XI. LUCRETIA MOTT…

XI. LUCRETIA MOTT

Eulogy at the Memorial Services[75] held in Washington by the National Woman Suffrage Association, January 19, 1881. By Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

On the 3d of January, 1793, the little island of Nantucket, fifteen miles by three and a half, lying far out into the sea on the coast of Massachusetts, welcomed to its solitude a child destined to be one of America's most famous women. This was a fitting birthplace for Lucretia Mott; as the religion and commerce of the island (named for a woman) had been guided by a woman's brain. In 1708 Mary Starbuck, known as "The Great Merchant," a woman of remarkable breadth of intellect, as well as great executive ability, converted the colony to Quakerism, and vindicated woman's right to interest herself in the commerce of the world. Perhaps she, like the good genii of old, brought her gifts to that cradle and breathed into the new life the lofty inspiration that made this woman the prophet and seer she was. Here were the descendants of John Wolman, William Rotch, George Fox, the Macys, the Franklins, the Folgers; and in this pure atmosphere, and from these distinguished ancestors, Lucretia Mott received her inheritance. Her father was an honest, sea-faring Quaker. Her mother belonged to the Folger family, whose culture, genius, common-sense, and thrift culminated in Benjamin Franklin, and later, in Lucretia Mott. The resemblance between her head and that of the philosopher and statesman, was apparent to the most casual observer.

Mrs. Mott says in her diary: "I always loved the good in childhood, and desired to do the right. In those early years I was actively useful to my mother, who, in the absence of my father on his long voyages, was engaged in mercantile business, often going to Boston to purchase goods in exchange for oil and candles, the staple of the island. The exercise of women's talents in this line, as well as the general care which devolved upon them, in the absence of their husbands, tended to develop and strengthen them mentally and physically.

"In 1804 my father's family removed to Boston, and in the public and private schools of that city I mingled with all classes without distinction. It was the custom then to send the children of such families to select schools; but my parents feared that would minister to a feeling of class pride, which they felt was sinful to cultivate in their children. And this I am glad to remember, because it gave me a feeling of sympathy for the patient and struggling poor, which but for this experience I might never have known." Under such humane influences, with such ancestors and associations, in the public schools, in the Friends' meeting, on the adventurous island, and in the suburbs of Boston, the child passed into girlhood, with lessons of industry and self-denial well learned, and with her life all before. She lived in a period when women of genius had vindicated their right to be recognized in art, science, literature, and government, and through many of the great events that have made the United States a Nation. It was such a combination of influences that developed Lucretia Mott into the exceptional woman she was.

In an unlucky hour her father endorsed for a friend, and to save his honor, was compelled to lose his property. It was a blow from which he did not recover, and henceforward much of the support of the family devolved upon the mother, who had remarkable tact, energy, and courage. Both parents were ambitious for their children, and did all they could for their education; that was one thing about which all Quakers were tenacious. In her fourteenth year Lucretia and her elder sister were sent to "The Nine Partners," a Friends boarding-school in Dutchess County, New York, and there pursuing her studies with patient zeal, she remained two years without once going home for a holiday vacation. At fifteen, a teacher having left, Lucretia was made an assistant, and at the end of the second year, was tendered the place of teacher, with the inducement beside, that her services would entitle a younger sister to her education.

Her well-balanced character enabled her to meet with calmness, all life's varied trials, of which she had her full share. As one of eight children in her father's house, with his financial embarrassments, and sudden death: and afterward with five children of her own, and her husband's reverses; Lucretia's heroism and strength of mind were fairly tested. In both of these financial emergencies, she opened a school, and by her success as a teacher, bridged over the chasm.

In her eighteenth year, Lucretia Coffin and James Mott, according to Quaker ceremony, became husband and wife, the result of an attachment formed at boarding-school, which proved to be an exceptionally happy union, and through their long wedded life, of over half a century, they remained ever loyal to one another. James Mott, though a Quaker, was in all personal qualities the very opposite of his wife. He had the cool judgment, she the enkindling enthusiasm. He had the slow, sure movement; she the quick, impulsive energy. He enjoyed nothing more than silence; she nothing more than talking. The one was completely the complement of the other. She possessed a delicate love of fun, and was full of dry humor. Once during a visit from her husband's brother, Richard Mott, of Toledo, Ohio, who like James was a very silent man, she became suddenly aware of their absence and started to look for them. Finding them seated on either side of a large wood fire in the drawing-room, she said, "Oh, I thought you must both be here it was so quiet."

In speaking of them, Robert Collyer says: "If James and Lucretia had gone around the world in search of a mate, I think they would have made the choice which heaven made for them. They had lived together more than forty years when I first knew them. I thought then, as I think now, that it was the most perfect wedded life to be found on earth. They were both of a most beautiful presence. He, large, fair, with kindly blue eyes, and regular features. She, slight, with dark eyes and hair. Both, of the sunniest spirit; both, free to take their own way, as such fine souls always are, and yet their lives were so perfectly one that neither of them led or followed the other, so far as one could observe, by the breadth of a line. He could speak well, in a slow, wise way, when the spirit moved him, and the words were all the choicer because they were so few. But his greatness, for he was a great man, lay still in that fine, silent manhood, which would only break into fluent speech as you sat with him by the bright wood fire in winter, while the good wife went on with her knitting, putting it swiftly down a score of times in an hour, to pound a vagrant spark which had snapped on the carpet, or as we sat under the trees in the summer twilight. Then James Mott would open his heart to those he loved, and touch you with wonder at the depth and beauty of his thoughts; or tell you stories of the city where when a young man he lived, or of the choice humors of ancient Quakers, who went through the world esteeming laughter vain, and yet set the whole world which knew them laughing at their quaint ways and curious fancies."

In his young days, James Mott was a teacher; later on he engaged in the cotton business, but abandoned it when it was becoming remunerative, because of its connection with slave labor. He finally took up the wool business, and retired with a competency some years before his death, which enabled them to take a trip to Europe, and afterward live the life of leisure they desired, indulging their literary tastes. James Mott wrote a very creditable book of their travels, and Lucretia carried enough observations of foreign life in her head to fill folios.

Mrs. Mott was a housekeeper of the old school, in so far as everything from garret to cellar passed under her supervision. She took the entire care of her children, and although with remarkable economy supplying the wants and guarding against the wastes of a large family, she did not allow these necessary cares to absorb all her time and thought, but cultivated the talents entrusted to her in broader interests than family life. She felt she had duties in the Church and the State as well as the home. The time most wives and mothers spend in gaiety and embroidery, she spent in reading and committing to memory choice thoughts in poetry and prose. The money others spent in filling their homes with bric-a-brac she spent in books, and the result proves the superior wisdom of her course.

When conventions were held in Philadelphia, her house was always filled with guests. As presiding officer in a woman's convention nothing escaped her notice. She felt responsible that everything should be done in good taste and order. Her opinions on woman's nature, sphere, destiny, were thoroughly digested, and any speaker that did not come up to her exact ideal, was taken delicately to task when her turn came to speak. As some one remarks, "she had a playful way of tapping a speaker in a public meeting, as a skillful driver touches his horses with the tip end of his whip." Once, says Wendell Phillips, she tried the experiment on me when I had ventured to say that one of the drawbacks to the movement, was the indifference of women themselves. Other speakers too expressed sentiments on which Mrs. Mott differed from them. When she arose she touched them all round with her gentle raillery, offending no one, just pronounced enough in her speech to be effective, and in no way compromising herself. Glancing at the platform on one occasion in Philadelphia, the central figure, is Lucretia Mott in Quaker costume, in the zenith of her refined beauty; around her are grouped James Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Robert Purvis, Charles Burleigh, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances Dana Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Lydia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Ann Preston, Sarah Pugh, Hannah Darlington, Mary Grew, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone, as refined and remarkable an assembly of men and women as could be found in any European court. Yet these were the people so hated and ridiculed by the press and the pulpit, whose grand utterances and spicy debates were stigmatized as "the maudlin sentimentalisms of unsexed men and women."

But let us follow these friends to the home of Lucretia Mott. A large house on Arch Street, like all buildings in the city of brotherly love, with white shutters, marble cappings and steps, and dining-room on the second floor of the rear building. There are our stern reformers, round the social board, as genial a group of martyrs as one could find. Without the shadow of a doubt as to the rightfulness of their own position, and knowing too that the common sense of the nation was on their side, they made merry over the bigotry of the Church, popular prejudices, conservative fears, absurd laws and customs hoary with age. How they did hold up in their metaphysical tweezers the representatives of the dead past that ever and anon ventured upon our platform. With what peals of laughter their assumptions and contradictions were chopped into mince meat. On this occasion, William Lloyd Garrison occupied the seat of honor at Mrs. Mott's right hand, and led the conversation which the hostess always skillfuly managed to make general. When seated around her board, no two-and-two side talk in monotone was ever permissible; she insisted that the good things said should be enjoyed by all. At the close of the meal, while the conversation went briskly on, with a neat little tray and snowy towel, she washed up the silver and china as she uttered some of her happiest thoughts. James Mott at the head of the table maintained the dignity of his position, ever ready to throw in a qualifying word, when these fiery reformers became too intense.

Theirs was the ideal home, perfect in its appointments, and where discussion on all subjects took the widest range. Being alike in search of truth, one felt no fear of shocking them. Those accustomed to see priests and bigots, whenever a doubt was expressed as to any of their cherished opinions, rise and leave the room with a deeply wounded expression, were surprised to see James and Lucretia Mott calmly discussing with guests, their own most cherished creeds, and questioning the wisdom of others in turn. Freedom was not a deity in their home to be worshiped afar off, but the patron saint of the household, influencing all who entered there, giving her benedictions to each at every feast.

Their home was the castle of safety for runaway slaves, and the paradise of the unfortunate. All knew that if the mistress met them empty handed, she would cheer their lonely hearts with kind words, recognizing their humanity, and with sure promise of some future consideration. Her house was a resort too for people of distinction. When Frederika Bremer, Harriet Martineau, Lord Morpeth, Lord and Lady Amberley, visited this country, the reformers were the people they desired to see, and chief among them Lucretia Mott, after whom Lady Amberley named her first daughter. Thus titled foreigners, scholars, and politicians often met at her fireside. I have frequently heard Gerrit Smith describe a call he once made there. In a conversation of an hour, she was interrupted half a dozen times with applications for charity. At last, in came the glorious Fanny Kemble, meeting Mrs. Mott in a manner that clearly showed they were warm and well-known friends; and soon came Frederick Douglass. There sat the millionaire philanthropist, the world-renowned actor, the grandest representative of slavery, and the fearless disciple of Elias Hicks. I doubt if the Quaker City ever unveiled so magnificent a tableaux for the pen of an artist.

In her diary Mrs. Mott says: "At twenty-five years of age, surrounded with a family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life of devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in the 'Society of Friends,' receiving every encouragement from those in authority until the separation amongst us in 1827, when my convictions led me to adhere to those who believed in the sufficiency of the light within, resting on 'truth for authority rather than authority for truth.' The popular doctrine of original sin never commended itself to my reason or conscience, except on the theory of original holiness also. I searched the Scriptures daily, ofttimes finding a construction of the text wholly different from that which had been pressed on our acceptance. The highest evidence of a sound faith being the practical life of the Christian, I have felt a far greater interest in the moral movements of the age than in any theological discussion."

In 1818 she began to preach in "Friends' Meeting," and through New England, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, she spoke at an early day on the tenets of her sect. She affiliated with the branch called "Hicksite," or "Unitarian Quakers." As Mrs. Mott was a disciple of Elias Hicks, we can get some insight as to her religious faith by a few extracts from different points in his creed as stated by himself. In one of his sermons he says:

As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God. What is the Spirit of God? It is the light and life in the soul of man. All that men and books can do is to point us to this great principle which is only to be known in our own souls. The way to arrive at a knowledge of this divine love and divine light, and to fulfill the whole law, is to love all the creation of God, and do right to all men and beasts.

Again he speaks of the divine love and divine light which he says are one, indivisibly one. The Lord is love, and love may be considered as comprehending all His power and all His wisdom; but goodness is the most proper term that we can apply. Every one, he says, is enlightened by the same divine light that enlightened Jesus, and we receive it from the same source. He had the fullness of it as we have our several allotments. All the varied names given in Scripture to this divine light and life such as, "Emmanuel," "Jesus," "Sent of God," "Great Prophet," "Christ our Lord," "Grace," "Unction," "Anointed," mean one and the same thing, and are nothing less nor more than the spirit and power of God in the soul of man as his Creator, Preserver, Condemner, Redeemer, Saviour, Sanctifier, and Justifier.

The Hicksites differed from the other Friends in that they placed the light within above all external authority, while the Orthodox Friends make the Scriptures the surer guide, though some make the written word and inner light of equal authority. In a letter to John C. Sanders, in 1828, Elias Hicks says:

Not all the books ever written, nor all the miracles recorded in the Scriptures, nor all other external evidence of what kind soever, has ever revealed God (who is an eternal invisible Spirit) to any one of the children of men. Heaven is not a fixed place above, nor hell below, but both are states of the soul. The blood of Christ shed upon the cross has no more power to cleanse us from sin than the blood of bullocks and rams poured out on Jewish altars could cleanse that people from their sins. We must know Christ within us to save us from sin; men depend so much on the crucifixion that they heed not the light within.

This wonderful prophet and seer was seventy-nine years old when the separation began in Philadelphia. The division in this country created great excitement among the Quakers in England, who were very active in their hostility to Elias Hicks and his doctrines. Some of them came to America to bear their testimony. Among others, Annie Braithwaite traveled extensively and addressed Friends' meetings. Mrs. Mott states that on one occasion when she was present, the English Quakeress, in preaching salvation by the blood of Christ, had spoken with more than usual unction and enthusiasm. As soon as she finished a profound silence reigned. Elias Hicks, slowly rising and removing his hat, said in deep inspired tones: "Friends, to the Christ that never was crucified; to the Christ that never was slain; to the Christ that can not die. I commend you."

Many of the professed followers of Elias Hicks lacked the courage and conscience to maintain his principles when the magnetism of his direct influence was withdrawn by his death. Hence even in that division of the Friends to which she belonged, Mrs. Mott encountered much opposition, especially for her public identification with unpopular reforms. Many would have gladly seen her withdraw from their membership, and others were desirous that she should be disowned. But she understood her own rights and Friends Discipline too well to violate a single rule. Although her enemies kept close watch, they never caught her off her guard. At the time of the division, she remarked to an acquaintance: "It seemed to me almost like death at first to be shut out of the Friends Meeting where I had loved to go for religious communion, to see the cold averted looks from those whose confidence I once enjoyed, to be shunned as unworthy of notice; all this was hard to endure, but it was the price I paid for being true to the convictions of my own soul."

Her spiritual life was deep and earnest, but entirely her own. It was intuitional, not emotional. It was expressed in her love for man in God, and not God in creeds and ceremonies. She prized the free sentiments of William Ellery Channing, read his works with avidity, and always had some volume of his at hand. The Life of Rev. Joseph Blanco White, a rare book, was for years one of the companions of her solitude. It was thoroughly worn, and the margin covered with her notes and marks of approval. Dean Stanley and Buckle's "History of Civilization" were favorites with her also. Cowper's "Task" and Young's "Night Thoughts," which had been her text-books at "Nine Partners," never lost their charm for her. She could repeat pages of them. In her last days she read "The Light of Asia" with intense pleasure. When she had already passed her eighty-seventh year, Susan B. Anthony visiting her, says: "She read aloud to us from that charming poem until after eleven o'clock at night." Her conversation, as well as her public addresses, were sprinkled with beautiful and apt citations from her favorite authors, as it was the habit of her life to commit to memory sentiments she most valued in poetry and prose.

It was not possible that a woman like Lucretia Mott should keep silence in the churches, no matter what Paul might say to the contrary, because that great brain was created to think, that noble heart to beat through making and moulding speech, and those fine gray eyes to see what the prophets in all times have seen. I can not imagine her as one of the silent sisters who though having something to say, dare not say it though to save her own soul or the souls of those about her.

An old friend in Lancaster County, says Robert Collyer, told me of his first hearing her in the early days when as yet she was almost unknown. It had been a dreary time among Friends up there, and being a man who did not care for the traditions of "first day" and "fourth day," he was getting tired of silence. One "first day" he went to his meeting expecting nothing as usual, and pretty sure he would not be disappointed. Nor was he for a time. But presently a young woman arose in the high seat he had never seen before, whose presence touched him with strange new expectations. She looked, he said, as one who had no great hold on life, and began to speak in low tones, with just a touch of hesitation as of one feeling after her thought, and there was a tremor in her voice as if she felt the burden of the spirit. But she soon found her way out of this, and then he said he began to hold his breath. He had never heard such speaking in all his life, so born of conviction, so radiant with that inward light for which he had been waiting, that he went home feeling as he supposed they must have felt in the olden time who thought they had heard an angel.

