Woman and the Republic Part 4

WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY.

The extinction of human bondage, more perhaps than any other one event, has emphasized the progress of the century about to close. Our generation has witnessed the destruction of serfdom in Russia, and of slavery in Brazil and the United States. Freedom was gained; but of the enlightened rulers through whom it was won, two were a.s.sa.s.sinated and one was exiled to die. Sacrifice is still the price of liberty.

Much stress has been laid by Suffragists upon the supposed fact that the Woman-suffrage movement grew up as a logical conclusion from the Anti- slavery movement. It grew out of it in the sense of having been born in its midst; but I believe that the truth will be found to be that it was the most prolific source of the dissensions that marred that n.o.ble cause, and was identified with the small element that adopted wild notions or used the notoriety gained by opposition to slavery in order to propagate mischief. The conduct of those who later entered the Suffrage movement hindered the public work of women from the time of organized effort for the slave until slavery fell pierced to death amid the horrors of a fratricidal war. I will take a brief survey of the Anti-slavery struggle as it blended itself with the doctrines of those abolitionists who were the earliest and staunchest friends of the Suffrage movement, and compare it with the statements and claims of the women themselves.

I first refer to the "Life of James G. Birney," by his son, General William Birney. James G. Birney was an early friend of Henry B. Stanton, husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and with him helped to lay the foundations of the Free-Soil Party, and later the Republican Party.

General Birney says of his father: "In his visit to New York and New England, in May and June, 1837, Mr. Birney's chief object had been to restore harmony among Anti-slavery leaders on doctrines and measures, and especially to check a tendency, already marked in Ma.s.sachusetts, to burden the cause with irrelevant reforms, real or supposed. With this view he had attended the New England Anti-slavery Convention held at Boston, May 30 to June 2 inclusive, accepted the position of one of its vice-presidents, and acted as a member of its committee on business. Rev. Henry C. Wright, the leader of the No-Human-Government, Woman's-Rights, and Moral-Reform factions, was a member of the Convention, but received no appointment on any committee. On June 23, in the 'Liberator' [his newspaper], Mr.

Garrison denounced human governments. July 4, he spoke at Providence, as if approvingly, of the overthrow of the Nation, the dismemberment of the Union, and the das.h.i.+ng in pieces of the Church. July 15, an a.s.sociation, of Congregational ministers issued a 'pastoral letter' against the new doctrines. August 2, five clergymen, claiming to represent nine tenths of the abolitionists of Ma.s.sachusetts, published an 'appeal' which was directed more especially against the course of the 'Liberator.' August 3, the abolitionists of Andover Theological Seminary issued a similar appeal.

Among the complaints were some against 'speculations that lead inevitably to disorganization, anarchy, unsettling the domestic economy, removing the landmarks of society, and unhinging the machinery of government.' A new Anti-slavery society in Bangor pa.s.sed the following resolution: 'That, while we admit the right of full and free discussion of all subjects, yet, in our judgment, individuals rejecting the authority of civil and parental governments ought not to be employed as agents and lecturers in promoting the cause of emanc.i.p.ation.'"

In his Autobiography, speaking of this time, Frederick Dougla.s.s says: "I believe my first offence against our Anti-slavery Israel was committed during these Syracuse meetings. It was in this wise: Our general agent, John A. Collins, had recently returned from England full of communistic ideas, which ideas would do away with individual property and have all things in common. He had arranged a corps of speakers of his communistic persuasion, consisting of John O. Wattles, Nathaniel Whiting, and John Orvis, to follow our Anti-slavery conventions, and while our meeting was in progress in Syracuse Mr. Collins came in with his new friends and doctrines and proposed to adjourn our Anti-slavery discussions and take up the subject of communism. To this I ventured to object. I held that it was imposing an additional burden of unpopularity on our cause, and an act of bad faith with the people who paid the salary of Mr. Collins and were responsible for these hundred conventions. Strange to say, my course in this matter did not meet the approval of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, an influential member of the board of managers of the Ma.s.sachusetts Anti- slavery society, and called out a sharp reprimand from her, for insubordination to my superiors." John O. Wattles labored hard to introduce Woman Suffrage into the State Const.i.tution of Kansas. Mr.

