These protests have called down on Mrs. Stone much ridicule and persecution, but she has firmly maintained her position, although at great inconvenience in the execution of legal documents, and suffering the injustice of having her vote refused as Lucy Stone, soon after the bill passed in Massachusetts giving all women the right to vote on the school question.
In 1858, Caroline H. Dall, of Boston, gave a series of literary lectures in different parts of the country, on "Woman's Claims to Education," beginning in her native city. Her subjects were:
Nov. 8th. — Public opinion, as it is influenced by the study of the Classics and History, by general literature, newspapers, and customs.
Nov. 15th. — Public opinion as modified by individual lives: Mary Wollstonecroft, Anna Jamieson, Charlotte Bronté, and Margaret Fuller.In June 11th, of this year, Mrs. Dall writes to the Liberator of her efforts to circulate the following petition:
Whereas, The women of Massachusetts are disfranchised by its State Constitution solely on account of sex.
We do respectfully demand the right of suffrage, which involves all other rights of citizenship, and one that can not justly be withheld, as the following admitted principles of government show:
1st. "All men are born free and equal."
2d. "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
3d. "Taxation and representation are inseparable." We, the undersigned, therefore petition your Honorable Body to take the necessary steps to revise the Constitution so that all citizens may enjoy equal political rights.NEW ENGLAND CONVENTION.
May 27th, 1859, an enthusiastic Convention was held in Mercantile Hall. Long before the hour announced the aisles, ante-rooms, and lobbies were crowded. At three o'clock Mrs. Caroline H. Dall called the meeting to order. Mrs. Caroline M. Severance was chosen President. On taking the chair, she said:
The woman's cause is man's; they sink or rise
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free,
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall man grow?
The woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse.
Yet in the long years, liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man:
He gain in sweetness and in moral height —
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind.
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time
Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,
Self-reverent each, and reverencing each;
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other, as are those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to man;
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;
Then springs the crowning race of humankind.
And we who are privileged with the poet to foresee this better Eden; we who have
The Future grand and great,
The safe appeal of Truth to Time, —
Mrs. Severance then read an appropriate poem from the pen of Mrs. Sarah Nowell, in which she eulogizes Florence Nightingale, Rosa Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer, and asserts the equality of man and woman in the creation.
Dr. Harriot K. Hunt made some pointed remarks on the education of woman.
The Rev. James Freeman Clarke was then introduced. Le said:
Certainly any interest which concerns one-half the human race is an important one. Every man, no matter how stern, hard, and unrelenting he may have become in the bitter strife and struggle of the world, every man was once a little infant, cradled on a mother's knee, and taking his life from the sweet fountains of her love. He was a little child, watched by her tender, careful eye, and so secured from ill. He was a little, inquiring boy, with a boundless appetite for information, which only his mother could give. At her knee he found his primary school: it is where we have all found it. He had his sisters — the companions of his childhood; he had the little girls, who were to him the ideals of some wonderful goodness and excellence, some strange grace and beauty, though he could not tell what it was. With these antecedents no man on the face of the round world can refuse to hear woman, when she comes earnestly, but quietly saying, "We are not where we ought to be;" "We do not have what we ought to have." I think their demands are reasonable, all of them. What are they? Occupation, education, and the highest sphere of work of which they are capable. These I understand to be the three demands.
1st. Occupation. When your child steals on a busy hour and asks for "something to do," you feel ashamed that you have nothing for him — that you can not give him the natural occupation which shall develop all the faculties of mind and body. Is it not a reasonable request which women make, when they ask for something to do? They want to be useful in the world. They ask permission to support themselves and those who are dear to them. What can they do now? They can go into factories, a few of them; a few more can be servants in your homes; they can cook your dinner if they have been taught how. If they are women of genius, they can take the pen and write; but how few are there in this world, either men or women of genius. If they have extraordinary business talent, they can keep a boarding-house. If they have some education they can keep school. After this, there is the point of the needle upon which they may be precipitated — and nothing else.
We see the gloom that must fall on them, on their children, and on all they love, when the male protector is taken away. This demand for more varied occupation is not a new one. Many years ago, one of the wisest and truest men of this country, a philanthropist and reformer — Matthew Carey, of Philadelphia — labored to impress upon the people the fact, that what was wanted for the elevation of woman was to open to her new avenues of business. A very sad book was written a few months ago, "Dr. Sanger's work on Prostitution." It is a very dreadful book; not calculated, I think, to excite any prurient feeling in any one. In that book he says:
First, that the majority of the prostitutes of this country are mere children, between the ages of fifteen and twenty. That the lives of these poor, wretched, degraded creatures, last on an average about four years. Now, when we hear of slaves used up in six years on a sugar plantation, we think it horrible; but here are these poor girls killed in a more dreadful way, in a shorter time. And he adds that the principal cause of their prostitution is that they have no occupation by which they can support themselves. Without support, without resources, they struggle for a while and then are thrown under the feet of the trampling city. Give them occupation and they will take care of themselves: they will rise out of the mire of pollution, out of this filth; for it is not in the nature of woman to remain there. Give them at least a chance; open wide every door; and whenever they are able to get a living by their head or their hands in an honest way, let them do it. This is the first claim; and it seems to me that no one can reasonably object to it.
2d. Education. You say that public schools are open to girls as well as boys. I know that, but what is it that educates? The school has but little to do with it. When the boy goes there you say, '"Go there, work with a will, and fit yourself for an occupation whereby you may earn your bread." But you say to the girls, "Go to school, get your education, and then come home, sit still, and do nothing." We must give them every chance to fit themselves for new spheres of duty. If a woman wants to study medicine, let her study it; if she wants to study divinity, let her study it; if-she wants to study anything, let her have the opportunity. If she finds faculties within her, let them have a chance to expand. That is the second demand — the whole of it.
And the third claim is for a Sphere of Influence. "That is not it," do you say? "You want to take woman out of her sphere." Not at all, we wish to give her a sphere, not to take her from any place she likes to fill; to give her a chance to exercise those wonderful, those divine faculties that God has wrapped in the feminine mind, in the woman's heart.
As regards voting, why should not women go to the polls? You think it a very strange desire, I know; but we have thought many things stranger which seem quite natural now. One need not live long to find strange things grow common. Why not vote, then? Is it because they have not as much power to understand what is true and right as man? If you go to the polls, and see the style of men who meet there voting, can you come away, and tell us that the women you meet are not as able to decide what is right as those men? 'Ah, it will brush off every feminine grace, if woman goes to the polls." Why? "Because she must meet rude men there." Very well, so she must meet them in the street, and they do not hurt her; nor will I believe that there is not sufficient inventive power in the Yankee intellect to overcome this difficulty. I can conceive of a broader and more generous activity in politics. I can see her drawing out all the harshness and bitterness when she goes to the polls. These three points are all I intended to touch; and I will give way to those who are to follow.
Mrs. Caroline H. Dall was then introduced. She said: I have observed that all public orators labor under some embarrassment when they rise to speak. Not to be behind the dignity of my position, I labor under a double embarrassment.
The first is the "embarras des richesses." There are so many topics to touch, so many facts to relate, that it is impossible to cover them in one half hour, and the second — perhaps you will think that an embarrassment of riches also; for it is an embarrassment of Clarke and Phillips. The orator needs no common courage who follows the one and precedes the other. It is my duty to speak of the progress of the cause; it is impossible to keep pace with it. You may work day and night, but this thought of God outstrips you, working hourly through the life of man. Yet we must often feel discouraged. Our war is not without; our work follows us into the heart of the family. We must sustain ourselves in that dear circle against our nearest friends; against the all-pervading law, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther."
What have we gained since 1855? Many things, so important, that they can not be worthily treated here. I have often mentioned in my lectures, that in his first report to the French Government, Neckar gave the credit of his retrenchments to his thrifty, order-loving wife. Until this year, that acknowledgment stood alone in history. But now John Stuart Mill, the great philosopher and political economist of England, dedicates his "Essay on Liberty "to the memory of his beloved wife, who has been the inspiration of all, and the author of much that was best in his writings for many years past. Still farther, in a pamphlet on "English Political Reform," treating of the extension of the suffrage, he has gone so far as to recommend that all householders, without distinction of sex, be adopted into the constituency, upon proving to the registrar's officer that they have a certain income — say fifty pounds — and "that they can read, write, and calculate."
A great step was taken also in the establishment of the Institution for the Advancement of Social Science. The sexes are equal before it. It has five departments. 1. Jurisprudence, or Law Reform; 2. Education; 3. Punishment and Reformation; 4. Public Health; 5. Social Economy.