I once heard such an outpouring. It was at a woods-meeting up among the hills where quite a number of us had our say, and then my friend's turn came. She was well on in years then, but the old fire still burned clear, and God's breath touched her out of heaven and she prophesied. I suppose she spoke for two hours, but after the first moment she never faltered or failed to hold the multitude spell-bound, and waiting on her words. Yet there was not the least hint of premeditation, while there was boundless wealth of meditation in her deep, pregnant thoughts. I have said she prophesied, no other term would answer to her speech. Her eyes had seen the coming glory of the Lord, and she testified that she had seen; and this was all the more wonderful to me, because it was the habit of her mind in later years to reason, as President McCosh does, from premise to conclusion. But she had seen a vision there sitting in the August splendor with the voice of God's presence whispering in the trees, and the vision had set the heart high above the brain. These were care-worn and work-worn folks she saw about her with knotted hands resting on the staff, or folded quietly on the lap. They had nearly done the good day's work, and now preacher and prophet were needed to tell them what that day's work meant, where they keep the books for us, and so it was not a speech, but a psalm of life.

Mrs. Mott was safe at all points in taking Elias Hicks for a teacher of morals, as he was pronounced on every reform. On the question of woman's rights, he says:

If Paul said of women preachers what we find in Corinthians and Timothy, I judge that he had no allusion at all to their preaching or prophesying in the churches; and if he had, we have no right to admit it as sound doctrine, as it contradicts a number of his own declarations (and the general testimony of Scripture), which are more rational and clear, as in the fourteenth chapter of Romans; and in Philippians where he speaks of the women who labored with him in the Gospel; and in 1st Corinthians where he speaks of women praying and prophesying; and Paul assures us that male and female are one in Christ. Also under the law there were prophetesses as well as prophets, and the effusion of the Spirit in the latter days as prophesied by Joel was to be equally on sons and daughters, servants and handmaids. To believe otherwise is irrational and inconsistent with the divine attributes, and would charge the Almighty with partiality and injustice to one-half of His rational creation. Therefore I believe it would be wrong to admit it, although asserted in the most plain and positive manner by men or angels.

In our last conflict with Great Britain, Elias Hicks called the attention of "Friends" to a faithful support of their testimony against war and injustice, desiring them to maintain their Christian liberties against encroachment of the secular powers, laws having been enacted levying taxes for the support of the war. At one meeting there was considerable altercation; as some Friends who refused payment had been distrained some three or four fold more than the tax demanded, while others complied, paid the tax, and justified themselves in so doing. On this point his mind was deeply exercised and he labored to encourage Friends to faithfulness to exalt their testimonies for the Prince of Peace.

Elias Hicks preached against slavery both in Maryland and Virginia. He says of a meeting in Baltimore that he especially addressed slave-holders. Further, he opposed the use of slave-grown goods. At a meeting in Providence, R. I., he said he was moved to show the great and essential difference there is between the righteousness of man comprehended in his laws, customs, and traditions, and the righteousness of God which is comprehended in pure, impartial, unchangeable justice. They who continue this traffic, and enrich themselves, by the labor of these deeply oppressed Africans, violate these plain principles of justice, and no cunning sophistical reasoning in the wisdom of this world can justify them, or silence the convictions of conscience.

Some other Friends were much opposed to the use of slave products, but the Society in general "had no concern" on this point. Lucretia Mott used "free goods," and thought that Elias' preaching such extreme doctrines on all these practical reforms, had their effect in the division. To refuse to pay taxes, or to use any "slave produce," involved more immediate and serious difficulties, than any theoretical views of the hereafter, and even Friends may be pardoned for feeling some interest in their own pecuniary independence. To see their furniture, cattle, houses, lands, all swept away for exorbitant taxes, seemed worse than paying a moderate one to start with. From these quotations from the great reformer and religious leader, we see how fully Mrs. Mott accepted his principles; not because they were his principles, for she called no man master, but because she felt them to be true. In her diary she says:

My sympathy was early enlisted for the poor slave by the class-books read in our schools, and the pictures of the slave-ship, as published by Clarkson. The ministry of Elias Hicks and others on the subject of the unrequited labor of slaves, and their example in refusing the products of slave labor, all had effect in awakening a strong feeling in their behalf.

The unequal condition of woman in society, also early impressed my mind. Learning while at school that the charge for the education of girls was the same as that for boys, and that when they became teachers women received but half as much as men for their services, the injustice of this was so apparent, that I early resolved to claim for my sex all that an impartial Creator has bestowed.

The Temperance reform too engaged my attention; and for more than forty years I have practiced total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks.

The cause of Peace has had a share of my efforts; leading to the ultra non-resistance ground; that no Christian can consistently uphold a government based on the sword, or relying on that as an ultimate resort.

The oppression of the working classes by existing monopolies, and the lowness of wages often engaged my attention; and I have held many meetings with them, and heard their appeals with compassion, and a great desire for a radical change in the system which makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer. The various associations and communities, tending to greater equality of condition, have had from me a hearty God-speed.

But the millions of down-trodden slaves in our land being the most oppressed class, I have felt bound to plead their cause, in season and out of season, to endeavor to put my soul in their souls' stead, and to aid in every right effort for their immediate emancipation. This duty was impressed upon me at the time I consecrated myself to that Gospel which anoints to "preach deliverance to the captive," to "set at liberty them that are bruised." From that time the duty of abstinence, as far as practicable, from slave-grown products was so clear that I resolved to make the effort "to provide things honest" in this respect. Since then, our family has been supplied with free labor, groceries, and to some extent, with cotton goods unstained by slavery.

The labors of the devoted Benjamin Lundy, and his "Genius of Universal Emancipation," published in Baltimore, added to the untiring exertions of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others in England, including Elizabeth Heyrick, whose work on slavery aroused them to a change in their mode of action; and of William Lloyd Garrison, in Boston, prepared the way for a Convention in Philadelphia, to take the ground of immediate, not gradual emancipation, and to impress the duty of unconditional liberty without expatriation.

December 3, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in Philadelphia. Among the sixty-two people present were Lucretia Mott, Lydia White, and Esther Moore, Rev. Beriah Green in the chair. In reading and discussing their Declaration of Sentiments, Mrs. Mott wishing to make some suggestions, asked the chairman in her modest way if she might speak. Mr. Green promptly and enthusiastically responded, "Certainly, certainly, say all you are moved to say." She at once proposed to strike out two words from one sentence in the Declaration, "We may be personally defeated, but our principles never (can be)." One readily sees how much stronger the sentence is made by striking out the last two words. The quickness of Mrs. Mott in grasping the sentiment and phraseology of a resolution or appeal was always remarkable in our conventions. Mr. Garrison, who wrote the anti-slavery Declaration, readily accepted her amendment. When the members were asked for their signatures, as James Mott pen in hand stood near the desk, Thomas Shipley said that before signing it would be well to consider, as it would bring down on their heads terrible persecutions and great losses in their business relations. He said he should sign it himself, but he would advise James Mott and others to pause. The moment Mr. Shipley ceased speaking, Lucretia, in a brave inspiring tone said, "James, put down thy name," which he quickly did, joining in the general smile of satisfaction.

Soon after the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, at a social gathering one evening, Dr. Moore in conversation with Mrs. Mott strongly condemned the fanaticism and impolicy of the Abolitionists, and especially the women; he said they should do all their reform work through the Friends' meeting. Being much excited, in the course of his remarks, he became very insulting. Mrs. Mott patiently reasoned with him for awhile; at last becoming very indignant, she arose, and leaving him remarked: "All I have to say to thee in parting is, 'Get thee behind me, Satan.'" He immediately took his hat and in silence left the house. Lucretia Mott ante-dated even Mr. Garrison in her protests against slavery. Robert Purvis, of Philadelphia, says he heard her as early as 1829 preach against slavery, on several occasions in the colored church.

In 1833, says Mrs. Mott, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and being actively associated in the efforts for the slaves' redemption, I have traveled thousands of miles in this country, holding meetings in some of the slave States, have been in the midst of mobs and violence, and have shared abundantly in the odium attached to the name of an uncompromising modern Abolitionist, as well as partaken richly of the sweet return of peace, attendant on those who would "undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free; and break every yoke."

In 1840, a World's Anti-Slavery Convention was called in London. Women from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were delegates to that Convention. I was one of the number; but, on our arrival in England, our credentials were not accepted, because we were women. We were, however, treated with the greatest courtesy and attention, as strangers, and were admitted to chosen seats as spectators and listeners, while our right of membership was denied. This brought the woman question more into view, and an increase of interest on the subject has been the result. In this work, too, I have engaged heart and hand; as my labors, travels, and public discourses evince. The misrepresentation, ridicule, and abuse heaped upon this, as well as other reforms, do not in the least deter me from my duty. To those whose name is cast out as evil for the truth's sake, it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgment.

This imperfect sketch may give some idea of the mode of life of one who has found it "good to be always zealously affected in a good thing."

When, as an enthusiastic Abolitionist, Mrs. Mott crossed the ocean to take part in the deliberations of the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, the last drop in her cup of sorrow was the humiliation she was called to suffer on account of sex. The vote by which this injustice was perpetrated, was due to the overwhelming majority of the clergy, who, with Bible in hand, swept all before them. No man can fathom the depths of rebellion in woman's soul when insult is heaped upon her sex, and this is intensified when done under the hypocritical assumption of divine authority. This fresh baptism into woman's degradation impelled the current of her thoughts into a new channel, and returning home, she, with a few friends as rebellious as herself, called the first Woman's Rights Convention. To this cause she brought a zeal unknown before, as here she could see the wrongs of a class from a purely subjective point of view.

There are often periods in the lives of earnest, imaginative beings, when some new book or acquaintance comes to them like an added sun in the heavens, lighting the darkest recesses and chasing every shadow away. Thus came Lucretia Mott to me, at a period in my young days when all life's problems seemed inextricably tangled; when, like Noah's dove on the waters, my soul found no solid resting-place in the whole world of thought. The misery of the multitude was too boundless for comprehension, too hopeless for tender feeling; despair supplanted all other emotions, and the appalling views of the future threw their dark shadows over the sweetest and most innocent pleasures of life. Before meeting Mrs. Mott, I had heard a few men of liberal opinions discuss various political, religious, and social theories, but with my first doubt of my father's absolute wisdom, came a distrust of all men's opinions on the character and sphere of woman; and I naturally inferred that if their judgments were unsound on a question I was sure I did understand, they were quite likely to be so on those I did not. Hence, I often longed to meet some woman who had sufficient confidence in herself to frame and hold an opinion in the face of opposition, a woman who understood the deep significance of life to whom I could talk freely; my longings were answered at last.

In June, 1840, I met Mrs. Mott for the first time, in London. Crossing the Atlantic in company with James G. Birney, then the Liberty Party candidate for President, soon after the bitter schism in the anti-slavery ranks, he described to me as we walked the deck day after day, the women who had fanned the flames of dissension, and had completely demoralized the anti-slavery ranks. As my first view of Mrs. Mott was through his prejudices, no prepossessions in her favor biased my judgment. When first introduced to her at our hotel in Great Queen Street, with the other ladies from Boston and Philadelphia who were delegates to the World's Convention, I felt somewhat embarrassed, as I was the only lady present who represented the "Birney faction," though I really knew nothing of the merits of the division, having been outside the world of reforms. Still, as my husband and my cousin, Gerrit Smith, were on that side, I supposed they would all have a feeling of hostility toward me. However, Mrs. Mott, in her sweet, gentle way, received me with great cordiality and courtesy, and I was seated by her side at dinner.

No sooner were the viands fairly dispensed, than several Baptist ministers began to rally the ladies on having set the Abolitionists all by the ears in America, and now proposing to do the same thing in England. I soon found that the pending battle was on woman's rights, and that unwittingly I was by marriage on the wrong side. As I had thought much on this question in regard to the laws, Church action, and social usages, I found myself in full accord with the other ladies, combating most of the gentlemen at the table; our only champion, George Bradburn, was too deaf to hear a word that was said. In spite of constant gentle nudgings by my husband under the table, and frowns from Mr. Birney opposite, the tantalizing tone of the conversation was too much for me to maintain silence. Calmly and skillfully Mrs. Mott parried all their attacks, now by her quiet humor turning the laugh on them, and then by her earnestness and dignity silencing their ridicule and sneers. I shall never forget the look of recognition she gave me when she saw by my remarks that I fully comprehended the problem of woman's rights and wrongs. How beautiful she looked to me that day.

I had always regarded a Quaker woman, as one does a Sister of Charity, a being above ordinary mortals, ready to be translated at any moment. I had never spoken to one before, nor been near enough to touch the hem of a garment. Mrs. Mott was to me an entire new revelation of womanhood. I sought every opportunity to be at her side, and continually plied her with questions, and I shall never cease to be grateful for the patience and seeming pleasure with which she fed my hungering soul. Seeing the lions in London together, on one occasion with a large party we visited the British Museum, where it is supposed all people go to see the wonders of the world. On entering, Mrs. Mott and myself sat down near the door to rest for a few moments, telling the party to go on, that we would follow. They accordingly explored all the departments of curiosities, supposing we were slowly following at a distance; but when they returned, after an absence of three hours, there we sat in the same spot, having seen nothing but each other, wholly absorbed in questions of theology and social life. She had told me of the doctrines and divisions among "Friends," of the inward light, of Elias Hicks, of Channing, of a religion of practical life, of Mary Wollstonecroft, her social theories, and her demands of equality for women. I had been reading Combe's "Constitution of Man" and "Moral Philosophy," Channing's works, and Mary Wollstonecroft, though all tabooed by orthodox teachers, but I had never heard a woman talk what, as a Scotch Presbyterian, I had scarcely dared to think.

On the following Sunday I went to hear Mrs. Mott preach in a Unitarian church. Though I had never heard a woman speak, yet I had long believed she had the right to do so, and had often expressed the idea in private circles; but when at last I saw a woman rise up in the pulpit and preach as earnestly and impressively as Mrs. Mott always did, it seemed to me like the realization of an oft-repeated happy dream. The day we visited the Zoological Gardens, as we were admiring the gorgeous plumage of some beautiful birds, one of our gentlemen opponents remarked, "You see, Mrs. Mott, our Heavenly Father believes in bright colors. How much it would take from our pleasure if all the birds were dressed in drab." "Yes," said she, "but immortal beings do not depend on their feathers for their attractions. With the infinite variety of the human face and form, of thought, feeling, and affection, we do not need gorgeous apparel to distinguish us. Moreover, if it is fitting that woman should dress in every color of the rainbow, why not man also? Clergymen, with their black clothes and white cravats, are quite as monotonous as the Quakers."

I remember on one occasion the entire American delegation were invited to dine with Samuel Gurney, a rich Quaker banker. He had an elegant place, a little out of London. The Duchess of Sutherland and Lord Morpeth, who had watched our anti-slavery struggle in this country with great interest, were quite desirous of meeting the American Abolitionists, and had expressed the wish to call on them at this time. Standing near Mrs. Mott when the coach and four gray horses with the six out-riders drove up, Mr. Gurney, in great trepidation, said, "What shall I do with the Duchess?" "Give her your arm," said Mrs. Mott, "and introduce her to each member of the delegation." A suggestion no commoner in England would have presumed to follow. When the Duchess was presented to Mrs. Mott, her gracious ease was fully equaled by that of the simple Quaker woman. Oblivious to all distinctions of rank, she talked freely and wisely on many topics, and proved herself in manner and conversation the peer of the first woman in England. Mrs. Mott did not manifest the slightest restraint or embarrassment during that marked social occasion. No fictitious superiority ever oppressed her, neither did she descend in familiar surroundings from her natural dignity, but always maintained the perfect equilibrium of respect for herself and others.

I found in this new friend a woman emancipated from all faith in man-made creeds, from all fear of his denunciations. Nothing was too sacred for her to question, as to its rightfulness in principle and practice. "Truth for authority, not authority for truth," was not only the motto of her life, but it was the fixed mental habit in which she most rigidly held herself. It seemed to me like meeting a being from some larger planet, to find a woman who dared to question the opinions of Popes, Kings, Synods, Parliaments, with the same freedom that she would criticise an editorial in the London Times, recognizing no higher authority than the judgment of a pure-minded, educated woman. When I first heard from the lips of Lucretia Mott that I had the same right to think for myself that Luther, Calvin, and John Knox had, and the same right to be guided by my own convictions, and would no doubt live a higher, happier life than if guided by theirs, I felt at once a new-born sense of dignity and freedom; it was like suddenly coming into the rays of the noon-day sun, after wandering with a rushlight in the caves of the earth. When I confessed to her my great enjoyment in works of fiction, dramatic performances, and dancing, and feared from underneath that Quaker bonnet (I now loved so well) would come some platitudes on the demoralizing influence of such frivolities, she smiled, and said, "I regard dancing a very harmless amusement"; and added, "the Evangelical Alliance that so readily passed a resolution declaring dancing a sin for a church member, tabled a resolution declaring slavery a sin for a bishop."

