The History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 73

Mr. Angle, from the Select Committee of the a.s.sembly, to which the woman's rights pet.i.tions were referred, made a report last evening, which we publish elsewhere to-day. It is a compact, lucid, and ably drawn doc.u.ment, highly creditable to its author, and becomingly respectful to the pet.i.tioners. The Committee report adversely to the pet.i.tions, but recommend one or two changes in our existing law, which will, we think, commend themselves as well to the opponents, as to the advocates of woman's rights.

The work in the State of New York was now thoroughly systematized.

Susan B. Anthony was appointed General Agent, and it was decided to hold a series of Conventions in all the counties and chief cities of the State, in order to roll up mammoth pet.i.tions with which to bombard the Legislature at every annual session. Two appeals[128] were issued to the women of the State, one in June, prepared by Mr. Channing, and one in December, by Mrs. Stanton. A number of able speakers[129]

joined in the work, and the State was thoroughly canva.s.sed every year until the war, and pet.i.tions presented by the thousands until the bill securing the civil rights of married women was pa.s.sed in March, 1860.

Lest our readers should think that there was no variety to our lives in these early days, that we did nothing but resolve, complain, pet.i.tion, protest, hold conventions, and besiege Legislatures, we record now and then some cheerful item from the Metropolitan papers concerning some of our leading women.

NEW YORK, _March 14, 1854_.

ANNIVERSARY OF THE 83D BIRTHDAY OF ROBERT OWEN AT 600 BROADWAY.

When the reporter entered the room he found the ladies and gentlemen a.s.sembled there tripping the light fantastic toe to the music of a harp, piano, and violin. Ernestine L. Rose was president of the occasion, and gave a very interesting sketch of the life and labors of this n.o.ble man. After which they had a grand supper, and Lucy Stone replied to the toast, "Woman, coequal with man." The ladies not only danced and made speeches, but they partook of the supper. They did not sit in the galleries, as the custom then was, to look at the gentlemen eat, and listen to their after-dinner speeches, but enjoyed an equal share in the whole entertainment. Mrs. Rose and Miss Stone seemed to feel as much at home on this festive occasion, as amid the more important proceedings of a convention.

As the agitation was kept up from year to year with frequent conventions, ever and anon some prominent person who had hitherto been silent, would concede a modic.u.m of what we claimed, so timidly, however, and with so many popular provisos, that the concessions were almost buried in the objections. It was after this manner that Henry Ward Beecher, then in the zenith of his popularity, vouchsafed an opinion. He believed in woman's right to vote and speak in public.

There was no logical argument against either, but he would not like to see his wife or mother go to the polls or mount the platform. This utterance called out the following letter from Gerrit Smith in _The Boston Liberator_:

PETERBORO, N. Y., _Nov. 19, 1854_.

DEAR GARRISON:--I am very glad to see in your paper that Henry Ward Beecher avows himself a convert to the doctrine of woman's voting. But I regret that this strong man is nevertheless not strong enough to emanc.i.p.ate himself entirely from the dominion of superst.i.tion. Mr. Beecher would not have his wife and sister speak in public. Of course he means that he would not, however competent they might be for such an exercise. I will suppose that they all remove to Peterboro, and that a very important, nay, an entirely vital question springs up in our community, and profoundly agitates it; and I will further suppose that the wife and sister of Mr. Beecher are more capable than any other persons of taking the platform and shedding light upon the subject. Are we not ent.i.tled to their superior light? Certainly. And certainly therefore are they bound to afford it to us. Nevertheless Mr.

Beecher would have them withhold it from us. Pray what is it but superst.i.tion that could prompt him to such violation of benevolence and common-sense? Will Mr. Beecher go to the Bible for his justification? That blessed book is to be read in the life of Jesus Christ; and in that life is the fullness of benevolence and common-sense, and no superst.i.tion at all. Will Mr. Beecher limit his wife and sisters in the given case to their pens?[130] Such limitation would he then be bound in consistency to impose upon himself. Would he impose it? Again, it takes lips as well as pens to carry instruction to the utmost.

Your friend, GERRIT SMITH.

SARATOGA CONVENTIONS,

August, 1854-'55.

Seeing calls for two national conventions, by the friends of Temperance, and the Anti-Nebraska movement, to be held in Saratoga the third week of August, the State Woman Suffrage Committee decided to embrace that opportunity to hold a convention there at the same time.[131] As it was at the height of the fashionable season it was thought much good might be accomplished by getting the ear of a new cla.s.s of hearers.