The first meeting at Liverpool considered the woman's question; and, while it was debated, Mary Carpenter sat upon the platform, or lifted her voice side by side with Brougham, Lord John Russell, and Stanley. At the second meeting (last October), Lord John Russell was in the chair. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland presided over Law Reform; the Right Hon. W. F. Cooper, over the department of Education; the Earl of Carlyle — personally known to many on this platform — over that which concerns the Reformation of Criminals; the Earl of Shaftesbury over Public Health; and Conolly and Charles Kingsley and Tom Taylor and Rawlinson bore witness side by side with Florence Nightingale. Sir James Stephen presided over Social Economy. Isa Craig, the Burns poetess, is one of its Secretaries. i
Ten communications were read at this session by women; among them, Florence Nightingale, Mary Carpenter, Isa Craig, Louisa Twining, and Mrs. Fison.. Four were on Popular Education, two upon Punishment and Reformation, three on the Public Health in the Army and elsewhere, one upon Social Economy. Still another proof of progress may be seen in the examination of Florence Nightingale by the Sanitary Commission,
[In the establishment of The Englishwoman's Journal with an honorable corps of writers, in the passage of the new Divorce Bill, of the Married Woman's Property Bill in Canada, the cause had gained much; on each of which Mrs. Dall spoke at some length, especially this Property Bill, which some foolish member had shorn of its most precious clause — that which secured her earnings to the working-woman, Jest, by tempting her to labor, it should create a divided interest in the family].
Do you ask me why I have dwelt on this Institution for Social Science, cataloguing the noble names that do it honor? To strengthen the timorous hearts at the West End; to suggest to them that a coronet of God's own giving may possibly rest as secure as one of gold and jewels in the United Kingdom. I wish to draw your attention to the social distinction of the men upon that platform. No real nobleness will be imperiled by impartial listening to our plea. Would you rest secure in our respect, first feel secure in your own. If ten Beacon Street ladies would go to work, and take pay for their labor, it would do more good than all the speeches that were ever made, all the conventions that were ever held. I honor women who act. That is the reason that I greet so gladly girls like Harriet Hosmer, Louisa Lander, and Marguréite Foley. Whatever they do, or do not do, for Art, they do a great deal for the cause of Labor. I do not believe any one in this room has any idea of the avenues that are open to women already. Let me read you some of the results of the last census of the United Kingdom. Talk of women not being able to work! Women have been doing hard work ever since the world began. You will see by this that they are doing as much as men now. [Applause].
In 1841, there were engaged in agriculture, 66,329 women. In 1851, 128,418; nearly double the number. Of these, there are 64,000 dairy-women; women who lift enormous tubs, turn heavy cheeses, slap butter by the hundred weight. Then come market-gardeners, bee-mistresses, florists, flax producers and beaters, haymakers, reapers, and hop-pickers.
In natural connection with the soil, we find seven thousand women in the mining interest; not harnessed on all-fours to creep through the shafts, but dressers of ore, and washers and strainers of ¢lay for the potteries. Next largest to the agricultural is one not to be exactly calculated — the fishing interest. The Pilchard fishery employs some thousands of women. The Jersey oyster fishery alone employs one thousand. Then follow the herring, cod, whale, and lobster fisheries.
Apart from the Christie Johnstones — the aristocrats of the trade — the sea nurtures an heroic class like Grace Darling, who stand aghast when society rewards a deed of humanity, and cry out in expostulation, "Why. every girl on the coast would have done as I did!" Then follow the kelpburners, netters, and bathers. The netters make the fisherman's nets; the bathers manage the machines at the watering-places.
And, before quitting this subject, I should like to allude to the French fishwomen; partly as a matter of curiosity, partly to prove that women know how to labor. In the reign of Henry IV., there existed in Paris a privileged monopoly called the United Corporation of Fishmongers and Herringers. In the reign of Louis XIV. this corporation had managed so badly as to become insolvent. The women who had hawked and vended fish took up the business, and managed so well as to become very soon a political power. They became rich, and their children married into good families. You will remember the atrocities generally ascribed to them in the first revolution. It is now known that these were committed by ruffians disguised in their dress.
To return: there are in the United Kingdom 200,000 female servants. Separate from these, brewers, custom-house searchers, matrons of jails, lighthouse-keepers, pew-openers.
I have no time to question; but should not a Christian community offer womanly ministrations to its imprisoned women? Oh, that some brave heart, in a strong body, might go on our behalf to the city jail and Charlestown! Pew-opening has never been a trade in America; but, as there are signs that it may become so in this democratic community, I would advise our women to keep an eye to that. [Laughter].
There are in the United Kingdom 500,000 business women, beer-shop keepers, butcher-wives, milk-women, hack-owners, and shoemakers.
As one item of this list, consider 26,000 butcher-wives — women who do not merely preside over a business, but buy stock, put down meat, drive a cart even if needed — butchers to all intents and purposes. There are 29,000 shop-keepers, but only 1,742 shop-women.
Telegraph reporters are increasing rapidly. Their speed and accuracy are much praised. From the Bright Festival, at Manchester, a young woman reported, at the rate of twenty-nine words a minute, six whole columns, with hardly a mistake, though the whole matter was political, such as she was supposed not to understand!
Phonographic reporters also. A year ago there were but three female phonographers in America; and two of these did not get their bread by the work. Now hundreds are qualifying themselves, all over the land; and two young girls, not out of their teens, are at this moment reporting my words. [Cheers].
I hope the phonographers will take that clapping to themselves. I wish you would make it heartier. [Repeated cheers]. Now let us turn to the American census. I must touch it lightly. Of factory operatives, I will only say, that, in 1845, there were 55,828 men and 75,710 women engaged in textile manufactures. You will be surprised at the preponderance of women: it seems to be as great in other countries. Then follow makers of gloves, makers of glue, workers in gold and silver leaf, hairweavers, hat and cap makers, hose-weavers, workers in India rubber, lamp-makers, laundresses, leechers, milliners, morocco-workers, nurses, paper-hangers, physicians, picklers and preservers, saddlers and harness-makers, shoemakers, soda-room keepers, snuff and cigar-makers, stock and suspender-makers, truss-makers, typers and stereotypers, umbrellamakers, upholsterers, card-makers.
Cards were invented in 1361. In less than seventy years the German manufacture was in the hands of women — Elizabeth and Margaret, at Nuremberg. Then grinders of watch crystals, 7,000 women in all.
My own observation adds to this list phonographers, house and sign painters, fruit-hawkers, button-makers, tobacco-packers, paper-box makers, embroiderers, and fur-sewers.
Perhaps I should say haymakers and reapers; since, for three or four years, bands of girls have been so employed in Ohio, at sixty-two and a half cents a day.
In New Haven, seven women work with seventy men in a clock factory, at half wages. If the proprietor answered honestly, when asked why he employed them, he would say, "To save money;" but he does answer, "To help our cause."
In Waltham, a watch factory has been established, whose statistics I shall use elsewhere.
In Winchester, Va., a father has lately taken a daughter into partnership: and the firm is "J. Wysong and Daughter." [Applause]. Is it not a shame it should happen first in a slave State?
Then conic registers of deeds and postmistresses. We all know that the rural post-office is chiefly in the hands of irresponsible women. Petty politicans obtain the office, take the money, and leave wives and sisters to do the work.
[Here Mrs. Ball read an interesting letter from a female machinist in Delaware; but, as it will be published in another connection, it is here withheld].
Is it easy for women to break the way into new avenues You know it is not,
[Here Mrs. Ball referred to the opposition shown to the employment of women in watch-making, by Mr. Bennett, in London; to the school at Marlborough House; to the employment of women in printing-offices substantiating her statements by dates and names].
When I first heard that women were employed in Staffordshire to paint pottery and china which they do with far more taste than men I heard, also, that the jealousy of the men refused to allow them the customary hand-rest, and so kept down their wages. I refused to believe anything so contemptible. [Applause]. Now the Edinburgh Review confirms the story. Thank God! that could never happen in this country. With us, Labor can not dictate to Capital.
But the great evils which lie at the foundation of depressed ages are: 1st. That want of respect for labor which prevents ladies from engaging in it,
2d. That want of respect for women which prevents men from valuing properly the work they do.
Women themselves must change these facts.
[Mrs. Dall here read some letters to show that wages were at a starving-point in the cities of America as well as in Europe].
I am tired of the folly of the political economist, constantly crying that wages can never rise till the laborers are fewer. You have heard of the old law in hydraulics, that water will always rise to the level of its source; but, if by a forcing-pump, you raise it a thousand feet above, or by some huge syphon drop it a thousand feet below, does that law hold? Very well, the artificial restrictions of society are such a forcing-pump are such a syphon. Make woman equal before the law with man, and wages will adjust themselves.