Sitting alone one day, as we were about to separate in London, I expressed to her my great satisfaction in her acquaintance, and thanked her for the many religious doubts and fears she had banished from my mind. She said, "There is a broad distinction between religion and theology. The one is a natural, human experience common to all well-organized minds. The other is a system of speculations about the unseen and the unknowable, which the human mind has no power to grasp or explain, and these speculations vary with every sect, age, and type of civilization. No one knows any more of what lies beyond our sphere of action than thou and I, and we know nothing." Everything she said seemed to me so true and rational, that I accepted her words of wisdom with the same confiding satisfaction that did the faithful Crito those of his beloved Socrates. And yet this pure, grand woman was shunned and feared by the Orthodox Friends throughout England. While in London a rich young Quaker of bigoted tendencies, who made several breakfast and tea parties for the American delegates, always omitted to invite Mrs. Mott. He very politely said to her on one occasion when he was inviting others in her presence, "Thou must excuse me, Lucretia, for not inviting thee with the rest, but I fear thy influence on my children!!"

On several occasions when we all met at social gatherings in London, Elizabeth Fry studiously avoided being in the same apartment with Lucretia Mott. If Mrs. Mott was conversing with a circle of friends on the lawn, Mrs. Fry would glide into the house. If Mrs. Mott entered at one door, Mrs. Fry walked out the other. She really seemed afraid to breathe the same atmosphere. On another occasion, at William Ball's, at Tottenham, when more circumscribed quarters made escape impossible, it was announced that Mrs. Fry felt a concern to say something to those present. When all was silent she knelt and prayed, pouring forth a solemn Jeremiad against the apostasy and infidelity of the day in language so pointed and personal, that we all felt that Mrs. Mott was the special subject of her petition. She accepted the intercession with all due humility, and fortunately for the harmony of the occasion was not moved to pray for Mrs. Fry, that she might have more love and charity for those who honestly differed with her on unimportant points of theology. How hateful such bigotry looks to those capable of getting outside their own educational prejudices. How pitiable, that even good people should thus allow themselves to ostracise and persecute those who hold different opinions from their own. Elizabeth Fry was not afraid to mingle in Newgate prison with the scum of the earth, but she was afraid to touch the hem of Lucretia Mott's garment. If Mrs. Fry felt that she had a higher truth, how did she know that she might not influence Mrs. Mott for good? Lucretia was never afraid of anybody. Nothing would have pleased her better than to compare her pearls of thought and faith with Elizabeth Fry.

Visiting in many Quaker families during our travels in England, I was amazed to hear Mrs. Mott spoken of as a most dangerous woman. Again and again I was warned against her influence. She was spoken of as an infidel, a heretic, a disturber, who had destroyed the peace in the Friends Society in Pennsylvania, and thrown a firebrand into the World's Convention, and that in a recent speech in London she quoted sentiments from Mary Wollstonecroft and Thomas Paine. Having just learned to worship Lucretia Mott as the embodiment of all that was noble and charming in womanhood, the terrible fear that she inspired among English "Friends" filled me with sorrow and surprise. I never ventured to mention her name in their homes unless they first introduced it.

Sitting in the World's Convention one day after half the world had been voted out, when Joseph Sturge, a wealthy Quaker, occupied the chair, I suggested to Mrs. Mott a dangerous contingency. Said I, "Suppose in spite of the vote of excommunication the Spirit should move you to speak, what could the chairman do, and which would you obey? the Spirit or the Convention?" She promptly replied, "Where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty."

Many anecdotes are told of Mrs. Mott's rigid economy, such as sewing together the smallest rags to be woven into carpets, and writing letters on infinitesimal bits of paper; but it must not be inferred from this peculiarity that she was penurious, as she was generous in her charities, and in the support of every good cause. Considering her means and the self-denial she practiced in her personal expenses, her gifts were lavish. Alfred Love, President of the Peace Society, who frequently received letters from Mrs. Mott, says: "The one before me is two and a half inches wide by two and a quarter inches long, written on both sides, and contains one hundred and forty-one words, and treats of seven distinct matters, and disposes of them in good order, apologizing for her apparent economy of paper, and enclosing a contribution of five dollars for a benevolent object." Though she always dressed in Quaker costume, she attached no special significance to it as a means of grace. One Sunday morning at a religious meeting, she was in her accustomed seat in the gallery, when a young man, a stranger to many, spoke in behalf of Peace. At the close of the meeting some one who could not see the speaker asked Lucretia Mott his name, and added: "Does he wear a standing collar and dress plain?" She replied in her happy, cheerful manner, "Well, really I did not look to see, I was too much interested in what he said to look at the cut of his coat."

'Mid all the differences, dissensions, and personal antagonisms, through the years we have labored together in the Woman's Rights movement, I can not recall one word or occasion in which Mrs. Mott's influence has not been for harmony, good-will, and the broadest charity. She endured too much persecution herself ever to join in persecuting others. In every reform she stood in the fore-front of the battle. Wherever there was a trying emergency to be met, there you could rely on Lucretia Mott. She never dodged responsibility nor disagreeable occasions. At one time when excitement on the divorce question ran high in New York, and there was a great hue and cry about free love on our platform, I was invited to speak before the Legislature on the bill then pending asking "divorce for drunkenness." We chose the time at the close of one of our Conventions, that Mrs. Mott might be present, which she readily consented to do, and promised to speak if she felt moved. She charged Ernestine Rose and myself not to take too radical ground, in view of the hostility to the bill, but to keep closely to the merits of the main question. I told her she might feel sure of me, as I had my speech written, and I would read it to her, which I did, and received her approval.

The time arrived for the hearing, and a magnificent audience greeted us at the Capitol. The bill was read, I made the opening speech, Mrs. Rose followed. We had asked for the modification of certain statutes and the passage of others making the laws more equal for man and woman. Mrs. Mott having listened attentively to all that was said, and coming to the conclusion that with eighteen different causes for divorce in the different States, there might as well be no laws at all on the question, she arose and said, that "she had not thought profoundly on this subject, but it seemed to her that no laws whatever on this relation would be better than such as bound pure, innocent women in bondage to dissipated, unprincipled men. With such various laws in the different States, and fugitives from the marriage bond fleeing from one to another, would it not be better to place all the States on the same basis, and thus make our national laws homogeneous?" She was surprised on returning to the residence of Lydia Mott, to hear that her speech was altogether the most radical of the three. The bold statement of "no laws," however, was so sugar-coated with eulogies on good men and the sacredness of the marriage relation, that the press complimented the moderation of Mrs. Mott at our expense. We have had many a laugh over that occasion.

An amusing incident occurred the first year, 1869, we held a Convention in Washington. Chaplain Gray, of the Senate, was invited to open the Convention with prayer. Mrs. Mott and I were sitting close together, with our heads bowed and eyes closed, listening to the invocation. As the chaplain proceeded, he touched the garden scene in Paradise, and spoke of woman as a secondary creation, called into being for the especial benefit of man, an afterthought with the Creator. Straightening up, Mrs. Mott whispered to me, "I can not bow my head to such absurdities." Edward M. Davis, in the audience, noticed his mother's movements, and knowing that what had struck his mind had no doubt disturbed hers also, he immediately left the hall, returning shortly after Bible in hand, that he might confound the chaplain with the very book he had quoted. He ascended the platform just as Mr. Gray said "amen," and read from the opening chapter of Genesis, the account of the simultaneous creation of man and woman, in which dominion was given to both alike over every living thing. After Mr. Davis made a few pertinent remarks on the allegorical character of the second chapter of Genesis, Mrs. Mott followed with a critical analysis of the prayer, and the portion of the Scripture read by her son, showing the eternal oneness and equality of man and woman, the union of the masculine and feminine elements, like the positive and negative magnetism, the centripetal and centrifugal forces in nature, pervading the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, the whole world of thought and action, as there could have been no perpetuation of creation without these elements equal and eternal in the Godhead. The press commented on the novelty of reviewing an address to the throne of grace, particularly when uttered by the chaplain of Congress. Mrs. Mott remarked on these criticisms, "If we can teach clergymen to be as careful what they say to God as to man, our Conventions at the capital will be of great service to our representatives."

As a writer Mrs. Mott was clear and concise; her few published sermons, her charming private letters and diary, with what those who knew her best can remember, are all of her thoughts bequeathed to posterity. As a speaker she was calm, clear, and unimpassioned; indulged but little in wit, humor, or pathos, but by her good common sense and liberality on all questions, by her earnestness and simplicity, she held the most respectful attention of her audiences. Hence an occasional touch of humor or sarcasm, or an outburst of eloquent indignation came from her with great power. She had what the Friends call unction; that made the most radical utterances from her lips acceptable. In her conversation she was original and brilliant, earnest and playful. Such was her persuasiveness of voice and manner that opinions received with hisses from another speaker, were applauded when uttered by Mrs. Mott.

Some one has said that "sagacity, a mental quick-wittedness for meeting an emergency, a sagacity that might have been called shrewdness, had it not been for a pervading heart quality that went with it, was one of her prominent traits." Perhaps a wise diplomacy might express this quality more nearly. No one knew better than she how to avoid the sharp angles of a character or an occasion, as the many anecdotes told of her so fully illustrate.

Returning from England in 1840, in a merchant vessel, a large number of Irish emigrants were on board in the steerage. On the voyage Mrs. Mott was moved to hold a religious meeting among them, but the matter being broached to them, their Catholic prejudices objected. They would not hear a woman preach, for women priest were not allowed in their Church. But the spirit that was pressing upon the "woman preacher" for utterance was not to be prevented from delivering its message without a more strenuous effort to remove the obstacle. She asked that the emigrants might be invited to come together to consider with her whether they would have a meeting. This was but fair and right, and they came. She then explained how different her idea of a meeting was from a church service to which they were accustomed; that she had no thought of saying anything derogatory of that service nor of the priests who ministered to them; that her heart had been drawn to them in sympathy, as they were leaving their old homes for new ones in America; and that she had wanted to address them as to their habits and aims in their every-day life in such a way as to help them in the land of strangers to which they were going. And then asking if they would listen (and they were already listening because her gracious voice and words so entranced them they could not help it), she said she would give an outline of what she had wanted to say at the meeting, and so she was drawn on by the silent sympathy she had secured until the Spirit's message was delivered; and only the keenest witted of her Catholic hearers waked up to the fact, as they were going out, that they had got the preachment from the woman priest after all.

Presiding at a woman's convention on one occasion, a speaker painted a very vivid picture in the darkest colors of this nation's injustice to oppressed classes, and from the experience of other nations not based upon principle, he foretold the certain downfall of our republic. On rising, he had said that "he feared he should not be able to do his theme justice, as he had just risen from a bed of sickness," but warming up with his subject he rivaled Isaiah in his Jeremiad, and left his audience in gloom and despair, the president sharing in the general feeling, for the appeal had been thrilling and terrible. In a moment, however, Mrs. Mott arose, saying: "I trust our future is not as hopeless as our faithful friend, Parker Pillsbury, has just pictured. We must remember he told us in starting that he had just risen from a bed of sickness, and that may in a measure account for his gloomy forebodings." The audience burst forth into a roar of applause and laughter, and the president introduced the next speaker, seemingly unconscious that she had stabbed the prophet through and through, and dissipated the effect of his warnings.

Mrs. Mott was frequently chosen the presiding officer of the early conventions. Though she seldom regarded Cushing's Manual in her rulings, she maintained order and good feeling by the persuasiveness and serenity of her voice and manner. Emerson says: "It is not what the man says, but it is the spirit behind it which makes the impression." It was this subtle magnetism of the true, grand woman, ever faithful to her highest convictions of truth, that made her always respected in every position she occupied. Hers was pure moral power, for in that frail organization there could be but little of what is called physical magnetism. Her placid face showed that she was at peace with herself, the first requisite in a successful leader of reform. That Mrs. Mott could have maintained her sweetness and charity to the end, is a marvel in view of the varied and protracted persecutions she endured.

Rarely have so many different and superior qualities been combined in one woman. She had great personal beauty; her brow and eye were remarkable. Although small in stature, it is said of her as it was of Channing, he too being of diminutive size, that she made you think she was larger than she was. She had a look of command. The amount of will force and intelligent power in her small body was enough to direct the universe; yet she was modest and unassuming and had none of the personal airs of leadership. Her manners were gentle and self-possessed under all circumstances. Her conversation, though generally serious, earnest and logical, was sometimes playful and always good humored. Her attitude of mind was receptive. She never seemed to think even in her latest years that she had explored all truth. Though she had very clearly defined opinions on every subject that came under her consideration, she never dogmatized.

It was this healthy balance of good qualities that made her great among other women of genius; and the multiplicity of her interests in human affairs that kept her fresh and young to the last. The thinkers, the scholars, the broadest intellects are often the octogenarians, while the narrow selfish souls dry up in their own channels. One of her noble sisters in reform has truly said, "Birth made Victoria a queen, but her own pure, sweet life made Lucretia Mott a queen; queen of a realm on which the sun never sets, the realm of humanity. If ever any one inherited the earth it was this blessed Quaker woman."

Space fails me to tell of all the pleasant memories of our forty years friendship, of the inspiration she has been to those on our platform, of the bond of union to hold us together, of the innumerable conventions over which she has presided, of the many long journeys both North and South to carry the glad tidings of justice, liberty, and equality to all. A missionary who always traveled at her own expense, giving her best thoughts freely, asking nothing in return, neither money, praise, nor honor; for misrepresentation and cruel persecution were the only return she had for years. Both in religion and reform hers was a free gospel to the multitude.

As division has been the law in politics, religion, and reform, woman suffrage proved no exception. But Lucretia Mott and her noble sister, Martha O. Wright, remained steadfast with those who had taken the initiative steps in calling the first Convention, and with the larger and more radical division their sympathies remained, both being prominent officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association at the time of their death. They fully endorsed the great lesson of the war, National protection for United States citizens, applied to woman as well as to the African race, the doctrine the association to which they belonged has so successfully advocated at Washington for twelve years.

Reading the numerous complimentary obituary notices of our long loved friend, so fair, so tender, so full of praise, we have exclaimed, what changes the passing years have wrought in the popular estimate of a woman once considered so dangerous an innovator in the social and religious world; and yet the Lucretia Mott of to-day is only the perfected, well-rounded character of half a century ago. But the slowly moving masses that feared her then as an infidel, a fanatic, an unsexed woman, have followed her footsteps until a broader outlook has expanded their moral vision. The "vagaries" of the anti-slavery struggle, in which she took a leading part, have been coined into law; and the "wild fantasies" of the Abolitionists are now the XIII., XIV., and XV. Amendments to the National Constitution. The prolonged and bitter schisms in the Society of Friends have shed new light on the tyranny of creeds and scriptures. The infidel Hicksite principles that shocked Christendom, are now the corner-stones of the liberal religious movement in this country. The demand for woman's social, civil, and political equality--in which she was foremost--laughed at from the Atlantic to the Pacific, has been recognized in a measure by courts and legislatures, in Great Britain and the United States. The old Blackstone code for woman has received its death-blow, and the colleges, trades, and professions have been opened for her admission.

The name of Lucretia Mott represents more fully than any other in the nineteenth century, the sum of all womanly virtues. As wife, mother, friend, she was marked for her delicate sentiments, warm affections, and steadfast loyalty; as housekeeper, for her rigid economy, cleanliness, order, and exhaustless patience with servants and children; as neighbor, for justice and honor in all her dealings; as teacher, even at the early age of fifteen, for her skill and faithfulness.

One who has lived eighty-eight years 'mid a young, impressible people like ours, ever reflecting the exalted virtues of the true woman, the earnest reformer, the religious teacher, must have left her impress for good in every relation of life. When we remember that every word we utter, every act we perform, the individual atmosphere we create have their effect, not only on all who come within the circle of our daily life, but through them are wafted to innumerable other circles beyond, we can in a measure appreciate the far-reaching influence of one grand life. Great as has been the acknowledged, moral power of Lucretia Mott, it would have been vastly greater, had her opinions been legitimately recognized in the laws and constitutions of the nation; and could she have enjoyed the consciousness of exerting this direct influence, it would have intensified the holy purpose of her life. "The highest earthly desire of a ripened mind," says Thomas Arnold, "is the desire of taking an active share in the great work of government." Those only who are capable of appreciating this dignity can measure the extent to which this noble woman has been defrauded as a citizen of this great Republic. Neither can they measure the loss to the councils of the nation, of the wisdom of such a representative woman.

In the manifold tributes to the memory of our beloved friend, we have yet to see the first mention of her political degradation, which she so keenly felt and so often deplored on our platform. Why are the press and the pulpit, with all their eulogiums of her virtues, so oblivious to the humiliating fact of her disfranchisement? Are political disabilities, accounted such grievous wrongs to the Southern aristocrat, to the emancipated slave, to the proud Anglo-Saxon man in every latitude, of so little value to woman that when a nation mourns the loss of the grandest representative of our sex, no tear is shed, no regret expressed, no mention even made of her political degradation?

