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History of Woman Suffrage.
on the parallel between the slave code and the laws for married women.
Mehitable Haskell, of Gloucester, said:
Perhaps, my friends, I ought to apologize for standing here. Perhaps I attach too much importance to my own age. This meeting, as I understand it, was called to discuss Woman's Rights. Well, I do not pretend to know exactly what woman's rights are; but I do know that I have groaned for forty years, yea, for fifty years, under a sense of woman's wrongs. I know that even when a girl, I groaned under the idea that I could not receive as much instruction as my brothers could. I wanted to be what I felt I was capable of becoming, but opportunity was denied me. I rejoice in the progress that has been made. I rejoice that so many women are here; it denotes that they are waking up to some sense of their situation. One of my sisters observed that she had received great, kindness as a wife, mother, sister, and daughter. I, too, have brethren in various directions, both those that are natural, and those that are spiritual brethren, as I understand the matter; and I rejoice to say I have found, I say it to the honor of my brothers, I have found more men than women, who were impressed with the wrongs under which our sex labor, and felt the need of reformation. I rejoice in this fact.
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:
I lately saw a book wherein the author in a very eloquent, but highly wrought sentence, speaks of woman as "the connecting link between man and heaven." I think this asks too much, and I deny the right of woman to assume such a prerogative; all I claim is that woman should be raised by noble aspiration to the loftiest moral elevation, and thus be fitted to train men up to become worthy companions for the pure, highminded beings which all women should strive to be. A great duty rests on woman, and it becomes you not to lose a moment in securing for yourselves every right and privilege, whereby you may be elevated and so prepared to exert the influence which man so much needs. Women fall far short now of exerting the moral influence intrusted to them as mothers and wives, consequently men are imperfectly developed in their higher nature.
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