History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 1/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.
The earliest settlement of Indiana was a missionary one, in 1777, though it was not admitted as a Territory until 1800, then including the present States of Michigan and Illinois. A number of Indian wars took place in this part of the country during the twenty-five years between 1780 and 1805. What was known as the Northwest Territory was organized in 1789, and General Arthur St. Clair appointed Governor, an office he held until 1802. In 1790 a war of unusually formidable character broke out among the Indian tribes of the Northwest, and in 1791, St. Clair was created General-in-Chief of the forces against them. Many of the settlers of this portion of the country joined his army, among whom were one hundred women, who accompanied their husbands in preference to being left at home subject to the surprises and tortures of the savages with whom the country was at war. In giving command of these forces to St. Clair, Washington warned him against unexpected assaults from the enemy; but this general who was of foreign birth, a Scotchman, was no match for the cunning of his wily foe, who suddenly fell upon Mm, November 4th, near the Miami villages (present site of Terra Haute), making great havoc among his forces.
When the terrible war-whoop was heard, the heroism of these hundred women rose equal to the emergency. They did not cling helplessly to their husbands the women of those early days were made of sterner stuff but with pale, set faces, they joined in the defense, and the records say, were most of them killed fighting bravely. They died a soldier's death upon the field of battle in defense of home and country. They died that the prairies of the West and the wilderness of the North should at a later period become the peaceful homes of untold millions of men and women. They were the true pioneers of the Northwest, the advance-guard of civilization, giving their lives in battle against a terrible enemy, in order that safety should dwell at the hearth-stones of those who should settle this garden of the continent at a future period. History is very silent upon their record; not a name has been preserved; but we do know that they lived, and how they died, and it is but fitting that a record of woman's work for freedom should embalm their memory in its pages. Many other women defended homes and children against the savage foe, but their deeds of heroism have been forgotten.
There is scarcely a portion of the world so far from civilization as Indiana was at that day. No railroads spanned the continent, making neighbors of people a thousand miles apart; no steamboat sailed upon the Western lakes, nor indeed upon the broad Atlantic; telegraphy, with its annihilation of space, was a marvel as yet unborn; even the lucifer match, which should kindle fire in the twinkling of an eye, lay buried in the dark future. Little was known of these settlements; the Genesee Valley of New York was considered the fa West, to which people traveled (the Erie Canal was not then in existence) in strong, springless wagons, over which large hoops, covered with white cloth, were securely fastened, thus sheltering the inmates from sun and storm. These wagons, afterward known as "Prairie Schooners," were for weeks and months the traveling homes of many a family of early settlers.
But even in 1816 Indiana could boast her domestic manufactures, for within the State at this time were "two thousand five hundred and twelve looms and two thousand seven hundred spinning-wheels, most of them in private cabins, whose mistresses, by their slow agencies, converted the wool which their own hands had often sheared, and the flax which their own fingers had pulled, into cloth for the family wardrobe."[1]
Thus in 1816 the manufactures of Indiana were chiefly in the hands of its women. It is upon the industries of the country that 4 nation thrives. Its manufactures build up its commerce and make its wealth. From this source the Government derives the revenue which is the life-blood circulating in its veins. Its strength and its perpetuity alike depend upon its industries, and when we look upon the work of women through all the years of the Republic, and remember their patriotic self-devotion and self-sacrifice at every important crisis, we are no less amazed at the ingratitude of the country for their services in war than at its non-recognition of their existence as wealth-producers, the elements which build up and sustain every civilized people.
Viewing its early record, we are not surprised that Indiana claims to have organized the first State Woman's Rights Society, though we are somewhat astonished to know that at the time of the first Convention held in Indianapolis, a husband of position locked his wife within the house in order to prevent her presence thereat, although doubtless, as men have often done before and since, he deemed it not out of the way that he himself should be a listener at a meeting he considered it contrary to family discipline that his wife should attend.
December 11, 1816, Indiana was admitted into the Union. William Henry Harrison, who had been Governor of the Territory, and Brigadier-General in the army, with the command of the Northwest Territory, was afterward President of the United States. He encountered the Indians led by Tecumseh at Tippecanoe, on the Wabash, and after a terrible battle they fled. This was the origin of the song, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," that was sung with immense effect by the Whigs all over the country in the presidential campaign of 1840, when Harrison and Tyler were the candidates; and when women, for the first time, attended political meetings.
Indiana, though one of the younger States, by her liberal and rational legislation on the questions of marriage and divorce, has always been the land of freedom for fugitives from the bondage and suffering of ill-assorted unions. Many an unhappy wife has found a safe asylum on the soil of that State. Her liberality on this question was no doubt partly due to the influence of Robert Owen, — who early settled at New Harmony, and made the experiment of communal life; and later, to his son, the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, who — was in the Legislature several years, and in the Constitutional Convention of 1850. The following letter from Mr. Owen gives a few — facts worth perusing:
Dear Miss Anthony: — I know you will think the reply I am about to make to your favor of September 18th unsatisfactory, but it is the best I can do.
1. As regards Frances Wright: All the particulars regarding her and her noble but unsuccessful experiment at Nashoba, near Memphis, which I thought it important to make public, are contained in an article of mine entitled "An Earnest Sowing of Wild Oats," in the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1874.
2. As to Ernestine L. Rose, I think it probable that you know more of her than I do. I remember that she was the daughter of a Polish rabbi; the wife of William Rose, a silversmith; and that she came with her husband to this country at an early day. She was a great admirer and follower of my father, Robert Owen, and was a skeptic as to any future beyond the grave: greatly opposed to Spiritualism.
3. As to my action in the Indiana Legislature: I was a member of that body during the sessions of 1836-7, and '8, and in 1851, but I have not the materials here that would enable me to give particulars. In a general way I had the State law so altered that a married woman owned and had the right to manage her own property, both real and personal; and I had the law of descents so changed that a widow, instead of dower, which is a mere tenancy or life interest, now has, in all cases, an absolute fee in one-third of her husband's estate; if only one child, then a half; and if no children, I think two-thirds. I also had an additional clause added to the divorce law, making two years' habitual drunkenness imperative cause for divorce.
I took no action in regard to suffrage while in the Legislature. In those days it would have been utterly unavailing.
All this is very meagre, which I the more regret, sympathizing as I do with the object you have in view.
Give my kindest regards to my old friend, Mrs. Stanton, and believe me,
Faithfully your friend,
| Miss Anthony. | Robert Dale Owen. |
Before 1828, Frances Wright had visited Mr. Owen's colony, and assisted him in the editorial department of the New Harmony Gazette, changed afterward to the Free Enquirer, published in New York. Such a circle of remarkably intelligent and liberal minded people, all effective speakers and able writers, was not without influence in moulding the sentiment of that young community. As a glimpse into the domestic life of this remarkable family may be interesting to the reader, we give a pleasing sketch from the pen of Mr. Owen's daughter. No monument of the whitest parian marble could shed such honor on the memory of a venerated father and mother as this tribute from an affectionate, appreciative child:
ROBERT DALE OWEN AND MARY ROBINSON.
by rosamond dale owen.
Some fifty years ago a large audience was gathered in one of the public halls of New York listening to a lecture. In the sea of faces upturned to him, the speaker read a cold response, the opinions he was expounding being exceedingly unpopular, and rarely expressed in those days. The theme was the equality of the sexes, the right of woman to control person and property in the marriage relation, the right to breathe, to think, to act as an untrammeled citizen, the co-equal of man. His eyes searched tier after tier, seeking in vain for that magnetism of sympathy which is as wine to a man who stands before his people pleading with them that he may save them from their errors.
