History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I

CHAPTER III.. The World's Anti-Slavery Convention, London, June 13, 1840.

THE WORLD'S ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, LONDON, JUNE 13, 1840.

Individualism rather than Authority--Personal appearance of Abolitionists--Attempt to silence Woman--Doable battle against the tyranny of sex and color--Bigoted Abolitionists--James G. Birney likes freedom on a Southern plantation, but not at his own fireside--John Bull never dreamt that Woman would answer his call--The venerable Thomas Clarkson received by the Convention standing--Lengthy debate on "Female" delegates--The "Females" rejected--William Lloyd Garrison refusing to sit in the Convention 50

CHAPTER IV.. New York.

NEW YORK.

The First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, July 19-80, 1848--Property Bights of Women secured--Judge Fine, George Geddes, and Mr. Hadley pushing the Bill through--Danger of meddling with well-settled conditions of domestic happiness--Mrs. Barbara Hertell's will--Richard Hunt's tea-table--The eventful day--James Mott President--Declaration of sentiments--Convention in Rochester-- Opposition with Bible arguments 63

CHAPTER V.. Mrs. Collins' Reminiscences.

MRS. COLLINS' REMINISCENCES.

The first Suffrage Society--Methodist class-leader whips his wife--Theology enchains the soul--The status of women and slaves the same--The first medical college opened to women--Petitions to the Legislature laughed at, and laid on the table--Dependence woman's best protection; her weakness her sweetest charm--Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's letter--Sketch of Ernestine L. Rose 88

CHAPTER VI.. Ohio.

OHIO.

The promised land of fugitives--"Uncle Tom's Cabin"--Salem Convention, 1850--Akron, 1851--Massilon, 1853--The address to the women of Ohio--The Mohammedan law forbidding pigs, dogs, women, and other impure animals to enter a Mosque--The New York Tribune--Cleveland Convention, 1853--Hon. Joshua K. Giddings--Letter from Horace Greeley--A glowing eulogy to Mary Wollstonecraft--William Henry Channing's Declaration--The pulpit and public sentiment--President Asa Mahan debates--The Rev. Dr. Nevin pulls Mr. Garrison's nose-- Antoinette L. Brown describes her exit from the World's Temperance Convention--Cincinnati Convention, 1855--Jane Elizabeth Jones' Report, 1861 101

CHAPTER VII.. Reminiscences by Clarina I. Howard Nichols.

REMINISCENCES BY CLARINA I. HOWARD NICHOLS.

VERMONT: Editor Windham County Democrat--Property Laws, 1847 and 1849--Address to the Legislature on school suffrage, 1852.

WISCONSIN: Woman's State Temperance Society--Lydia F. Fowler in company--Opposition of Clergy--"Woman's Rights" wouldn't do--Advertised "Men's Rights."

KANSAS: Free State Emigration, 1854--Gov. Robinson and Senator Pomeroy--Woman's Rights speeches on Steamboat, and at Lawrence--Constitutional Convention, 1859--State Woman Suffrage Association--John O. Wattles, President--Aid from the Francis Jackson Fund--Canvassing the State--School Suffrage gained.

MISSOURI: Lecturing at St. Joseph, 1858, on Col. Scott's Invitation--Westport and the John Brown raid, 1859--St. Louis, 1854--Frances D. Gage, Rev. Wm. G. Eliot, and Rev. Mr. Weaver 171

CHAPTER VIII.. Massachusetts.

MASSACHUSETTS.

Women in the Revolution--Anti-Tea Leagues--Phillis Wheatley--Mistress Anne Hutchinson--Heroines in the Slavery Conflict--Women Voting under the Colonial Charter--Mary Upton Ferrin Petitions the Legislature in 1848--Woman's Rights Convention in 1850, '51--Letter of Harriet Martineau from England--Letter of Jeannie Deroine from a Prison Cell in Paris--Editorial from The Christian Enquirer--The Una, edited by Paulina Wright Davis--Constitutional Convention in 1858--Before the Legislature in 1857--Harriot K. Hunt's Protest against Taxation--Lucy Stone's Protest against the Marriage Laws--Boston Conventions-- Theodore Parker on Woman's Position 201

CHAPTER IX.. Indiana and Wisconsin.

INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.

Indiana Missionary Station--Gen. Arthur St. Clair--Indian surprises--The terrible war-whoop--One hundred women join the army, and are killed fighting bravely--Prairie schooners--Manufactures in the hands of women--Admitted to the Union in 1816--Robert Dale Owen--Woman Suffrage Conventions--Wisconsin--C. L. Sholes' report 290

CHAPTER X.. Pennsylvania.

PENNSYLVANIA.

William Penn--Independence Hall--British troops--Heroism of women--Lydia Darrah--Who designed the Flag--Anti-slavery movements in Philadelphia--Pennsylvania Hall destroyed by a mob--David Paul Brown--Fugitives--Millard Fillmore--John Brown--Angelina Grimké--Abby Kelly--Mary Grew--Temperance in 1848--Hannah Darlington and Ann Preston before the Legislature--Medical College for Women in 1850--Westchester Woman's Rights Convention, 1852--Philadelphia Convention, 1854--Lucretia Mott answers Richard H. Dana--Jane Grey Swisshelm--Sarah Josepha Hale--Anna McDowell--Rachel Foster searching the records--Sketch of Angelina Grimké 320

CHAPTER XI.. Lucretia Mott.

LUCRETIA MOTT.

Eulogy at the Memorial Services held at Washington by the National Woman Suffrage Association, January 19, 1881. By Elizabeth Cady Stanton 407

CHAPTER XII.. New Jersey.

NEW JERSEY.

Tory feeling in New Jersey--Hannah Arnett rebuked the traitor spirit--Mrs. Dissosway rejects all proposals to disloyalty--Triumphal arch erected by the ladies of Trenton in honor of Washington--His letter to the ladies--The origin of Woman Suffrage in New Jersey--A paper read by William A. Whitehead before the Historical Society--Defects in the Constitution of New Jersey--A singular pamphlet called "Eumenes"--Opinion of Hon. Charles James Fox--Mr. Whitehead reviewed 441

CHAPTER XIII.. Mrs. Stanton's Reminiscences.

MRS. STANTON'S REMINISCENCES.

Mrs. Stanton's and Miss Anthony's first meeting--An objective view of these ladies from a friend's standpoint--A glimpse at their private life--The pronunciamentos they issued from the fireside--Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Seward, Mrs. Worden, Mrs. Mott, in council--How Mrs. Worden voted--Ladies at Newport dancing with low necks and short sleeves, and objecting to the publicity of the platform--Senator Seward discussing Woman's Rights at a dinner-party--Mrs. Seward declares herself a friend to the reform--A magnetic circle in Central New York--Matilda Joslyn Gage: her early education and ancestors--A series of Anti-Slavery Conventions from Buffalo to Albany--Mobbed at every point--Mayor Thatcher maintains order in the Convention at the Capital--Great excitement over a fugitive wife from the insane asylum--The Bloomer costume--Gerrit Smith's home 456

CHAPTER XIV.. New York.

NEW YORK.

First Steps in New York--Woman's Temperance Convention, Albany, January, 1852--New York Woman's State Temperance Society, Rochester, April, 1852--Women before the Legislature pleading for a Maine Law--Women rejected as Delegates to Men's State Conventions at Albany and Syracuse, 1852; at the Brick Church Meeting and World's Temperance Convention In New York, 1853--Horace Greeley defends the Rights of Women In The New York Tribune--The Teachers' State Conventions--The Syracuse National Woman's Rights Convention, 1852--Mob in the Broadway Tabernacle Woman's Rights Convention through two days, 1853--State Woman's Rights Convention at Rochester, December, 1853--Albany Convention, February, 1854, and Hearing before the Legislature demanding the Right of Suffrage--A State Committee appointed--Susan B. Anthony General Agent--Conventions at Saratoga Springs, 1854, '55, '59--Annual State Conventions with Legislative Hearings and Reports of Committees, until the War--Married Women's Property Law, 1860--Bill before the Legislature Granting Divorce for Drunkenness--Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed oppose it--Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Address the Legislature in favor of the Bill--Robert Dale Owen defends the Measure in The New York Tribune--National Woman's Rights Conventions in New York City, 1856, '58, '59, '60--Status of the Woman's Rights Movement at the Opening of the War, 1861 472

CHAPTER XV.. Woman, Church, and State.

