The History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 56

[88] Gerrit Smith's home was ever a charming resort for lovers of liberty as well as lovers of Eve's daughters. In his leisure hours my cousin had a turn for match-making, and his chief delight in this direction was to promote unions between good Abolitionists and the sons and daughters of conservative families. Here James G. Birney, among others, wooed and won his wife. Here one would meet the first families in the State, with Indians, Africans, slaveholders, religionists of all sects, and representatives of all shades of humanity, each cla.s.s alike welcomed and honored, feasting, feting, dancing--joining in all kinds of amus.e.m.e.nts and religious worship together (the Indians excepted, as they generally came for provisions, which, having secured, they departed). His house was one of the depots of the underground railroad. One day Mr. Smith summoned all the young girls then visiting there, saying he had a great secret to tell them if they would sacredly pledge themselves not to divulge it. Having done so, he led the way to the third story, ushered us into a large room, and there stood a beautiful quadroon girl to receive us.

"Harriet," said Mr. Smith, "I want you to make good Abolitionists of these girls by describing to them all you have suffered in slavery."

He then left the room, locking us in. Her narrative held us spell-bound until the lengthening shadows of the twilight hour made her departure safe for Canada. One remark she made impressed me deeply. I told her of the laws for women such as we then lived under, and remarked on the parallel condition of slaves and women. "Yes,"

said she, "but I am both. I am doubly d.a.m.ned in s.e.x and color. Yea, in cla.s.s too, for I am poor and ignorant; none of you can ever touch the depth of misery where I stand to-day." We had the satisfaction to see Harriet dressed in Quaker costume, closely veiled, drive off in the moonlight that evening, to find the liberty she could not enjoy in this Republic, under the shadow of a monarch's throne.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEW YORK.

First Steps in New York--Woman's Temperance Convention, Albany, January, 1852--New York Woman's State Temperance Society, Rochester, April, 1852--Women before the Legislature pleading for a Maine Law--Women rejected as Delegates to Men's State Conventions at Albany and Syracuse, 1852; at the Brick Church Meeting and World's Temperance Convention in New York, 1858--Horace Greeley defends the Rights of Women in _The York Tribune_--The Teachers' State Conventions--The Syracuse National Woman's Rights Convention, 1852--Mob in the Broadway Tabernacle Woman's Rights Convention through two days, 1853--State Woman's Rights Convention at Rochester, December, 1853--Albany Convention, February, 1854, and Hearing before the Legislature demanding the Right of Suffrage--A State Committee Appointed--Susan B. Anthony General Agent--Conventions at Saratoga Springs, 1854, '55, '59--Annual State Conventions with Legislative Hearings and Reports of Committees, until the War--Married Women's Property Law, 1860--Bill before the Legislature Granting Divorce for Drunkenness--Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed oppose it--Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Address the Legislature in favor of the Bill--Robert Dale Owen defends the Measure in _The New York Tribune_--National Woman's Rights Conventions in New York City, 1856, '58, '59, '60--Status of the Woman's Rights Movement at the Opening of the War, 1861.

A full report of the woman's rights agitation in the State of New York, would in a measure be the history of the movement. In this State, the preliminary battles in the anti-slavery, temperance, educational, and religious societies were fought; the first Governmental aid given to the higher education of woman, and her voice first heard in teachers' a.s.sociations. Here the first Woman's Rights Convention was held, the first demand made for suffrage, the first society formed for this purpose, and the first legislative efforts made to secure the civil and political rights of women; commanding the attention of leading members of the bar; of Savage, Spencer, Hertell, and Hurlbut. Here too the pulpit made the first demand for the political rights of woman. Here was the first temperance society formed by women, the first medical college opened to them, and woman first ordained for the ministry.