Hut what is the present remedy? A very easy one for employers to adopt the cash system, and be content with rational profits. In my correspondence during the past year, master-tailors tell me that they pay from eight cents to fifty cents a day for the making of pantaloons, including the heaviest doeskins. Do you suppose they would dare to tell me how they charge that work on their slowly-paying customer's bills? Not th'. The eight cents swells to thirty, the fifty to a dollar or a dollar twenty-five. Put an end to this, and master-tailors would no longer vault into Beacon Street over prostrate women's souls; but neither would women be driven to the streets for bread.
If I had time, I would show you, women, how much depends upon yourselves. As it is, we may say with the heroine of "Adam Bede," which you have doubtless all been reading:
"I'm not for denying that the women are foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men!" [Laughter].
Do you laugh? It is but a step from the ridiculous to the sublime; and Goethe, who knew women well, was of the sane mind when he wrote:
"Wilt thou dare to blame the woman for her seeming sudden changes —
Swaying east and swaying westward, as the breezes shake the tree?
Fool! thy selfish thought misguides thee. Find the man that never ranges.
Woman wavers but to seek him. Is not, then, the fault in thee?"
Mrs. Dall was followed by the Rev. John T. Sargent, who said:
Madam President And Friends: — I appreciate the honor of an invitation to this platform, but my words must be few; first, because the call comes to me within a few hours, and amid the cares and responsibilities of the chair on another platform, and I had no time for preconcerted forms of address; second, because the general principles of this organization, and the subject matters for discussion, are so well sifted and disposed of by previous speakers, that nothing new remains for me to say; and, third, because we are all waiting for the words of one [Wendell Phillips] whose sympathies are never wanting in any cause of truth and justice, whose versatile eloquence never hesitates on any platform where he waves aloft "the sword of the spirit" in behalf of human rights. [Applause].
I may truly say, that this is my maiden speech in behalf of maidens and others [laughter]; and, if it amount to nothing else, I may say, as did my friend Clarke, I feel bound, at least, to take my stand, and show my sympathy for the noble cause. I come here under the pressure of an obligation to testify in behalf of an interest truly Christian, and one of the greatest that can' engage the reason or the conscience of a community. I would that you had upon this platform and every other, more women speakers for the upholding and consummation of every righteous cause! And so far am I from being frightened to death or embarrassed, as our friend Mrs. Dall has intimated any one might be, at the prospect of either following James Freeman Clarke or preceding Wendell Phillips, I am much more concerned by the contrast of my speech with such speakers as your President, or Dr. Hunt, or Mrs. Dall herself.
There is one feature of the general question of "Woman's Rights" on which I would say a single word; and it may constitute the specialty of my address, so far as it has any. I mean the bearing of social inequalities particularly upon the poor — the poor of a city — the poor women of a city.
It may not be unknown to most of you, that for nearly two years past, in connection with the so-called "Boston Provident Association," I have been engaged in an agency wherein the peculiar trials of this class have been revealed to me as never before.
Hundreds of poor, desolate, forsaken women, especially in the winter months, have come to that office with the same pitiable tale of poverty, desertion, and tyranny on the part of their worthless and drunken husbands, who had gone off to California, Kansas, or the West, taking away from their wives and children every possible means of support, and leaving them the pauper dependents on a public charity. Now, if this be not the denial of Woman's Rights, I know not what is. Had we time, I might fill the hour with a journal of statistics in painful illustration of these facts. Now, I say, that a system of society which can tolerate such state of things, and, by sufferance even, allow such men to wrench away the plain rights of their wives and families, needs reforming.
But let us look a little higher in the social scale, to the rights and claims of a class of women not so dependent — a class who, by their education and culture, are competent to fill, or who may be filling, the position of clerks, secretaries, or assistant agents. How inadequate and insufficient, as a general thing, is the compensation they receive!
There was associated with me in the agency and office to which I have referred, as office-clerk and coadjutor, among others, an intelligent and very worthy young woman, whose term of service there has been coeval and coincident with the Association itself, even through the whole seven years or more; and there she still survives, through all the vicissitudes of the General Agency by death or otherwise, with a fidelity of service worthy of more liberal compensation; for she receives, even now, for an amount of service equal to that of any other in the office, only about one-third the salary paid to a male occupant of the same sphere!
Look next at the professional sphere of women, properly so called; and who shall deny her right and claim to that position? A young brother clergyman came to my office one day, wanting his pulpit supplied; and, in the course of conversation, asked very earnestly, "How would it do to invite a woman-preacher into my pulpit?" "Do!" said I (giving him the names of Mrs. Dall, Dr. Hunt, etc., as the most accessible) "of course it'll do." And all I have to say is, if I ever resume again the charge of a pulpit myself, and either of those preachers want an exchange, I shall be honored in the privilege of so exchanging.
Well, my young friend, the brother clergyman referred to, whom I am glad to see in this audience, went and did according to my suggestion; and, by the professional service of Mrs. Dall in his pulpit, more than once, I think, ministered no little edification to his people. And, in this connection, let me say: If the argument against woman's preaching be, "Oh! it looks so awkward and singular to see a woman with a gown on in the pulpit "(for that's the whole gist of it), why, then, the same logic might as well disrobe the male priesthood of their silken paraphernalia, cassock and bands.
But there are other and better words in waiting, and I yield the floor.
Charles G. Ames expressed his gratitude at being permitted to occupy this platform, and identify himself with the cause of those noblest of living women who had dared the world's scorn — had dared to stand alone on the ground of their moral convictions. He thought Rey, Mr. Clarke had spoken but half the truth in saying, "Half the human race are concerned in the Woman's Rights movement."
If the Mohammedan doctrine (that woman has no soul) be true, then the opponents of this cause are justifiable. But concede that she has a rational soul, and you concede the equality of her rights. Concede that she is capable of being a Christian, and you concede that she has a right to help do the Christian's work; and the Christian's work includes all forms of noble activity, as well as the duty of self-development.
But some people are afraid of agitation. You remember the story of the rustic, who fainted away in the car when taking his first railroad ride, and gasped out, on coming to himself, "Has the thing lit?" He belonged, probably, to that large class of people who go into hysterics every time the world begins to move, and who are never relieved from their terror till quiet is restored.
Great alarm prevails lest this agitation should breed _a fatal quarrel between man and woman; as though there could be a want of harmony, a collision of rights, between the sexes. Sad visions are conjured up before us of family feuds, mutual hair-pullings, and a general wreck of all domestic bliss. Certainly, there are difficulties about settling some domestic questions. Marriage is a partnership between two; no third person to give the casting vote. Then they must "take turns"; the wife yielding to the husband in those cases where he is best qualified to judge, and the husband yielding to the wife in those matters which most concern her, or concerning which she can best judge. Yet man is the senior partner of the firm: his name comes first. Few women would be pleased to see the firm styled in print as "Mrs. So-and-So and Husband."
Woman wants more self-reliance. Has she not always been taught that it is very proper to faint at the sight of toads and spiders and fresh blood, and whenever a gentleman pops the question? Has she not always been taught that man was the strong, towering oak, and she the graceful, clinging vine, sure to collapse like an empty bag whenever his mighty support was withdrawn? Until all this folly is unlearned, how ean she be self-dependent and truly womanly?
Women are afraid to claim their rights; and not timidity only, but laziness — the love of ease — keeps them back from the great duty of self-assertion. True, it is a good deal like work to summon up the soul to such a conflict with an opposing and corrupt public opinion. But woman must do that work for herself, or it will never be done.
Woman's rights we talk of. There is a grandeur about these great questions of right, which makes them the glory of our age; and it is the shame of our age, that right and rights in every form get so generally sneered at. What use have I for my conscience, what remains of my noble manhood, if, when half the human race complain that I am doing them a wrong, I only reply with a scoff? A man without a conscience to make him quick and sensitive to right and duty, is neither fit for heaven nor for hell. He is an outsider, a monster!
Conservatism says, "Let the world be as it is"; but Christianity says, "Make it what it should be." No man need call himself a Christian, who admits that a wrong exists, and yet wishes it to continue, or is indifferent to its removal. Let us
"Strike for that which ought to be,
And God will bless the blows."
The speaker spoke of the abuse and injustice done to the Bible by those who make it the shelter and apologist for all the wrong, vileness, and sneaking meanness that the world bears up; and closed with a testimony against the cowardice of those time-serving ministers who allow their manhood to be suffocated by a white cravat, and who never publicly take sides with what they see to be a good. cause, until "popular noises "indicate that the time has come for speaking out their opinions.
