History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 14

Among other timely measures, these have occurred to me as promising to be effective:

I. There should be prepared, printed, and widely circulated, A DECLARATION OF WOMAN'S RIGHTS.

This Declaration should distinctly announce the inalienable rights of women:

1st. As human beings,--irrespective of the distinction of s.e.x--actively to co-operate in all movements for the elevation of mankind.

2d. As rational, moral, and responsible agents, freely to think, speak, and do, what truth and duty dictate, and to be the ultimate judges of their own sphere of action.

3d. As women, to exert in private and in public, throughout the whole range of Social Relations, that special influence which G.o.d a.s.signs as their appropriate function, in endowing them with feminine attributes.

4th. As members of the body politic, needing the protection, liable to the penalties, and subject to the operation of the laws, to take their fair part in legislation and administration, and in appointing the makers and administrators of the laws.

5th. As const.i.tuting one-half of the people of these free and United States, and as nominally, free women, to possess and use the power of voting, now monopolized by that other half of the people, the free men.

6th. As property holders, numbered and registered in every census, and liable to the imposition of town, county, state, and national taxes, either to be represented if taxed, or to be left untaxed if unrepresented, according to the established precedent of No taxation without representation.

7th. As producers of wealth to be freed from all restrictions on their industry; to be remunerated according to the work done, and not the s.e.x of the workers, and whether married or single, to be secured in the ownership of their gains, and the use and distribution of their property.

8th. As intelligent persons, to have ready access to the best means of culture, afforded by schools, colleges, professional inst.i.tutions, museums of science, galleries of art, libraries, and reading-rooms.

9th. As members of Christian churches and congregations, heirs of Heaven and children of G.o.d, to preach the truth, to administer the rites of baptism, communion, and marriage, to dispense charities, and in every way to quicken and refine the religious life of individuals and of society.

The mere announcement of these rights, is the strongest argument and appeal that can be made, in behalf of granting them. The claim to their free enjoyment is undeniably just. Plainly such rights are inalienable, and plainly too, woman is ent.i.tled to their possession equally with man. Our whole plan of government is a hypocritical farce, if one-half the people can be governed by the other half without their consent being asked or granted.

Conscience and common sense alike demand the equal rights of women. To the conscience and common sense of their fellow-citizens, let women appeal untiringly, until their just claims are acknowledged throughout the whole system of legislation, and in all the usages of society.

And this introduces the next suggestion I have to offer.

II. Forms of pet.i.tion should be drawn up and distributed for signatures, to be offered to the State Legislatures at their next sessions. These pet.i.tions should be directed to the following points:

1st. That the right of suffrage be granted to the people, universally, without distinction of s.e.x; and that the age for attaining legal and political majority, be made the same for women as for men.

2d. That all laws relative to the inheritance and ownership of property, to the division and administration of estates, and to the execution of Wills, be made equally applicable to women and men.

3d. That mothers be ent.i.tled, equally with fathers, to become guardians of their children.

4th. That confirmed and habitual drunkenness, of either husband or wife, be held as sufficient ground for divorce; and that the temperate partner be appointed legal guardian of the children.

5th. That women be exempted from taxation until their right of suffrage is practically acknowledged.

6th. That women equally with men be ent.i.tled to claim trial before a jury of their peers.

These pet.i.tions should be firm and uncompromising in tone; and a hearing should be demanded before Committees specially empowered to consider and report them. In my judgment, the time is not distant, when such pet.i.tions will be granted, and when justice, the simple justice they ask, will be cordially, joyfully rendered.

I call then for the publication of a Declaration of Woman's Rights, accompanied by Forms of Pet.i.tions, by the National Woman's Rights Convention at their present session. In good hope,

Your friend and brother, WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING.

Miss Brown remarked:

There is one of these demands, the fourth, which for myself, I should prefer to have amended thus--instead of the word "divorce," I would insert "legally separated." The letter otherwise meets my cordial and hearty approbation.

MR. HIGGINSON'S LETTER.

WORCESTER, _Sept. 15, 1853_.

DEAR FRIEND:--In writing to the New York Woman's Rights Convention, I mentioned some few points of argument which no opponents of this movement have ever attempted to meet. Suffer me, in addressing the Cleveland Convention, to pursue a different course, and mention some things which the friends of the cause have not yet attempted to do.

I am of a practical habit of mind, and have noticed with some regret that most of the friends of the cause have rested their hopes, thus far, chiefly upon abstract reasoning. This is doubtless of great importance, and these reasonings have already made many converts; because the argument is so entirely on one side that every one who really listens to it begins instantly to be convinced. The difficulty is, that the majority have not yet begun to listen to it, and this, in great measure, because their attention has not been called to the facts upon which it is founded.

Suppose, now, that an effort were made to develop the facts of woman's wrongs. For instance:

1st. We say that the laws of every State of this Union do great wrong to woman, married and single, as to her person and property, in her private and public relations. Why not procure a digest of the laws on these subjects, then; prepared carefully, arranged systematically, corrected up to the latest improvements, and accompanied by brief and judicious commentaries? No such work exists, except that by Mansfield, which is now obsolete, and in many respects defective.