In 1850, in the city of Buffalo, 1,500 women pet.i.tioned the Common Council not to license the sale of intoxicating drinks; and the following year, they sent a pet.i.tion to the Legislature, signed by 2,200, asking for an act authorizing some official body to take into custody, and provide for the swarms of vagrant children, growing up in ignorance and vice. This may be considered the initiative step to a Board of Charities. In the same year, a number of spirited women in Fulton, Oswego Co., disgusted with the inefficient action of the temperance men, entered complaint against the liquor dealers, for the violation of the license laws, and some of them attended the trials in person. In 1851, the ladies of Cardiff, Onondaga Co., appeared before the Grand Jury, and made complaint against the liquor dealers and overseers of the poor, the one for violating the law, the other for neglecting to prosecute the violators on their complaint, and they succeeded in getting both indicted. In 1851, a pet.i.tion was sent from Ontario County, praying the Legislature to exempt women from taxation.

September 15, 1853, Antoinette L. Brown was ordained as pastor of a church in South Butler, and November 15, performed the ceremony at the marriage of a daughter of Rhoda de Garmo, of Rochester. In this year, at a large Convention of liberal people, to promote Christian Union, held in Syracuse, she made an address. All denominations took part on the occasion and listened to her with respectful attention. In New York, woman's voice was first heard on the Nation's great festal day.

In 1853, Mary Vaughan gave the fourth of July oration at Speedsville, Emily Clarke at Watkins, Amelia Bloomer at Hartford, and Antoinette Brown at South Butler. Everything on these occasions was conducted as usual: the grand procession to the grove, or town hall, the military escort, reading the Declaration, martial music, cannon, fire-crackers, torpedoes, roast pig, and green peas; none of the usual accompaniments were omitted. In the same year, Antoinette Brown and Lucy Stone canva.s.sed the twenty-second district, to secure the election of the Hon. Gerrit Smith for Congress, and were successful in their efforts.

In April, 1854, the Daughters of Temperance at Johnson's Creek, sent thirty pieces of silver to Gov. Seymour, for vetoing a bill for a prohibitory law, and thus betraying the friends of temperance. In New York, the first anti-tax a.s.sociation, the first woman's club and Loyal League were formed. Here, too, a woman, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, was appointed State Commissioner of Charities, by Gov. Samuel J.

Tilden. Whether the Governor of any other State had preceded him in a more profitable or honorable appointment, has not yet been discovered.

Lest women should feel too deep a sense of grat.i.tude, they should understand that this office involves arduous labors, but no pecuniary recompense. This may be a reason that such positions are being gradually a.s.signed to women.

At the time of this general uprising, New York was thoroughly stirred with temperance and anti-slavery excitement. George Thompson, the great English reformer and orator, who had been mobbed in all the chief cities of the North, accompanied by William Lloyd Garrison, was holding a series of conventions through the State. And as these conventions were held in the midst of the "Jerry rescue trials,"[89]

the apostles of freedom spoke with terrible vehemence and denunciation. Popular orators, too, were rushing here and there in the furor of a Presidential campaign, and as all these reforms were thrown into the governmental cauldron for discussion, the whole people seemed to be on the watch towers of politics and philanthropy. Women shared in the general unrest, and began to take many steps before unknown.

Since 1840, they had generally attended political meetings, as with the introduction of moral questions into legislation, they had manifested an increasing interest in government.

The repeal of the License Law of 1846, filled the temperance hosts throughout the State with alarm, and roused many women to the a.s.sertion of their rights. Impoverished, broken-hearted wives and mothers, were for the first time looking to the State for some protection against the cruelties and humiliations they endured at the hands of liquor dealers, when suddenly the beneficent law was repealed, and their reviving hopes crushed. The burning indignation of women, who had witnessed the protracted outrages on helpless wives and children in the drunkard's home, roused many to public speech, and gave rise to the secret organizations called "Daughters of Temperance." Others finding there was no law nor gospel in the land for their protection, took the power in their own hands, visiting saloons, breaking windows, gla.s.ses, bottles, and emptying demijohns and barrels into the streets. Coming like whirlwinds of vengeance, drunkards and rum-sellers stood paralyzed before them. Though women were sometimes arrested for these high-handed proceedings, a strong public sentiment justified their acts, and forced the liquor dealers to withdraw their complaints.[90]