We might ask the question why this universal outpouring of tributes to our venerated friend, exceeding all honors hitherto paid to the great women of our nation, who, one by one, have passed away It is because Lucretia Mott was a philanthropist; her life was dedicated to the rights of humanity. When the poet, the novelist, the philosopher, and the metaphysican have been forgotten, the memory of the true reformer will remain engraven on the hearts of the multitude. Behold! the beauty of yonder fountain, after its upward flight, is where it turns again to earth, so is the life of one morally beautiful, ever drawn by a law of its being from the clouds of speculation to the common interests of humanity.

The question is often asked of us on this platform, will the children of these reformers take up the work that falls from their hands? It is more than probable they will not. It is with reformers' children as others, they seldom follow in the footsteps of their parents. As a general thing the son of a farmer hates the plow, the son of a lawyer is not attracted to the bar, nor the son of a clergyman to the pulpit. The daughter of the pattern housekeeper turns to literature or art, and the child of the reformer has no heart for martyrdom. It is philosophical that our sons and daughters should not be here. To a certain extent they have shared the odium and persecution we have provoked, they have been ostracised and ignored for heresies they have never accepted. The humiliation of our children has been the bitterest drop in the cup of reformers. Look around our platform, not one representative of the brave band of women who inaugurated this movement is here! Not one of our kindred has ever yet in these conventions echoed our demands. Nevertheless we are, and shall be represented! We see bright new faces; we hear eloquent new voices; brave young women are gathering round us, to plead our cause in more august assemblies, and to celebrate the victory at last. These are our kindred, by holier ties than blood. As their way through life will be smoother for all our noble friend has dared and suffered, may they by the same courage and conscientious devotion to principle, shed new light on the path of those who follow their footsteps. This is the great moral lesson the life of our dear friend should impress on the coming generation.

Having known Lucretia Mott, not only in the flush of life, when all her faculties were at their zenith, but in the repose of advanced age, her withdrawal from our midst seems as natural and as beautiful as the changing foliage of some grand oak from the spring-time to the autumn.

ENGLISH CORRESPONDENCE.

The following interesting correspondence in regard to the exclusion of women from the World's Convention, reveals the fact that the action was the result, after all, of religious bigotry more than prejudice against sex. And this opinion is further confirmed by the decided opposition promptly manifested to Lucretia Mott's proposal to have a series of meetings for women alone. Some of the Orthodox Friends said they were afraid, that under the plea of discussing emancipation for the slave, other subjects might be introduced. Mrs. Mott, desiring to know what Daniel O'Connell thought of the action of the Convention, wrote him as follows:

To Daniel O'Connell, M.P.:

The rejected delegates from America to the "General Anti-Slavery Conference," are desirous to have the opinion of one of the most distinguished advocates of universal liberty, as to the reasons urged by the majority for their rejection, viz: that the admission of women being contrary to English usage would subject them to ridicule, and that such recognition of their acknowledged principles would prejudice the cause of human freedom.

Permit me, then, on behalf of the delegation, to ask Daniel O'Connell the favor of his sentiments as incidentally expressed in the meeting on the morning of the 13th inst., and oblige his sincere friend,

LUCRETIA MOTT. LONDON, sixth mo., 17, 1840.

16 PALL MALL, 20th June, 1840.

MADAM:--Taking the liberty of protesting against being supposed to adopt any of the complimentary phrases in your letter as being applicable to me, I readily comply with your request to give my opinion as to the propriety of the admission of the female delegates into the Convention.

I should premise by avowing that my first impression was strong against that admission; and I believe I declared that opinion in private conversation. But when I was called on by you to give my personal decision on the subject, I felt it my duty to investigate the grounds of the opinion I had formed; and upon that investigation I easily discovered that it was founded on no better grounds than an apprehension of the ridicule it might excite if the Convention were to do what is so unusual in England--admit women to an equal share and right of the discussion. I also without difficulty recognized that this was an unworthy, and, indeed, a cowardly motive, and I easily overcame its influence.

My mature consideration of the entire subject convinces me of the right of the female delegates to take their seats in the Convention, and of the injustice of excluding them. I do not care to add that I deem it also impolitic; because, that exclusion being unjust, it ought not to have taken place even if it could also be politic. My reasons are:

First. That as it has been the practice in America for females to act as delegates and office-bearers, as well as in common capacity of members of Anti-Slavery Societies, the persons who called this Convention ought to have warned the American Anti-Slavery Societies to confine their choice to males, and for want of this caution many female delegates have made long journeys by land and crossed the ocean to enjoy a right which they had no reason to fear would be withheld from them at the end of their tedious voyage.

Secondly. The cause which is so intimately interwoven with every good feeling of humanity and with the highest and most sacred principles of Christianity--the Anti-Slavery cause in America--is under the greatest, the deepest, the most heart-binding obligations to the females who have joined the Anti-Slavery Societies in the United States. They have shown a passive but permanent courage, which ought to put many of the male advocates to the blush. The American ladies have persevered in our holy cause amidst difficulties and dangers, with the zeal of confessors and the firmness of martyrs; and, therefore, emphatically they should not be disparaged or discouraged by any slight or contumely offered to their rights. Neither are this slight and contumely much diminished by the fact that it was not intended to offer any slight or to convey any contumely. Both results inevitably follow from the fact of rejection. This OUGHT NOT to be.

Thirdly. Even in England, with all our fastidiousness, women vote upon the great regulation of the Bank of England; in the nomination of its directors and governors, and in all other details equally with men; that is, they assist in the most awfully important business--the regulation of the currency of this mighty Empire--influencing the fortunes of all commercial nations.

Fourthly. Our women in like manner vote at the India House; that is, in the regulation of the government of more than one hundred millions of human beings.

Fifthly. Mind has no sex; and in the peaceable struggle to abolish slavery all over the world, it is the basis of the present Convention to seek success by peaceable, moral, and intellectual means alone, to the utter exclusion of armed violence. We are engaged in a strife not of strength, but of argument. Our warfare is not military; it is Christian. We wield not the weapons of destruction or injury to our adversaries. We rely entirely on reason and persuasion common to both sexes, and on the emotions of benevolence and charity, which are more lovely and permanent amongst women than amongst men.

In the Church to which I belong the female sex are devoted by as strict rules and with as much, if not more, unceasing austerity to the performance (and that to the exclusion of all worldly or temporal joys and pleasures) of all works of humanity, of education, of benevolence, and of charity, in all its holy and sacred branches, as the men. The great work in which we are now engaged embraces all these charitable categories; and the women have the same duties, and should, therefore, enjoy the same rights with men in the performance of their duties.

I have a consciousness that I have not done my duty in not sooner urging these considerations on the Convention. My excuse is that I was unavoidably absent during the discussion on the subject.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, madam,

Your obedient servant, LUCRETIA MOTT. DANIEL O'CONNELL.

The following earnest and friendly letter from William Howitt, was highly prized by Mrs. Mott:

LONDON, June 27, 1840.

DEAR FRIEND:--....I regret that I was prevented from making a part of the Convention, as nothing should have hindered me from stating there in the plainest terms my opinion of the real grounds on which you were rejected. It is a pity that you were excluded on the plea of being women; but it is disgusting that under that plea you were actually excluded as heretics. That is the real ground, and it ought to have been at once proclaimed and exposed by the liberal members of the Convention; but I believe they were not aware of the fact. I heard of the circumstance of your exclusion at a distance, and immediately said: "Excluded on the ground that they are women?" No, that is not the real cause; there is something behind. And what are these female delegates? Are they orthodox in religion? The answer was "No, they are considered to be of the Hicksite party of Friends." My reply was, "That is enough; there lies the real cause, and there needs no other. The influential Friends in the Convention would never for a moment tolerate their presence there if they could prevent it. They hate them because they have dared to call in question their sectarian dogmas and assumed authority; and they have taken care to brand them in the eyes of the Calvinistic Dissenters, who form another large and influential portion of the Convention, as Unitarians; in their eyes the most odious of heretics."

But what a miserable spectacle is this! The "World's Convention" converting itself into the fag-end of the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends! That Convention met from various countries and climates to consider how it shall best advance the sacred cause of humanity; of the freedom of the race, independent of caste or color, immediately falls the victim of bigotry; and one of its first acts is to establish a caste of sectarian opinion, and to introduce color into the very soul! Had I not seen of late years a good deal of the spirit which now rules the Society of Friends, my surprise would have been unbounded at seeing them argue for the exclusion of women from a public assembly, as women. But nothing which they do now surprises me. They have in this case to gratify their wretched spirit of intolerance, at once abandoned one of the most noble and most philosophical of the established principles of their own Society.

That Society claims, and claims justly, to be the first Christian party which has recognized the great Christian doctrine that THERE IS NO SEX IN SOULS; that male and female are one in Christ Jesus. There were Fox and Penn and the first giants of the Society who dared in the face of the world's prejudices to place woman in her first rank; to recognize and maintain her moral and intellectual equality. It was this Society which thus gave to woman her inalienable rights, her true liberty; which restored to her the exercise of mind, and the capacity to exhibit before her assumed ancient lord and master, the highest qualities of the human heart and understanding; discretion, sound counsel, sure sagacity, mingled with feminine delicacy, and that beautiful innate modesty which avails more to restrain its possessor within the bounds of prudence and usefulness than all the laws of corrupt society. It was this Society which, at once fearless in its confidence in woman's goodness and sense of propriety, gave its female portion its own meetings of discipline, meetings of civil discussion and transaction of actual and various business. It was this Society which did more; which permitted its women in the face of a great apostolic injunction to stand forth in its churches and preach the Gospel. It has, in fact, sent them out armed with the authority of its certificates to the very ends of the earth to preach in public; to visit and persuade in private.

And what has been the consequence? Have the women put their faith And philosophy to shame? Have they disgraced themselves or the Society which has confided in them? Have they proved by their follies, their extravagances, their unwomanly boldness and want of a just sense of decorum that these great men were wrong? On the contrary, I will venture to say, and I have seen something of all classes, that there is not in the whole civilized world a body of women to be found of the same numbers, who exhibit more modesty of manner and delicacy of mind than the ladies of the Society of Friends; and few who equal them in sound sense and dignity of character. There can be no question that the recognition of the moral and intellectual equality of the most lovely and interesting portion of our Society has tended, and that very materially, to raise them greatly in value as wives, as bosom friends and domestic counselors, whose inestimable worth is only discovered in times of trial and perplexity.

And here have gone the little men of the present day, and have knocked down in the face of the world all that their ancestors, in this respect, had built up! If they are at all consistent they must carry out their new principle and sweep it through the ancient constitution of their own Society. They must at once put down meetings of discipline among their women; they must call home such as are in distant countries, or are traversing this, preaching and visiting families. There must be no appointments of women to meet committees of men to deliberate on matters of great importance to the Society. But the fact is, my dear friend, that bigotry is never consistent except that is always narrow, always ungracious, and always under plea of uniting God's people, scattering them one from another, and rendering them weak as water.

I want to know what religious opinions have to do with a "World's Convention." Did you meet to settle doctrines, or to conspire against slavery? Many an august council has attempted to settle doctrines, and in vain; and you had before you a subject so vast, so pressing, so momentous, that in presence of its sublimity, any petty jealousy and fancied idea of superiority ought to have fallen as dust from the boughs of a cedar. You as delegates, had to meet this awful fact in the face, and to consider how it should be grappled with; how the united power of civilized nations should be brought to bear upon it! The fact that after nearly a century of gradually growing and accumulating efforts to put down slavery and the slave trade, little has been done; that there are now more slaves in the world than ever, and that the slave trade is far more extensive and monstrous than it was when Clarkson raised his voice against its extinction; that is a fact which, if the men who now take the lead in warring on the evil were truly great men, it would silence in them every other feeling than that of its enormity, and the godlike resolve that all hands and all hearts should be raised before Heaven and united in its spirit to chase this spreading villainy from the earth speedily and forever. But men, however benevolent, can not be great men if they are bigots. Bigots are like the peasants who build their cabins in the mighty palaces of the ancient Caesars. The Caesars who raised the past fabrics are gone, and the power in which they raised them is gone with them. Poor and little men raise their huts within those august palace walls, and fancy themselves the inhabitants of the palaces themselves. So in the mighty fane of Christianity, bigots and sectarians are continually rearing their little cabins of sects and parties, and would fain persuade us, while they fill their own narrow tenements, that they fill the glorious greatness of Christianity itself!

It is surely high time that after eighteen hundred years of Christ's reign we should be prepared to allow each other to hold an opinion on the most important of all subjects to ourselves! It is surely time that we opened our eyes sufficiently to see what is so plain in the Gospel: the sublime difference between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of His disciples when they fain would have made a bigot of Him. "We saw men doing miracles in thy name; and we forbade them." "Forbid them not, for they who are not against us are for us." It is not by doctrines that Christ said His disciples should be known, but by their fruits; and by the greatest of all fruits--love.

You, dear friend, and those noble women to whom I address myself when addressing you, have shown in your own country the grand Christian testimonial of love to mankind in the highest degree. You have put your lives in your hands for the sake of man's freedom from caste, color, and mammon; and the greatest disgrace that has of late years befallen this country is, that you have been refused admittance as delegates to the Convention met ostensibly to work that very work for which you have so generously labored and freely suffered. The Convention has not merely insulted you, but those who sent you. It has testified that the men of America are at least far ahead of us in their opinion of the discretion and usefulness of women. But above all, this act of exclusion has shown how far the Society of Friends is fallen from its ancient state of greatness and catholic nobleness of spirit.

But my time is gone. I have not said one-half, one-tenth, one-hundredth part of what I could say to you and to your companions on this subject; but of this be assured, time and your own delegators will do you justice. The true Christians in all ages were the heretics of the time; and this I say not because I believe exactly as you do, for in truth I neither know nor desire to know exactly how far we think alike. All that I know or want to know is, that you have shown the grand mark of Christian truth--love to mankind.

I have heard the noble Garrison blamed that he had not taken his place in the Convention because you and your fellow-delegates were excluded. I, on the contrary, honor him for his conduct. In mere worldly wisdom he might have entered the Convention and there made his protest against the decision; but in at once refusing to enter where you, his fellow-delegates, were shut out, he has made a far nobler protest; not in the mere Convention, but in the world at large. I honor the lofty principle of that true champion of humanity, and shall always recollect with delight, the day Mary and I spent with you and him.

I must apologize for this most hasty and I fear illegible scrawl, and with our kind regards and best wishes for your safe return to your native country, and for many years of honorable labor there for the truth and freedom, I beg to subscribe myself,

Most sincerely your friend, WILLIAM HOWITT.

Harriet Martineau, who had visited Mrs. Mott when in America, and was prevented from attending the Convention by illness, wrote as follows:

I can not be satisfied without sending you a line of love and sympathy. I think much of you amidst your present trials, and much indeed have I thought of you and your cause since we parted. May God strengthen you. It is a comfort to me that two of my best friends, Mrs. Reid and Julia Smith, are there to look upon you with eyes of love. I hear of you from them, for busy as they are, they remember me from day to day, and make me a partaker of your proceedings.... I can not but grieve for you in the heart-sickness which you have experienced this last week. We must trust that the spirit of Christ will in time enlarge the hearts of those who claim his name, that the whites as well as the blacks will in time be free.

After the Convention, Mrs. Mott visited Miss Martineau, who was an invalid, staying at Tynemouth, for the benefit of sea air. And on her return to London, she received another letter, from which we extract the following:

I felt hardly as if I knew what I was about that morning, but I was very happy, and I find that I remember every look and word. I did not make all the use I might of the opportunity; but when are we ever wise enough to do it? I do not think we shall ever meet again in this world, and I believe that was in your mind when you said farewell. I feel that I have derived somewhat from my intercourse with you that will never die, and I am thankful that we have been permitted to meet. You will tell the Furnesses (Rev. Wm. H.) where and how you found me. Tell them of my cheerful room and fine down and sea. I wish my friends would suffer for me no more than I do for myself. I hope you have yet many years of activity and enjoyment before you. My heart will ever be in your cause and my love with yourself.

In James Mott's published volume, "Three months in Great Britain," he speaks of many distinguished persons who extended to them most gracious hospitalities, for although Mrs. Mott had been ostracised by some of the more bigoted "Friends," others were correspondingly marked in their attentions. Among such was that noble-hearted young woman, Elizabeth Pease, of Darlington, who was one of the first to call upon them on their arrival in London, and the last to bid them farewell on the morning they sailed from Liverpool; having in company with her father gone from Manchester for that purpose. Her cultivated mind and fine talents were devoted to subjects of reform, with an energy and perseverance rarely equaled.