Suddenly his wandering gaze was arrested by a face, a child’s face, with short, clustering curls, but a strong soul steadied the deep eyes, and on the rounded cheek paled and glowed the earnestness of a woman’s searching thought. His words grew clear and strong as he looked into the upturned eyes, as he answered the listening face. The speaker was Robert Dale Owen; the hearer, Mary Robinson.
That night when she reached her own room, Mary Robinson flung off bonnet and shawl with a swift gesture, and, slipping into her accustomed seat, gazed at the steady-glowing background of coals, with the blue flames licking in and out like the evil tongues of fire-scourged elves. A strong excitement held her in thrall; she did not seem to see her elder sister’s wondering looks; she did not seem to hear the great clocks, far and near, chiming out eleven, and then twelve, with that deep resonance which sounds in the silence of the night like a solemn requiem over lost hours. Presently she became aware that her sister was kneeling beside her, with anxious questioning look; she seemed, this elder sister, in her long, white nightdress, with pale, straight hair pushed back from the clear-tinted, oval face, like a youthful Madonna, and Mary drawing the gentle face close to her own with sudden impulse, said: “I have seen the man I shall marry, I have seen him to-night; he is the homeliest man I have ever known, but if I am married at all, he is to be my husband.”
A few months later this prophecy was verified. On the 12th day of April, 1832, Robert Dale Owen and Mary Robinson were joined in those sacred bonds, which, in every true marriage, can be broken only by the shadow hand of Death. The ceremony was simple and unique ; it consisted in signing a document written by the bridegroom himself, with a Justice of the Peace and the immediate family as witnesses. The following extracts will show the character of the compact :
New York, Tuesday, April 12, 1832.
This afternoon I enter into a matrimonial engagement with Mary Jane Robinson, a young person whose opinions on all important subjects, whose mode of thinking and feeling, coincide more intimately with my own than do those of any other individual with whom I am acquainted. We have selected the simplest ceremony which the laws of this State recognize..... This ceremony involves not the necessity of making promises regarding that over which we have no control, the state of human affections in the distant future, nor of repeating forms which we deem offensive, inasmuch as they outrage the principles of human liberty and equality, by conferring rights and imposing duties unequally on the sexes. The ceremony consists of a simply written contract in which we agree to take each other as husband and wife according to the laws of the State of New York, our signatures being attested by those friends who are present.
Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an iniquitous law tacitly gives me over the person and property of another, I can not legally, but I can morally divest myself. And I hereby distinctly and emphatically declare that I consider myself, and earnestly desire to be considered by others, as utterly divested, now and during the rest of my life, of any such rights, the barbarous relics of a feudal, despotic system, soon destined, in the onward course of improvement, to be wholly swept away; and the existence of which is a tacit insult to the good sense and good feeling of this comparatively civilized age.
| I concur in this sentiment, | Robert Dale Owen. |
| Mary Jane Robinson. |
After a wedding tour in Europe, the young couple returning to America, settled in New Harmony, Indiana, a small Western village, where their father, Robert Owen, had been making experiments in Community life.
It was a strange, new world into which these two young creatures were entering. The husband had passed his youth in a well-ordered, Wealthy English household; the wife had passed the greater part of her girlhood in Virginia, among slaves. They were now thrown upon the crudities of Western life, and encountered those daily wearing trials which strain the marriage tie to the utmost, even though it be based upon principles of justice. But there was a reserve of energy and endurance in this delicately reared pair; they felt themselves to be pioneers in every sense of the word, and the animus which sustains many a struggling soul seeking to turn a principle into a living reality, sustained these two.
We of a later civilization can scarcely realize the strain upon women in those earlier days. The housekeepers of New Harmony were obliged to buy their groceries in bulk, and have them shipped by slow stages from Cincinnati; meat was bought from the surrounding farmers, a quarter of a beef at a time, to be cut up and disposed of by the housewife; vegetables and most of the small fruits could not be bought at all; stoves were an unknown luxury, all cooking being done in huge fire-places or brick ovens.
For thirty years my father and mother labored with unabated energy ; his work leading him into the highways of public affairs, while her way lay through the by-paths of home and village life.
Through these thirty years my father used such influence as he had on the side of the weak and oppressed. In the matter of procuring a more respectful consideration of the property rights of women, he was a pioneer. To attempt a detailed statement of the amelioration of those legal hardships under which women labored, is beyond the scope or purpose of this article. I will only mention, in brief, the more important provisions he was instrumental in passing in the face of ridicule and violent opposition. These amendments were : The abolition of simple dower, giving to widows instead, a fee simple interest ; procuring for women the right to their own earnings ; abolishing tenancy by courtesy, which, in effect, made the husband the beneficiary of the wife's lands, and in several matters of less radical change rectifying, so far as he could, the injustice of the common law toward widows ; always keeping in view, however, the proper heirship of children of a former marriage, and guarding the rights of creditors.
In the matter of the divorce laws of Indiana, my father has not taken as prominent a part as is generally supposed. These laws were referred to him in conjunction with another member of the Legislature for the revision, and they amended them in a single point, namely : by adding to the causes for divorce "habitual drunkenness for two years." My father has expressed himself in full on this point in a discussion between Horace Greeley and himself, first published in the New York Tribune.
As early as 1828, my father advocated an equal position for woman, publishing these views through The Free Enquirer, a weekly paper edited by Frances Wright and himself in New York.
My father's political life comprised several terms in the Legislature of his own State, being elected in 1850 a member of the Convention which amended the Constitution of Indiana, and chairman of its Revision Committee. The debates in this Convention show the difference in the position of my father and his antagonists.
CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATES.
Suffer me, sir, in defense of my skepticism on this point, to lay before you and this Convention, an item from my legislative recollection.
It will be thirteen years next winter, since I reported from a seat just over the way, a change in the then existing law of descent. At that time the widow of an intestate dying without children, was entitled, under ordinary circumstances, to dower in her husband's real estate, and one-third of his personal property. The change proposed was to give her one-third of the real estate of her husband absolutely, and two-thirds of his personal property — far too little, indeed; but yet as great an innovation as we thought we could carry. This law remained in force until 1841. How stand sit now? The widow of an intestate, in case there be no children, and in case there be father, or mother, or brother, or sister of the husband, is heir to no part whatever of her deceased husband's real estate; she is entitled to dower only, of one-third of his estate. I ask you whether your hearts do not revolt at the idea, that when the husband is carried to his long home, his widow shall see snatched from her, by an inhuman law, the very property her watchful care had mainly contributed to increase and keep together?
Yet this idea, revolting as it is, is carried out in all its unmitigated rigor, by the statute to which I have just referred. Out of a yearly rental of a hundred and fifty dollars, the widow of an intestate rarely becomes entitled to more than fifty. The other hundred dollars goes — whither? To the husband's father or mother? Yes, if they survive! But if they are dead, what then? A brother-in-law or a sister-in-law takes it, or the husband's uncle, or his aunt, or his cousin! Do husbands toil through life-time to support their aunts, and uncles, and cousins? If but a single cousin's child, a babe of six months, survive, to that infant goes a hundred dollars of the rental, and to the widow fifty. Can injustice go beyond this? What think you of a law like that, on the statute book of civilized and a Christian land? When the husband's sustaining arm is laid in the grave, and the widow left without a husband to cherish, then comes the law more cruel than death, and decrees that poverty shall be added to desolation!