There is nothing more terrible than the reckless courage of despairing women, who, though knowing they have eternal truth and justice on their side, know also their helplessness against the tide of misery engulphing the drunkard's home. Women were applauded for these acts of heroism by the press and temperance leagues; they were welcomed too as speakers sometimes on their platforms, just as slaves were in the olden days, to move an audience with their tales of woe. But when they organized themselves into a.s.sociations, adopted const.i.tutions, pa.s.sed resolutions, and sent their delegates to men's conventions, asking to be recognized as equals, then began the battle in the temperance ranks, vindictive and protracted for years. The clergy were the most bitter opponents of the public action of women; but throughout the conflict they were sustained by the purest men in the nation, such as Horace Greeley, Joshua R. Giddings, Rev. E. H. Chapin, Rev. Samuel J.

May, Thomas W. Higginson, William H. Channing, Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and others. All this persecution on the ground of s.e.x, intensified the love of liberty in woman's soul, and deepened the oft repeated lesson of individual rights.

On January 28, 1852, "The Daughters of Temperance" a.s.sembled in Albany to take part in a ma.s.s meeting of all the "Divisions" in the State.

Among the delegates present were Susan B. Anthony, Mary C. Vaughan, and Lydia Fowler, who were received as members of the Convention. But at the first attempt by Miss Anthony to speak, they were informed that the ladies were invited to listen, and not to take part in the proceedings. Those women present who were not satisfied with such a position withdrew, announcing that they would hold a meeting that evening in which men and women would stand on equal ground.

At the appointed time they a.s.sembled in the vestry-room of the Presbyterian church on Hudson Street. Samuel J. May, who was in Albany attending one of the "Jerrey Rescue Trials," was present, and opened the meeting with prayer. Mrs. Vaughan was chosen President,[91] and on taking the chair, said:

We have met to consider what we, as women, can do and may do, to forward the temperance reform. We have met, because, as members of the human family, we share in all the sufferings which error and crime bring upon the race, and because we are learning that our part in the drama of life is something beside inactive suffering and pa.s.sive endurance. We would act as well as endure; and we meet here to-day because many of us have been trying to act, and we would combine our individual experiences, and together devise plans for the future, out of which shall arise well-based hopes of good results to humanity. We are aware that this proceeding of ours, this calling together of a body of women to deliberate publicly upon plans to carry out a specified reform, will rub rather harshly upon the mould of prejudice, which has gathered thick upon the common mind.

.... There are plenty of women, as well as men, who can labor for reforms without neglecting business or duty. It is an error that clings most tenaciously to the public mind, that because a part of the s.e.x are wives and mothers and have absorbing duties, that all the s.e.x should be denied any other sphere of effort. To deprive every unmarried woman, spinster, or widow, or every childless wife, of the power of exercising her warm sympathies for the good of others, is to deprive her of the greatest happiness of which she is capable; to rob her highest faculties of their legitimate operation and reward; to belittle and narrow her mind; to dwarf her affections; to turn the harmonies of her nature to discord; and, as the human mind must be active, to compel her to employ hers with low and grovelling thoughts, which lead to contemptible actions.

There is no reform in which woman can act better or more appropriately than temperance. I know not how she can resist or turn aside from the duty of acting in this; its effects fall so crushingly upon her and those whose interests are identical with her own; she has so often seen its slow, insidious, but not the less surely fatal advances, gaining upon its victim; she has seen the intellect which was her dearest pride, debased; the affections which were her life-giving springs of action, estranged; the children once loved, abused, disgraced and impoverished; the home once an earthly paradise, rendered a fit abode for lost spirits; has felt in her own person all the misery, degradation, and woe of the drunkard's wife; has shrunk from revilings and cowered beneath blows; has labored and toiled to have her poor earnings transferred to the rum-seller's ill-gotten h.o.a.rd; while her children, ragged, fireless, poor, starving, gathered shivering about her, and with hollow eyes, from which all smiles had fled, begged vainly for the bread she had not to bestow. Oh! the misery, the utter, hopeless misery of the drunkard's wife!