Ann Knight, another sincere friend and advocate of human rights, was quite indignant, that a Convention called for such liberal measures should reject women on the flimsy plea, "that it being contrary to English usage, it would subject them to ridicule and prejudice their cause." She was unremitting in her attentions to the American women, doing many things to make their visit pleasant while in London, and afterward, entertaining several as guests in her own "quiet home." Amelia Opie, with her happy face and genial manners, was in constant attendance at the Convention. On entering one of the sessions, she accosted Mrs. Mott, saying, "though in one sense the women delegates were rejected, yet they were held in high esteem, and their coming would have immense influence on the action of future assemblies."

At the "Crown and Anchor," one evening, the members of the Convention took a parting cup of tea; nearly five hundred persons were present. As the resolution excluding women did not extend to this company, Mrs. Mott gave her views on the use of slave products, which were well received. In the course of her remarks she referred to the example and faithfulness of the "Society of Friends," in using as far as possible the produce of free labor in their families. Josiah Forster, ever vigilant on the battlements of bigotry, could not allow this allusion to pass unnoticed, and when Mrs. Mott sat down, he arose and said he "could not conscientiously refrain from informing the company, that Mrs. Mott did not represent the Society of Friends. He did so with no other than feelings of kindness, but,"--when he had proceeded thus far it was evident he was about to disclaim religious fellowship with her, and a general burst of disapprobation was manifested by cries of "down, down! order, order! shame, shame!"--but he finished his disavowal amidst the confusion, though few heard what he said, neither did they wish to hear his expressions of intolerance. As soon as he had finished his speech he left the room, probably displeased that his feelings met with so little sympathy, or at the manifestation of dissatisfaction with his remarks.

At a dinner party, at Elizabeth J. Reid's, a few days after, Lady Byron was one of the company; with whom Mr. and Mrs. Mott had a previous acquaintance, through a letter of introduction from George Combe. As Colonel Miller, one of the American delegation, had been in the Greek war with Lord Byron, and knew him well, several interesting interviews with the wife and daughter grew out of that acquaintance. They also visited Dr. Bowring and his interesting family several times, and on one occasion met there Charles Pelham Villiers, the leading advocate in Parliament for the modification of their corn laws. Dr. Bowring was a near neighbor and great admirer of Jeremy Bentham, and entertained them with many anecdotes of his original friend. William H. Ashurst, a lawyer of eminence in London, gave them a cordial welcome to his family circle, where they met William and Mary Howitt, and Robert Owen, the philanthropist. Mr. Ashurst took an active part in favor of reducing the postage on letters and papers.

At Birmingham, they passed a few days with their liberal "Friend," William Boultbee, and visited several of the great manufacturing establishments. Here they made the acquaintance of a Catholic priest, Thomas M. McDonald, a man of broad views and marked liberality. He tendered Mrs. Mott the use of a large room at his disposal, and urged her to hold a meeting. At Liverpool, they were the guests of William Rathbone and family. In Dublin, they met James Houghton, Richard Allen, Richard Webb, and the Huttons, who entertained them most hospitably and gave them many charming drives in and about the city. At Edinburgh, they joined Sarah Pugh and Abby Kimber, who had just returned from the Continent, and had a cordial reception at the home of George Thompson. They passed two days with George Combe, the great phrenologist, who examined and complimented Mrs. Mott's head, as indicating a strong symmetrical character. They took tea with his brother, Andrew Combe, the author of that admirable work on "Infancy," which has proved a real blessing to many young mothers.

At a meeting in Glasgow, to hear George Thompson on the subject of British India, Mrs. Mott asked the chairman for the liberty of addressing the audience for a few minutes, but was denied, though a colored man, Charles Lenox Remond, of Salem, Massachusetts, was listened to with attention, as he had been in London and other places, showing that the unholy prejudice against color was not so bitter in England as that against sex. George Harris, the minister of the Unitarian Chapel in Glasgow, cordially extended to Mrs. Mott the use of his church for a lecture on slavery, which was gladly accepted. The house was crowded, and there was abundant reason to believe the people were well pleased. But the small handful of "Friends" in that city did not suffer so good an opportunity of disclaiming them to pass, and accordingly had the following communication published in the papers:

To the Editor of the Glasgow Gazette:

RESPECTED FRIEND:--Intimation having been given on the 8th, current, by means of placards extensively posted throughout the city, that "On Sabbath first, the 9th instant, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, a minister of the Society of Friends, Philadelphia, would hold a meeting in the Christian Unitarian Chapel"; and that the meeting was held and numerously attended by our fellow-citizens, we deem it right on behalf of the Society of Friends residing in Glasgow, to inform the public that we hold no religious fellowship with Lueretia Mott, nor with the body in the United States called Hicksites, to which she belongs, they not being recognized by the Society of Friends in the United Kingdom, nor by those "Friends" with whom we are in connection in America; and that we do not wish to be in any way identified with, or considered responsible for any sentiments that Lucretia Mott may have uttered at the meeting above referred to.

We are, respectfully, thy friends,

WILLIAM SMEAL, WILLIAM WHITE, JOHN MAXWELL, JAMES SMEAL, EDWARD WHITE.

GLASGOW, 12th of 8th mo., 1840.

To us who knew, loved, and honored Lucretia Mott for her many virtues, these manifestations of bigotry, so narrowing and embittering in their effect on the mind, should be an added warning against that evil spirit of persecution that has brought such sorrow to mankind. We sincerely hope these few examples we have endeavored to place in their true light, may awaken thought in the minds of our readers, and incline them to renewed charity and a wiser appreciation of what is and what is not vital in religion. Surely life must ever stand for more than faith.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] In the midst of our first volume the announcement of the death of Lucretia Mott, Nov. 11th, 1880, reached us. As she was identified with so many of the historical events of Pennsylvania, where nearly seventy years of her life were passed, it is fitting that this sketch should follow the State in which she resided for so long a period.Return to passage

XII. NEW JERSEY

In 1682, William Penn purchased Eastern Jersey, and under a Governor of his choosing, Robert Barclay, the colony became a refuge for the persecuted "Friends." It was no doubt due to the peaceful measures of William Penn in his dealings with the Indians, that this colony was free from all troubles with them. The last loyal Governor of New Jersey--1763--was William Franklin, a natural son of Benjamin Franklin, and a bitter Tory.

The struggle for independence was at this time interesting and exciting, and behind the Governor was a strong party for reconciliation with Great Britain. Besides the Governor's instructions against independence, the Assembly had resolved on a separate petition to the King.

Aware of this feeling in New Jersey, Congress sent that illustrious trio, John Dickinson, John Jay, and George Wythe, to procure a reversal of their determination. They were courteously received on the floor, and urged in their addresses that nothing but unity and bravery in the Colonies would bring Great Britain to terms; that she wanted to procure separate petitions, but that such a course would break the union, when the Colonies would be like a rope of sand. The Assembly yielded to their entreaties, and on the 25th of June, 1776, Governor Franklin, who opposed the action of Congress, was deposed,[76] and William Livingston, a true patriot, was elected Governor, and re-elected for fourteen years.

The intense excitement of this period in New Jersey roused many women loyal to freedom and the independence of the Colonies to persistent action. Among these was Hannah Arnett, of Elizabethtown, whose story was first made public one hundred years after the date of its occurrence.[77] The latter part of the year 1776 was a period of doubt and despondency to the patriot troops. Although the Colonies had declared their independence several months before, the American forces had since suffered many severe defeats, and it seemed not unlikely that Great Britain would be victorious in her struggle with the new-born republic. On the 30th of November, Gen. Howe had issued his celebrated proclamation offering amnesty and protection to all who, within sixty days, should declare themselves peaceable British subjects, and bind themselves to neither take up arms nor encourage others to do so.

After his victory at Fort Lee, Lord Cornwallis marched his army to New Jersey, encamping at Elizabethtown. His presence on New Jersey soil so soon after Gen. Howe's proclamation, and the many defeats of the patriot army, had a very depressing effect. Of this period Dr. Ashbel Green wrote: "I heard a man of some shrewdness once say, that when the British troops overran the State of New Jersey, in the closing part of the year 1776, the whole population could have been bought for eighteen pence a head."

But however true this statement may have been of the men of New Jersey, it could not be justly made in regard to its women, one of whom, at least, did much to stem the tide of panic so strong at this point where Cornwallis was encamped. A number of men of Elizabeth assembled one evening in one of the spacious mansions for which this place was rather famous, to discuss the advisability of accepting the proposed amnesty. The question was a momentous one, and the discussion was earnest and protracted. Some were for accepting this proffer at once; others hesitated; they canvassed the subject from various points, but finally decided that submission was all that remained to them. Their hope was gone, and their courage with it; every remnant of patriotic spirit seemed swept away in the darkness of the hour. But there was a listener of whom they were ignorant; a woman, Hannah Arnett, the wife of the host, sitting at her work in an adjoining room. The discussion had reached her ears, rousing her intense indignation. She listened until she could sit still no longer; springing to her feet she pushed open the parlor door, confronting the amazed men. The writer from whom we glean these facts, says: "Can you fancy the scene? A large, low room, with the dark, heavy furniture of the period, dimly lighted by the tall wax candles and the wood fire which blazed on the hearth. Around the table the group of men, pallid, gloomy, dejected, disheartened. In the door-way the figure of the woman in in antique costume, with which in these Centennial days we have become so familiar. Can you not fancy the proud poise of her head, the indignant light of her blue eyes, the crisp, clear tones of her voice, the majesty, and defiance, and scorn, which clothed her as with a garment?"

The men were appalled and started at the sight. She seemed like some avenging angel about to bring them to judgment for the words they had spoken; and, indeed, such she proved. It was strange to see a woman thus enter the secret councils of men, and her husband hastily approaching her, whispered: "Hannah, Hannah, this is no place for you, we do not want you here just now;" and he tried to take her hand to lead her from the room. But she pushed him gently back, saying to the startled group: "Have you made your decision, gentlemen? Have you chosen the part of men, or traitors?"

They stammered and blundered as they tried to find answer. Things appeared to them in a new light as this woman so pointedly questioned them. Their answers were a mixture of excuses and explanations. They declared the country to be in a hopeless condition; the army starving, half-clothed, undisciplined, the country poor, while England's trained troops were backed by the wealth of a thousand years.

Hannah Arnett listened in silence until the last abject word was spoken, when she rapidly inquired: "But what if we should live after all?" The men looked at each other, but not word was spoken. "Hannah, Hannah," cried her husband, "do you not see these are no questions for you? We are discussing what is best for us all. Women do not understand these things; go to your spinning-wheel and leave us to discuss these topics. Do you not see that you are making yourself ridiculous?"

But Mrs. Arnett paid no heed. Speaking to the men in a strangely quiet, voice, she said: "Can you not tell me? If, after all, God does not let the right perish; if America should win in the conflict, after you have thrown yourselves upon British clemency, where will you be then?" "Then?" spoke a hesitating voice, "why then, if it ever could be so, we should be ruined. We must then leave home and country forever. But the struggle is an entirely hopeless one. We have no men, no money, no arms, no food, and England has everything."

"No," said Mrs. Arnett, "you have forgotten one thing which England has not, and which we have--one thing which outweighs all England's treasures, and that is the right. God is on our side; and every volley from our muskets is an echo of His voice. We are poor and weak and few, but God is fighting for us. We counted the cost before we began; we knew the price and were willing to pay; and now, because for the time the day is going against us, you would give up all and sneak back like cravens, to kiss the feet that have trampled upon us! And you call yourselves men; the sons of those who gave up homes and fortune and fatherland to make for themselves and for dear liberty a resting-place in the wilderness! Oh, shame upon you, cowards!"

The words had rushed out in a fiery flood which her husband had vainly striven to check. Turning to the gentlemen present, Mr. Arnett said: "I beg you will excuse this most unseemly interruption to our council. My wife is beside herself, I think. You all know her, and that it is not her custom to meddle with politics. To-morrow she will see her folly; but now I beg your patience."

But her words had roused the slumbering manhood of her hearers. Each began to look upon himself as a craven, and to withdraw from the position he had taken. No one replied to her husband, and Mrs. Arnett continued. "Take your protection if you will. Proclaim yourselves traitors and cowards, false to your country and your God, but horrible will be the judgment upon your heads and the heads of those that love you. I tell you that England will never conquer. I know it and feel it in every fiber of my heart. Has God led us thus far to desert us now? Will He who led our fathers across the stormy winter seas forsake their children who have put their trust in Him? For me, I stay with my country, and my hand shall never touch the hand, nor my heart cleave to the heart of him who shames her"; and she turned a glance upon her husband; "Isaac, we have lived together for twenty years, and for all of them I have been a true and loving wife to you. But I am the child of God and of my Country, and if you do this shameful thing, I will never again own you for my husband."

"My dear wife!" he cried, aghast, "you do not know what you are saying. Leave me for such a thing as this?" "For such a thing as this!" she cried, scornfully. "What greater cause could there be? I married a good man and true, a faithful friend, and it needs no divorce to sever me from a traitor and a coward. If you take your amnesty you lose your wife, and I--I lose my husband and my home!"

With the last words her voice broke into a pathetic fall, and a mist gathered before her eyes. The men were deeply moved; the words of Mrs. Arnett had touched every soul. Gradually the drooping heads were raised, and eyes grew bright with manliness and resolution. Before they left the house that night they had sworn a solemn oath to stand by the cause they had adopted, and the land of their birth through good or evil, and to spurn as deadliest insult the proffered amnesty of their tyrannical foe.

Some of the men who met in this secret council afterward fought nobly, and died upon the field of battle for their country. Others lived to rejoice when the day of triumph came; but the name of this woman was found upon no heroic roll, nor is it on the page of any history that men have since written, although she made heroes of cowards, and helped to stay the wave of desolation which, in the dark days of '76, threatened to overwhelm the land.

At one time some British officers quartered themselves at the house of Mrs. Dissosway, situated at the western end of Staten Island, opposite Amboy. Her husband was a prisoner; but her brother, Captain Nat. Randolph, was in the American army, and gave much annoyance to the tories by his frequent incursions. A tory colonel promised Mrs. Dissosway to procure the release of her husband on condition of her prevailing on her brother to stay quietly at home. "And if I could," she replied, with a look of scorn, drawing up her tall figure to its utmost height, "if I could act so dastardly a part, think you General Washington has but one Captain Randolph in his army?"

At a period when American prospects were most clouded, and New Jersey overrun by the British, an officer stationed at Borden-town (said to be Lord Cornwallis) endeavored to intimidate Mrs. Borden into using her influence over her husband and son, who were absent in the American army. The officer promised her that if she would induce them to quit the standard they followed and join the royalists, her property should be protected; while in case of refusal, her estate would be ravaged and her elegant mansion destroyed. Mrs. Borden answered, "Begin your threatened havoc then; the sight of my house in flames would be a treat to me; for I have seen enough to know that you never injure what you have power to keep and enjoy. The application of a torch to my dwelling I should regard as a signal for your departure." The house was burned in fulfillment of the threat, and the estate laid waste; but, as Mrs. Borden predicted, the retreat of the spoiler quickly followed.

During the battle of Monmouth a gunner named Pitcher was killed, and the call was made for some one to take his place; his wife, who had followed him to the camp and thence to the field of conflict, unhesitatingly stepped forward and offered her services. The gun was so well managed as to draw the attention of General Washington to the circumstance, and to call forth an expression of his admiration of her bravery and fidelity to her country. To show his appreciation of her virtues and her highly valuable services, he conferred on her a lieutenant's commission. She afterward went by the name of "Captain Molly."

As early as 1706, Thomas Chalkley, visiting the Conestogae Indians, near Susquehannah, says: "We treated about having a meeting with them in a religious way, upon which they called a council, in which they were very grave, and spoke one after another without any heat or jarring (and some of the most esteemed of their women do sometimes speak in their councils). I asked our interpreter why they suffered or permitted the women to speak; he answered: 'Some women are wiser than some men.' Our interpreter told me that they had not done anything for many years without the counsel of an ancient, grave woman, who, I observed, spoke much in their councils, for I was permitted to be present, and asked what she said. He replied that she was an empress, and that they gave much heed to what she said amongst them; that she then said to them that she looked upon our coming to be more than natural, because we did not come to buy nor sell nor get gain, but came in love and respect to them, and desired their well doing both here and hereafter; and that our meeting among them might be very beneficial to their young people. She related a dream she had three days before, and interpreted it, advising them to hear us and entertain us kindly, etc., which they did.