The President then introduced to the audience Wendell Phillips, Esq., of Boston:
Madam President: — I am exceedingly happy to see that this question calls together so large an audience; and perhaps that circumstance will make me take exception to some representations of the previous speakers as to the unpopularity of this movement. The gentleman who occupied this place before me thought that perhaps he might count the numbers of those that occupied this platform as the real advocates of that question. Oh, no! The number of those who sympathize with us must not be counted so. Our idea penetrates the whole life of the people. The shifting hues of public opinion show like the colors on a dove's neck; you can not tell where one ends, or the other begins. [Cheers]. Everybody that holds to raising human beings above the popular ideas, and not caring for artificial distinctions, is on our side; I think I can show my friend that. Whenever a new reform is started, men seem to think that the world is going to take at once a great stride. The world never takes strides. The moral world is exactly like the natural. The sun comes up minute by minute, ray by ray, till the twilight deepens into dawn, and dawn spreads into noon. So it is with this question. Those who look at our little island of time do not see it; but, a hundred years later, everybody will recognize it.
No one need be at all afraid; there is no disruption, no breaking away from old anchorage — not at all. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were two movements — first, the peasants in the town were striving to fortify each man his own house — to set up the towns against the kings; then, in the colleges, the great philosophers were striving each to fortify his own soul to make a revolution against Rome. The peasants branded the collegians as "infidels," and the collegians showed the peasants to be "traitors." Cordially they hated each other; blindly they went down to their graves, thinking they had been fighting each other; but, under the providence of God, they were entwined in the fame movement. Now, if I could throw you back to-day into the civilization of Greece and Rome, I could show you the fact that our question is two thousand years old. [Cheers.] In the truest sense, it did not begin in 1848, as my friend Dr. Hunt stated; it began centuries ago. Did you ever hear of the old man who went to the doctor, and asked him to teach him to speak prose? "Why, my dear fellow," was the-reply, "you have been speaking prose all your life." But he did not know it. So with some people in regard to the movement for Woman's Rights.
Many think the steps taken since 1850 are shaking this land with a new infidelity. Now, this infidelity is a good deal older than the New Testament. When man began his pilgrimage from the cradle of Asia, woman was not allowed to speak before a court of justice. To kill a woman was just as great a sin as to kill a cow, and no greater. To sell an unlicensed herb in the city of Calcutta, was exactly the same crime as to kill a woman. She did not belong to the human race. Come down thousands of years, and the civilization of Greece said, "Woman has not got enough of truth in her to be trusted in the court of justice;" and, if her husband wants to give her to a brother or friend, he can take her to their door, and say, "Here, I give you this." And so it continues till you reach the feudal ages; when woman, though she might be queen or duchess, was often not competent to testify in a court of justice. She had not soul enough, men believed, to know a truth from a lie. That is the code of the feudal system. But all at once the world has waked up, and thinks a man is not a man because he has a pound of muscle, or because he has a stalwart arm; but because he has thoughts, ideas, purposes: he can commit crime, and he is capable of virtue.
No man is born in a day. A baby is always six months old before he is twenty-one. Our fathers, who first reasoned that God made all men equal, said: "You sha'n't hang a man until you have asked him if he consents to the law." Some meddlesome fanatic, engaged in setting up type, conceived the idea, that he need not pay his tax till he was represented before the law: then why should woman do so? Now, I ask, what possible reason is there that woman, as a mother, as a wife, as a laborer, as a capitalist, as an artist, as a citizen, should be subjected to any laws except such as govern man? What moral reason is there for this, under the American idea? Does not the same interest, the same strong tie, bind the mother to her children, that bind the father? Has she not the same capacity to teach them that the father has? and often more? Now, the law says: "If the father be living, the mother is nothing; but, if the father be dead, the mother is everything." Did she inherit from her husband his great intellect? If she did not, what is the common sense of such a statute? The mother has the same rights, in regard to her children, that the father has: there should be no distinction.
Yours is not a new reform. The gentleman who occupied the platform a few moments ago gave the common representation of this cause: "If a husband doesn't do about right, his wife will pull his hair; and, if you Jet her have her way, she may vote the Democratic ticket, and he the Republican; and vice versa." Well, now, my dear friend, suppose it were just 80; it is too late to complain. That point has long been settled; if you will read history a little, you will see it was settled against you. In the time of Luther, it was a question: "Can a woman choose her own creed?" The feudal ages said: "No; she believes as her husband believes, of course." But the reformers said: "She ought to think for herself; her husband is not her God." "But," it was objected, 'should there be difference of opinion between man and wife, the husband believing one creed and the wife another, there would be continual discord." But the reply was: "God settled that; God has settled it that every responsible conscience should have a right to his own creed." And Christendom said: "Amen." The reformers of Europe, to this day, have allowed freedom of opinion; and who says that the experience of three centuries has found the husband and wife grappling each other's throats on religious differences? It would be Papal and absurd to deny woman her religious rights. Then why should she not be allowed to choose her party?
We claim the precedents in this matter. It was arranged and agreed upon, in the reform of Europe, that women should have the right to choose their religious creeds. I say, therefore; this is not a new cause; it is an old one. It is as old as the American idea. We are individuals by virtue of our brains, not by virtue of our muscles. "Why do you women meddle in politics?" asked Napoleon of De Staël. Sire, so long as you will hang us, we must ask the reason," was the answer. The whole political philosophy of the subject is in that. The instant you say, "Woman is not competent to go to the ballot-box," I reply: "She is not competent to go to the gallows or the State prison. If she is competent to go to the State prison, then she is competent to go to the ballot-box, and tell how thieves should be punished." [Applause].
Man is a man because he thinks. Woman has already begun to think. She has touched literature with the wand of her enchantment, and it rises to her level, until woman becomes an author as well as reader. And what is the result? We do not have to expurgate the literature of the nineteenth century before placing it in the hands of youth. Those who write for the lower level sink down to dwell with their kind.
Mr. Sargent and Mr. Clarke expatiated on the wholesome influence of the side-by-side progress of the sexes. There are no women more deserving of your honest approbation than those who dare to work singly for the elevation of their sex. ....
Woman's Rights and Negro Rights! What rights have either women or negroes that we have any reason to respect? The world says: "None!"
There has lately been a petition carried into the British Parliament, asking — for what? It asks that the laws of marriage and divorce shall be brought into conformity with the creed and civilization of Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century. The state of British law, on the bill of divorce, was a disgrace to the British statute-book. Whose was the intellect and whose the heart to point out, and who had the courage to look in the face of British wealth and conservatism, and claim that the law of divorce was a disgrace to modern civilization? It was the women of Great Britain that first said her statute-book disgraced her. Who could say, that if those women had been voters, they might not have reformed it?
Douglas Jerrold said: "Woman knows she is omnipotent"; and so she is. She may be ignorant, she may not have a dollar, she may have no right given her to testify in the court of justice; she may be a slave, chained by a dozen statutes; but, when her husband loves her, she is his queen and mistress, in spite of them all; and the world knows it. All history bears testimony to this omnipotent influence. What we are here for is to clear up the choked channel; make hidden power confess itself, and feel its responsibility, feel how much rests upon it, and fore gird itself to its duty. We are to say to the women: "Yours is one-half of the human race. Come to the ballot-box, and feel, when you cast a vote in regard to some great moral question, the dread post you fill, and fit yourself for it." Woman at home controls her son, guides her husband — in reality, makes him vote — but acknowledges no responsibility, and receives no education for such a throne. By her caprices in private life, she often ruins the manhood of her husband, and checks the enthusiastic purposes of her son.
Many a young girl, in her married life, loses her husband, and thus is left a widow with two or three children. Now, who is to educate them and control them? We see, if left to her own resources, the intellect which she possesses, and which has remained in a comparatively dormant state, displayed in its full power. What a depth of heart lay hidden in that woman! She takes her husband's business — guides it as though it were a trifle; she takes her sons, and leads them; sets her daughters an example; like a master-leader, she governs the whole household. That is woman's influence. What made that woman? Responsibility. Call her out from weakness, lay upon her soul the burden of her children's education, and she is no longer a girl, but a woman!
Horace Greeley once said to Margaret Fuller: "If you should ask a woman to carry a ship round Cape Horn, how would she go to work to do it? Let her do this, and I Will give up the question." In the fall of 1856, a Boston girl, only twenty years of age, accompanied her husband to California. A brain-fever laid him low. In the presence of mutiny and delirium, she took his vacant post, preserved order, and carried her cargo safe to its destined port. Looking in the face of Mr. Greeley, Miss Fuller said: "Lo! my dear Horace, it is done; now say, what shall woman do next?" [Cheers].Mrs. Caroline H. Dall then dismissed the assembly.[28]
In The Liberator of July 6, 1860, we find a brief mention of what was called Mrs. Dall's "Drawing-room" Convention, in which it was proposed to present the artistic and esthetic view of the question. The meeting was held June 1st, in the Melodeon. Mrs. Caroline M. Severance presided. Mrs. Dall, Rev. Samuel J. May, R. J. Hinton, Moses (Harriet Tubman), James Freeman Clarke, Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, Elizabeth M. Powell, and Wendell Phillips took part in the discussions.