Collins worked for it in California in the early days. Mrs. Chapman, who had embraced Mr. Collins's doctrines, was one of the first pillars of the Suffrage movement.

Later, when Mr. Dougla.s.s determined to establish a newspaper and become its editor, he was obliged to leave New England, "for the sake of peace,"

he says, as his Anti-slavery friends opposed it, saying that it was absurd to think of a wood-sawyer offering himself as an editor. In Rochester, N.

Y., he established "The North Star." He says, "I was then a faithful disciple of William L. Garrison, and fully committed to his doctrine touching the pro-slavery character of the Const.i.tution of the United States, also the non-voting principle, of which he was the known and distinguished advocate. With him, I held it to be the first duty of the non-slaveholding States to dissolve the union with the slaveholding States, and hence my cry, like his, was 'No union with slaveholders.'

After a time, a careful reconsideration of the subject convinced me that there was no necessity for 'dissolving the union between the northern and southern States;' that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as an abolitionist; that to abstain from voting was to refuse to exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolis.h.i.+ng slavery; and that the Const.i.tution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in its letter and spirit an Anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence as the supreme law of the land. This radical change in my opinions produced a corresponding change in my action. Those who could not see any honest reasons for changing their views, as I had done, could not easily see any such reasons for my change, and the common punishment of apostates was mine. ... Among friends who had been devoted to my cause were Isaac and Amy Post, William and Mary Hallowell, Asa and Hulda Anthony, and indeed all the committee of the Western New York Anti- Slavery Society. They held festivals and fairs to raise money, and a.s.sisted me in every other possible way to keep my paper in circulation while I was a non-voting abolitionist, but withdrew from me when I became a voting abolitionist."

The Posts, the Hallowells, and the Anthonys were among the first to attach themselves to the Suffrage movement.

The Grimke sisters, who were intensely interested in the abolition agitation, followed Garrison to the extreme, and adopted the socialistic ideas with which his wing became to a large extent identified. They were also early in the Suffrage cause. In August, 1837, Whittier wrote to them as follows: "I am anxious to hold a long conversation with you on the subject of war, human government, and church and family government. The more I reflect upon the subject the more difficulty I find, and the more decidedly am I of opinion that we ought to hold all these matters aloof from the cause of abolition. Our good friend, H. C. Wright, with the best intentions in the world, is doing great injury by a different course. He is making the Anti-slavery party responsible in a great degree for his, to say the least, startling opinions.... But let him keep them distinct from the cause of emanc.i.p.ation. To employ an agent who devotes half his time and talents to the propagation of 'no-human or no-family government'

doctrines in connection, _intimate_ connection, with the doctrines of abolition, is a fraud upon the patrons of the cause. Brother Garrison errs, I think, in this respect. He takes the 'no-church and no-government'

ground."

Mr. Garrison wrote to the American Anti-slavery Society of his desire to crush the "dissenters," and Maria W. Chapman wrote: "Why will they think they can cut away from Garrison without becoming an abomination? ... If this defection should drink the cup and end all, we of Ma.s.sachusetts will turn and abolish them as readily as we would the colonization society."

Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: "I am glad to see that you have criticised Brother H. C. Wright. I have just returned from a few months'

tour in eastern Ma.s.sachusetts, and he has done immense hurt there." A. A.

Phelps, agent of the Ma.s.sachusetts Anti-Slavery society, wrote: "I write you this in great grief, and yet I feel constrained to do it. The cause of abolition here was never in so dangerous and critical a position before.

Mutual jealousies on the part of the laity and clergy are rampant; indeed, so much so that, let a clerical brother do what he will, it is resolved as a matter of course into a sinister motive! ... Of this stamp, more than ever before, is friend Garrison. And Mrs. Chapman remarked to me the other day that she sometimes doubted which needed abolition most, slavery or the black-hearted ministry. For this cause alone we are on the brink of a general split in our ranks.... And as if to make a bad matter worse, Garrison insists on yoking perfectionism, no-governmentism, and woman- preaching with abolition, as part and parcel of the same lump."