Chief Justice Green, in behalf of Miss Leake, of Trenton, presented to the New Jersey Historical Society copies of the correspondence between Colonel Mawhood of the British forces, and Colonel Hand of the American army, proposing to the latter to surrender, and each man to go to his home, etc., dated Salem County, March, 1778. The New Jersey Historical Society has a photographic copy of a print, contemporary with the event, representing the triumphal arch erected by the ladies of Trenton in honor of Washington, on his passage through the place in April, 1779, and a photographic copy of the following original note (now in possession of the lady who received it), which was written by Washington at the time:

General Washington can not leave this place without expressing his acknowledgements to the Matrons and Young Ladies who received him in so novel and grateful a manner at the Triumphal Arch in Trenton, for the exquisite sensations he experienced in that affecting scene. The astonishing contrast between his former and actual situation at the same spot, the elegant taste with which it was adorned for the present occasion, and the innocent appearance of the white-robed choir, who met him with the gratulatory song, have made such an impression on his remembrance as he assures them will never be effaced.

TRENTON, April 21, 1789.

THE ORIGIN, PRACTICE, AND PROHIBITION OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN NEW JERSEY.

William A. Whitehead, Corresponding Secretary of the New Jersey Historical Society, read the following paper at their annual meeting, January 21, 1858:

By the Proprietary laws, the right of suffrage in New Jersey was expressly to the free men of the province; and in equally explicit terms a law passed in 1709 prescribing the qualifications of electors, confined the privilege to male freeholders having one hundred acres of land in their own right, or worth fifty pounds, current money of the province, in real and personal estate, and during the whole of the colonial period these qualifications remained unaltered.

By the Constitution adopted July 2, 1776, the elective franchise was conferred upon all inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate in the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election; and the same, or similar language, was used in the different acts regulating elections until 1790; but I have not discovered any instance of the exercise of the right by females, under an interpretation which the full import of the words, "all inhabitants," was subsequently thought to sanction, during the whole of this period.

In 1790, however, a revision of the election law then in force was proposed, and upon the committee of the Legislature to whom the subject was referred was Mr. Joseph Cooper, of West Jersey, a prominent member of the Society of Friends. As the regulations of that society authorized females to vote in matters relating thereto, Mr. Cooper claimed for them the like privilege in matters connected with the State, and to support his views, quoted the provisions of the Constitution as sanctioning such a course. It was therefore to satisfy him that the committee consented to report a bill in which the expression, "he or she," applied to the voter, was introduced into the section specifying the necessary qualifications; thus giving a legislative endorsement of the alleged meaning of the Constitution. Still, no cases of females voting by virtue of this more definite provision are on record, and we are warranted in believing that the women of New Jersey then, as now, were not apt to overstep the bounds of decorum, or intrude where their characteristic modesty and self-respect might be wounded.

This law and its supplements were repealed in 1797, and it is some proof that the peculiar provision under review had not been availed of to any extent, if at all (as its evil consequences would otherwise have become apparent), that we find similar phraseology introduced into the new act. The right of suffrage was conferred upon "all free inhabitants of this State of full age," etc., thus adopting the language of the Constitution with the addition of the word "free," and "no person shall be entitled to vote in any other township or precinct than that in which he or she doth actually reside," etc., and in two other places is the possible difference in the sex of the voters recognized.

The first occasion on which females voted, of which any precise information has been obtained, was at an election held this year (1797) at Elizabethtown, Essex County, for members of the Legislature. The candidates between whom the greatest rivalry existed, were John Condit and William Crane, the heads of what were known a year or two later as the "Federal Republican" and "Federal Aristocratic" parties, the former the candidate of Newark and the northern portions of the county, and the latter the candidate of Elizabethtown and the adjoining country, for the Council. Under the impression that the candidates would poll nearly the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown leaders thought that by a bold coup d'etat they might secure the success of Mr. Crane. At a late hour of the day, and, as I have been informed, just before the close of the poll, a number of females were brought up, and under the provisions of the existing laws, allowed to vote; but the manoeuvre was unsuccessful, the majority for Mr. Condit, in the county, being ninety-three, notwithstanding. These proceedings were made the topic of two or three brief articles in the Newark Sentinel, in one of which the fact that "no less than seventy-five women were polled at the late election in a neighboring borough," was used as a pretended argument for the admission of females to office, and to service in the diplomatic corps; while another ironically asserts that "too much credit can not be given to the Federal leaders of Elizabethtown for the heroic virtue displayed in advancing in a body to the poll to support their favorite candidates."

So discreditable was this occurrence thought, that although another closely contested election took place the following year, we do not find any other than male votes deposited then, in Essex County, or elsewhere, until the Presidential election of 1800, between Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, at which females voted very generally throughout the State; and such continued to be the practice until the passage of the act positively excluding them from the polls. At first the law had been so construed as to admit single women only, but as the practice extended, the construction of the privilege became broader and was made to include females eighteen years old, married or single; and even women of color. At a contested election in Hunterdon County, in 1802, the votes of two or three such, actually electing a member of the Legislature. It is remarkable that these proceedings did not sooner bring about a repeal of the laws which were thought to sanction them; but that event did not occur until 1807, and it is noticeable that, as the practice originated in Essex County, so the flagrant abuses which resulted from it reached their maximum in that county, and brought about its prohibition.

The circumstances attendant upon this event afford abundant matter for a most interesting chapter of local history, which I am happy to say has been written by a member of the Society (Mr. James Ross),[78] and will be communicated before long, I trust, for insertion in our Proceedings. But the scope of this paper merely calls for a statement of facts. These are as follows:

In the year 1806 a new Court House and Jail were to be erected in the county of Essex. Strenuous exertions were made to have them located elsewhere than at Newark, which had been the county town from a very early period. Sufficient influence was brought to bear upon the Legislature to secure the passage of an act (approved November 5th of that year) authorizing a special election, at which "the inhabitants" of the county, "qualified to vote in elections for members of the State Legislature," etc., were described as the qualified electors to determine by their votes where the buildings should be located. The contest caused a great excitement throughout the county, and, under the existing laws, when the election was held in February, 1807, women of "full age," whether single or married, possessing the required property qualification, were permitted by the judges of election to vote. But as the conflict proceeded, and the blood of the combatants waxed warmer, the number of female voters increased, and it was soon found that every single and every married woman in the county was not only of "full age," but also "worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate," and as such entitled to vote if they chose. And not only once, but as often as by change of dress or complicity of the inspectors, they might be able to repeat the process.

This was not confined to any one precinct, but was more or less the case in all, and so apparent were these and many other frauds that the Legislature at the ensuing session did not hesitate to sat it aside as having been illegally conducted; and, by repealing the act authorizing it, left the buildings to be erected in Newark, to which they legitimately belonged. And, in order that no future occurrence of the kind should take place, an act was passed (approved November 16, 1807), the preamble to which is as follows:

"Whereas, doubts have been raised and great diversities in practice obtained throughout the State in regard to the admission of aliens, females, and persons of color or negroes to vote in elections, as also in regard to the mode of ascertaining the qualifications of voters in respect to estate; and whereas, it is highly necessary to the safety, quiet good order and dignity of the State to clear up the said doubts by an act of the representatives of the people declaratory of the true sense and meaning of the Constitution, and to ensure its just execution in these particulars according to the intent of the framers thereof: Therefore," etc., etc.

This act confined the right of suffrage to free white male citizens twenty-one years of age, worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear estate; and disposed of the property qualification by declaring that every person otherwise entitled to vote whose name should be enrolled on the last tax-lists for the State or County should be considered as worth the fifty pounds, thus by legislative enactment determining the meaning of the Constitution and settling the difficulty. The law remained unchanged until the adoption of the new Constitution a few years since, which instrument is equally restrictive as to persons who shall vote, and removes the property qualification altogether.

Very recently a refusal to respond to a demand for taxes legally imposed, was received from a distinguished advocate of "Woman's Rights" in one of the northern counties; who gave as her reasons "that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one-half of the adult population, but is contrary to our Theory of Government"--and that when the attention of men is called to the wide difference between their theory of government and its practice in this particular, that they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing taxes on women when they refuse them the right of suffrage.[79]

Similar arguments were advanced by a sister of Richard Henry Lee, in 1778,[80] when, if ever, they were calculated to receive due consideration, yet the distinguished Virginian did not hesitate to show the unreasonableness of the demand; in the course of his able answer remarking that (setting aside other motive for restricting the power to males) "perhaps 'twas thought rather out of character for women to press into those tumultuous assemblages of men where the business of choosing representatives is conducted!" And as it is very evident that when in times past the right was, not only claimed, but exercised in New Jersey, it never accorded with public sentiment; so it maybe safely predicted that, as was the case in 1807, "the safety, quiet, good order, and dignity of the State," will ever call for its explicit disavowal in times to come.

In his speech at the Woman's Rights Convention, 1853, in New York, Rev. John Pierpont said: "I can go back forty years; and forty years ago, when most of my present audience were not in, but behind, their cradles, passing a stranger, through the neighboring State of New Jersey, and stopping for dinner at an inn, where the coach stopped, I saw at the bar where I went to pay, a list of the voters of the town stuck up. My eye ran over it, and I read to my astonishment the names of several women. 'What!' I said, 'do women vote here?' 'Certainly,' was the answer, 'when they have real estate.' Then the question arose in my mind, why should not women vote: Laws are made regulating the tenure of real estate, and the essence of all republicanism is, that they who feel the pressure of the law should have a voice in its enactment."

DEFECTS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF NEW JERSEY.

In a very singular pamphlet published in Trenton, 1779, called "Eumenes: A collection of papers on the Errors and Omissions of the Constitution of New Jersey," the writer is very severe upon the fact that women were allowed to exercise the same right as the sterner sex; observing that "Nothing can be a greater mockery of this inalienable right, than to suffer it to be exercised by persons who do not pretend any judgment on the subject."[81]

Extract from "Eumenes," page 31, No. 8: "Defects of the Constitution respecting the Qualification of Electors and Elected":

It will not be denied that a Constitution ought to point out what persons may elect and who may be elected; and that it should as distinctly prescribe their several qualifications, and render those qualifications conformable to justice and the public welfare. Indeed, on the proper adjustment of the elective franchise depends, in a great measure, the liberty of the citizen and the safety of the Government. Upon examination it will be found that the Constitution requires amendment upon this head in several particulars.

It has ever been a matter of dispute upon the Constitution, whether females, as well as males, are entitled to elect officers of Government. If we were to be guided by the letter of the charter, it would seem to place them on the same footing in this particular; and yet, recurring to political right and the nature of things, a very forcible construction has been raised against the admission of women to participate in the public suffrage.

The 4th Article of the Constitution declares that "all the inhabitants of this colony of full age who are worth fifty pounds, shall be entitled to vote for representatives."

Those who support the rights of women say, that "all inhabitants" must mean "all women" inhabitants as well as "all men." Whereas, it is urged on the other side that the makers must have meant "all male inhabitants," and that the expression is to be restrained so as to arrive at the intent of the framers of the instrument.

This difference of sentiment has given rise to diversity of practice on this head, and furnished a pretence from which many an electioneering trick has resulted. I could refer to instances which would prove what is advanced, but the people want no proofs. It is well known that women are admitted or rejected, just as may suit the views of the persons in direction. The thing should be rectified. If women are fit persons to take part in this important franchise, though excluded from other public functions, it should be expressed in the Constitution. They would then know their rights, and those rights could not be sported with to serve the wretched purposes of a party election.

To my mind, without going into an historical or philosophical deduction of particulars on the subject, it is evident that women, generally, are neither by nature, nor habit, nor education, nor by their necessary condition in society, fitted to perform this duty with credit to themselves or advantage to the public. In a note the author adds: It is perfectly disgusting to witness the manner in which women are polled at our elections. Nothing can be greater mockery of this invaluable and sacred right, than to suffer it to be exercised by persons who do not even pretend to any judgment on the subject. The great practical mischief, however, resulting from their admission under our present form of government, is that the towns and populous villages gain an unfair advantage over the country, by the greater facility they enjoy over the latter in drawing out their women to the elections. Many important election contests have been terminated at last by these auxiliaries in favor of candidates supported by town interests.

I believe that the Convention which framed the Constitution had no view to the admission of females, either single women or widows, to elect the public officers. But such is the phraseology of the Constitution that it seems a violation of it not to admit their votes. The best constitutions have guarded against mistakes on this head. Those of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vermont, etc., do not admit of female electors. Whether this be right or wrong, the objection to our Constitution is, that it does not settle the point one way or the other with an absolute certainty. The practice is variable. The generally received opinion, however, is that the Constitution permits it. In this state of the matter it is not competent for the Legislature to interfere. Nothing short of a constitutional declaration can decide the question; which is, in fact, an important one, and is growing more and more so to the country in proportion as the towns and villages increase in numbers and population. For, independent of the theoretic question, it is evident that the admission of these votes gives a vast advantage to the thickly settled places over the more dispersed population of the country.

In another note the author says: "Mr. Fox in his late harangue in the British House of Commons, in favor of more equal suffrage, concedes the unfitness of females to share in elections. He says no instance of their participation of public suffrage in any government can be shown; and that this right (which many of his party hold to be a natural one, though he affects to stop short of that) is properly denied to the fairest productions of nature. Of widows and spinsters above twenty-one, there can not, I imagine, be fewer than 10,000. It is certainly not unimportant to leave doubtful the rights of so great a number of people."

Mr. Whitehead's report clearly shows three unjust inferences from the facts stated:

First. That all the corruptions of that special election in Essex County could be traced to the women.

Second. That the quiet, good order, and dignity of the State could be secured only by the restriction of the suffrage to "free white male citizens worth fifty pounds."

Third. "The unreasonableness of the demand" for representation by women tax-payers.

1st. Tradition shows that the voting early and often in varied feminine costume, was done by men five feet four, "picked men," not for their bravery, but for their inferiority. Depriving women of their right to vote, because the men abused their privilege, under cover of sex, in 1807, was, however, on the same principle that politicians in 1881 propose to disfranchise the women of Utah, because of their polygamous relations. That is, punish the women who claim a right to only one-sixth part of a man's time and affections, because the men claim six wives apiece. The question naturally suggests itself to any fair mind, why not deprive the men of the suffrage, and let the women vote themselves each one husband? Who doubts the fate of the system under such legislation? Every woman in her normal condition, unless wholly perverted by the religious dogma of self-sacrifice and self-crucifixion, desires to own the man she loves as absolutely and completely, as every man desires to consecrate to himself alone the woman he loves. So to deprive the women of Essex of their right to vote to have the county buildings in Elizabeth, because of the undue excitement and dishonesty of the men, was to punish the best class of citizens for the crimes of the worst.

2d. The assumption that "free white male citizens worth fifty pounds," could legislate for "aliens, women, and negroes," better than those classes could for themselves, is to deny the fundamental principle of republicanism; Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; and to reassert the despotic ideas of the old world that national safety depends on the wisdom of privileged orders--nobles, kings, and czars. The experiment in Wyoming has fully proved that when "free white male citizens" reigned supreme, the polls there were scenes of drunkenness, violence, and death; men knocking each other down and putting bullets through each other's brains were of annual occurrence. But when the suffrage was extended, and women admitted to the polling booths, quiet, good order, and dignity were inaugurated.

3d. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." James Otis said: "To tax a man's property without his consent, is in effect disfranchising him of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush, after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at the pleasure of another?" Is not such injustice as grievous to woman as man? Does the accident of sex place woman outside of all ordinary principles of law and justice? It is the essence of cruelty and tyranny to take her hard earnings without her consent, blocked as her way is to wealth and independence, to make sidewalks, highways, and bridges; to build jails, prisons, and alms-houses, the legitimate outgrowth of the whisky traffic, which she abhors. On what principle of republican government is one class of tax-payers thus defrauded of one of the most sacred rights of citizenship? What logical argument can be made to prove "the unreasonableness of this demand," for one class above all others? Principles of justice, to have any value or significance, must be universal in their application to all humanity.

4th. As to the point made by "Eumenes," "that women are not fit persons to take part in government," "that they do not even pretend to any judgment on the subject," we have simply to say that the writer's prejudices contradict all the facts of our common experience. Women are so pre-eminently fitted for government, that the one fear in all ages among men has been lest by some chance they should be governed by women; and the smaller the man the greater the fear.

Blackstone says "the elements of sovereignty are three: 'Wisdom, Goodness, and Power.'" Admitting for the sake of argument that "Power" in this connection means physical force, the distinctive point of male superiority, and not moral power, which may be equal in both sexes, all must concede the remaining necessary elements to woman as well as man. Who so bold, or blind, as to deny wisdom and goodness, the chief elements of beneficent government, to woman, with the long record of illustrious and saintly characters gilding every page of history before him?

Whatever doubts the women known to the author of "Eumenes" might have had as to their own capacities; the women of to-day do assume to know that they are more capable of self-government than men are, and that they understand the principles that underlie a republic far better than the vast majority of foreigners now crowding our shores, the Right Honorable James Charles Fox to the contrary notwithstanding. Yea, without danger of contradiction, we may say there are women in this nation even now, who understand the political issues of this hour quite as well as those who stand at the head of our government.