But after the arrangements were all made, and Miss Anthony on the ground, she received messages from one after another of the speakers on whom she depended, that none of them could be present. Accordingly, encouraged by the Hon. William Hay, she decided to go through alone.

Happily, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Sarah Pellet being in Saratoga, came forward and volunteered their services, and thus was the Convention carried successfully through.[132] The meeting was held in St.

Nicholas Hall, which was well filled throughout, three-hundred dollars being taken at the door. The following _resume_ of this occasion is from the pen of Judge William Hay, in a letter to _The North Star_ of Rochester (Frederick Dougla.s.s, editor):

THE SARATOGA CONVENTION.

Miss Sarah Pellet addressed an audience of six hundred persons in the afternoon, most of whom returned with others to St. Nicholas Hall in the evening, thus manifesting their satisfaction with what they had heard and their interest in the cause, which was farther discussed by Mrs. Gage, whose address was an elaborate argument for the removal of woman's legal and social disabilities. Among other authorities she quoted with judgment, was the following from Wm. W. Story: "In respect to the powers and rights of married women, the law is by no means abreast the spirit of the age. Here are seen the old fossil prints of _feudalism_. The law relating to woman tends to make every family a barony, a monarchy, or a despotism, of which the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the dependent, the serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact, is not due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow limits of its rules; for if the husband choose, he has his wife as firmly in his grasp and dominion, as the _hawk_ has the _dove_ upon whom he has pounced. This age is ahead of the law. Public opinion is a check to legal rules on this subject, but the rules are feudal and stern. It can not, however, be concealed that the position of woman is always the criterion of the freedom of a people or an age, and when man shall despise that right which is founded only on might, woman will be free to stand on an equal level with him--a friend and not a dependent."

Mrs. Gage also, and with like effect, cited from the same learned jurist, laws, which, had her lecture been a sermon, might have been prefixed as a text. Such opinions, although but seldom known to any but lawyers, and not appreciated by many of them, have frequently been printed in books, which, however, being professional, are perused by few persons only. Mrs. Gage[133]

concluded her excellent discourse with Bryant's celebrated stanza, relative to truth and error.

Miss Anthony's situation had become embarra.s.sing, if not critical. At a late hour of a summer night, she was to follow Mrs. Gage on the same subject, and before a fastidious audience, almost surfeited during three days with public addresses in several different conventions, and many of whom desired to contrast her expected effort with the splendid platform eloquence of Henry J. Raymond, Wm. H. Burleigh, and "their like,"

fearlessly advocating the redress of wrongs and the promotion of human rights. Miss Anthony, who had conciliated her audience by lady-like conduct and courtesy, in providing seats for the accommodation of those standing, commenced with an appropriate apology for unavoidable repet.i.tion, when it was her lot to follow Mrs. Gage. Sufficient here to say that she acquitted herself admirably. The simplicity and repose of her manner, the dignity of her deportment, the distinctiveness of her enunciation, her emphatic earnestness, the pathos of her appeals, and completeness of her arguments, convinced the understanding and persuaded all hearts.

The gossip of mustached dandies, and the half-suppressed giggle of bedizened beauty, soon settled down into respectful attention, if not appreciation. Indeed many of the most intelligent hearers before retiring, audibly confessed that they came to find fault, but had seen nothing to censure. So some who came to scoff remained to applaud. With such advocates there can be no retrogression of Woman's Rights. Equality is their motto, and onward their destiny.

WM. HAY.

This Convention was so successful in point of numbers and receipts, and the sale of woman suffrage literature, that it was decided to repeat the experiment the next year; accordingly the following call was issued early in the season:

SARATOGA CONVENTION, 1855.

A Convention will be held at Saratoga Springs on the 15th and 16th of August next, to discuss woman's right to suffrage.

In the progress of human events, woman now demands the recognition of her civil existence, her legal rights, her social equality with man.

How her claims can be the most easily and speedily established on a firm, enduring basis, will be the subject of deliberation at the coming Convention.

The friends of the movement, and the public generally, are most respectfully invited to attend.

Many of the advocates of the cause are expected to be in attendance.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, LYDIA MOTT, ERNESTINE L. ROSE, ANTOINETTE L. BROWN, SAMUEL J. MAY, SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

This Convention also was held in St. Nicholas Hall, and a large audience greeted the speakers of the occasion as they appeared upon the platform.

A brief report of the secretaries in _The Una_ of September, 1855, says: A large audience a.s.sembled on the morning of August 15th at St.