Say, delegates of the people of Indiana, answer and say whether you, whether those who sent you here are guiltless in this thing? Have you done justice? Have you loved mercy?
But let us turn to the question more immediately before us. Let us pass from the ease of the widow and look to that of the wife: First, the husband becomes entitled, from the instant of marriage, to all the goods and chattels of his wife. His right is absolute, unconditional. Secondly, the husband acquires, in virtue of the marriage, the rents and profits (in all cases during her life) of his wife's real estate. The flagrant injustice of this has been somewhat modified by a statute barring the marital right to the rent of lands, but this protection does not extend to personal property. Is this as it should be? Are we meting out fair and equal justice? . . . . There is a species of very silly sentimentalism which it is the fashion to put forth in after-dinner toasts and other equally veracious forms, about woman being the only tyrant in a free republic; about the chains she imposes on her willing slaves, etc.; it would be much more to our credit, if we would administer a little less flattery and a little more justice.From pages upon pages of eloquence delivered in reply, I cull the following extracts, which are a sample of the spirit of the opposition:
"I can not see the propriety of establishing for women a distinct and separate interest, the consideration of which would, of necessity, withdraw their attention from that sacred duty which nature has, in its wisdom, assigned to their peculiar care. I think the law which unites in one common bond the pecuniary interests of husband and wife should remain. The sacred ordinance of marriage, and the relations growing out of it, should not be disturbed. The common law does seem to me to afford sufficient protection."
"If the law is changed, I believe that a most essential injury would result to the endearing relations of married life. Controversies would arise, husbands and wives would become armed against each other, to the utter destruction of true felicity in married life."
"To adopt it would be to throw a whole population morally and politically into confusion. Is it necessary to explode a volcano under the foundation of the family union?"
"I object to the gentleman's proposition, because it is in contravention of one of the great fundamental principles of the Christian religion. The common law only embodies the divine law."
"*Give to the wife a separate interest in law, and all those high motives to restrain the husband from wrong-doing will be, in a great degree, removed."
"I firmly believe that it would diminish, if it did not totally annihilate woman's influence."
"Woman's power comes through a self-sacrificing spirit, ready to offer up all her hopes upon the shrine of her husband's wishes."
"Sir, we have got along for eighteen hundred years, and shall we change now? Our fathers have for many generations maintained the principle of the common law in this regard, for some good and weighty reasons."
"The immortal Jefferson, writing in reference to the then state of society in France, and the debauched condition thereof, attributes the whole to the effects of the civil law then in force in France, permitting the wife to hold, acquire, and own property, separate and distinct from the husband."
"The females of this State are about as happy and contented with their present position in relation to this right (suffrage), as it is necessary they should be, and I do not favor the proposition (of Woman's Suffrage), which my friend from Posey, Mr. Owen, appears to countenance."
"It is not because I love justice less, but woman more, that I oppose this section."
"This doctrine of separate estate will stifle all the finer feelings, blast the brightest, fairest, happiest hopes of the human family, and go in direct contravention of that law which bears the everlasting impress of the Almighty Hand. Sir, I consider such a scheme not only as wild, but as wicked, if not in its intentions, at least in its results."It is incredible that men in their sane minds should argue day after day, that if women were allowed to control their own property, it would "strike at the root of Christianity," "ruin the home," and "open wide the door to license and debauchery." And yet these men did so argue through weeks of stormy debate; the bitterest feeling being shown, not with regard to the proposed change in the law of descent, but with regard to the right of women to "acquire and possess property to their sole use and disposal," during the husband's life-time. It is strange, indeed, that the man who advocated this "most meagre justice," as he truly says, should have been a target, not only for ridicule, but for abuse. I append one extract of the latter description, to illustrate how violent and unreasoning was the prejudice with which my father contended. One gentleman after quoting from the marriage contract of my father and mother, the extract in which he, my father, divests himself of the right to control the "person and property of another," proceeds as follows:
The section was finally reconsidered and rejected a few days before adjournment (p. 2018). But my father, with his characteristic perseverance, continued his efforts until they were finally crowned with success in the Legislature, after fifteen years of endeavor.
Most of the arguments used by those delegates, if they can be called by so dignified a name, bear a singular resemblance to the arguments used to-day by the opponents of woman's suffrage. May we not then conclude that the fears which have been proved absolutely groundless in the one case, may be equally so in the other?
An enthusiastic public meeting was held in Indianapolis in honor of my father by the women of the State, Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton taking a prominent part. On this occasion a beautiful silver pitcher was presented to him as a token of gratitude for his persevering efforts in behalf of women. This pitcher still holds a place of honor in our family dinings on gala days.
In reply to several slurs in regard to this memorial, my father during the debates in the Convention thus retorted:
In 1843 and 1845 my father was elected to Congress, serving until 1847. In 1853 he was appointed Minister to Naples, remaining there until 1858. During the war his exertions were unremitting. He was the friend of. Governor Morton, and was consulted by that energetic statesman in all his more important plans. He wrote several letters on the political crises of the time, which had a wide circulation and influence. Mr. Lincoln said to several of his friends, that a letter addressed to him by Mr. Owen, and a conversation consequent thereon, had done more toward deciding him in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation, than any other influence which had been brought to bear. My father also made strenuous efforts during the winter of 1865-66 to postpone the enfranchisement of the freedmen ten years, until 1876. (See Atlantic Monthly, June, 1875). Subsequent events have shown his judgment to have been correct and far-sighted. He believed the conferring of suffrage upon the negro, dim-visioned in the sudden light of a new liberty, to be a most dangerous experiment; he foresaw that the ballot which the North gave to them as a protection against their arrogant masters, would prove a two-edged sword with a terrible reactionary force in the hands of an untrained race just freed from mental leading-strings; he knew the difficulty to be inherent, a difficulty which the existence of slavery must necessarily have produced. He maintained that although the sword had struck off the outward chains, the white-heat of ire kindled in the hearts of the conquered had not fused the inward shackles of the slave, but had riveted them the firmer, and that the invisible fetters welded by revengeful hate should be broken most carefully.
In the latter years of his life my father gave his entire attention to the study of Modern Spiritualism, or rather to the study of Spiritualism in both its ancient and its modern phases. He published two works on this subject, "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," and "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next." In a letter written shortly before his death, he expresses himself as follows: "I hope, my child, that you will never, at any period of your life, be less happy than you now are. If you cultivate your spiritual nature rationally, I feel assured you never will. For one effect of rational Spiritualism is to make one more satisfied the longer one lives, and to make the last scenes of life, hours of pleasant anticipation, instead of a season of dread, or, as with many it has been, of horror." It would be well for non-investigators who maintain that my father's belief in Spiritualism necessarily proves him to have been illogical, to see to it that they are not falling into the in consequence which they are ascribing to him. Reasoning a priori, should we not believe that the man who saw so clearly the dangers which were unperceived by some of our keenest statesmen, could not become, except in a rare instance and for a short time, a misled dupe? Has any one the right to condemn such a man unproved?
While my father was exerting his energies for the welfare of the nation, my mother was giving her life to her children. Sons and daughters were welcomed into the Owen homestead, and the wide halls and great rooms of the rambling country house rang with the voices of children. Three of these little ones slipped back to Heaven before the portals had closed. The stricken parents with blinded eyes met only the rayless emptiness of unbelief. May God help the mother, fainting beneath a bereavement greater than she can bear, who cries for help and finds none; who stretches her empty arms upward in an agony of appeal and is answered by the hollow echo of her own cry; may God help her, for she is beyond the help of man. Other children came to fill the vacant places, other voices filled the air, but the hearts of father and mother were not filled until years later, when a sweet faith thrilled the hopeless blank.