We close our chapter on Massachusetts, with a few extracts from a sermon by Theodore Parker, to show his position on the most momentous question of his day and generation. In March, 1853, he gave two discourses in Music Hall, Boston, one on the domestic, and one on the public function of woman, in which he fully expressed himself on every phase of the question.
THEODORE PARKER — THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN.
Each man has the natural right to the normal development of his nature, so far as it is general-human, neither man nor woman, but human. Each woman has the natural right to the normal development of her nature, so far as it is general-human, neither woman nor man. But each man has also a natural and inalienable right to the normal development of his peculiar nature as man, where he differs from woman. Each woman has just the same natural and inalienable right to the normal development of her peculiar nature as woman, and not man. All that is undeniable.
Now see what follows. Woman has the same individual right to determine her aim in life, and to follow it; has the same individual rights of body and of spirit — of mind and conscience, and heart and soul; the same physical rights, the same intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious rights, that man has. That is true of womankind as a whole; it is true of Jane, Ellen, and Sally, and each special woman that can be named.
Every person, man or woman, is an integer, an individual, a whole person; and also a portion of the race, and so a fraction of humankind. Well, the rights of individualism are not to be possessed, developed, used, and enjoyed, by a life in solitude, but by joint action. Accordingly, to complete and perfect the individual man or woman, and give each an opportunity to possess, use, develop, and enjoy these rights, there must be concerted and joint action; else individuality is only a possibility, not a reality. So the individual rights of woman carry with them the same domestic, social, ecclesiastical, and political rights, as those of man.
The Family, Community, Church and State, are four modes of action which have grown out of human nature in its historical development; they are all necessary for the development of mankind; machines which the human race has devised, in order to possess, use, develop, and enjoy their rights as human beings, their rights also as men.
These are just as necessary for the development of woman as of man; and, as she has the same nature, right, and duty, as man, it follows that she has the same right to use, shape, and control these four institutions, for her general human purpose and for her special feminine purpose. that man has to control them for his general human purpose and his special masculine purpose. All that is as undeniable as anything in metaphysics or mathematics.
If woman had been consulted, it seems to me theology would have been in a vastly better state than it is now. I do not think that any woman would ever have preached the damnation of babies new-born; and 'hell, paved with the skulls of infants not a span long," would be a region yet to be discovered in theology. A celibate monk — with God's curse writ on his face, which knew no child, no wife, no sister, and blushed that he had a mother — might well dream of such a thing. He had been through the preliminary studies. Consider the ghastly attributes which are commonly put upon God in the popular theology; the idea of infinite wrath, of infinite damnation, and total depravity, and all that. Why, you could not get a woman, that had intellect enough to open her mouth, to preach these things anywhere. Women think they think that they believe them; but they do not. Celibate priests, who never knew marriage, or what paternity was, who thought woman was a "pollution" — they invented these ghastly doctrines; and when I have heard the Athanasian Creed and the Dies Ire chanted by monks, with the necks of bulls and the lips of donkeys — why, I have understood where the doctrine came from, and have felt the appropriateness of their braying out the damnation hymns; woman could not do it. We shut her out of the choir, out of the priest's house, out of the pulpit; and then the priest, with unnatural vows, came in, and taught these doctrines of devils." Could you find a woman who would read to a congregation, as words of truth, Jonathan Edwards' sermon on a Future State — "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners," "Wrath upon the Wicked to the Uttermost," "The Future Punishment of the Wicked," and other things of that sort? Nay, can you find a worthy woman, of any considerable culture, who will read the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, and declare that a true picture of the God she worships? Only a she-dragon could do it in our day.
The popular theology leaves us nothing feminine in the character of God How could it be otherwise, when so much of the popular theology is the work of men who thought woman was a "pollution," and barred her out of all the high places of the church? If women had had their place in ecclesiastical teaching, I doubt that the "Athanasian Creed" would ever have been thought. a "symbol" of Christianity. The pictures and hymns which describe the last judgment are a protest against the exclusion of woman from teaching in the church. I suffer not a woman to teach, but to be in silence," said a writer in the New Testament. The sentence has brought manifold evil in its train. So much for the employments of women.
By nature, woman has the same political rights that man has — to vote, to hold office, to make and administer laws. These she has as a matter of right. The strong hand and the great head of man keep her down; nothing more. In America,in Christendom, woman has no political rights, is not a citizen in full; she has no voice in making or administering the Jaws, none in electing the rulers or administrators thereof. She can hold no office — can not be committee of a primary school, overseer of the poor, or guardian to a public lamp-post. But any man, with conscience enough to keep out of jail, mind enough to cape the poor-house, and body enough to drop his ballot into the box, he is a voter. He may have no character — even no money; that is no matter — lie is male. The noblest woman has no voice in the State. Men make laws, disposing of her property, her person, her children; still she must bear it, "with a patient shrug."
Looking at it as a matter of pure right and pure science, I know no reason why woman should not be a voter, or hold office, or make and administer laws. 1 do not see how I can shut myself into political privileges and shut woman out, and do both in the name of inalienable right. Certainly, every woman has a natural right to have her property represented in the general representation of property, and her person represented in the general representation of persons.
Looking at it as a matter of expediency, see some facts. Suppose woman had a share in the municipal regulation of Boston, and there were as many alder-women as aldermen, as many common council women as common council men, do you believe that, in defiance of the law of Massachusetts, the city government, last spring, would have licensed every two hundred and forty-fourth person of the population of the city to sell intoxicating drink? would have made every thirty-fifth voter a rum-seller? I do not.
Do you believe the women of Boston would spend ten thousand dollars in one year in a city frolic, or spend two or three thousand every year, on the Fourth of July, for sky-rockets and fire-crackers; would spend four or five thousand dollars to get their Canadian guests drunk in Boston harbor, and then pretend that Boston had not money enough to establish a high-school for girls, to teach the daughters of mechanics and grocers to read French and Latin, and to understand the higher things which rich men's sons are driven to at college? I do not.
Do you believe that the women of Boston, in 1851, would have spent three or four thousand dollars to kidnap a poor man, and have taken all the chains which belonged to the city and put them round the court-house, and have drilled three hundred men, armed with bludgeons and cutlasses, to steal a man and carry him back to slavery? I do not. Do you think, if the women had had the control, "fifteen hundred men of property and standing" would have volunteered to take a poor man, kidnapped in Boston, and conduct him out of the State, with fire and sword? I believe no such thing.
Do you think the women of Boston would take the poorest and most unfortunate children in the town, put them all together into one school, making that the most miserable in the city, where they had not and could not have half the advantages of the other children in different schools, and all that because the unfortunates were dark-colored? Do you think the women of Boston would shut a bright boy out of the High-School or Latin-School, because he was black in the face?
Women are said to be cowardly. When Thomas Sims, out of his dungeon, sent to the churches bis petition for their prayers, had women been "the Christian clergy," do you believe they would not have dared to pray?
If women had a voice in the affairs of Massachusetts, do you think they would ever have made laws so that a lazy husband could devour all the substance of his active wife — spite of her wish; so that a drunken husband could command her bodily presence in his loathly house; and when an infamous man was divorced from his wife, that he could keep all the children? I confess I do not.
If the affairs of the nation had been under woman's joint control, I doubt that we should have butchered the Indians with such exterminating savagery, that, in fifty years, we should have spent seven hundred millions of dollars for war, and now, in time of peace, send twenty annual millions more to the same waste. I doubt that we should have spread slavery into nine new States, and made it national. I think the Fugitive Slave bill would never have been an act. Woman has some respect for the natural law of God.
I know men say woman can not manage the great affairs of a nation. Very well. Government is political economy — national housekeeping. Does any respectable woman keep house so badly as the United States? with so much bribery, so much corruption, so much quarrelling in the domestic councils?
But government is also political morality, it is national ethics. Is there any worthy woman who rules her household as wickedly as the nations are ruled? who hires bullies to fight for her? Is there any woman who treats one-sixth part of her household as if they were cattle and not creatures of God, as if they were things and not persons? I know of none such. In government as housekeeping, or government as morality, I think man makes 4 very poor appearance, when he says woman could not do as well as he has done and is doing.
I doubt that women will ever, as a general thing, take the same interest as men in political affairs, or find therein an abiding satisfaction. But that is for women themselves to determine, not for men.
In order to attain the end — the development of man in body and spirit — human institutions must represent all parts of human nature, both the masculine and the feminine element: For the well-being of the human race, we need the joint action of man and woman, in the family, the community, the Church. and the State. A family without the presence of woman — with no mother, no wife, no sister, no womankind — is a sad thing. I think a community without woman's equal social action, a church without her equal ecclesiastical action, and a State without her equal political action, is almost as bad — is very much what a house would be without a mother, wife, sister, or friend.