2d. We complain of the great educational inequalities between the s.e.xes. Why not have a report, elaborate, statistical, and accurate, on the provision for female education, public and private, throughout the free States of this Union, at least? No such work now exists.

3d. We complain of the industrial disadvantages of women, and indicate at the same time, their capacities for a greater variety of pursuits. Why not obtain a statement, on as large a scale as possible, first, of what women are doing now, commercially and mechanically, throughout the Union (thus indicating their powers); and secondly, of the embarra.s.sments with which they meet, the inequality of their wages, and all the other peculiarities of their position, in these respects? An essay, in short, on the Business Employments and Interests of Women; such an essay as Mr. Hunt has expressed to me his willingness to publish in his Merchants' Magazine. No such essay now exists.

Each of these three doc.u.ments would be an a.r.s.enal of arms for the Woman's Rights advocate. A hundred dollars, appropriated to each of these, would more than repay itself in the increased subscriptions it would soon bring into the treasury of the cause.

That sum would, however, be hardly sufficient to repay even the expenses of correspondence and traveling necessary for the last two essays, or the legal knowledge necessary for the first.

If there is, however, known to the Convention at Cleveland any person qualified and ready to undertake either of the above duties for the above sum (no person should undertake more than one of the three investigations), I would urge you to make the appointment. It will require, however, an accurate, clear-headed, and industrious person, with plenty of time to bestow. Better not have it done at all, than not have it done thoroughly, carefully, and dispa.s.sionately. Let me say distinctly, that I can not be a candidate for either duty, in my own person, for want of time to do it in; though I think I could render some a.s.sistance, especially in preparing materials for the third essay. I would also gladly subscribe toward a fund for getting the work done.

Permit me, finally, to congratulate you on the valuable results of every Convention yet held to consider this question. I find the fact everywhere remarked, that so large a number of women of talent and character have suddenly come forward into a public sphere. This phenomenon distinguishes this reform from all others that have appeared in America, and ill.u.s.trates with new meaning the Greek myth of Minerva, born full-grown from the head of Jove.

And if (as some late facts indicate) this step forward only promotes the Woman's Rights movement from the sphere of contempt into the sphere of hostility and persecution--it is a step forward, none the less. And I would respectfully suggest to the n.o.ble women who are thus attacked, that they will only be the gainers by such opposition, unless it lead to dissensions or jealousies among themselves.

Yours cordially, THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.

MISS LUCY STONE.

LUCY STONE remarked: This letter, you see, proposes that we shall find some way, if possible, by which our complaints may be spread before the people. We find men and women in our conventions, earnest and thoughtful, who are not drawn by mere curiosity, but from a conscious want of just such a movement as this. They go away and carry to their villages and hamlets the ideas they have gathered here; and it is a cause for thankfulness to G.o.d that so many go away to repeat what they have heard. But we have wanted the doc.u.ments to scatter among the people, as the Tract Society scatters its sheets. And now Mr. Higginson proposes that we have these essays.

The President of Oberlin College, Rev. Asa Mahan, was present during all the sessions of the Convention, and took part in the debates. On the subject of the Seneca Falls Declaration, he said:

I can only judge of the effect of anything upon the public mind, by its effect upon my own. It has been suggested that that Declaration is a parody. Now you can not present a parody, without getting up a laugh; and wherever it goes, it will never be seriously considered. If a declaration is to be made, it should be one that will be seriously considered by the public. I would suggest that the Declaration of this Convention be entirely independent of the other.

I have a remark to make upon a sentiment advanced by Mrs. Rose. I have this objection to the Declaration upon which she commented.

It is a.s.serted there, that man has created a certain public sentiment, and it is brought as a charge against the male s.e.x.

Now I a.s.sert, that man never created that sentiment. I say it is a wrong state of society totally, when, if woman shall be degraded, a man committing the same offense shall not be degraded also. There is perfect agreement between us there. But, that Declaration charges that sentiment upon man. Now I a.s.sert that it is chargeable upon woman herself; and that as she was first in man's original transgression, she is first here.

Mrs. ROSE: I heartily agree that we are both in fault; and yet we are none in fault. I also said, that woman, on account of the position in which she has been placed, by being dependent upon man, by being made to look up to man, is the first to cast out her sister. I know it and deplore it; hence I wish to give her her rights, to secure her dependence upon herself. In regard to that sentiment in the Declaration, our friend said that woman created it. Is woman really the creator of the sentiment? The laws of a country create sentiments. Who make the laws? Does woman? Our law-makers give the popular ideas of morality.

Mr. BARKER: And the pulpit.

Mrs. ROSE: I ought to have thought of it: not only do the law-makers give woman her ideas of morality, but our pulpit preachers. I beg pardon--no, I do not either--for Antoinette L.

Brown is not a priest. Our priests have given us public sentiment called morals, and they have always made or recognized in daily life, distinctions between man and woman. Man, from the time of Adam to the present, has had utmost license, while woman must not commit the slightest degree of "impropriety," as it is termed.

Why, even to cut her skirts shorter than the fashion, is considered a moral delinquency, and stigmatized as such by more than one pulpit, directly or indirectly.