The story of these two is the story of many beside. Husband and wife began the long journey side by side with equal talent, hope, energy; his work led him along the high-road, hers lay in a quiet nook; his name became world-known, hers was scarcely heard beyond the precinct of her own village; and yet who can say that his life was the more successful, who can say that the quiet falling rain, with its slow resultant of flower and fruit in each little garden nook, is less important than the mighty ship-laden river bearing its wealth of commerce in triumph to the sea?
George Eliot, in "Middlemarch," says of Dorothea:
This is true of many Dorotheas; it is true of the Dorothea of whom I am writing. Geographically, Mary Owen's field of labor was narrow; but a small Western village of a thousand souls may hold within its ethical strata all the developments of a continent. Let her who feels that her small limits imprison her, remember that emotions are not registered by the census. Lovers and business men, struggling youths and perplexed mothers, children and veterans, poured their griefs and fears, their hopes and disappointments, into the listening ear of sympathy, knowing that the clear judgment of this little woman could unravel much that seemed to be in hopeless entanglement.
Well do I remember the cheer of this our home. Simple were its duties, simple indeed its pleasures. Well do I remember the busy troop of boys and girls, with the busy mother at their head, directing their exuberant energy with a rare administrative ability. Besides her own children, four of whom reached maturity, she took during her life seven other young people under her protection, so that the great old-fashioned house was always filled to overflowing with fresh young life. Pasture and stable, hennery and dairy, yard and garden, kitchen and parlor, all were under her immediate guidance and control. Well do I remember the pots of golden butter, fresh from her cool hand; the delicious hams cured under "yer supervision; the succulent vegetables and juicy fruits fresh from her garden — that trim, symmetrical garden, with its well-weeded beds, its well-kept walks! Many a bright summer morning have I seen her resting on a low bench beneath a huge overhanging elm, overlooking the field of our labors. To a stranger the flushed face with its irregular features, might have seemed plain; the earnest, energetic manner might have seemed almost abrupt; but to the children who sat on the grass at her feet looking upward, the face was beautiful. That calm eye had pierced through so many childish intricacies and made them clear; the firm mouth could smile so gently at any youthful shortcoming, and the strong voice rang with a hope which sent fear and doubt skulking away in shamefaced silence.
It was the brightest part of the day, this short respite, before mother, marshalling her young army, led them to the study-room. This impromptu lesson-hour was filled with a teaching so trenchant, that oftentimes, in these lonelier days, when perplexed in the intricacies of life's journeyings, a word spoken in some long ago summer morning, floats down the years and rises before my troubled vision a guiding star.
When her children were grown, and the task she had undertaken years before had been well done, our mother turned her attention for a time to public work. She gave much thought to the Woman Question, especially that portion of it pertaining to woman's work, and addressed one or two meetings in New York on this subject. Miss Anthony recently said to me: "Miss Owen, you do not know how great an impression your mother made upon us — a woman who had lived nearly her whole life in a small Western village, absorbed in petty cares, and yet who could stand before us[2] with a calm dignity, telling us searching truths in simple and strong words." The only lecture I heard my mother deliver was: in the church of our village. Her subject was the rearing of children. A calm light rested on her silver hair and broad brow; her manner was the earnest manner of a woman who has looked into the heart of life. Blessed is the daughter to whom it is given to reverence a mother as I reverenced mine that night. A quiet, but deep attention was given to her words, for the fathers and mothers who were listening to her knew that she was speaking on a subject to which she had given long years of careful thought and faithful endeavor. It would not be possible in the space allotted me to give a detailed account of my mother's teachings with regard to the rearing of children; but I will state a few of the more prominent theories — theories proved by practice, which I remember.
Self-government was the primary principle, the broad foundation. She held this qualification to be the only guarantee of success in the broadest sense of the word, and that to be effectual and never-failing it must be interwoven into the very fiber of the child. During the earliest years our mother administered punishment, or rather she invented some means by which the child should be made to feel the result of its bad conduct. Injuring another was held to be a cardinal sin. For this misdeed our hands were tied behind us for an interminable length of time; for running away we were tied to the bed-post; for eating at irregular hours we were deprived of dainties, at the next meal, etc. But as soon as we reached the age of reason, she exerted, not a controlling, but a guiding hand. We were restricted by few rules, for our mother believed in the largest possible liberty, and she held that it was better to pass over the smaller shortcomings unnoticed, than constantly to be finding fault. She maintained that scolding should be indulged in most sparingly, as much of it was detrimental both to the temper of the child and the dignity of the mother. She believed that too little allowance was made for the heedlessness growing out of pure exuberance of spirits. But when a law was once established it was unalterable, and no child ever thought of resisting it. For instance, no one, large or small, was allowed to exhibit a peevish ill-nature, either by word or manner, in the public rooms of the house. My mother merely said, in a quiet tone: "My child, you are either tired or sick; in either case, it would be better to go to your own room and lie down until you are quite restored." The result of this simple rule was an almost uniform cheerfulness. I have lived in many homes, in many parts of the world, but I have never seen one which equaled my mother's in this respect. I do not remember a single command issued by my mother to her older children; but I can well remember her saying: "I think you had better do so and so"; and I recollect distinctly that when we obstinately followed our own unreasoning will, as we were often inclined to do, we were invariably taught a bitter but wholesome lesson. She believed these lessons to be much more effectual for good than any arbitrary prohibition on her part would have been; she reserved such prohibition for the cases where the consequences were not confined to ourselves, or were of too serious a nature.
The one mistake made by my mother was in the physical management of her children. Like many mothers whose bodies and minds are kept at the highest tension, she failed to give vital strength to her children. The most promising of these died in early childhood, "by the will of God," as we say in our blindness. One of them especially, the "little king," as he was called, being a magnificent child, both in mental and moral development. Of those who came to maturity, one died at the age of twenty-seven, one has been an invalid for years, one has fair health, and one only rejoices in a vigorous physique. This boy was born in my grandmother's house, near the sea, where my mother had spent, as she expressed it, "the laziest year of her whole life." These children have all had a keen love of study, an energy which carried them far beyond their strength, and she failed sufficiently to curb them. But in other respects, our mother has done to the uttermost. Her children had strong propensities both for good and ill. She has, so far as is possible, strengthened the virtues and repressed the faults of every child given into her keeping.
"The sun shines," is a sentence simple and short, but how infinite is its meaning; myriads of unfolding blossoms flash 't back in vivid coloring; myriads of stalwart trees whisper it; myriads of breathing things revel in it; myriads of men thank God for it. So is it with the influence of a good mother. It is not given us to follow each tiny shaft of light in its endless. searchings, neither do we note how the riot of the waste places within us is pruned by deft hands into a tenuous symmetry, nor how, in the midst of this life's growth, is laid the foundation of the kingdom of Heaven, by the silent masonry of a mother's constant endeavor.
Mothers, all over this broad land, heavy-laden with the puerile details of daily living, fling off your shrouding cares, and lift your worn faces that you may see with a broad outlook how full-fruited is the vineyard in which you are toiling; the thorns are irritating; the glebe is rough; your spirit faints in the heat of the toilsome day. Look up! the lengthening shadows are falling like dew upon you! tired hearts, look up! purple-red hangs the clustering fruit of your life-long work; the vintage has come, the freest from blight that can ever come — the vintage of a faithful mother!