We are very apt to accept popular assertions ofttimes repeated as truisms, and in this way man's superiority has passed into a proverb, and the sex in general believe it. When Milton penned the line, "God, thy will, thou mine," and made his Eve thus reverently submissive to her Adam, he little thought of bright girls in the nineteenth century, well versed in science, philosophy, and the languages, sitting in the senior class of a college of the American republic, laughing his male conceit to scorn.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] The New York Tribune, Feb. 19, 1881, gives the following interesting facts: "William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin, who was long a resident of New York and hereabout, conducted in person his father's postal system. At Amboy, or Perth Amboy, a little town of once high aristocratic standing, which dozes on the edge of the Jersey hills and overlooks the oyster groves of Prince's Bay, began the Post-Office of North America under John Hamilton in 1694. It was a private patent, and he sold it to the Government. Many years afterward William Franklin settled at the same place, where once his father passed in Hamilton's day a footsore vagrant pressing from Boston to Philadelphia to get bread. There the younger Franklin reared a 'palace,' and lived in it as Governor of New Jersey till his adherence to the Crown, that had done better for him than his father--made him an exile and a captive. He was sent under guard to East Windsor, Conn., and his jail was made in the house of Captain Ebenezer Grant there, of the family of President Grant's ancestors, and he was prohibited the use of pen, ink, and paper--a needless punishment to a man who had delivered so many letters to others."Return to passage

[77] In the New York Observer, 1876.Return to passage

[78] After a diligent search for Mr. James Ross and his promised "interesting chapter of local history," we learned that the author was in his grave, and that from his posthumous papers this valuable document had not yet been exhumed by his literary executor.Return to passage

[79] The following letter contains the sentiments referred to in the text:Return to passage

ORANGE, N. J., Dec. 18, 1858.

MR. MANDEVILLE, TAX COLLECTOR, SIR:--Enclosed I return my tax bill, without paying it. My reason for doing so is, that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one-half the adult population, but is contrary to our theory of government. For years some women have been paying their taxes under protest, but still taxes are imposed, and representation is not granted. The only course now left us is to refuse to pay the tax. We know well what the immediate result of this refusal must be.

But we believe that when the attention of men is called to the wide difference between their theory of government and its practice, in this particular, they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing taxes on women, while they refuse them the right of suffrage, and that the sense of justice which is in all good men, will lead them to correct it. Then we shall cheerfully pay our taxes--not till then.

Respectfully, LUCY STONE.

[80] See Washington National Intelligencer for Oct. 15, 1857, and Historical Magazine, Vol. I., page 360.Return to passage

[81] Frank Leslie's Magazine, Feb., 1877.Return to passage

XIII. REMINISCENCES

BY E. C. S.

The reports of the Conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N. Y., in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most important part in the new movement--Susan B. Anthony, who for her courage and executive ability was facetiously called by William Henry Charming, the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching in the Academy at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk.

"The Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those conventions, startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sisters having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, and was an active member of an organization called "The Daughters of Temperance," and had spoken a few times in their public meetings. But the new gospel of "Woman's Rights," found a ready response in her mind, and from that time her best efforts have been given to the enfranchisement of woman.

It was in the month of May, of 1851, that I first met Miss Anthony. That was to both of us an eventful meeting, that in a measure henceforth shaped our lives. As our own estimate of ourselves and our friendship may differ somewhat from that taken from an objective point of view, I will give an extract from what a mutual friend wrote of us some years ago:

Miss Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable and life-long advocate of temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights, has been, since 1851, Mrs. Stanton's intimate associate in reformatory labors. These celebrated women are of about equal ages, but of the most opposite characteristics, and illustrate the theory of counterparts in affection by entertaining for each other a friendship of extraordinary strength.

Mrs. Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant; Miss Anthony is a thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains and great hearts; neither has any selfish ambition for celebrity; but each vies with the other in a noble enthusiasm, for the cause to which they are devoting their lives.

Nevertheless, to describe them critically, I ought to say that opposites though they be, each does not so much supplement the other's difficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and at the same time diminish each other's discretion.

But whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one, or the impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are evermore as white as the light. The good that they do is by design; the harm by accident. These two women sitting together in their parlors, have for the last thirty years been diligent forgers of all manner of projectiles, from fire works to thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious, and political assemblies, sometimes to the pleasant surprise and half welcome of the members, more often to the bewilderment and prostration of numerous victims; and in a few signal instances, to the gnashing of angry men's teeth. I know of no two more pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country! Nor will they themselves deny the charge. In fact this noise-making twain are the two sticks of a drum for keeping up what Daniel Webster called "the rub-a-dub of agitation."

How well I remember the day I first met my life-long friend. George Thompson and William Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls, Miss Anthony came to attend it. These gentlemen were my guests. Walking home after the adjournment, we met Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting to greet us. There she stood with her good earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray silk, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly, and why I did not at once invite her home with me to dinner, I do not know. She accuses me of that neglect and never has forgiven me, as she wished to see and hear all she could of our noble friends. I suppose my mind was full of what I had heard, or my coming dinner, or the probable behavior of three mischievous boys who had been busily exploring the premises while I was at the meeting. That I had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical experiments these young savages might try, the reader will admit when informed of some of their performances.[82]

It is often said by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been my good angel, always pushing and guiding me to work, that but for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have; and on the other hand, it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them. Perhaps all this is in a measure true. With the cares of a large family, I might in time, like too many women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform, complacently deciding questions in which women had an equal interest, without an equal voice, readily roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand in the midst of their assembly.

Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam were to be set by the ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau stuffed with facts was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John Smith and the Hon. Richard Roe had said, false interpretations of Bible texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut out of some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some disgraceful trial, injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write articles for papers, or a petition to the Legislature, letters to the faithful here and there, stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Massachusetts, call on The Lily, The Una, The Liberator, and The Standard, to remember our wrongs as well as those of the slave. We never met without issuing a pronunciamento on some question.

We were at once fast friends, in thought and sympathy we were one, and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In writing we did better work together than either could alone. While she is slow and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and together we have made arguments that have stood unshaken by the storms of thirty long years: arguments that no man has answered. Our speeches may be considered the united product of our two brains.

So entirely one are we, that in all our associations, ever side by side on the same platform, not one feeling of jealousy or envy has ever shadowed our lives. We have indulged freely in criticism of each other when alone, and hotly contended whenever we have differed, but in our friendship of thirty years there has never been a break of one hour. To the world we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each other. Like husband and wife, each has the feeling that we must have no differences in public. Thus united, at an early day we began to survey the State and nation, the future field of our labors. We read with critical eyes the proceedings of Congress and Legislatures, of General Assemblies and Synods, of Conferences and Conventions, and discovered that in all alike the existence of woman was entirely ignored.

Night after night by an old-fashioned fireplace we plotted and planned the coming agitation, how, when, and where each entering wedge could be driven, by which woman might be recognized, and her rights secured. Speedily the State was aflame with disturbances in temperance and teachers' conventions, and the press heralded the news far and near that women delegates had suddenly appeared demanding admission in men's conventions; that their rights had been hotly contended session after session, by liberal men on the one side; the clergy and learned professors on the other; an overwhelming majority rejecting the women with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought over and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States, until the bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was thoroughly tested. Every right achieved: to enter a college; to study a profession; to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform measure, was contended for inch by inch.

Many of those enjoying all these blessings, now complacently say, "If these pioneers in reform, had only pressed their measures more judiciously; in a more ladylike manner; in more choice language; in a more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so rudely." We give in these pages enough of the characteristics of these women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry, and position, to show that no power could have met the prejudice and bigotry of that period more successfully than they did, who so bravely and persistently fought and conquered them.

True, those gentlemen were all quite willing that women should join their societies and churches, to do the drudgery, to work up the enthusiasm in fairs and revivals, conventions and flag presentations, to pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being members of their various organizations, to beg money for the church, circulate petitions from door to door, to visit saloons, to pray with or defy rum-sellers, to teach school at half-price, and sit round the outskirts of a hall like so many wall flowers in teachers' State Conventions; but they would not allow them to sit on the platform, address the assembly, nor vote for men and measures.

Those who had learned the first lessons of human rights from the lips of Beriah Green, Samuel J. May, and Gerrit Smith, would not accept any such position. When women abandoned the temperance reform, all interest in the question gradually died out in the State, and practically nothing was done in New York for nearly twenty years. Gerrit Smith made one or two attempts toward an "anti-dram-shop party," but as women could not vote they felt no interest in the measure, and failure was the result.

I soon convinced my new friend that the ballot was the key to the situation, that when we had a voice in the laws we should be welcomed to any platform. In turning the intense earnestness and religious enthusiasm of this great-souled woman into this one channel, I soon felt the power of my convert in goading me forever forward to more untiring work. Soon fastened heart to heart with hooks of steel in a friendship that thirty years of confidence and affection have steadily strengthened, we have labored faithfully together.

After twelve added years of agitation, from the passage of the property bill, New York conceded other civil rights to married women. Pending the discussion of these various bills, Susan B. Anthony circulated petitions both for the civil and political rights of woman throughout the State, traveling in stage coaches and open wagons and sleighs in all seasons, and on foot from door to door through towns and cities, doing her uttermost to rouse women to some sense of their natural rights as human beings, to their civil and political rights as citizens of a republic; and while expending her time, strength, and money to secure these blessings for the women of the State, they would gruffly tell her they had all the rights they wanted, or rudely shut the door in her face, leaving her to stand outside, petition in hand, with as much contempt as if she were asking alms for herself. None but those who did that petition work in the early days for the slaves and the women, can ever know the hardships and humiliations that were endured. But it was done because it was only through petitions, a power seemingly so inefficient, that disfranchised classes could be heard in the national councils, hence their importance.

The frivolous objections some women made to our appeals were as exasperating as ridiculous. To reply to them politely at all times, required a divine patience. On one occasion, after addressing the Legislature, some of the ladies in congratulating me, inquired in a deprecating tone, "What do you do with your children?" "Ladies," I said, "it takes me no longer to speak than you to listen; what have you done with your children the two hours you have been sitting here? But to answer your questions. I never leave my children to go to Saratoga, Washington, Newport, or Europe, nor even to come here. They are at this moment with a faithful nurse at the Delavan House, and having accomplished my mission, we shall all return home together."

Miss Anthony, who was a frequent guest at my home, sometimes stood guard on such occasions.[83] The children of our household say that among their earliest recollections is the tableau of "Mother and Susan," seated by a large table covered with books and papers, always writing and talking about the Constitution, interrupted with occasional visits from others of the faithful. Hither came Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Paulina Wright Davis, Frances Dana Gage, Dr. Harriot Hunt, Antoinette Brown, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelly, by turn, until all these names were as familiar as household words to the children.

Martha C. Wright, of Auburn, was a frequent visitor at the center of the rebellion, as my sequestered cottage on Locust Hill was facetiously called. She brought to these councils of war not only her own individual wisdom, but that of the wife and sister of William H. Seward, and sometimes encouraging suggestions from the great statesman himself, from whose writings we often gleaned grand and radical sentiments. Lucretia Mott, too, being an occasional guest at her sister's in Auburn, added the dignity of her presence at many of these important consultations. She was uniformly in favor of toning down our fiery pronunciamentoes. For Miss Anthony and myself, the English language had no words strong enough to express the indignation we felt in view of the prolonged injustice to woman. We found, however, that after expressing ourselves in the most vehement manner, and thus in a measure giving our feelings an outlet, we were reconciled to issue the documents at last in milder terms. If the men of the State could have known the stern rebukes, the denunciations, the wit, the irony, the sarcasm that were garnered there, and then judiciously pigeon-holed, and milder and more persuasive appeals substituted, they would have been truly thankful that they fared no worse.

Mr. Seward, in the brief intervals in his Washington life, made frequent visits in our neighborhood at the house of Judge G. V. Sackett, a man of wealth and some political influence. One of the Senator's standing anecdotes at dinner to illustrate the purifying influence of woman at the polls, which he always told with great zest for my special benefit, was in regard to the manner his wife's sister exercised the right of suffrage.

"Mrs. Worden having the supervision of a farm near Auburn, was obliged to hire two or three men for its cultivation. It was her custom, having examined them as to their capacity to perform the required labor, their knowledge of tools, horses, cattle, gardening, and horticulture, to inquire as to their politics. She informed them that being a woman and a widow, and having no one to represent her, she must have Republicans to do her voting, to represent her political opinions, and it always so happened that the men who offered their services belonged to the Republican party.

"Some one remarked to her one day, 'Are you sure your men vote as they promise?' 'Yes,' she replied, 'I trust nothing to their discretion. I take them in my carriage within sight of the polls, put them in charge of some Republican who can be trusted. I see they have the right tickets, then I feel sure I am faithfully represented, and I know I am right in so doing. I have neither husband, father, nor son; am responsible for my own taxes; am amenable to all the laws of the State; must pay the penalty of my own crimes if I commit any; hence I have the right, according to the principles of our government, to representation, and so long as I am not permitted to vote in person, I have a right to do so by proxy, hence I hire men to vote my principles.'" Thus she disposed of the statesman and his seriocomic morality.

These two sisters, daughters of Judge Miller, an influential man of wealth and position, were women of culture and remarkable natural intelligence, and interested in all progressive ideas. They had rare common-sense and independence of character, great simplicity of manner, and were wholly indifferent to the little arts of the toilet.

I was often told by fashionable women that one great objection to the woman's rights movement was the publicity of the conventions; the immodesty of speaking from a platform; and the trial of seeing one's name in the papers. Several ladies made such remarks to me one day as a bevy of us were sitting together in one of the fashionable hotels in Newport. We were holding a Convention there at that time, and some of them had been present at one of the sessions. "Really," said I, "ladies, you surprise me; our Conventions are not as public as the ball-room where I saw you all dancing last night. As to modesty, it may be a question in many minds whether it is less modest to speak words of soberness and truth, plainly dressed with one's person decently covered on a platform, than gorgeously arrayed with bare arms and shoulders, to waltz in the arms of strange gentlemen.

"And as to the press, I noticed you all reading with evident satisfaction the personal compliments and full descriptions of your dresses at the last ball, in this morning's papers. I presume that any one of you would have felt slighted if your name had not been mentioned in the general description. When my name is mentioned, it is in connection with some great moral movement, as making a speech, or reading a resolution. Thus we all suffer or enjoy the same publicity, we are all alike ridiculed, wise men pity and ridicule you, fops and fools pity and ridicule me, you as the victims of folly and fashion, me as the representative of many of the disagreeable 'isms' of the age, as they choose to distinguish liberal opinions. It is amusing in analyzing prejudices to see on what slender foundations they rest," and the ladies around me were so completely cornered that no one attempted an answer.

I remember being at a party at Gov. Seward's one evening, when Mr. Burlingame and his Chinese delegation were among the guests. As soon as the dancing commenced, and young ladies and gentlemen locked in each other's arms, began to whirl in the giddy waltz, these Chinese gentlemen were so shocked that they covered their faces with their fans, occasionally peeping out each side and expressing their surprise to each other. They thought us the most immodest women on the face of the earth. Modesty and good taste are questions of latitude and education; the more people know, the more their ideas are expanded, by travel, experience, and observation; the less easily they are shocked. The narrowness and bigotry of women, are the result of their circumscribed sphere of thought and action.

Soon after Judge Hurlbut had published his work on "Human Rights," and I had addressed the Legislature the first time, we met at a dinner party in Albany; Mr. and Mrs. Seward were there. The Senator was very merry on that occasion, and made Judge Hurlbut and myself the target for all his ridicule on the woman's rights question, in which most of the company joined, so that we stood quite alone. Sure that we had the right on our side, and the arguments clearly defined in our own minds, and both being cool and self-possessed, and with wit and sarcasm quite equal to any of them, we fought the Senator inch by inch until he had a very narrow platform to stand on. Mrs. Seward maintained an unbroken silence, while those ladies who did open their lips were with the opposition, supposing, no doubt, that Mr. Seward represented his wife's opinions.

When the ladies withdrew from the table, my embarrassment may be easily imagined. Separated from the Judge, I should now be an hour with a bevy of ladies who evidently felt a repulsion to all my most cherished opinions. It was the first time I had met Mrs. Seward, and I did not then know the broad liberal tendencies of her mind. What a tide of disagreeable thoughts rushed through me in that short passage from the dining-room to the parlor; how gladly I would have glided out the front door, but that was impossible, so I made up my mind to stroll round as if self-absorbed and look at the books and paintings until the Judge appeared, as I took it for granted that after all I said at the table on the political, religious, and social equality of woman, not a lady would have anything to say to me.