In 1840, Emerson, in his Amory Hall lecture, said: "The Church or religious party is falling from the Church nominal, and is appearing in Temperance and non-resistant societies, in movements of abolitionists and socialists, and in very significant a.s.semblies called Sabbath and Bible conventions, composed of ultraists, of seekers, of all the soul and soldiery of dissent, and meeting to call in question the authority of the Sabbath, of the priesthood, of the Church. In these movements nothing was more remarkable than the discontent they begot in the movers.... They defied each other like a congress of kings, each of whom had a realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert unprofitable."

These ideas blossomed, in due course of time, into Socialistic communities. There was a distinctly Anti-slavery one at Hopedale, Ma.s.sachusetts. The founder, Adin Ballou, published a tract setting forth the objects of the community, from which I make the following extracts: "No precise theological dogmas, ordinances, or ceremonies are prescribed or prohibited. In such matters all the members are free, with mutual love and toleration, to follow their own highest convictions of truth and religious duty, answerable only to the great Head of the Church Universal.

It enjoins total abstinence from all G.o.d-contemning words and deeds; all unchast.i.ty; all intoxicating beverages; all oath-taking; all slave-holding and pro-slavery compromises; all war and preparations for war; all capital and other vindictive punishments; all insurrectionary, seditious, mobocratic, and personal violence against any government, society, family, or individual; all voluntary partic.i.p.ation in any anti-Christian government, under promise of unqualified support, whether by doing military service, commencing actions at law, holding office, voting, pet.i.tioning for penal laws, or asking public interference for protection which can only be given by such force. It is the seedling of the true democratic and social Republic, wherein neither caste, color, s.e.x, nor age stands prescribed. It is a moral-suasion temperance society on the teetotal basis. It is a moral-power Anti-slavery society, radical and without compromise. It is a peace society on the only impregnable foundation, that of Christian non-resistance. It is a sound theoretical and practical Woman's Rights a.s.sociation." Among other Suffragists, Abby Kelly Foster was resident at Hopedale. Another community, at Northampton, was sometimes described as "Nothingarian."

Of the state of things at this time in the Anti-slavery societies, General Birney says, "The no-government men made up in activity what they lacked in numbers. While refusing for themselves to vote at the ballot-box, they voted in conventions and formed coalitions with women who wished to vote at the ballot-box." Mr. Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: "An effort was made at the annual meeting of the Ma.s.sachusetts society, which adjourned today, to make its annual report and its action subservient to the non-resistant movement, and through the votes of the women of Lynn and Boston it succeeded." A little later, January, 1839, Mr. Stanton wrote again to Mr. Goodell, as follows: "I have taken the liberty to show your letter to brothers Phelps, George Allen, George Russell, O. Scott, N.

Colver, and a large number of others, and they highly approve its sentiments. They, with you, are fully of the opinion that it is high time to take a firm stand against the no-government doctrine. They are far from regarding it merely as a humbug." John A. Collins, the Anti-slavery agent referred to, founded a community at Skaneateles, N. Y., based upon the following dictums: A disbelief in any special revelation of G.o.d to Man, in any form of wors.h.i.+p, in any special regard for the Sabbath, in any church, disbelief in all governments based on physical force, because they are "organized bands of banditti," whose authority is to be disregarded, a disbelief in voting, in pet.i.tioning, in doing military duty, paying personal or property taxes, serving on juries, testifying in "so-called"

courts of justice. A disbelief in any individual property. A belief that as marriage is designed for the happiness of the parties to it, when such parties have outlived their affections, the sooner the separation takes place the better, and that such separation shall not be a barrier to their again uniting with any one. The community lived two and a half years, and broke up with a debt of ten thousand dollars. John O. Wattles, who was a.s.sociated with Collins in the disturbance referred to by Frederick Dougla.s.s, founded a community in Logan County, Ohio, which was called "The Prairie Home." They had no laws, no government, no opinions, no principles, no form of society, no test of admission. They professed to take for their creed the dictum "Do as you would be done by." The a.s.sociation broke up in anarchy within a few months. Mr. Collins and Mr.