The name of Mary Owen was not written upon the brains of men, but it is graven upon the hearts of these her children; so long as they live, the blessed memory of that home shall abide with them, a home wherein all that was sweet, and strong, and true, was nurtured by a wise hand, was sunned into blossoming by a loving heart.
A benediction rests upon the brow of him who has given his best work to help this world onward, even though it be but a hair's-breadth; but the mother who has given herself to her children through long years of an unwritten self-abnegation, who has thrilled every fiber of their beings with faith in God and hope in man, a faith and a hope which no canker-worm of worldly experience can ever eat away, she shall be crowned with a sainted halo.
REMINISCENCES BY DR. MARY F. THOMAS AND AMANDA M. WAY.
At an anti-slavery meeting held in Greensboro, Henry Co., in 1851, a resolution was offered by Amanda M. Way, then an active agent in the "Underground Railroad," as follows:
The resolution was adopted. Amanda M. Way, Joel Davis, and Fanny Hiatt were appointed.
The Convention met in October, 1851, in Dublin, Wayne Co., and organized by electing Hannah Hiatt, President; Amanda Way, Vice-President; and Henry Hiatt, Secretary. Miss Way made the opening address, and stated the object of the Convention to be a full, free, and candid discussion of the legal and social position of women. The meetings continued two days. Henry C. Wright addressed large audiences at the evening sessions. A letter was received from Mary F. Thomas, of North Manchester, urging all those who believe in woman's rights to be firm and outspoken. She encouraged young ladies to enter the trades and professions, to fit themselves in some way for pecuniary independence, and adds, "Although a wife, mother, and housekeeper, with all that that means, I am studying medicine, and expect to practice, if I live."
Such a Convention being a novel affair, called out some ridicule and opposition, but the friends were so well pleased with their sue cess, that a committee was appointed to arrange for another the next year, which was held in Richmond, Oct. 15 and 16, 1852. A few of the resolutions[3] will show the spirit of the leaders at that time. A Woman's Rights Society was formed at this Convention, a Constitution and By-laws adopted, and it became one of the permanent organizations of the State. Hannah Hiatt, President; Jane Morrow, Vice-President; Mary B. Birdsall, Secretary; Amanda Way, Treasurer.
Another Convention was held at Richmond October 12, 1853. The President being absent, Lydia W. Vandeburg presided with dignity and ability. Frances D. Gage, Josephine S. Griffing, Emma R. Coe, and Lydia Ann Jenkins were among the prominent speakers. Having heard that Antoinette Brown had been denied admission as a delegate to the "World's Temperance Convention," held in New York, on account of her sex, they passed a resolution condemning this insult offered to all womankind. Thirty-two persons[4] signed the Constitution in the first Convention, and the movement spread rapidly in the Hoosier State.
The fourth annual meeting convened in Masonic Hall, Indianapolis, October 26, 1854. Frances D. Gage, Caroline M. Severance, and L. A. Hine were the invited speakers, and right well did they sustain the banner of equal rights in the capital of the State. J. W. Gordon, then a young and promising lawyer, and since one of the leading men of the State, avowed himself in favor of woman suffrage, and added much to the success of the Convention. The press, as usual, ridiculed, burlesqued, and misrepresented the proceedings; but the citizens manifested a serious interest, and requested that the next Convention be held at the capital.
About this time the "Maine Liquor Law" was passed in this State. The women took an active part in the temperance campaign, and helped to secure the prohibitory law. This made the suffrage Movement more popular, as was shown in the increased attendance at the next Convention in Indianapolis, October 12, 1855, at which Emma B. Swank presided. The prominent speakers were James and Lucretia Mott, Frances D. Gage, Ernestine L. Rose, Joseph Barker, Amanda Way, Henry Hiatt, and J. W. Gordon. With such women as these to declare the gospel of equality, and to enforce it with their pure faces, womanly graces, and noble lives, the people could not fail to give their sympathy, and to be convinced of the rightfulness of our cause. The two leading papers again did their best to make the movement ridiculous. The reporters gave glowing pen sketches of the "masculine women" and "feminine men"; they described the dress and appearance of the women very minutely but said little of the merits of the question, or the arguments of the speakers. Amanda Way was chosen President of the Society; Dr. Mary Thomas, Vice-President; Mary B. Birdsall, Secretary; Abbe Lindley, Treasurer.
The next annual meeting was held in Winchester, October 16 and 17, 1856. In her introductory remarks, the President referred to the great change that had taken place in five years. Women were now often seen on the platform making speeches on many questions, behind the counters as clerks, in the sick-room as physicians. The temperance organization of Good Templars, now spreading rapidly over the State, makes no distinction in its members; women as well as men serve on committees, hold office, and vote on all business matters. Emma B. Swank and Sarah E. Underhill were the principal speakers at this Convention. For logical argument and beauty of style, Miss Swank was said to have few equals. Dr. Mary Thomas was chosen President for the next year.
The annual meeting of 1857 was again held in Winchester, by an invitation from the citizens, and the Methodist Episcopal Church was tendered for their use. On taking the chair, the President, Dr. Mary F. Thomas, said:
Frances D. Gage, who was always a favorite speaker in Indiana, was again present, and scattered seeds of truth that have produced abundant fruit. On motion of Amanda Way, who said she believed it was time for us to begin to knock at the doors of the Legislature, a committee of three was appointed to prepare a form of petition to be circulated and presented to the next Legislature.
In 1858 the Convention again met in Richmond, Sarah Underhill, President. Adeline T. Swift and Anne D. Cridge, of Ohio, both excellent speakers, were present. The committee appointed to draft a form of petition, reported the following:
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Indiana:
Sarah Underhill, Emma Swank, Mary Birdsall, Agnes Cook, Dr. Mary F. Thomas, and Amanda Way were appointed to present said petition to the Legislature. The interest was so great, and the discussions so animated, for many new speakers from all parts of tie State had risen up, that the Convention continued through three days.
On the 19th of January, 1859, the petition was presented to the Legislature by Mary Birdsall, Agnes Cook, and Dr. Mary Thomas. An account of the proceedings was given in The Lily, a woman's rights paper, published and edited by Dr. Mary Thomas. The occasion of the presentation of petitions in person by a delegation of the Indiana Woman's Rights Association before the assembled Houses of the Legislature, drew an immense crowd long before the appointed hour. On the arrival of the Committee, they were escorted to the Speaker's stand. The President, J. R. Cravens, introduced them to their Representatives.
Mrs. Agnes Cook, in a few brief remarks, invited a serious and candid consideration of the intrinsic merits of the petition about to be presented, and the arguments of the petitioners.
Dr. Mary Thomas read the petition signed by over one thousand residents of Indiana, and urged the Legislature to pass laws giving equal property rights to married women, and to take the necessary steps to so amend the Constitution of the State as to secure to all women the right of suffrage. She claimed these rights on the ground of absolute justice, as well as the highest expediency, pointing out clearly the evils that flow from class legislation.
Mrs. Birdsall being introduced, read a clear, concise address, occupying about half an hour.
The following resolution, offered by Gen. Steele, was unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That the addresses just read be spread upon the Journal, and that copies be requested for publication in the city papers.