Nicholas Hall. Susan B. Anthony called the meeting to order, and presented a list of officers[134] nominated at a preliminary gathering, which was accepted. Martha C. Wright, on taking the chair, made a brief statement of the object of the Convention, and invited all those who were opposed to our demands to come to the platform and state their objections.

During the absence of the Business Committee, Ernestine L. Rose briefly reviewed the rise and progress of the woman's rights movement.

Antoinette Brown reported a series of resolutions, on which she commented at some length, when the Rev. Samuel J. May was introduced.

Although he spoke to the entire edification of the platform, yet he was constantly interrupted by the audience. It was a novelty to hear women speak, and the audience having a.s.sembled for that purpose, preferred to listen to woman's pathetic statements of her wrongs, than to the most gifted orators that men could boast. It was not until after repeated requests for order from the president, and a.s.surances from several of the ladies that they would not speak until Mr. May had finished his remarks, that quiet was restored.

It was at this Convention that Mary L. Booth[135] made her first appearance on our platform, as one of the secretaries. One feature of these meetings was the freedom and warm sympathy between the audience and the platform. At the close of almost every speech, some one on the floor asked questions, or stated some objections which were quickly answered and refuted by the speakers in the most pleasant conversational manner.

Mrs. Rose presented the wrongs of woman in her most happy manner, demanding the ballot as the underlying power to protect all other rights. Thomas Wentworth Higginson made an address especially adapted to the fashionable audience. Many of the thoughtless ones whom idle curiosity had led to the hall, must have felt like the woman of Samaria (John iv. 29) at the well, when she reported that she had seen a man who told her all the things that ever she had done, so nearly did Mr. Higginson picture to them their thoughts and feelings, the ennui of their daily lives. Lucy Stone, whom the papers now call Mrs.

Blackwell, arriving in the midst of the convention, was greeted with long and repeated cheers, and spoke with her wonted simplicity and earnestness. The resolutions covering all the different phases of the movement were duly discussed through two entire days.

Antoinette Brown was called on as usual to meet the Bible argument. A clergyman accused her of misapplying texts. He said Genesis iv. 7 did not allude to Cain and Abel, and that the language in Genesis iii. 16, as applied to Eve, did not mean the same thing. Miss Brown maintained her position that the texts were the same in letter and spirit; and that authority to all men over all women could be no more logically inferred from the one, than authority to all elder brothers over the younger could be from the other; and that there was no divine authority granted in either case.

Miss Anthony announced that woman's rights tracts and papers were for sale at the door, and urged all who had become interested in the subject to procure them not only for their own benefit, but to circulate among their neighbors. If they would be intelligent as to the real claims of the movement, they must take _The Una_, a paper owned and edited by one of its leaders. No one would expect to get temperance truths from Bennett's _Herald_, nor anti-slavery facts from _The New York Observer_, or _Christian Advocate_; no more can we look to any of the popular newspapers, political or religious, for reliable information on the woman's rights movement.

She also presented the claims of _The Woman's Advocate_, a paper just started in Philadelphia by Anna E. McDowell, devoted chiefly to woman's right to work--equal pay for equal service (she was sorry that it did not see that the right of suffrage underlies the work problem); nevertheless the existence of a paper owned, edited, published, and printed all by women, was a living woman's rights fact, and she hoped every one would give it encouragement and support. She then gave a brief report of the work done in the State during the past year,[136]

and closed by presenting the form of pet.i.tion that had just been adopted.[137]

Mr. May moved the appointment of a committee of five[138] to engage lecturing agents and raise funds for their compensation. The president thanked the people for the respect and attention manifested during the several sessions, and adjourned the Convention.[139]

The Saratoga papers were specially complimentary in their notices of Ernestine L. Rose and Lucy Stone, p.r.o.nouncing them logical and eloquent, and Miss Anthony was highly praised for her skill in getting contributions and distributing doc.u.ments. She sold over twenty thousand pamphlets that year. As there were many Southern people always at Saratoga, this was considered a grand opportunity through tracts to sow the seeds of rebellion all through the Southern States.

This Convention afforded a new theme for conversation at the hotels, and was discussed for many days after with levity or seriousness, to be laughed over and thought over by the women at their leisure.[140]

LETTERS TO THE CONVENTION.

BOSTON, _June 23, 1855_.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

DEAR MADAM:--Your note of the 20th has just come to hand. I am sorry to say that my engagements are such that it will not be possible for me to be present at the Woman's Rights Convention at Saratoga, which I should very much rejoice to attend.

Heartily and hastily yours, THEODORE PARKER.