Imagine then my surprise when the moment the parlor door was closed upon us, Mrs. Seward, approaching me most affectionately said, "Let me thank you for all the brave words you uttered at the dinner-table, and for your speech before the Legislature, that thrilled my soul as I read it over and over." I was filled with joy and astonishment. Recovering myself, I said, "Is it possible, Mrs. Seward, that you agree with me? Then why, when I was so hard pressed with foes on every side, did you not come to the defence? I supposed that all you ladies were hostile to every one of my ideas on this question!" "No, no!" said she, "I am with you thoroughly, but I am a born coward; there is nothing I dread more than Mr. Seward's ridicule. I would rather walk up to the cannon's mouth than encounter it." "I too am with you," "And I," said two or three others who had been silent at the table. I never had a more serious, heartfelt conversation than with these ladies. Mrs. Seward's spontaneity and earnestness had moved them all deeply, and when the Senator appeared the first word he said was, "Before we part I must confess that I was fairly vanquished by you and the Judge, on my own principles (for we had quoted some of his most radical utterances). You have the argument, but custom and prejudice are against you, and they are stronger than truth and logic."

We had quite a magnetic circle of reformers in Central New York, that kept the missives flying. At Rochester, were William H. Ohanning, Frederick Douglass, the Anthonys, the Posts, the Hallowells, the Stebbins, some grand Quaker families in Farmington, and Waterloo; Mrs. Bloomer and her sprightly weekly called The Lily, at Seneca Falls; Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Worden, Mrs. Seward, at Auburn; Gerrit Smith's family at Peterboro; Beriah Green's at Whitesboro, with the Sedgwicks and Mays, and Matilda Joslyn Gage at Syracuse. Although Mrs. Gage was surrounded with a family of small children for years, yet she was always a student, an omnivorous reader and liberal thinker, and her pen was ever at work answering the attacks on the woman movement in the county and State journals. In the village of Manlius, where she lived some time after her marriage, she was the sole representative of this unpopular reform. When walking the street she would often hear some boy, shielded by a dry-goods box or a fence, cry out "woman's rights."

On one occasion, at a large evening party at Mr. Van Schaick's, the host read aloud a poem called Rufus Chubb, a burlesque on "strong-minded" women, ridiculing careers and conventions, and the many claims being made for larger freedom. Mrs. Gage, then quite young, was surprised and embarrassed. Every eye was fixed on her, as evidently the type of womanhood the author was portraying. As soon as the reader's voice died away, Mrs. Gage, with marked coolness and grace, approached him, and with an imaginary wreath crowned him the poet-laureate of the occasion, and introduced him to the company as "the immortal Rufus Chubb." The expressive gesture and the few brief words conferring the honor, turned the laugh on Mr. Van Schaick so completely, that he was the target for all the merriment of the evening.

Mrs. Gage was the only daughter of Dr. Hezekiah Joslyn, a man of learning and philanthropic tendencies. He gave much attention to the direction of his daughter's thought and reading. She always had a knack of rummaging through old libraries, bringing more startling facts to light than any woman I ever knew.[84]

In the winter of 1861, just after the election of Lincoln, the Abolitionists decided to hold a series of Conventions in the chief cities of the North. All their available speakers were pledged for active service. The Republican party, having absorbed the political Abolitionists within its ranks by its declared hostility to the extension of slavery, had come into power with overwhelming majorities; hence the Garrisonian Abolitionists, opposed to all compromises, felt this was the opportune moment to rouse the people to the necessity of holding that party to its declared principles, and pushing it, if possible, a step or two forward.

I was invited to accompany Miss Anthony and Beriah Green to a few points in Central New York. But we soon found, by the concerted action of Republicans all over the country, the Conventions were broken up at every point. This furnished one occasion on which Republicans and Democrats could work harmoniously together, and they made common cause against the Abolitionists. The John Brown raid the year before had intimidated Northern politicians as much as Southern slaveholders, and the general feeling was that the discussion of the question at the North should be altogether suppressed.

From Buffalo to Albany our experience was the same, varied only by the fertile resources of the actors and their surroundings. Thirty years of education had somewhat changed the character of Northern mobs. They no longer dragged men through the streets with ropes round their necks, nor broke up women's prayer-meetings; they no longer threw eggs and brickbats at the apostles of reform, nor dipped them in barrels of tar and feathers; they simply crowded the halls, and with laughing, groaning, clapping, and cheering, effectually interrupted the proceedings.

Thus we passed the two days we had advertised for a Convention in St. James' Hall, Buffalo. As we paid for the Hall, the mob enjoyed themselves at our expense in more ways than one. At the appointed time every session we took our places on the platform, making at various intervals of silence renewed efforts to speak. Not succeeding, we sat and conversed with each other and many friends who crowded the platform and ante-rooms. Thus among ourselves we had a pleasant reception and a discussion of many phases of the question that brought us together. The mob not only vouchsafed to us the privilege of talking to our friends without interruption, but delegations of their own came behind the scenes from time to time, to discuss with us the right of free speech and the constitutionality of slavery.

These Buffalo rowdies were headed by ex-Justice Hinson, aided by younger members of the Fillmore and Seymour families and the Chief of Police and fifty subordinates, who were admitted to the hall free for the express purpose of protecting our right of free speech, which in defiance of the Mayor's orders, they did not make the slightest effort to do. At Lockport there was a feeble attempt in the same direction. At Albion neither hall, church, nor school-house could be obtained, so we held small meetings in the dining-room of the hotel.

At Rochester, Corinthian Hall was packed long before the hour advertised. This was a delicately appreciative jocose mob. At this point Aaron Powell joined us. As he had just risen from a bed of sickness, looking pale and emaciated, he slowly mounted the platform. The mob at once took in his look of exhaustion, and as he seated himself they gave an audible, simultaneous sigh, as if to say, What a relief it is to be seated! So completely did the tender manifestation reflect Mr. Powell's apparent condition, that the whole audience burst into a roar of laughter. Here, too, all attempts to speak were futile.

At Port Byron a generous sprinkling of cayenne pepper on the stove, soon cut short all constitutional arguments and paeans to liberty. And so it was all the way to Albany. The whole State was aflame with the mob spirit, and from Boston and various points in other States, the same news reached us. As the Legislature was in session, and we were advertised in Albany, a radical member sarcastically moved "that as Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony were about to move on Albany, the militia be ordered out for the protection of the city."

Happily, Albany could then boast a democratic Mayor, a man of courage and conscience, who said the right of free speech should never be trodden underfoot where he had the power to prevent it. And grandly did that one determined man maintain order in his jurisdiction. Through all the sessions of the Convention Mayor Thatcher sat on the platform, his police stationed in different parts of the Hall and outside the building, to disperse the crowd as fast as collected. If a man or boy hissed or made the slightest interruption, he was immediately ejected. And not only did the Mayor preserve order in the meetings, but with a company of armed police, he escorted us every time to and from the Delavan House. The last night Gerrit Smith addressed the mob from the steps of the hotel, after which they gave him three cheers, and dispersed in good order.

When proposing for the Mayor a vote of thanks at the close of the Convention, Mr. Smith expressed his fears that it had been a severe ordeal for him to listen to these prolonged anti-slavery discussions, he smiled, and said: "I have really been deeply interested and instructed. I rather congratulate myself that a Convention of this character has at last come in the line of my business, otherwise I should have probably remained in ignorance of many important facts and opinions I now understand and appreciate."

Whilst all this was going on publicly, we had an equally trying experience progressing day by day behind the scenes. Miss Anthony had been instrumental in helping a fugitive mother with her child, escape from a husband who had immured her in an insane asylum. The wife, belonging to one of the first families of New York, her brother a United States Senator, and the husband a man of position, a large circle of friends and acquaintances were interested in the result. Though she was incarcerated in an insane asylum for eighteen months, yet members of her own family again and again testified that she was not insane. Miss Anthony knowing that she was not, and believing fully that the unhappy mother was the victim of a conspiracy, would not reveal her hiding-place.

Knowing the confidence Miss Anthony felt in the wisdom of Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips, they were implored to use their influence with her to give up the fugitives. Letters and telegrams, persuasions, arguments, warnings, from Mr. Garrison, Mr. Phillips, the Senator, on the one side, and from Lydia Mott, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet, Abby Hopper Gibbons, on the other, poured in upon her day after day, but Miss Anthony remained immovable, although she knew she was defying authority and violating law, and that she might be arrested any moment on the platform. We had known so many aggravated cases of this kind, that in daily counsel we resolved that this woman should not be recaptured if it was possible to prevent it. To us it looked as imperative a duty to shield a sane mother who had been torn from a family of little children and doomed to the companionship of lunatics, and to aid her in fleeing to a place of safety, as to help a fugitive from slavery to Canada. In both cases an unjust law was violated; in both cases the supposed owners of the victims were defied, hence, in point of law and morals, the act was the same in both cases. The result proved the wisdom of Miss Anthony's decision, as all with whom Mrs. P. came in contact for years afterward, expressed the opinion that she was perfectly sane and always had been. Could the dark secrets of these insane asylums be brought to light, we should be shocked to know the countless number of rebellious wives, sisters, and daughters that are thus annually sacrificed to false customs and conventionalisms, and barbarous laws made by men for women.

Quite an agitation occurred in 1852, on woman's costume. In demanding a place in the world of work, the unfitness of her dress seemed to some, an insurmountable obstacle. How can you, it was said, ever compete with man for equal place and pay, with garments of such frail fabrics and so cumbrously fashioned, and how can you ever hope to enjoy the same health and vigor with man, so long as the waist is pressed into the smallest compass, pounds of clothing hung on the hips, the limbs cramped with skirts, and with high heels the whole woman thrown out of her true equilibrium. Wise men, physicians, and sensible women, made their appeals, year after year; physiologists lectured on the subject; the press commented, until it seemed as if there were a serious demand for some decided steps, in the direction of a rational costume for women. The most casual observer could see how many pleasures young girls were continually sacrificing to their dress: In walking, running, rowing, skating, dancing, going up and down stairs, climbing trees and fences, the airy fabrics and flowing skirts were a continual impediment and vexation. We can not estimate how large a share of the ill-health and temper among women is the result of the crippling, cribbing influence of her costume. Fathers, husbands, and brothers, all joined in protest against the small waist, and stiff distended petticoats, which were always themes for unbounded ridicule. But no sooner did a few brave conscientious women adopt the bifurcated costume, an imitation in part of the Turkish style, than the press at once turned its guns on "The Bloomer," and the same fathers, husbands, and brothers, with streaming eyes and pathetic tones, conjured the women of their households to cling to the prevailing fashions.[85] The object of those who donned the new attire, was primarily health and freedom; but as the daughter of Gerrit Smith introduced it just at the time of the early conventions, it was supposed to be an inherent element in the demand for political equality. As some of those who advocated the right of suffrage wore the dress, and had been identified with all the unpopular reforms, in the reports of our conventions, the press rung the changes on "strong-minded," "Bloomer," "free love," "easy divorce," "amalgamation." I wore the dress two years and found it a great blessing. What a sense of liberty I felt, in running up and down stairs with my hands free to carry whatsoever I would, to trip through the rain or snow with no skirts to hold or brush, ready at any moment to climb a hill-top to see the sun go down, or the moon rise, with no ruffles or trails to be limped by the dew, or soiled by the grass. What an emancipation from little petty vexatious trammels and annoyances every hour of the day. Yet such is the tyranny of custom, that to escape constant observation, criticism, ridicule, persecution, mobs,[86] one after another gladly went back to the old slavery and sacrificed freedom to repose. I have never wondered since that the Chinese women allow their daughters' feet to be encased in iron shoes, nor that the Hindoo widows walk calmly to the funeral pyre. I suppose no act of my life ever gave my cousin, Gerrit Smith, such deep sorrow, as my abandonment of the "Bloomer costume." He published an open letter[87] to me on the subject, and when his daughter, Mrs. Miller, three years after, followed my example, he felt that women had so little courage and persistence, that for a time he almost despaired of the success of the suffrage movement; of such vital consequence in woman's mental and physical development did he feel the dress to be.

Gerrit Smith[88] Samuel J. May, J. C. Jackson, C. D. Miller and D. C. Bloomer, sustained the women who lead in this reform, unflinchingly, during the trying experiment. Let the names of those who made this protest be remembered. We knew the Bloomer costume never could be generally becoming, as it required a perfection of form, limbs, and feet, such as few possessed, and we who wore it also knew that it was not artistic. Though the martyrdom proved too much for us who had so many other measures to press on the public conscience, yet no experiment is lost, however evanescent, that rouses thought to the injurious consequences of the present style of dress, sacrificing to its absurdities so many of the most promising girls of this generation.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] One imagined himself possessed of rare powers of invention (an ancestral weakness for generations), and had just made a life-preserver of corks, and tested its virtues on a brother about eighteen months old. Accompanied by a troop of expectant boys, the baby was drawn in his carriage to the banks of the Seneca, stripped, the string of corks tied under his arms, and set afloat in the river, the philosopher and his satellites in a row-boat, watching the experiment. The child, accustomed to a morning bath in a large tub, splashed about joyfully, keeping his head above water. He was as blue as indigo, and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious mother. The next day, the same victimized infant was seen by a passing friend, seated on the chimney, on the highest peak of the house. Without alarming any one, the friend hurried up to the house-top, and rescued the child from the arms of the philosopher. Another time, three elder brothers entered into a conspiracy, and locked up the fourth in the smoke-house. Fortunately, he sounded the alarm loud and clear, and was set free in safety, whereupon the three were imprisoned in a garret with two barred windows. They summarily kicked out the bars, and sliding down on the lightning-rod betook themselves to the barn for liberty. The youngest boy, then only five years old, skinned his hands in the descent. This is a fair sample of the quiet happiness I enjoyed in the first years of motherhood. It was 'mid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, educational and woman's rights conventions. Here we forged resolutions, protests, appeals, petitions, agricultural reports, and constitutional arguments, for we made it a matter of conscience to accept every invitation to speak on every question, in order to maintain woman's right to do so. To this end, we took turns on the domestic watch-towers, directing amusements, settling disputes, protecting the weak against the strong, and trying to secure equal rights to all in the home as well as the nation. I can recall many a stern encounter between my friend and the young experimenter. It is pleasant to remember that he never seriously injured any of his victims, and only once came near shooting himself with a pistol. The ball went through his hand; happily a brass button prevented it from penetrating his heart.Return to passage

[83] When the flock reached the magic number of seven, my good angel would sometimes take one or two to her own quiet home just out of Rochester, where on a well-cultivated little farm, one could enjoy uninterrupted rest and the choicest fruits of the season. That was always a safe harbor for my friend, as her family sympathized fully in the reforms to which she gave her life. I have many pleasant memories of my own flying visits to that hospitable Quaker home and the broad catholic spirit of Daniel and Lucy Anthony. Whatever opposition and ridicule their daughter endured elsewhere, she enjoyed the steadfast sympathy and confidence of her own home circle. Her faithful sister Mary, a most successful principal in the public schools of Rochester for a quarter of a century, and a good financier, who with her patrimony and salary has laid by a competence, took on her shoulders double duty at home in cheering the declining years of her parents, that Susan might do the public work in these reforms, in which the sisters were equally interested. At one time when Susan had expended her last dollar in the publication of her paper, The Revolution, and also $5,000 given her by a wealthy cousin, Anson Lapham, Mary generously advanced another five thousand, and thus bridged the last chasm. And now with life's earnest work nearly accomplished, the sisters are living happily together, illustrating another of the many charming homes of single women so rapidly multiplying in later years.Return to passage

[84] Mrs. Gage received a somewhat remarkable early training. Not only was her father a man of profound thought, a reformer thoroughly studying all the new questions coming up, but his house was a station on the underground railroad, the home of anti-slavery speakers and advanced thinkers upon every subject, as well as that of a large number of clergymen, who yearly held "protracted meetings" in the place. Sitting up until midnight listening to the discussions of those reverend gentlemen upon baptism, original sin, predestination, and other doctrinal points, her thought was early turned to religious questions. She read the Bible through before she was nine years old, and became a church member at the early age of eleven, her parents, in accordance with their habits, not attempting to influence her mind for or against this step.Return to passage

Dr. Joslyn paid great attention to his daughter's education. From her earliest years it was a law of the household that her childish questions should not be put off with an idle reply, but must be reasonably answered; and when she was older, he himself instructed her in mathematics, Greek, and physiology. But that for which she feels most indebted to him, as she often says--the grandest training given her--was to think for herself. She was taught to accept no opinion because of its authority, but to question the truth of all things. Thus was laid the foundation of Mrs. Gage's reform tendencies and of her non-acceptance of masculine authority in matters of religion and politics. Nor was she, in a certain way, less indebted to her mother, a Scotch lady, belonging to the noble, old, and influential family of Leslie, a woman of refined and elevated tastes, universally respected and beloved. From this side Mrs. Gage inherited her antiquarian tastes and habits of delving into old histories, from which she has unearthed so many facts bearing upon woman's degradation.

[85] See Appendix.Return to passage

[86] See Appendix.Return to passage

[87] See Appendix.Return to passage

[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 class alike welcomed and honored, feasting, feting, dancing--joining in all kinds of amusements 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 damned in sex and color. Yea, in class 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.Return to passage