You see what prevails in the Christian civilization of the nineteenth century; it is Force — force of body, force of brain. There is little justice, little philanthropy. little piety. Selfishness preponderates everywhere in Christendom — individual, domestic, social, ecclesiastical, national selfishness. It is preached as gospel and enacted as law. It is thought good political economy for a strong people to devour the weak nations; for "Christian" England and America to plunder the "heathen" and annex their land; for a strong class to oppress and ruin the feeble class; for the capitalists of England to pauperize the poor white laborer; for the capitalists of America to enslave the poorer black laborer; for a strong man to oppress the weak men; for the sharper to buy labor too cheap, and sell its product too dear, and so grow rich by making many poor. Hence, nation is arrayed against nation, class against class, man against man. Nay, it is commonly taught that mankind is arrayed against God, and God against man; that the world is a universal discord: that there is no solidarity of man with man, of man with God. I fear we shall never get far beyond this theory and this practice, until woman has her natural rights as the equal of man, and takes her natural place in regulating the affairs of the family, the community, the Church, and the State. It seems to me God has treasured up a reserved power in the nature of woman to correct many of those evils which are Christendom's disgrace to-day.
Circumstances help or hinder our development, and are one of the two forces which determine the actual character of a nation or of mankind, at any special period. Hitherto, amongst men, circumstances have favored the development of only intellectual power, in all its forms — chiefly in its lower forms. At present, mankind, as a whole, has the superiority over womankind, as a whole, in all that pertains to intellect, the higher and the lower. Man has knowledge, has ideas, has administrative skill; enacts the rules of conduct for the individual, the family, the community, the Church, the State, and the world. He applies these rules of conduct to life, and so controls the great affairs of the human race. You see what a world he has made of it. There is male vigor in this civilization, miscalled "Christian"; and in its leading nations there are industry and enterprise, which never fail. There is science, literature, legislation, agriculture, manufactures, mining, commerce, such as the world never saw. With the vigor of war, the Anglo-Saxon now works the works of peace. England abounds in wealth — richest of lands; but look at her poor, her vast army of paupers, two million strong, the Irish whom she drives with the hand of famine across the sea. Martin Luther was right when he said: "The richer the nation, the poorer the poor." Look at the cities of England and America. What riches, what refinement, what culture of man and woman too! Ay; but what poverty, what ignorance, what beastliness of man and woman too! The Christian civilization of the nineteenth century is well summed up in London and New York — the two foci of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, which control the shape of the world's commercial ellipse. Look at the riches and the misery; at the "religious enterprise" and the heathen darkness; at the virtue, the decorum, and the beauty of woman well-born and well bred; and at the wild sex of prostitution, which swells and breaks and dashes against the bulwarks of society — every ripple was a woman once!
Oh, brother-men, who make these things, is this a pleasant sight? Does your literature complain of it — of the waste of human life, the slaughter of human souls, the butchery of woman? British literature begins to wail, in "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Jane Eyre" and "Mary Barton" and "Alton Locke," in many a "Song of the Shirt"; but the respectable literature of America is deaf as a cent to the outcry of humanity expiring in agonies. It is busy with California, or the Presidency, or extolling iniquity in high places, or flattering the vulgar vanity which buys its dross for gold. It can not even imitate the philanthropy of English letters; it is "up" for California and a market. Does not the Church speak? — the English Church, with its millions of money; the American, with its millions of men — both wont to bay the moon of foreign heathenism? The Church is a dumb dog, that can not bark, sleeping. lying down, loving to slumber. It is a church without woman, believing in a male and jealous God, and rejoicing in a boundless, endless hell!
Hitherto, with woman, circumstances have hindered the development of intellectual power, in all its forms. She has not knowledge, has not ideas or practical skill to equal the force of man. But circumstances have favored the development of pure and lofty emotion in advance of man. She has moral feeling, affectional feeling, religious feeling, far in advance of man; her moral, affectional, and religious intuitions are deeper and more trustworthy than his. Here she is eminent, as he is in knowledge. in ideas, in administrative skill.
I think man will always lead in affairs of intellect — of reason, imagination understanding — he has the bigger brain; but that woman will always lead in affairs of emotion — moral, affectional, religious — she has the better heart, the truer intuition of the right, the lovely, the holy. The literature of women in this century is juster, more philanthropic, more religious, than that of men. Do you not hear the cry which, in New England, a woman is raising in the world's ears against the foul wrong which America is working in the world? Do you not hear the echo of that woman's voice come over the Atlantic — returned from European shores in many a tongue — French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Dutch? How a woman touches the world's heart! because she speaks justice, speaks piety, speaks love. What voice is strongest, raised in continental Europe, pleading for the oppressed and down-trodden % That also is a woman's voice!
Well, we want the excellence of man and woman both united; intellectual power, knowledge, great ideas — in literature, philosophy, theology, ethics — and practical skill; but we want something better — the moral, affectional, religious intuition, to put justice into ethics, love into theology, piety into science and letters. Everywhere in the family, the community, the Church, and the State, we want the masculine and feminine element co-operating and conjoined. Woman is to correct man's taste, mend his morals, excite his affections, inspire his religious faculties. Man is to quicken her intellect, to help her will, translate her sentiments to ideas, and enact them into righteous laws. Man's moral action, at best, is only a sort of general human providence, aiming at the welfare of a part, and satisfied with achieving the "greatest good of the greatest number." Woman's moral action is more like a special human providence, acting without general rules, but caring for each particular case. We need both of these, the general and the special, to make a total human providence.
If man and woman are counted equivalent — equal in rights, though with diverse powers, — shall we not mend the literature of the world, its theology, its science, its laws, and its actions too? I can not believe that wealth and want are to stand ever side by side as desperate foes; that culture must ride only on the back of ignorance; and feminine virtue be guarded by the degradation of whole classes of ill-starred men, as in the East, or the degradation of whole classes of ill-starred women, as in the West; but while we neglect the means of help God puts in our power, why, the present must be like the past — "property" must be theft, "law" the strength of selfish will, and "Christianity" — what we see it is, the apology for every powerful wrong.
To every woman let me say — Respect your nature as a human being, your nature as a woman; then respect your rights, then remember your duty to possess, to use, to develop, and to enjoy every faculty which God has given you, each in its normal way.
And to men let me say — Respect, with the profoundest reverence, respect the mother that bore you, the sisters who bless you, the woman that you love, the woman that you marry. As you seek to possess your own manly rights, seek also, by that great arm, by that powerful brain, seek to vindicate her rights as woman, as your own as man. Then we may see better things in the Church, better things in the State, in the Community, in the Home. Then the green shall show what buds it hid, the buds shall blossom, the flowers bear fruit, and the blessing of God be on us all. REMINISCENCES OF PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS.
by e. c. s.
Hearing that my friend had returned from Europe too ill to leave her room, I hastened to her charming home in the suburbs of Providence, Rhode Island. There in her pleasant chamber, bright with the sunshine of a clear December day,[29] surrounded with her books and pictures of her own painting, looking out on an extensive lawn, grand old trees, and the busy city in the distance, we passed three happy days together reviewing our own lives, the progress of the reforms we advocated, and in speculations of the unknown world. In my brief sketch of the "Woman's Rights Movement" and its leaders for the "Eminent Women of the Age," I made no mention of Mrs. Davis, being ignorant of the main facts of her life. I waited for her return from Florida, until it was too late, as the work was hurried to press. Hence I was glad of this opportunity to dot down fresh from her own lips some of the incidents and personal experiences of her life.
Paulina Kellogg was born in Bloomfield, New York, the very day Capt. Hall delivered up the fort at Detroit. Her father, Capt. Kellogg, being a volunteer in the army at that time, would often jocosely refer to those two great events on the 7th of August, 1813. Her grandfather Saxton was a colonel in the Revolution, and on Lafayette's staff. Both her father and mother possessed great personal beauty, and were devotedly attached to each other, and were alike conservative in their opinions and associations. When Paulina was four years old her grandfather bought a large tract of land at Cambria, near Niagara Falls, where all his children settled. That trip was the first memory of her childhood. A cavalcade of six army Wagons, men, women, children, horses, cattle, dogs, hens, pushed their weary way eleven days through wild woods, cutting their own roads, and fording creeks and rivers. Crossing the Genesee in a scow, one immense cow walked off into the water, others followed and swam ashore. The little girl thinking that everything was going overboard, trembled like an aspen leaf until she felt herself safe on land. The picnics under the trees, the beds in the wagons drawn up in a circle to keep the cattle in, the friendly meetings with the Indians, all charmed her childish fancies. The summer the first bridge was built to Goat Island, her uncle caught her in his arms, tan across the beams, and set her down, saying: "There, you are probably the first white child that ever set foot on Goat Island."
