Crowding a Woman off the Platform.
507
most of the allotted time for the convention over what class of persons could be admitted. In summing up the proceedings of these meetings
Horace Greeley says, in the Tribune, September 7, 1853: "This convention has completed three of its four business sessions, and the results may be summed up as follows:
"First Day — Crowding a woman off the platform.
"Second Day — Gagging her.
"Third Day — Voting that she shall stay gagged. Having thus disposed of the main question, we presume the incidentals will be finished this morning."Antoinette Brown was asked why she went to that Convention, knowing, as she must, that she would be rejected.
"I went there," she said, "to assert a principle — a principle relevant to the circumstances of that convention, and one which would promote all good causes and retard all bad ones. I went there, as an item of the world, to contend that the sons and daughters of the race, without distinction of sex, sect, class or color, should be recognized as belonging to the world, and I planted my feet upon the simple rights of a delegate. I asked no favor as a woman, or in behalf of woman; no favor as a woman advocating temperance; no recognition of the cause of woman above the cause of humanity; the indorsement of no 'ism' and of no measure; but I claimed, in the name of the world, the rights of a delegate in a world's convention.
"Is it asked, Why did you make that issue at that time? I answer, I have made it at all times and in all places, whenever and wherever Providence has given me the opportunity, and in whatever way it could be made to appear most prominent. Last spring, when woman claimed the supremacy — the right to hold all the offices in the Woman's State Temperance Society — I contended,
"from this platform, for the equality of man; the equal rights of all the members of this society. I have claimed everywhere the equality of humanity in Church and in State; God helping me, I here pledge myself anew to Him, and to you all, to be true everywhere to the central principle — the soul of the Divine commandment, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' The temperance cause was not injured by our course at that Convention. We went there with thoughtful hearts. Said Wendell Phillips: 'Take courage, and remember that whether you are received or rejected, you are going to: make the most effectual speech for temperance, for woman, and humanity that you have ever made in your life.' 'God bless you,' were the fervent words of Mr. Channing, in a moment when there was most need of Divine assistance; and when I stood on the platform for an hour and a half, waiting to be heard, I could read in the faces of men such as these, and in the faces, too, of our opposers, the calm assurance, 'You are making the most effectual speech for temperance, for woman, and humanity, that you have ever made in your life.' I believed it then; I believe it now." [1]
- ↑ See page 152 — Cleveland Convention — for the full description of this mob by Miss Brown herself.
