The History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 13

In her opening remarks, Mrs. Gage said: It is with fear and trembling that I take up the duties of presiding over your deliberations: not fear and trembling for the cause, but lest I should not have the capacity and strength to do all the position requires of me. She then gave a review of what had been accomplished since the first Convention was held in Seneca Falls, N. Y., July 19, 1848, and closed by saying: I hope our discussions will be a little more extensive than the call would seem to warrant, which indicates simply our right to the political franchise.

To which, Mrs. Mott replied: I would state that the limitation of the discussions was not antic.i.p.ated at the last Convention. The issuing of the call was left to the Central Committee, but it was not supposed that they would specify any particular part of the labor of the Convention, but that the broad ground of the presentation of the wrongs of woman, the a.s.sertion of her rights, and the encouragement to perseverance in individual and combined action, and the restoration of those rights, should be taken.

After which, Mrs. Gage added: I would remark once for all, to the Convention, that there is perfect liberty given here to speak upon the subject under discussion, both for and against; and that we urge all to do so. If there are any who have objections, we wish to hear them. If arguments are presented which convince us that we are doing wrong, we wish to act upon them. I extremely regret that while we have held convention after convention, where the same liberty has been given, no one has had a word to say against us at the time, but that some have reserved their hard words of opposition to our movement, only to go away and vent them through the newspapers, amounting, frequently, to gross misrepresentation. I hope every one here will remember, with deep seriousness, that the same Almighty finger which traced upon the tablets of stone the commands, "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal," traced also these words, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

The other officers of the Convention were then elected, as follows:

_Vice-Presidents_--Antoinette L. Brown, New York; Lucretia Mott, Pennsylvania; Caroline M. Severance, Ohio; Joseph Barker, Ohio; Emily Robinson, Ohio; Mary B. Birdsall, Indiana; Sibyl Lawrence, Michigan; Charles P. Wood, New York; Amy Post, New York.

_Secretaries_--Martha C. Wright, New York; Caroline Stanton, Ohio; H. B. Blackwell, Ohio.

_Treasurer_--T. C. Severance, Ohio.

_Business Committee_--Ernestine L. Rose, New York; James Mott, Pennsylvania; Lucy Stone, Ma.s.sachusetts; Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Ma.s.s.; Abby Kelly Foster, Ma.s.s.; Mary T. Corner, Ohio; C. C.

Burleigh, Connecticut; Martha J. Tilden, Ohio; John O. Wattles, Indiana.

_Finance Committee_--Susan B. Anthony, Rochester; Phebe H.

Merritt, Michigan; H. M. Addison, Ohio; Hettie Little, Ohio; E.

P. Heaton, Ohio.

Letters were read from distinguished people. Notably the following from Horace Greeley:

NEW YORK, _Oct. 2, 1853_.

DEAR MADAM:--I have received yours of the 26th, this moment. I do not see that my presence in Cleveland could be of any service.

The question to be considered concerns princ.i.p.ally woman, and women should mostly consider it. I recognize most thoroughly the right of woman to choose her own sphere of activity and usefulness, and to evoke its proper limitations. If she sees fit to navigate vessels, print newspapers, frame laws, select rulers--any or all of these--I know no principle that justifies man in interposing any impediment to her doing so. The only argument ent.i.tled to any weight against the fullest concession of the rights you demand, rests in the a.s.sumption that woman does not claim any such rights, but chooses to be ruled, guided, impelled, and have her sphere prescribed for her by man.

I think the present state of our laws respecting property and inheritance, as respects married women, show very clearly that woman ought not to be satisfied with her present position; yet it may be that she is so. If all those who have never given this matter a serious thought are to be considered on the side of conservatism, of course that side must preponderate. Be this as it may, woman alone can, in the present state of the controversy, speak effectively for woman, since none others can speak with authority, or from the depths of a personal experience.

Hoping that your Convention may result in the opening of many eyes, and the elevation of many minds from light to graver themes,

I remain yours, HORACE GREELEY.

MRS. C. M. SEVERANCE, Cleveland, Ohio.

