ergy ; 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.