WOMAN, CHURCH, AND STATE.

Woman under old religions--Woman took part in offices of early Christian Church Councils--Original sin--Celibacy of the clergy--Their degrading sensuality--Feudalism--Marriage--Debasing externals and daring ideas--Witchcraft--Three striking points for consideration-- Burning of Witches--Witchcraft in New England--Marriage with devils--Rights of property not recognized in woman--Wife ownership--Women legislated for as slaves--Marriage under the Greek Church--The Salic and Cromwellian eras--The Reformation--Woman under monastic rules in the home--The Mormon doctrine regarding woman; its logical result--Milton responsible for many existing views in regard to woman--Woman's subordination taught to-day--The See trial--Right Rev. Coxe--Rev. Knox-Little--Pan-Presbyterians--Quakers not as liberal as they have been considered--Restrictive action of the Methodist Church--Offensive debate upon ordaining Miss Oliver--The Episcopal Church and its restrictions--Sunday-school teachings--Week-day school teachings--Sermon upon woman's subordination by the President of a Baptist Theological Seminary--Professor Christlieb of Germany--"Dear, will you bring me my shawl?"--Female sex looked upon as a degradation--A sacrilegious child--Secretary Evarts, in the Beecher-Tilton trial, upon woman's subordination--Women degraded in science and education--Large-hearted men upon woman's degradation-- Wives still sold in the market-place as "mares," by ahalter around their necks--Degrading servile labor performed by woman in Christian countries--A lower degradation--"Queen's women"--"Government women"--Interpolations in the Bible--Letter from Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D. 752

Appendix 801

LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.

VOL. I.

FRANCES WRIGHT Frontispiece ERNESTINE L. WRIGHT page 97 FRANCES D. GAGE 129 CLARINA HOWARD NICHOLS 193 PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS 273 LUCRETIA MOTT 369 ANTOINETTE L. BROWN 449 AMELIA BLOOMER 497 SUSAN B. ANTHONY 577 MARTHA C. WRIGHT 641 ELIZABETH CADY STANTON 721 MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE 753

INTRODUCTION.

The prolonged slavery of woman is the darkest page in human history. A survey of the condition of the race through those barbarous periods, when physical force governed the world, when the motto, "might makes right," was the law, enables one to account, for the origin of woman's subjection to man without referring the fact to the general inferiority of the sex, or Nature's law.

Writers on this question differ as to the cause of the universal degradation of woman in all periods and nations.

One of the greatest minds of the century has thrown a ray of light on this gloomy picture by tracing the origin of woman's slavery to the same principle of selfishness and love of power in man that has thus far dominated all weaker nations and classes. This brings hope of final emancipation, for as all nations and classes are gradually, one after another, asserting and maintaining their independence, the path is clear for woman to follow. The slavish instinct of an oppressed class has led her to toil patiently through the ages, giving all and asking little, cheerfully sharing with man all perils and privations by land and sea, that husband and sons might attain honor and success. Justice and freedom for herself is her latest and highest demand.

Another writer asserts that the tyranny of man over woman has its roots, after all, in his nobler feelings; his love, his chivalry, and his desire to protect woman in the barbarous periods of pillage, lust, and war. But wherever the roots may be traced, the results at this hour are equally disastrous to woman. Her best interests and happiness do not seem to have been consulted in the arrangements made for her protection. She has been bought and sold, caressed and crucified at the will and pleasure of her master. But if a chivalrous desire to protect woman has always been the mainspring of man's dominion over her, it should have prompted him to place in her hands the same weapons of defense he has found to be most effective against wrong and oppression.

Continue reading History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I free in the Wunder reader →