And here let us pay our tribute of grat.i.tude to Horace Greeley. In those early days when he, as editor of the _New York Tribune_, was one of the most popular men in the nation, his word almost law to the people, his journal was ever true to woman. No ridicule of our cause, no sneers at its advocates, found a place in _The Tribune_; but more than once, he gave columns to the proceedings of our conventions.

To this letter, Henry B. Blackwell, brother of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, and the future husband of Lucy Stone, pertinently replied, saying:

It is suggested that woman's cause should be advocated by women only. The writer of that letter is a true friend of this reform, and yet I feel that I owe you no apology for standing on this platform. But if I do, this is sufficient, that I am the son of a woman, and the brother of a woman. I know that this is their cause, but I feel that it is mine also. Their happiness is my happiness, their misery my misery.

The interests of the s.e.xes are inseparably connected, and in the elevation of one lies the salvation of the other. Therefore I claim a part in the last and grandest movement of the ages; for whatever concerns woman concerns the race. In every human enterprise the s.e.xes should go hand in hand. Experience sanctions the statement. I know of but few movements in history, which have gone on successfully without the aid of woman. One of these is war--the work of human slaughter. Another has been the digging of gold in California. I have yet to learn what advantages the world has derived from either. Whenever the s.e.xes have been severed in politics, in business, in religion, the result has been demoralization.

Mr. Blackwell spoke with great eloquence for nearly an hour, advocating the political, civil, and moral equality of woman. He showed the power of the ballot in combating unjust laws, opening college doors, securing equal pay for equal work, dignifying the marriage relation, by making woman an equal partner, not a subject. He paid a glowing eulogy to Mary Wollstonecroft. He said:

We need higher ideas of marriage. There is scarcely a young man here who does not hope to be a husband and a father; nor a young woman who does not expect to be a wife and a mother. But who does not revolt at the idea of perpetuating a race inferior to ourselves? For myself I could not desire a degenerate family. I would not wish for a race which would not be head and shoulders above what I had been. Let me say to men, select women worthy to be wives. The world is overstocked with these mis-begotten children of undeveloped mothers. No man who has ever seen the symmetrical character of a true woman, can be happy in a union with such. Ladies! the day is coming when men who have seen more well-developed women, will scorn the present standard of female character. Will you not teach them to do so? You may have to sacrifice much, but you will be repaid. This history of the world is rich with glorious examples. Mary Wollstonecroft, the writer of that brave book, "The Rights of Woman," published two generations ago, dared to be true to her convictions of duty in spite of the prejudices of the world. What was the result? She attained a n.o.ble character. She found in G.o.dwin a nature worthy of her own, and left a child who became the wife and worthy biographer of the great poet Sh.e.l.ley. Let us imitate that child of glorious parents--parents who dared to make all their relations compatible with absolute right, to give all their powers the highest development.

People say a married woman can not have ulterior objects; that her position is incompatible with a high intellectual culture; that her thoughts and sympathies must be restricted to the four walls of her dwelling. Why, if I were a woman (I speak only as a man) and believed this popular doctrine, that she who is a wife and a mother, being that, must be nothing more, but must cramp her thoughts into the narrow circle of her own home, and indulge no grander aspirations for universal interests--believing that, I would forswear marriage. I would withdraw myself from human society, and go out into the forest and the prairie to live out my own true life in the communion and sympathy of my G.o.d. So far as I was concerned, the race might become worthily extinct--it should never be unworthily perpetuated. I could do no otherwise.

For we are not made merely to eat and drink, and give children to the world. We are placed here upon the threshold of an immortal life. We are but the chrysalis of the future. If immortality means anything, it means unceasing progress for individuals and for the race.

Mr. Blackwell complimented those women who were just inaugurating a movement for a new costume, promising greater freedom and health. He thought the sneers and ridicule so unsparingly showered on the "Bloomers," might with more common sense be turned on the "tight waists, paper shoes, and trailing skirts of the fashionable cla.s.ses."

The facts of history may as well be stated here in regard to the "Bloomer" costume. Mrs. Bloomer was among the first to wear the dress, and stoutly advocated its adoption in her paper, _The Lily_, published at Seneca Falls, N. Y. But it was introduced by Elizabeth Smith Miller, the daughter of the great philanthropist, Gerrit Smith, in 1850. She wore it for many years, even in the most fashionable circles of Washington during her father's term in Congress. Lucy Stone, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Stanton, also wore it a few years. But it invoked so much ridicule, that they feared the odium attached to the dress might injure the suffrage movement, of which they were prominent representatives. Hence a stronger love for woman's political freedom, than for their own personal comfort, compelled them to lay it aside.