Wattles were always promoters of the Woman-Suffrage movement.

Mr. Garrison said: "We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government. We can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national insult or injury." Again he said: "If a nation has no right to defend itself against foreign enemies, no individual possesses that right in his own case.... As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its laws are enforced at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold office.

We therefore exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority."

Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "They withdraw themselves from the common labors and compet.i.tions of the market and the caucus.... They are striking work, and calling out for something worthy to do.... They are not good citizens, not good members of society; unwilling to bear their part of the public burdens. They do not even like to vote. They filled the world with long beards and long words. They began in words, and ended in words."

Charles Sumner said: "An omnibus-load of Boston abolitionists has done more harm to the Anti-slavery cause than all its enemies."

Angelina Grimke, writing at this time to Mr. Weld, said: "What wouldst thou think of the 'Liberator' abandoning abolitionism as a primary object, and becoming the vehicle of all these grand principles?"

In his published volume "Anti-slavery Days," James Freeman Clarke says of the first Garrison Anti-slavery society: "There was no such excitement to be had anywhere else as at these meetings. There was a little of everything going on in them. Sometimes crazy people would come in and insist on taking up the time; sometimes mobs would interrupt the smooth tenor of their way; but amid all disturbance each meeting gave us an interesting and impressive hour. I think that some of the Garrisonian orators had the keenest tongues ever given to man. Stephen S. Foster and Henry C. Wright, for example, said the sharpest things that were ever uttered. Their belief was, that people were asleep, and the only thing to be done was to rouse them; and to do this it was necessary to cut deep and spare not. The more angry people were made, the better." Again, in the same volume, he says, after describing the political Anti-slavery party: "While these political anti-slavery movements were going on, the old abolitionists, under the lead of Garrison, Phillips, and others, had decided to oppose all voting and all political efforts under the Const.i.tution. They adopted as their motto, 'No union with slaveholders.'

Their hope for abolis.h.i.+ng slavery was in inducing the North to dissolve the Union. Edmund Quincy said the Union was 'a confederacy with crime,'

that 'the experiment of a great nation with popular inst.i.tutions had signally failed,' that 'the Republic was not a model but a warning to the nations;' that 'the whole people must be either slaveholders or slaves;'

that the only escape for 'the slave from his bondage was over the ruins of the American Church and the American State:' and it was the unalterable purpose of the Garrisonians to labor for the dissolution of the Union."

Freeman Clarke goes on to say: "Wendell Phillips said on one occasion, 'Thank G.o.d, I am not a citizen of the United States.' As late as 1861 he declared the Union a failure, and argued for the dissolution of the Union as 'the best possible method of abolis.h.i.+ng slavery.' If the North had agreed to disunion and had followed the advice of Phillips, 'To build a bridge of gold to take the slave States out of the Union,' slavery would probably be still existing in all the Southern States. At all events, it was not abolished by those who wished for disunion, but by those who were determined at all hazards and by every sacrifice to maintain the Union."

On April 8, 1839, Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell as follows: "At this very time, and mainly, too, in that part of the country where political action has been most successful, and whence, from its promise of soon being triumphant, great encouragement was derived by abolitionists everywhere, a sect has arisen in our midst whose members regard it as of religious obligation in no case to exercise the elective franchise. This persuasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is believed they have embraced, that as Christians have the precepts of the gospel of Christ, and the spirit of G.o.d to guide them, all human governments, as necessarily including the idea of force to secure obedience, are not only superfluous, but unlawful encroachments on the Divine government as ascertained from the sources above mentioned. Therefore they refuse to do anything voluntarily that would be considered as acknowledging the lawful existence of human governments. Denying to civil governments the right to use force, they easily deduce that family governments have no such right. They carry out the 'non-resistant' theory. To the first ruffian who would demand our purse or oust us from our house, they are to be unconditionally surrendered unless moral suasion be found sufficient to induce him to desist from his purpose. Our wives, our daughters, our sisters, our mothers, we are to see set upon by the most brutal, without any effort on our part except argument to defend them! And even they themselves are forbidden to use in defence of their purity such powers as G.o.d has endowed them with for its protection, if resistance should be attended with injury or destruction to the a.s.sailant. In short, the 'no-government' doctrines, as they are believed now to be embraced, seem to strike at the root of the social structure, and tend, so far as I am able to judge of their tendency, to throw society into entire confusion and to renew, under the sanction of religion, scenes of anarchy and license that have generally hitherto been the offspring of the rankest infidelity and irreligion."