After the Senate adjourned, the Speaker called the House to order, and on the motion of Mr. Murray, it resolved itself into committee of the whole on the memorial just presented. On motion of Mr. Hamilton, the petition was made the special order for Friday, when it was referred to the Committee on "Rights and Privileges," who reported "that legislation on this subject is inexpedient at this time," which report was concurred in by the House.
The ninth annual meeting was held in Good Templars' Hall, Richmond, in October, 1859. It continued but one day, as the time was fully occupied in business plans for future work. Mary B. Birdsall was chosen President of the Association.
The intense excitement of the political campaign of 1860, and the civil war that followed, absorbed every other interest. The women who had so zealously worked for their own rights, were just as ready to help others. Some hastened to the hospitals; others labored in the sanitary movement. Others did double duty at home, tilling the ground and gathering in the harvests, that their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons might go forth to fight the battles of freedom. No conventions were held for ten years; but public sentiment had taken a long stride during those years of conflict, and when the pioneers of this reform, who had been accustomed to opposition and misrepresentation, again began the work, they were astonished to find themselves in a comparatively popular current.
We find the following letters from Henry C. Wright and Esther Ann Lukens, in The Liberator:
Dublin, Wayne Co., Indiana, Oct. 14, 1851.
Dear Garrison: — I am in a Woman's Rights Convention, the first ever held in this State, called by the women of Indiana to consider the true position of woman. An excellent but short address was made by the President, Hannah Hiatt, on the importance of the movement and the ruinous consequences of dividing the interests of men and women, and making their relations antagonistic in the State, the Church, and the affairs of every-day life. Much was said against woman's taking part in government. It would degrade her to vote and hold office, and destroy her influence as mother, wife, daughter, sister. It was an answer that if voting and holding office would degrade women, they would degrade men also; whatever is injurious to the moral nature, delicacy, and refinement of woman is equally so to man, Moral obligations rest equally on both sexes. Man should be as refined and chaste as woman if we would make our social life pure. Women may as well say to men, "Keep away from the ballot-box and from office, for it degrades you and unfits you to be our companions," as for man to say so to women. Dr. Curtis, a Methodist class-leader, said the Bible had placed the final appeal in all disputes in man; that if woman refused obedience, God gave man the right to use force. This "Christian teacher "was the only person in the Convention who appealed to the spirit of rowdyism, whose language was unbecoming the subject and the occasion. He was the only one who appealed to the Bible to justify the subjection of woman. And while he awarded to man the right to use force, he said the only influence the Bible authorized woman to use was moral suasion. Man is to rule woman by violence; woman must rule man by love, kindness, and long-suffering. So says the Bible according to the interpretation of the learned Dr. Curtis. The Convention lasted two days. It was a thrilling meeting.
Yours, Henry C, Wright.
New Garden, Ohio, Oct. 2, 1851.
Dear Friends: — When Goethe was asked if the world would be better if the Golden Age were restored, he answered, "A synod of good women shall decide."
Could his spirit look down upon us he would see those synods, of which he perhaps prophetically spoke, assembling all over the land, not to restore an age of semi-barbarism, but to hasten the advent of a new and far more golden era, when there will be no dangerous pilgrimage of years' duration to win. back the Holy Sepulchre, but a far more divine and sacred inheritance shall have been sought and found ; namely, freedom for woman to exercise every right, capacity, and power with which God has endowed her.
If there are any natural rights, then they belong to all by virtue of our humanity, and are not graduated by degrees of superiority. If the privilege of voting had been limited to those men who were strong in mind and morals, we should never have had a Governor's signature to "the black laws of Ohio."
It is perverse and cruel to raise the cry that we make war upon domestic life ; that we would destroy its natural order and attraction by allowing woman to mingle in the coarse and noisy scenes of political life. Is not the aid of man equally important in the family, and would his necessary duties in the home conflict with his duties as a citizen and a patriot ?
Man can not wrong and oppress woman without jeopardizing his own liberty. Cramped and crippled as she may be by inexorable law, she avenges herself, and decides his destiny. So long as woman is outlawed. man pays the penalty in ignorance, poverty, and suffering. Our interests are one, we rise or fall together.
Sisters of Indiana, accept my heartfelt sympathy in the work you have undertaken. It is well for the pioneers of a new country to call down God's blessing 0n their labors by an early claim to an equality of rights.
Yours, for justice to all,Esther Ayn Lukens.
Having never met the brave women who endured the first shower of ridicule in Indiana, we asked to be introduced to them in some brief pen-sketches, and in the following manner they present themselves :
REV. AMANDA M. WAY
In 1859, she was associated with Mrs. Underhill in editing The Ladies' Tribune, and has since been connected with the press much of the time. During the Rebellion, her time and thoughts were given to active labors in the hospitals and the sanitary movement. Many a soldier returned to his home who would have died but for her care. In company with Mrs. Swank she presented a memorial to the Legislature in 1871, asking the elective franchise for women, and made a very effective speech on the occasion.
Her home-life has been equally active and faithful; a widowed mother and a sister's orphaned children, have been her special care, depending on her for support. Once, when asked why she never married, she laughingly replied, "I never had time.":
She has been a consistent member of the Methodist Church twenty years, and ten years ago, unsolicited by herself, she was licensed as a minister by the Winchester Quarterly Conference, Rev. Milton Mahin, Presiding' Elder. In her travels over the State she preaches almost every Sunday, being invited to fill many pulpits, both in Kansas and this State.
She is a calm, forcible, earnest speaker, and, though quiet and reserved in manner, she is genial and warm in her affections.
She is now fifty-two years old, and though her life has been a constant battle with wrongs, she has not become misanthropic nor despondent. Knowing that progress is the law of life, she has full faith that the moral world, though moving slowly, is still moving in the right direction.
HELEN Y. AUSTIN,
Corresponding Secretary of the State Suffrage Association for many years, a position for which she was eminently fitted, being gifted as a writer. Having had a liberal education, and great enthusiasm in our cause, her labors have been valuable and effective. She is a correspondent for several journals and periodicals, is very active in "The State Horticultural Society," and takes a deep interest in all the progressive movements of the day.
LOUISE V. BOYD.
Mrs. Boyd is a lady of fine poetical genius and superior literary attainments. She has been an earnest advocate of woman suffrage for many years, and is herself a living argument of woman's ability to use the rights she asks.
In 1871 she read a very able essay on the "Women of the Bible," before the State Association of the Christian Church. It was the first time a woman's voice had been heard in that religious body. The success of her effort on that occasion opened the way for other women. Mrs. Boyd and her husband (Dr. S. S. Boyd, who is also a zealous friend of our cause), have both been officers of the State W. S. Association for many years, taking an active part in all our Conventions.
REV. MARY T. CLARK.
Mrs. Clark has been an acceptable lecturer and preacher for many years in different parts of the State. She was early a recognized minister among the Congregational Quakers. More recently she has been ordained in the Universalist Church, and enjoys equal rights and honors with the clergymen of that denomination. She is a woman of education and culture, and of English parentage.
EMMA B. SWANK.
Mrs. Swank is one of the most pleasing speakers of Indiana. She is a graduate of Antioch, and while yet in college she gained quite a reputation by her lecturing on Astronomy. She spent several years lecturing to classes of women on Physiology, Anatomy, and Hygiene. Of late, she has devoted herself to Woman Suffrage and Temperance. She served as president of the State Society one year before the war and one since, and has always done good service to the cause of woman with both pen and tongue.
SARAH E, UNDERHILL.