When seven years old she was adopted by an aunt, and moved to Le Roy, New York, where she was educated. Her aunt was a strict orthodox Presbyterian, a stern, strong Puritan. Her life in her new home was sad and solitary, and one of constant restraint. In the natural reaction of the human mind, with such early experiences, we can readily account for Paulina's love of freedom, and courage in attacking the wrongs of society. In referring to these early years, she said: "I was not a happy child, nor a happy woman, until in mature life, I outgrew my early religious faith, and felt free to think and act from my own convictions." Having joined the church in extreme youth, and being morbidly conscientious, she suffered constant torment about her own sins, and those of her neighbors. She was a religious enthusiast, and in time of revivals was one of the bright and shining lights in exhortation and prayer. She was roused to thought on woman's position by a discussion in the church as to whether women should be permitted to speak and pray in promiscuous assemblies. Some of the deacons protested against a practice, in ordinary times, that might be tolerated during seasons of revival. But those who had discovered their gifts in times of excitement were not so easily remanded to silence; and thus the Church was distracted then as now with the troublesome question of woman's rights. Sometimes a liberal pastor would accord a latitude denied by the elders and deacons, and sometimes one church would be more liberal than others in the same neighborhood, or synod; hence individuals and congregations were continually persecuted and arraigned for violation of church discipline and God's law, according to man's narrow interpretation. "Thus," she says, "my mind was confused and uncertain with conflicting emotions and opinions in regard to all human relations. And it was many years before I understood the philosophy of life, before I learned that happiness did not depend on outward conditions, but on the harmony within, on the tastes, sentiments, affections, and ambitions of the individual soul."
On leaving school, Paulina had made up her mind to be a missionary to the Sandwich Islands, as that was the Mecca in those days to which all pious young women desired to go. But after live months of ardent courtship, Mr. Francis Wright, a young merchant of wealth and position in Utica, New York, persuaded her that there were heathen enough in Utica to call out all the religious zeal she possessed, to say nothing of himself as the chief of sinners, hence in special need of her ministrations.
So they began life together, worshiped in Bethel church, and devoted themselves to the various reforms that in turn attracted their attention. They took an active part in the arrangements for the first Anti-Slavery Convention, held in Utica, Oct. 21, 1835, a day on which anti-slavery meetings were mobbed and violently dispersed in different parts of the country. It was at this meeting that Gerrit Smith gave in his adhesion to the anti-slavery movement and abandoned the idea of the colonization of slaves to Liberia. As the mob would not permit a meeting to be held in Utica, Mr. Smith invited them to Peterboro, where they adjourned. It was a fearful day for Abolitionists throughout that city, as the mob of roughs was backed by its leading men. Mr. Wright's house was surrounded, piazzas and fences torn down and piled up with wood and hay against it, with the evident intention of burning it down. But several ladies who had come to attend the Convention were staying there, and, as was their custom, they had family prayers that night. The leaders of the mob peeping through the windows, saw a number of women on their knees, and the sight seemed to soften their wrath and change their purpose, for they quietly withdrew their forces, leaving the women in undisturbed possession of the house. The attitude of the Church at this time being strongly pro-slavery, Mr. and Mrs. Wright withdrew, as most Abolitionists did, from all church organizations, and henceforth their religious zeal was concentrated on the anti-slavery, temperance, and woman's rights reforms. Thus passed twelve years of happiness in mutual improvement and co-operation in every good work. Having no children, they devoted themselves unreservedly to one another. But Mr. Wright, being a man of great executive ability, was continually overworking, taxing his powers of mind and body to the uttermost, until his delicate organization gave way and his life prematurely ended.
Having occupied her leisure hours in the study of anatomy and physiology, Mrs. Wright gave a course of lectures to women. As early as 1844 she began this public work. She imported from Paris the first femme modele that was ever brought to this country. She tells many amusing anecdotes of the effect of unveiling this manikin in the presence of a class of ladies. Some trembled with fear, the delicacy of others was shocked, but their weaknesses were overcome as their scientific curiosity was awakened. Many of Mrs. Wright's pupils were among the first to enter the colleges, hospitals, and dissecting-rooms, and to become successful practitioners of the healing art.
While lecturing in Baltimore, a "Friend," by the name of Anna Needles, attended the course. Another "Friend," seeing her frequently pass, hailed her on one occasion, and said, "Anna, where does thee go every day?" "I go to hear Mrs. Wright lecture." "What, Anna, does thee go to hear that Fanny Wright?" "Oh, no! Paulina Wright!" "Ah! I warn thee, do not go near her, she is of the same species." Many women, now supporting themselves in ease, gratefully acknowledge her influence in directing their lives to some active pursuits.
Thus passed the four years of her widowed life, lecturing to women through most of the Eastern and Western States.
In 1849, she was married to the Hon. Thomas Davis, a solid, noble man of wealth and position, who has since been a member of the Rhode Island Legislature seven years, and served one term in Congress. As he is very modest and retiring in his nature, I will not enumerate his good qualities of head and heart, lest he should be pained at seeing himself in print; and perhaps "the highest praise for a true man is never to be spoken of at all." With several successive summers in Newport and winters in Providence, Mrs. Davis gave more time to fashionable society than she ever had at any period of her life.
When her husband was elected to Congress, in 1853, she accompanied him to Washington and made many valuable acquaintances. As she had already called the first National Woman Suffrage Convention, and started The Una, the first distinctively woman's rights journal ever published, and was supposed to be a fair representative of the odious, strong-minded "Bloomer," the ladies at their hotel, after some consultation, decided to ignore her, as far as possible. But a lady of her fine appearance, attractive manners, and general intelligence, whose society was sought by the most cultivated gentlemen in the house, could not be very long ostracised by the ladies.
What a writer in the British Quarterly for January, says of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, applies with equal force to Mrs. Davis. "She seems to have been saved from the coarseness and strenuous tone of the typical strong-minded woman, although probably some of her opinions might shock staid people who are innocent alike of philosophy and the doctrines of the new era." Though in fact this typical strong-minded woman of whom we hear so much in England and America, is after all a "myth"; for the very best specimens of womanhood in both countries are those who thoroughly respect themselves, and maintain their political, civil, and social rights. For nearly three years Mrs. Davis continued The Una, publishing it entirely at her own expense. It took the broadest ground claimed to-day: individual freedom in the State, the Church, and the home; woman's equality and suffrage a natural right. In 1859, she visited Europe for the first time, and spent a year traveling in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, giving her leisure hours to picture galleries and the study of art. She made many valuable friends on this trip, regained her health, and returned home to work with renewed zeal for the enfranchisement of woman.
Having decided to celebrate the second decade of the National Woman Suffrage movement, in New York, Mrs. Davis took charge of all the preliminary arrangements, including the foreign correspondence. She gave a good report at the opening session of the Convention, of what had been accomplished in the twenty years, and published the proceedings in pamphlet form, at her own expense. One of Mrs. Davis' favorite ideas was a Woman's Congress in Washington, to meet every year, to consider the national questions demanding popular action; especially to present them in their moral and humanitarian bearings and relations, while our representatives discussed them, as men usually do, from the material, financial, and statistical points of view. In this way only, said she, "can the complete idea on any question ever be realized. All legislation must necessarily be fragmentary, so long as one-half the race give no thought whatever on the subject."
In 1871, Mrs. Davis, with her niece and adopted daughter, again visited Europe, and pursued her studies of art, spending much time in Julian's life studio, the only one open to women. She took lessons of Carl Marko in Florence. When in Paris she spent hours every day copying in the Louvre and Luxembourg. The walls of her home Were decorated with many fine copies, and a few of her own creations. Her enthusiasm for both art and reform may seem to some a singular combination; but with her view of life, it was a natural one. Believing, as she did, in the realization of the ultimate equality of the human family, and the possibility of the race sometime attaining comparative perfection, when all would be well-fed, clothed, sheltered, and educated; humanity in its poverty, ignorance, and deformity, were to her but the first rude sketch on the canvas, to be perfected by the skillful hand of the Great Artist. Hence she labored with faith and enthusiasm to realize her ideal alike in both cases.