Again, he wrote: "The non-government doctrine, stripped of its disguise, is worse than f.a.n.n.y-Wrightism, and, under a Gospel garb, it is f.a.n.n.y- Wrightism with a white frock on. It goes to the utter overthrow of all order, yea, of all purity. When carried out, it goes not only for a community of goods, but a community of wives. Strange that such an infidel theory should find votaries in New England!"

The editors of the "History of Woman Suffrage" say in their opening chapter: "Among the immediate causes that led to the demand for the equal political rights of women, in this country, we may note these: First, the discussion in several of the State legislatures of the property rights of married women; Second, the great educational work that was accomplished by the able lectures of Frances Wright, on political, religious, and social questions. Ernestine L. Rose, following in her wake, equally liberal in her religious opinions, and equally well-informed on the science of government, helped to deepen and perpetuate the impression Frances Wright had made on the minds of unprejudiced hearers. Third, and above all other causes of the Woman-Suffrage movement, was the Anti-slavery struggle in this country." By referring to the columns of the secular and religious press of that period, we find that most of the respectable and representative opinion of the country was "prejudiced." Halls and a.s.sembly rooms in all the cities were closed against f.a.n.n.y Wright, not only because her doctrines were absolutely infidel and materialistic, but because they were deemed subversive of law, order, and decency. The better portion of society in the United States was of one mind in its estimate of "The Pioneer Woman in the Cause of Woman's Eights," as she was called. In the columns of "The Free Inquirer," a newspaper which she and Robert Dale Owen established and edited in New York City in 1829, she attacked religion in every form, marriage, the family, and the State. She pretended to no basis of scientific investigation, but in a brilliant flood of words endeavored to sweep away faith in the Bible, the home, the Republic, in favor of negation, communism, free love. I have place for but a single quotation from one of her "Fables," published in the "Free Inquirer." It will show the drift of her work in one direction:

"'Is my errand sped, and am I a master on earth?' said the infernal king (Pluto). 'Even as I promised,' said the Fury. 'Love hath forsaken the earth. Under the form of religion I aroused the fears and commanded the submission of mortals; and our imp now reigns on earth in the place of Love, under the form of Hymen.' Pluto smiled grimly, and smote his thigh in triumph. 'Well conceited, well executed, daughter of Night. Our empire shall not lack recruits, now that innocence is exchanged for superst.i.tion, and the true affection of congenial and confiding hearts is replaced by mock ceremonies and compulsory oaths!'"

Frances Wright had founded, in 1825, at Nashoba, Tennessee, a community that had for its professed aim the elevation and education of the Southern negroes. In describing her object, Miss Wright said: "No difference will be made in the schools between the white children and the children of color, whether in education or in any other advantage. This establishment is founded on the principle of community of property and labor: these fellow-creatures, that is, the blacks, admitted here, requiting these services by services equal or greater, by filling occupations which their habits render easy, and which to their guides and a.s.sistants might be difficult or unpleasing." This form of helotism flourished but three years on American soil. It is doubly interesting as containing the germs of communism and anti-slavery that blended themselves in the beginnings of a movement for suffrage which was directly inspired by Frances Wright.

The editors of the "Suffrage History" say that "above all other causes of the suffrage movement, was the Anti-slavery struggle in this country."