.... We account it no reason why we should desist, when conscience, an awakened sense of duty, and aroused heart-sympathies, would lead us to show ourselves something different than an impersonation of the vague ideal which has been named, Woman, and with which woman has long striven to identify herself. A creature all softness and sensibility, who must necessarily enjoy and suffer in the extreme, while sharing with man the pleasures and the ills of life; bearing happiness meekly, and sorrow with fort.i.tude; gentle, mild, submissive, forbearing under all circ.u.mstances; a softened reflex of the opinions and ideas of the masculines who, by relationship, hold mastery over her; without individualism, a mere adjunct of man, the chief object of whose creation was to adorn and beautify his existence, or to minister to some form of his selfishness. This is nearly the masculine idea of womanhood, and poor womanhood strives to personify it. But not all women.

This is an age of iconoclasms; and daring hands are raised to sweep from its pedestal, and dash to fragments, this false image of woman. We care not how soon, if the true woman but take its place. This is also, and most emphatically, an age of progress.

One old idea, one mouldering form of prejudice after another, is rapidly swept away. Thought, written and spoken, acts upon the ma.s.s of mind in this day of railroads and telegraphs, with a thousandfold more celerity than in the days of pillions and slow coaches. Scarce have the lips that uttered great thoughts ceased to move, or the pen which wrote them dropped from the weary hand, ere they vibrate through the inmost recesses of a thousand hearts, and awaken deep and true responses in a thousand living, truthful souls. Thence they grow, expand, fructify, and the result is Progress.

Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler then gave several very touching recitals of the evils of intemperance in family circles within her own observation.

Her lectures on Hygiene and Physiology through the State, ill.u.s.trating as she did the effect of alcohol on the system, and pointing out to mothers what they could do to promote the health of their children, and thus ensure temperance and morality, were most effective in their bearings on this question. Letters were read from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Clarina Howard Nichols, and Amelia Bloomer.

Mr. MAY, on rising, said: The sudden and unjustifiable repeal of the License Law of 1846, changed the face of the community, which had everywhere brightened with new hope under the brief but salutary operation of that law. That repeal, which it was indecorous if not presumptuous in the representatives of the people to make, seeing the law had been enacted directly by the people in their primary a.s.semblies; that repeal brought back all the evils of intemperance aggravated by the successful efforts which had been openly and covertly made to break down the barriers which the law of 1846 had set up. The flood-gates of this loathsome vice were slammed open, as if never to be shut again. What I have seen and heard since I came to the capital, has encouraged me not a little. I have met with gentlemen from all parts of the State, who seem to be convinced that the people are ready for the pa.s.sage of a stringent law similar to that which has recently gone into operation in Maine.

But I am particularly encouraged that the women of the State have made an especial and somewhat novel movement in this behalf. It has in all ages of the world been ominous when the women of a country have come out of the retirement they generally choose, to take a public part in the affairs of the State. What if this Convention be not a large one, it is significant nevertheless. I could cite you to a reform in our own country which commenced with less than twelve individuals twenty years ago, and now that reform has drawn into its vortex all the living spirits in the land, and has created an agitation of the public mind that will never be quelled until Slavery is buried out of sight forever. If the women of New York will act up to the n.o.ble sentiments that have been expressed in the addresses and letters written by women to this Convention, great and glorious results must follow. And there are especial reasons why women should be earnest in this cause. Their s.e.x, though not so much addicted as ours to the use of intoxicating drinks, suffers more from the effects of the evil. To them it is the destruction of all domestic peace, the wreck of all conjugal and maternal hopes; it is ignorance, poverty, misery, for themselves and children. My own attention was first called to this reform by the sufferings of women. (Mr.