Mrs. Underhill was first known in Indiana as the editor and proprietor of the Ladies' Tribune at Indianapolis in 1857. She associated with her Amanda Way as office editor, that she might devote her entire time to lecturing. Though she remained in the State but three years, she was widely and favorably known as an earnest and effective speaker on Woman Suffrage and Temperance. When the war began, she was among the first to go to the sick and wounded soldiers. A brief account of her work in the hospitals will be found in the "Women of the War."
JANE MORROW.
Miss Morrow was a pioneer in our movement; attended the Second Convention in 1852. She was not a speaker, but a practical business woman, owning and successfully carrying on a dry-goods store in Richmond for many years. By precept and example, she taught the doctrine of woman's independence and self-reliance. She was a kind, genial, sunny-hearted woman, who made all about her bright and happy, though she was what the world calls an "old maid." In 1867, she died suddenly, without a moment's warning or parting word; but "Aunt Jane," as she was familiarly called, will long be remembered in her native town.
MARY B. BIRDSALL
was secretary of the Convention of 1852, and held that position for three years. She purchased The Lily, a Woman's Rights paper, of Amelia Bloomer, in 1835, and published it for three years. Her home is in Richmond.
MARY ROBINSON OWEN.
Mrs. Owen, wife of Robert Dale Owen, was not known to the public until after the war. It is said, however, that she suggested and helped prepare the amendments to the laws with reference to woman's property rights, that her husband carried through our Legislature. She had a strong, clear intellect, and her lectures were more argumentative and pointed than rhetorical and finished. She sympathized with and aided her husband in all his reformatory movements, and was his equal in mental power. She was one of the vice-presidents of our Indiana State Woman Suffrage Association at the time of her death, 1871.
MARY F. THOMAS.
Mary F. Thomas, M.D., was born October 28, 1816, in Montgomery County, Maryland. Her parents, Samuel and Mary Myers, were members of the Society of Friends, and resided in their early days in Berks and Chester Counties, in Pennsylvania. Her father was the associate of Benjamin Lundy, in organizing and attending the first anti-slavery meeting held in Washington, at the risk of their lives.
Desiring to place his family beyond the evil influences of slavery, he moved to Columbiana County, Ohio. He purchased a farm there; his daughters assisted him in his outdoor labors in the summer, and studied under his instructions in the winter. While in Washington he frequently took his daughters to the capitol to listen to the debates, which gave them interest in political questions. Mary was early roused to the consideration of woman's wrongs by the unequal wages paid to teachers of her own sex. In 1845 she was much moved in listening to the preaching of Lucretia Mott at a yearly meeting in Salem, Ohio, and resolved that her best efforts should be given to secure justice for woman,
In 1839 she was married to Dr. Owen Thomas. She has three daughters, all well educated, self-reliant women. Her youngest daughter, a graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, took the Greek prize in the intercollegiate contest in 1874. As Mrs. Thomas' husband was a physician, she studied medicine with him, and graduated at the Penn Medical College of Philadelphia in 1854, She was the first woman to take her place in the State Medical Association as a regularly admitted delegate. She is a member of the Wayne County Medical Association; has been physician for "The Home for Friendless Women" in the city of Richmond for nine years, and has filled the office of City Physician by the appointment of the Commissioners for several years.
Though deeply interested in the woman suffrage reform, owing to her domestic vares and medical studies she could not attend any public meetings until 1857; since that time she has been one of the most responsible standard-bearers, and for several years President of the State Association.
Mrs. Thomas was always a conscientious abolitionist; the poor fugitive from bondage did not knock at her door in vain. The temperance reform, too, has had her warm sympathy and the benefit of her pure example. She is a member of the Grand Lodge of Good Templars, and has held important offices in that Order, having been a faithful disciple in spreading the gospel of temperance over forty years, always a member of some organization.
During the war of the rebellion she gave herself in every way that was open to woman to the loyal service of her country. As assistant physician in hospitals, looking after the sick and wounded, and in sanitary work at home, she manifested as much patriotism as any man did on the battle-field. After her long experience, she comes to the conclusion, that with the ballot in her own hand, with the power to coin her will into law, a woman might do a far more effective work in preventing human misery and crime, than she ever can accomplish by indirect influence, in merely mitigating the evils man perpetuates by law. (From the Liberator of May, 1856).
RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN WISCONSIN.
The minority of the Committee on Expiration and Re-enactment of Laws, beg leave to report:
The theory of our government, proclaimed some eighty years since, these petitioners ask may be reduced to practice. The undersigned is aware that the opinion has been announced from a high place and high source, that this theory is, in the instrument which contains it, a mere rhetorical flourish, admirable to fill a sentence and round a period, but otherwise useless and meaningless; that so far from all mankind being born free and equal, it is those only who have rights that are entitled to them; those yet out of the pale of that fortunate condition being intended by Providence always to be and remain there. But notwithstanding this opinion has the weight of high authority, and notwithstanding the practice of the American people has thus far been in strict accordance with such opinion, the undersigned believes the theory proclaimed is not simply a rhetorical flourish, nor meaningless, but that it means just what it says; that it is true, and being true, is susceptible of an application as broad as the truth proclaimed.
All humankind, says the theory, are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Other governments proclaim the divine right of kings, and assume that man is the mere creature of the government, deriving all his rights from its concessions, and forever subject to all its impositions, while this government (or at least its theory) elevates all men to an equality with kings, brings every man face to face with the author of his being and the arbiter of his destiny, deriving his rights from that source alone; and makes government his creature instead of his master, instituted by him solely for the better protection and application of his God-given rights. It is important to keep in mind this theory of our government and its difference with the theories of all other governments. Endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, it Says, because those rights are necessary to correct relations between each individual of humanity and his Creator. Herein is the whole merit of the American theory of government, and of its practice too, so far as that practice has gone. It is a grand theory, opening as it does to every human being the boundless plains of progress which stretch out to the foot of the eternal throne, and implying as it does such noble powers in humanity, and such noble conditions and uses for those powers. Its effect upon those who have enjoyed the benefit of its application has been in harmony with its own exalted character, Though but 4 day old, as it were, in the history of nations, the United States, in a great Many respects, outstrip all other nations of the earth, and are inferior in few or no particulars to any. The mass of her people are conceded to be the most intelligent people of the world, and manifest, individually and collectively, the fruits of superior intelligence. It will not be denied that our theory of government, viewing as it does every man as a sovereign, opening up to every man all the distinctions, all the honors, and all the wealth which man is capable of desiring, appreciating, or grasping, exercises a powerful, indeed a controlling influence in making our people what they are, and our nation what it is.
These petitions ask only that these rights, enjoyed by one portion of the American people, may be extended to embrace the whole, not less for the abstract but all-sufficient reason, that they have been given to the whole by the Creator, than that by their application to the whole, the more general will be the benefits experienced; and the deeper, broader, more prevailing and more enduring will become those benefits. Manifestly, such must be the case; for as these rights belong to humanity, and produce their exalted and beneficial fruits by their application to and upon humanity, it follows that, wherever humanity is, there they belong, and there they will work out their beneficial results. To exclude woman from the possession of equal political rights with man, it should be shown that she is essentially a different being; that the Creator of man is not her Creator; that she has not the same evil to shun, the same heaven to gain; in short, the same grand, immortal destiny which is supposed to invite to high uses the capacity of man, does not pertain to nor invite her. We say this must be shown; and if it can not be, as certainly it can not, then it follows that to withhold these rights, so beneficial to one portion, is to work an immediate and particular injury to those from whom they are withheld, and, although a more indirect, not a less certain injury to all. Man-masculine is not endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights because he is male, but because he is human; and when, in virtue of our strong and superior physical capacity, we deny to man-feminine the rights which are ours only in virtue of our humanity, we exercise the same indefensible tyranny against which we felt justified in taking up arms, and perilling life and fortune.