They add: "In the early Anti-slavery conventions, the broad principles of human rights were so exhaustively discussed, justice, liberty, and equality so clearly taught, that the women who crowded to listen, readily learned the lesson of freedom for themselves, and early began to take part in the debates and business affairs of all a.s.sociations. And before the public were aroused to the dangerous innovation, women were speaking in crowded promiscuous a.s.semblies. The clergy opposed to the Abolition movement first took alarm, and issued a pastoral letter, warning their congregations against the influence of such women. The clergy identified with Anti-slavery a.s.sociations took alarm also, and the initiative steps to silence women, and to deprive them of the right to vote in the business meetings, were soon taken. This action culminated in a division in the Anti-slavery a.s.sociation. The question of woman's right to speak, vote, and serve on committee, not only precipitated the division in the ranks of the American Anti-slavery society, in 1840, but it disturbed the peace of the World's Anti-slavery Convention, held that same year in London. In summoning the friends of the slave from all parts of the two hemispheres to meet in London, John Bull never dreamed that woman, too, would answer to his call. Imagine, then, the commotion in the conservative Anti-slavery circles in England when it was known that half a dozen of those terrible women who had spoken to promiscuous a.s.semblies, voted on men and measures, prayed and pet.i.tioned against slavery, women who had been mobbed, ridiculed by the press, and denounced by the pulpit, who had been the cause of setting all the American Abolitionists by the ears, and split their ranks asunder, were on their way to England."

These quarrels, stirred up through the unseemly conduct of men and women, as we have seen, they were willing to precipitate upon a convention in a foreign land, a convention, too, which had declared its desire not to receive them as delegates. Upon the calling of the roll, the meeting was thrown into excitement and confusion on a subject foreign to that which brought them together. Wendell Phillips eloquently pleaded for the admission of the women. The English officers, while showing their personal courtesy, begged to remind them that the Queen, and many ladies in various stations, were represented by male delegates, and that to admit the American ladies would be to cast a slight upon their own active members, many of whom were present. During the heated discussion Mr. James Fuller said: "One friend has stated that this question should have been settled on the other side of the Atlantic. Why, it _was_ so settled, and in favor of the women." Mr. James G. Birney answered: "The right of the women to sit and act in all respects as men in our Anti-slavery a.s.sociations was so decided in the Society in May, 1839, but not by a large majority, which majority was swelled by the votes of the women themselves. I have just received a letter from a gentleman in New York (Lewis Tappan) communicating the fact that the persistence of the friends of promiscuous female representation in pressing that practice on the American Anti- Slavery society, at its annual meeting on the 12th of last month, had caused such disagreement that he, and others who viewed the subject as he did, were deliberating the question of seceding from the old organization."

Lewis Tappan, a founder of the American Missionary Society, was intimately connected with his brother Arthur in all anti-slavery work. Arthur was a founder of the American Tract Society, and of Oberlin College, and a benefactor of Lane Seminary. He established "The Emanc.i.p.ator," and was president of the American Anti-Slavery Society until compelled, with his brother Lewis, to withdraw on account of the conduct of the no-government men and women, and take nearly all the Society with him.

When the vote was taken in the London meeting the women were excluded on the ground that "it being contrary to English usage, it would subject them to ridicule and prejudice their cause."

George Thompson then said: "I hope, as this question is now decided, that Mr. Phillips will give us the a.s.surance that we shall proceed with one heart and one mind." Mr. Phillips replied, "I have no doubt of it. There is no unpleasant feeling on our part. All we asked was an expression of opinion; we shall now act with the utmost cordiality."

But Mr. Phillips had reckoned without his host and hostesses. Mr. Garrison had not been present at the discussion, but he arrived at this juncture and took his seat with the excluded delegates. During a twelve-days'