May here related several touching anecdotes of most estimable women he had known, devoted wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, who had been utterly despoiled of all earthly comfort by the intemperance of those they loved).

At one time I thought this evil might be repressed by man alone; but I have learned that humanity is dual. G.o.d made man male and female. The s.e.xes are equally concerned in the welfare of the race. What G.o.d has joined together must not be put asunder. Women are const.i.tuent parts of the State and the Church, as well as of the home; and their influence is as indispensable to the well-being of the former as the latter. A State or Church that excludes woman from its councils, is like a family without a mother, in a condition of half orphanage.

In the days of our Revolution women made as many sacrifices and endured as great sufferings for independence, as did the men. It is most ungrateful when we are speaking of that event, and the actors in it, not to make mention of our Revolutionary Mothers.

In the French Revolution women were conspicuous actors. If Madame Roland and her coadjutors had been allowed to sway the public councils, the results would have been far happier for France.

In moral revolutions women have ever signalized themselves. It was a woman, Elizabeth Fry, who in England commenced the reform in the discipline of prisons, and prosecuted it in person for years, until she had proven her plans feasible, and inspired others with a faith like her own. It was Dorothea Dix (a very delicately organized woman), who first in this country recognized the claims and acknowledged the rights of the insane. She found these poor victims of man's ignorance everywhere suffering terrible hardships. They were dreaded by all, and abhorred by many who had charge of them, and believed to be incapable of suffering as sane people suffer, and to be beyond the reach of those kindly influences which more than all others control those who are in their right minds. Miss Dix penetrated their cheerless, dark, damp abodes. She brought to light the wrongs that were inflicted upon them. She exposed the folly of the fears which were entertained of them. She showed by her own courageous experiments that even furious maniacs could be controlled by the spirit of Christian love. The asylums in many of our States to-day are n.o.ble monuments to the inestimable value of her services.

When Miss Dix first visited the insane department of the jail in Cambridge, to look after one miserable human being she had chanced to hear was immured there, she little thought of the career of benevolent effort and of high distinction as a philanthropist that was opening before her. She went only to give relief to a solitary sufferer. But the dejected, helpless and wretched condition in which she found the insane there, raised the inquiry in her mind whether it could be that the same cla.s.s of unfortunates were treated in this wise elsewhere. Such an inquiry could not be suppressed in a heart like hers; it urged her on to further investigation. It led to new developments of the methods that philanthropists and scientists were advocating in France. She came at last to feel that she had a mission to that cla.s.s of "the lost ones," and she has fulfilled it gloriously. She has been the angel of the Lord to the insane in almost all the States of the Union.

The Anti-Slavery cause in both England and America, owes as much to woman as to man. If in Great Britain the suppression of the African slave trade was commenced by men, the abolition of West India slavery was begun by women; and it is acknowledged that they did more than the men to accomplish the overthrow of that system of all imaginable wickedness, which, while it endured, stimulated the cupidity of the slave-trader, so that he prosecuted his accursed traffic as much as ever, notwithstanding the acts of the American Congress and the British Parliament. In our country the most efficient, untiring laborers in the anti-slavery cause, have from the beginning been women. Lydia Maria Child, a lady highly distinguished among the authors of America, was the first to publish a sizable book upon slavery.

Its very t.i.tle was a pregnant one, viz, "An Appeal in behalf of that Cla.s.s of Americans called Africans." Its contents were of great and permanent value. The publication of that volume was to her a costly sacrifice of popularity as an author. At a very early period of the enterprise, Elizabeth M. Chandler published many essays and poems that will live forever. The bravery and persistence of Prudence Crandall in maintaining a school for colored girls in Connecticut, in the face of terrible persecution, is beyond praise. Maria Weston Chapman, since 1834, has been among the leaders of the anti-slavery host, directing their movements and stimulating them to effort. Lucretia Mott, Sarah Pugh, Eliza Lee Follen, Abby Kelly, Mary Grew, are all worthy of mention--there is no end to the names of excellent, wise, courageous women who have contended n.o.bly for the anti-slavery faith and practice. They have been traduced, reviled, persecuted, but nothing has deterred them from advocating the rights of humanity.