The experiment, however, was not without its good results. The dress was adopted for skating and gymnastic exercises, in seminaries and sanitariums. At Dr. James C. Jackson's, in Dansville, N. Y., it is still worn. Many farmers' wives, too, are enjoying its freedom in their rural homes.

Mrs. Bloomer, editor of _The Lily_, at Seneca Falls, New York, was introduced at the close of Mr. Blackwell's remarks, and read a well-prepared digest of the laws for married women.

Reporting one of the sessions, the _Plain Dealer_ said:

Mrs. Gage, ever prompt in her place, called the Convention to order at the usual hour. The Melodean at this time contained 1,500 people. We think the women may congratulate themselves on having most emphatically "made a hit" in the forest city.

Of the _personnel_ of the Convention, it says:

Mrs. Mott is matronly-looking, wearing the Quaker dress, and apparently a good-natured woman. Her face does not indicate her character as a fiery and enthusiastic advocate of reform. Mrs.

Gage is not a handsome woman, but her appearance altogether is prepossessing. You can see genius in her eye. She presided with grace at all the sessions of the Convention. The house was thronged with intelligent audiences. The President frequently contrasted the order, decorum, and kindness of the Cleveland audiences, with the noisy and tumultuous demonstrations which recently disgraced the city of New York, at the Convention held there.

Hon. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, on being called to the stand, remarked:

That he was present to express, and happy of the opportunity to express, his sincere interest in the cause, and regard for the actors in this movement; but that on almost any other occasion he could speak with less embarra.s.sment than here, with such advocates before him; and as he had not come prepared to address the Convention, declined occupying its time longer.

In reading over the debates of these early Conventions, we find the speakers dwelling much more on the wrongs in the Church and the Home, than in the State. But few of the women saw clearly, and felt deeply that the one cause of their social and religious degradation was their disfranchis.e.m.e.nt, hence the discussions often turned on the surface-wrongs of society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCES D. GAGE (with autograph).]

Many of the friends present thought the Convention should issue an original Declaration of Rights, as nothing had been adopted as yet, except the parody on the Fathers' of' 76. Although that, and the one William Henry Channing prepared, were both before the Convention, it adjourned without taking action on either.

As so many of these n.o.ble leaders in the anti-slavery ranks have pa.s.sed away, we give in this chapter large s.p.a.ce to their brave words.

Also to the treatment of Miss Brown, in the World's Temperance Convention, for its exceptional injustice and rudeness.

Miss Brown read a letter from William H. Channing, in which he embodied his ideas of a Declaration. Lucy Stone also read a very able letter from Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Both of these letters contain valuable suggestions for the adoption of practical measures for bringing the wrongs of woman to the notice of the world.

MR. CHANNING'S LETTER.

ROCHESTER, N. Y., _Oct. 3, 1853_.

_To the President and Members of the Woman's Rights Convention:_

As I am prevented, to my deep regret, from being present at the Convention, let me suggest in writing what I should prefer to speak. First, however, I would once again avow that I am with you heart, mind, soul, and strength for the Equal Rights of Women.

This great reform will prove to be, I am well a.s.sured, the salvation and glory of this Republic, and of all Christian and civilized States:

"And if at once we may not Declare the greatness of the work we plan, Be sure at least that ever in our eyes It stands complete before us as a dome Of light beyond this gloom--a house of stars Encompa.s.sing these dusky tents--a thing Near as our hearts, and perfect as the heavens.

Be this our aim and model, and our hands Shall not wax faint, until the work is done."

The Woman's Rights Conventions, which, since 1848, have been so frequently held in New York, Ohio, Ma.s.sachusetts, Pennsylvania, etc., have aroused respectful attention, and secured earnest sympathy, throughout the United States. It becomes the advocates of the Equal Rights of Women, then, to take advantage of this wide-spread interest and to press the Reform, at once, onward to practical results.

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.