discussion of the momentous cause that had called them together, which he had professed especially to champion, he took not the slightest part. Such was his mistaken zeal that he was willing so to stultify himself, and the women were willing to applaud him in so doing. The spirit that looked upon the American Const.i.tution as "a covenant with death and an agreement with h.e.l.l" was there. The spirit that defied all authority and could confound liberty of conscience with the formal acts of courtesy between man and man, was there. The spirit that took for its motto "You cannot shut up discord" was there. And out of these combined elements, trained in the school of thought that had treated as tyranny the religious and civil liberty of the United States, grew directly the Woman-Suffrage movement.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not a delegate. The delegates were Abby Kelly, Esther Moore, and Lucretia Mott. Mrs. Stanton was a bride, and in the immediate party on this, their wedding trip, was Mr. Birney, her husband's special friend. The writers of the "History" say: "As the ladies were not allowed to speak in the Convention, they kept up a brisk fire, morning, noon, and night, on the unfortunate gentlemen who were domiciled at the same house." Mrs. Stanton had not been identified with any of these abolition quarrels; but she records that now she took her full share of the "firing," notwithstanding her husband's "gentle nudges under the table" and Mr. Birney's ominous frowns across it. In the volume ent.i.tled "Woman's Work in America," in a contribution called "Woman in the State,"

written by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, she says: "The leaders in the new [suffrage] movement, Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton, with their husbands,"

did thus and so in originating it. Lucretia Mott's husband was with her as a silent member of the conventions, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton's husband is conspicuous for his absence from every list of officers or attendants, from the inception of the Suffrage movement until his death. He may have been in perfect sympathy with his wife; but since the names of all the men already mentioned in connection with the mad "no-civil, no-family, no- personal government" movement, do appear, and his does not, it is impossible not to challenge Mrs. Livermore's statement. The last reference to him in the "History" was as voting on the occasion of the London meeting, in favor of the women's admission to the World's Convention. No mention is made of any speech, or of reasons given. Certain it is, that while Mr. Garrison became the conspicuous standard-bearer for the Woman's Rights movement, Mr. Stanton became one of the conspicuous bearers of the standard of the Free Soil and Republican parties, which included some of Anti-slavery's staunchest friends, who were denounced by Garrison as its foes.

Thus it seems evident to me that the Woman-Suffrage movement no more grew logically out of the great discussions on human bondage which began with Was.h.i.+ngton, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, and John Jay, and ended with Sumner, Seward, and Lincoln, than the communes of this country grew out of the utterances of the Fathers based on the declaration that "All men are created equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

It was among those whose mistaken zeal and wild conduct were most mischievous, that the Suffrage sentiment gathered head. Their lack of judgment in defying the opinions of their own s.e.x, as well as of the other, their wrapt forgetfulness of proprieties, which incited mobs and proved a fine tool for the frenzy of so-called social reformers, brought contempt upon womanhood as well as upon the cause they advocated. Women, in the churches and out, were the strength of the Anti-slavery movement; but not these women. As to the notable meeting in London, had the delegates been the highest and largest minded and most cultured of their s.e.x, and had their cause been the n.o.blest, they and it would have been dishonored by the method of its presentation. American women of to-day would no more applaud such conduct than did those of fifty years ago.

Women have won lasting public favor and place, while Suffrage has won an uneasy footing by unenviable methods.

This survey enables us to understand what otherwise would seem most strange, how the women of the Suffrage movement, in claiming the right of suffrage, ignored the duties and powers based upon and connected with it-- those that formed the defence which made possible any such nation as ours.

Added to the extreme Quaker doctrine of peace-at-any-price, was the fanatical notion of the sinfulness of all war, all use of physical force, and a cool a.s.sumption that opinion was law. Mrs. Maria Chapman read, at one of the early Woman's-Rights conventions, a string of verses that reveals the absurdity of the situation. It was in reply to "A Clerical Appeal," issued by the Rev. Nehemiah Adams, whose "South-Side View of Slavery" received more Anti-slavery attention than it deserved, for it expressed only his own fantastic ideas. In the "Appeal" he maintains that women should paint in water colors only, not in oil. Mrs. Chapman says:

"Our patriot fathers, of eloquent fame, Waged war against tangible forms; Aye, _their_ foes were men--and if ours were the same, We might speedily quiet their storms; But, ah! their descendants enjoy not such bliss, The a.s.sumptions of Britain were nothing to this.

"Could we but array all our force in the field, We'd teach these usurpers of power That their bodily safety demands they should yield, And in presence of womanhood cower; But alas! for our tethered and impotent state, Chained by notions of knighthood--we can but debate."

"Oh! shade of the prophet Mahomet, arise!