Tn Naples she made the acquaintance of Mary Somerville, then in her ninetieth year. She found her quite conversant with American affairs, and she expressed great pleasure in reading Mrs. Davis' history of the suffrage movement in this country. There too she met Mrs. Merrycoyf, a bright, accomplished woman, a sister of Josephine Butler, and like her, engaged in English reforms. She had many discussions with Mrs. Proby, the wife of the English Consul, who thought Mrs. Davis was wasting her efforts for the elevation of woman, as she considered it a hopeless case to make women rational and self-reliant. However, before they parted, Mrs. Davis inspired her with some faith in her own sex. I read a very interesting letter from Mrs. Proby acknowledging the benefit derived from her acquaintance with Mrs. Davis, in giving her new hope for woman. At Rome she received the blessing of the Pope, and met Pére Hyacinthe and his charming wife, and attended one of his lectures, but the crowd was so great she could not get in, so she went the Sunday after to hear the prayers for the Pope and the Church against the influence of the dangerous Pére. She says: "It was a most impressive occasion, the immense crowd, the grand music swelling through the arches of that vast cathedral, the responses of the ten thousand voices, rolling like the great tidal waves of the mighty ocean, were altogether sublime beyond description." At Paris she met Mrs. Crawford, wife of the corresponding editor of The London Times, a woman of fine conversational powers, and a brilliant writer, now the Paris correspondent of The New York Tribune. She found her a woman of very liberal opinions. At one of her breakfasts she met Martin, the historian, and several members of the Assembly. She also visited the Countess Delacoste, who sympathized deeply with the republican movement, and had concealed Clusaret three months in her house. There she met several distinguished Russians and Frenchmen. In London she attended one of Mrs. Peter Taylor's receptions, where she met Mrs. Margaret Lucas, sister of John Bright, and other notables. She visited Josephine Butler at her home in Liverpool. Friends sent her tickets of admission to the lady's gallery, in the House of Commons, where she heard Jacob Bright make his opening speech on the woman's disability bill, and Fawcett, the blind member, also on the same bill. And with all these distinguished people, in different countries, speaking different languages, she found the same interest in the progressive ideas that had gladdened and intensified her own life.
On the 29th of May she sailed for America, and reached her home in safety, but the disease that had been threatening her for years (rheumatic gout) began to develop itself, until in the autumn she was confined to her room, and unable at times even to walk. It was thus I found her in a large arm-chair quietly making all her preparations for the sunny land, resigned to stay or to go, to accept the inevitable, whatever that might be.[30] As she was an enthusiastic spiritualist, the coming journey was not to her an unknown realm, but an inviting home where the friends of her earlier days were waiting with glad hearts to give her the heavenly welcome.
- ↑ Mercy Otis, born at Barnstable, Mass., September 25, 1728, married James Warren, about 1754. Reference has been made to her correspondence with the eminent men of the Revolution. Aside from her patriotism, Mrs. Warren was a woman of high literary ability. She wrote several dramatic and satirical works in 1773, against the royalists, which, with two tragedies, were included in a volume of Dramatic and Miscellaneous Poems, published in 1790. She also wrote "A History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, interspersed with Biographical, Political, and Moral Observations," in three volumes, published in Boston, 1805. Mrs. Warren lived quite into the present century, dying October 19, 1814. Mrs. Ellet, "Queens of Society," says: "In point of influence, Mercy Warren was the most remarkable woman who lived in the days of the American Revolution." Rochefoucauld, "Tour in the United States," says: "Seldom has a woman in any age acquired such ascendency by the mere force of a powerful intellect, and her influence continued through her life." Generals Lee and Gates were among her correspondents; Knox wrote: "I should be happy to receive your counsels from time to time." Mrs. Washington was frequently entertained by Mrs. Warren, at one time when the former was in Massachusetts with the General, Mrs. Warren going with her chariot to headquarters at Cambridge for her.
- ↑ Dried leaves of the raspberry. — Lossing.
- ↑ Lossing, "Field-Book of the Revolution," says: 'On February 9, 1769, the Mistresses of three hundred families met and formed a league, and upon the second day the young ladies assembled in great numbers, signing the following covenant: 'We, the daughters of those patriots who have, and do now, appear for public interest, and in proper regard for their posterity as such, do, with pleasure, engage with them in denying ourselves the drink of foreign tea, in hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to deprive a whole country of all that is valuable in life."
- ↑ Lossing's "Field-Book of the Revolution" states that on the 12th of June, 1769, the "Daughters of Liberty," met at the house of pastor Moorehead, in such numbers that in one afternoon they spun two hundred and ninety skeins of fine yarn, which they presented to him. After supper they were joined by many "Sons of Liberty," who united with the "Daughters" in patriotic songs.
- ↑ These girls, then only about twelve and fourteen years of age, saw the enemy making preparations to land at an isolated point. No men were near to defend the place, or to whom warning could be given. A bright thought struck one of the girls. Accustomed to play the drum, she well knew how to beat the call to arms, and no sooner had this thought entered her mind, than she began a tattoo, calling her sister to take the fife as an accompaniment. Together they marched toward the shore, careful to keep hidden by the rocks, among whose intricacies they wound back and forth, the sound of their instruments falling upon the enemy's ears, now far, now near, as though a force of many hundred men was marching down upon them, and thoroughly frightened, they beat a retreat to their boats.
- ↑ "This dispute infused its spirit into everything. It interfered with the levy of troops for the Pequot war; it influenced the respect shown to the magistrates, the distribution of town lots, the assessment of rates, and at last the continued existence of the two parties was considered inconsistent with the public peace." — Bancroft, "History of the United States."
- ↑ Atlantic Monthly, June, 1871.
- ↑ In three New England colonies church membership was required for the franchise. — Frothingham, "Rise of the Republic."
- ↑ Dr. John Weis, of New York, now an aged gentleman, well remembers his grandmother saying, that at an early day women were allowed to vote in all the New England colonies.
- ↑ Mother of the late Daniel P. King, at that time 8 member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and since then a Representative in Congress.
- ↑ Benj. C. Pitkin, of Salem, at that time State Senator.
- ↑ Hon. Mr. Upham saying: "A great many of the members told me they didn't believe a woman wrote it."
- ↑ This petition was put in the hands of a gentleman to secure his mother's name (who had signed numbers of petitions before), and those of certain other ladies, but unfaithful to this trust, he forwarded the petition with but its single name, which, Mrs, Ferrin remarks, was powerful in itself.
- ↑ James W. North, a lawyer, of Augusta, Maine, to his honor be it said, assisted Mrs. Ferrin, by perfecting the divorce petition, in circulation during her six years of petition work.
- ↑ A lady commenting upon unjust legislation, said: "When the laws were made regarding women and children, the most impotent men were employed to make them; decent men had other business to do." From time to time, Mrs. Ferrin sent in memorials and addresses with the petitions she yearly forwarded. One of these, in reply to the oft-made boast of man's unsolicited amelioration of woman's condition, carried the following retort: "The Powers tell us much has been done to ameliorate the condition of woman without any effort on woman's part. It would add a huge feather to their caps should they give us the history of the cause of the need of such reformation. It can not be because woman placed herself. in so degrading a position. So, the merit of the up-lifting hardly reaches the demerit of the down-treading."
- ↑ Mrs. Davis herself.
- ↑ Wife of John Milton Earl, editor of the Worcester Spy.
- ↑ See Appendix.
- ↑ See Appendix.
- ↑ See Appendix.
- ↑ See Appendix.
- ↑ See Appendix.
- ↑ See Appendix.
- ↑ Mrs. Caroline Norton, a distinguished English author, who separated from her husband because of cruel treatment. He robbed her of all the profits of her books, and of her children, and when she appealed to the Courts, English law sustained the husband in all his violations of natural justice.
- ↑ Abby May Alcott, Abby Kelly Foster, Lucy Stone, Thomas W. Higginson, Ann Green Phillips, Wendell Phillips, Anna Q. T. Parsons, Theodore Parker, William J. Bowditch, Samuel E. Sewall, Ellis Gray Loring, Charles K. Whipple, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Harriot K. Hunt, Thomas T. Stone, John W. Browne, Francis Jackson, Josiah F. Flagg, Mary Flagg, Elizabeth Smith, Eliza Barney, Abby H. Price, William C. Nell, Samuel May, Jr., Robert F. Wallcott, Robert Morris, A. Bronson Alcott.
- ↑ Anthony Burns, the slave, was a Baptist minister in his Southern home, and had sought freedom in Boston, but was pursued and recaptured.
- ↑ A gentleman of wealth, who gave most liberally to all reforms, and in his will bequeathed $5,000 to the cause of woman suffrage.
- ↑ The Publishing Committee do not willingly print the above report of one of the ablest and most eloquent speeches ever delivered in Boston. Mr. Phillips never writes his speeches. He is now too far distant to be consulted. Two very young girl reporters — after a week's hard practice, and three hours' excessive heat — wrote these heads down, without the most distant idea of publication. All the Committee can do is to rejoice that the accident did not happen to a young speaker, but to one whose reputation is established, and whose immortality is certain. C.H.D.
- ↑ In the year 1875.
- ↑ See Appendix.