The argument against conceding these rights all are familiar with. They are precisely the same which have been in the mouths of tyrants from the beginning of time, and have been urged against any and every demand for popular liberty. A want of capacity for self-government — freedom will be only licentiousness — and out of the possession of rights will grow only the practice of follies and wrongs. This is the argument, in brief, applied t+ every step of gradual emancipation on the part of the male, and now by him applied to the female struggling to reach the common platform. Should the American male, in the van of human progress, as the result of this theory of a capacity for self-government, turn round and ignore this divinity, this capacity in another branch of the human family? The theory has worked only good in its application thus far, and it is a most unreasonable, a most unwarrantable distrust to expect it to produce mischief when applied to others in all respects mentally and morally the equals of those who now enjoy it. It neither can nor will do 80; but, necessarily, the broader and more universal its application, the broader and more universal its benefits.
The possession of political rights by woman does not necessarily imply that she must or will enter into the practical conduct of all the institutions, proper and improper, now established and maintained by the male portion of the race. These institutions may be right and necessary, or they may not, and the nature of woman may or may not be in harmony with them. It is not proposed to enact a law compelling woman to do certain things, but it is proposed simply to place her side by side with man on a common platform of rights, confident that, in that position, she will not outrage the "higher law" of her nature by descending to a participation in faults, follies, or crimes, for which she has no constitutional predilections. The association of woman with man, in the various relations of life in which such association is permitted, from the first unclosing of his eyes in the imbecility of infancy, till they close finally upon al? things earthly, is conceded to be highly beneficial. Indeed, we think it will be found, on scrutiny, that it is only those institutions of society in which women have no part, and from which they are entirely excluded, which are radically wrong, and need either thorough renovation or entire abrogation. And if we have any duties so essentially degrading, or any institution so essentially impure. as to be beyond the renovating influence which woman can bring to bear on them, beyond question they should be abrogated without delay — a result Which woman's connection with them would speedily bring about.
Who dares say, then, that such association would not be equally beneficial, if in every sphere of activity opened to man, woman could enter with him and be at his side? Are our politics, in their practice, so exalted, so dignified, so pure, that we need no new associations, no purer and healthier influences, than now connected with them? Is our Government just what we would have it; are our rulers just what we would have them; in short, have we arrived at that happy summit where perfection in these respects is found? Not so. On the contrary, there is an universal prayer throughout the length and breadth of the land, for reform in these respects; and where, let us ask, could we reasonably look for a more powerful agent to effect this reform, than in the renovating influences of woman? That which has done so much for the fireside and social life generally, neither can nor will lose its potent, beneficial effect when brought to bear upon other relations of life.
To talk of confining woman to her proper sphere by legal disabilities, is an insult to the divinity of her nature, implying, as it does, the absence of instinctive Virtue, modesty, and sense on her part. It makes her the creature of law — of our law — from which she is assumed to derive her ability to keep the path of rectitude, and the withdrawal of which would leave her to sink to the depths of folly and vice. Do we really think so badly of our mothers, wives, sister-, daughters? Is it really we only of the race who are instinctively and innately 80 sensible, so modest, so virtuous, as to be qualified, not only to take care of ourselves, but to dispense all these exalted qualities to the weaker, and, as we assume, inferior half of the race? If it be so, it may be doubted whether Heaven's last gift was its best. Kings, emperors, and dictators confine their subjects, by the interposition of law, to what they consider their proper spheres; and there is certainly as much propriety in it as in the dictation, by one sex, of the sphere of a different sex. In the assumption of our strength, We say woman rust not have equal rights with us, because she has a different nature. If so, by what occult power do we understand that different nature to dictate by metes and bounds its wants and spheres? Fair play is a Yankee characteristic; and we submit, if but one-half of the race can have rights at a time because of their different natures, whether it is not about time the proscribed half had its chance in, to assume the reins of Government, and dictate Our sphere. It is no great compliment to that part of the race to venture the opinion, that the country would be full as well governed as it now is, and our sphere would be bounded with quite as much liberality as now is theirs.
Let every human being occupy a common platform of political rights, and all will irresistibly gravitate exactly to their proper place and sphere, without discord, and with none but the most beneficial results. In this way human energy and capacity will be fully economized and expended for the highest interest of all humanity; and this result is only to be obtained by opening to all, without restriction, common spheres of activity.
Woman has all the interests on earth that man has — she has all the interest in the future that man has. Man has rights only in virtue of his relations to earth and heaven; and woman, whose relations are the same, has the same rights. The possession of her rights, on the part of woman, will interfere no more with the duties of life, than their possession by man interferes with his duties; and as man is presumed to become a better man in all respects by the possession of his rights, such must be the inevitable effect of their possession upon woman,
The history of the race, thus far, has been a history of tyranny by the strong over the weak. Might, not right, has been as yet the fundamental practice of all governments; and under this order of things, woman, physically weak, from a slave, beaten, bought, and sold in the market, has but become, in the more civilized and favored portions of the earth, the toy of wealth and the drudge of poverty. But we now have at least a new and different theory of government; and as the aspiration of one age is sure to be the code of the next, and practice is sure at some time to overtake theory, we have reason to expect that principle will take the place of mere brute force, and the truth will be fully realized,
"That men and women have one glory and one shame;
Everything that's done inhuman injures all of us the same."
Never, till woman stands side by side with man, his equal in the eye of the Jaw as well as the Creator, will the high destiny of the race be accomplished. She is the mother of the race, and every stain of littleness or inferiority cast upon her by our institutions will soil the offspring she sends into the world, and clip and curtail to that extent his fair proportions. If we would abrogate that littleness of her character which finds a delight in the gewgaws of fashion, and an enjoyment in the narrow sphere of gossipping, social life, or tea-table scandal. so long the ridicule of our sex; open to her new and more ennobling fields of activity and thought — fields, the exploration of which has filled the American males with great thoughts, and made them the foremost people of the world, and which will place the American females on their level, and make them truly helps meet for them. When we can add to the men of America a race of women educated side by side with them, and enjoying equal advantages with them in all respects, we may expect an offspring of giants in the comprehension and application of the great truths which involve human rights and human happiness.
These petitions ask that the necessary steps may be taken to strike from the Constitution the legal distinction of sex. Your Committee is in favor of the prayer of the petitions; but, under the most favorable circumstances, that is a result which could not be attained in less than two years, In all probability, it will not be longer than that before the Constitution will come up directly for revision, which will be a proper, appropriate, and favorable time to press the question,
Your Committee, therefore, introduces no bill, and recommends no action at present.
All of which is respectfully submitted.C. L. Sholes.This able report was the result, in a great measure, of the agitation started by Mrs. Nichols and Mrs. Fowler in 1853, and by Lucy Stone's lecturing tour in 1855, thus proving that no true words or brave deeds are ever lost. The experiences of these noble pioneers in their first visits to Wisconsin, though in many respects trying and Hi-aging, brought their own rich rewards, not only in higher individual development, but in an improved public opinion and more liberal legislation in regard to the rights of women in that State.