NEW YORK STATE TEMPERANCE CONVENTION,

ROCHESTER, N. Y., _April 20 and 21, 1852_.

At ten o'clock a large audience a.s.sembled in Corinthian Hall. The morning session was composed entirely of women; more than five hundred being present. The meeting was called to order by Susan B. Anthony, who read the following call that had been extensively circulated throughout the State:

The women of the State of New York who desire to aid in advancing the cause of Temperance, and are willing to labor earnestly and truthfully for its success, are respectfully invited to meet at Corinthian Hall in the city of Rochester on the 20th of April, for the purpose of devising, maturing, and recommending such a course of a.s.sociated action as shall best subserve for the protection of their interests and of society at large, too long invaded and destroyed by legalized intemperance. Feeling that woman has. .h.i.therto been greatly responsible for the continuance of this vice by encouraging social drinking, and by not sufficiently exerting her influence for its overthrow, and realizing that upon her rest the heaviest burthens which follow in its train, the Committee are convinced that they will be sustained by all good men and women in urging upon the s.e.x such n.o.ble and energetic action as shall tend to the downfall of the traffic in intoxicating drinks.

Arrangements have been made to render the occasion one of interest to all friends of the cause. Addresses and communications from both ladies and gentlemen of known ability will be presented, and a general and comprehensive plan of operation proposed, whereby woman may aid in the promotion of a cause which appeals to her sympathy through the avenue of every relation which binds her to the race.

It is earnestly hoped that this meeting will be numerously attended.[92]

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, H. ATTILIA ALBRO, AND MARY C. VAUGHAN, _Central Committee_.

The officers of the Convention were then chosen. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President,[93] who on rising said:

I fully appreciate, ladies, the compliment intended, in choosing me to fill this place on an occasion of such interest and importance. If a sincere love for the principles of temperance, a fervent zeal in the welfare of woman, and an unwavering faith in the final triumph of truth, fits one for this post of honor, then am I not unworthy, though I must confess myself, from the novelty of the position, ignorant alike of the rights and duties of the office of President. I shall deeply regret if in any omissions or commissions of duty I fail to reflect back on this Convention a full share of the honor now conferred upon me.

How my heart throbs to see women a.s.sembling in convention to inquire what part they have in the great moral struggles of humanity! Verily a new era is dawning upon the world, when woman, hitherto the mere dependent of man, the pa.s.sive recipient alike of truth and error, at length shakes off her lethargy, the shackles of a false education, customs and habits, and stands upright in the dignity of a moral being, and not only proclaims her own freedom, but demands what she shall do to save man from the slavery of his own low appet.i.tes. We have come together at this time to consult each other as to what woman may do in banishing the vice of intemperance from the land. We can do much by years of preparation and education of ourselves, for a great moral revolution will burst forth with the regeneration of woman.

We shall do much when the pulpit, the forum, the professor's chair, and the ballot-box are ours; but the question is, what can we do to-day, under existing circ.u.mstances, under all the adverse influences that surround us? I will briefly mention several points for your consideration that have suggested themselves to my mind.

1. Let no woman remain in the relation of wife with the confirmed drunkard. Let no drunkard be the father of her children. Let no woman form an alliance with any man who has been suspected even of the vice of intemperance; for the taste once acquired can never, never be eradicated. Be not misled by any pledges, resolves, promises, prayers, or tears. You can not rely on the word of a man who is, or has been, the victim of such an overpowering appet.i.te.

2. Let us pet.i.tion our State governments so to modify the laws affecting marriage, and the custody of children, that the drunkard shall have no claims on either wife or child.

3. Let us touch not, taste not, handle not, the unclean thing in any combination. Let us eschew it in all culinary purposes, and refuse it in all its most tempting and refined forms.