[215] BROKEN DOWN.—Mrs. Van Cott, the woman evangelist, has retired from the field, probably forever. Her nervous system is broken down. During the fourteen years of her ministry she has traveled 143,417 miles, has preached 4,294 sermons, besides conducting 9,333 other religious meetings, and writing 9,853 letters.—Ex.

[216] But this Conference, which could not recognize woman's equality of rights in the Church, adjourned in a body to Chicago, before its business was completed, by its presence there to influence the Republican Nominating Convention in favor of General Grant's name for the Presidency.

[217] A professor of theology said a while ago, how sorry he should be to have the law recognize that one-half of the income of the family belonged to his wife, "it would establish such a mine-and-thine relation." It evidently seemed to him, somehow, more harmonious, less of the earth, earthy, that he could say, "All mine, my love," and that she could sweetly respond, "All thine, dearest."—State Prohibitionist, Des Moines, Ia., Jan. 28, 1881.

[218] The great botanist, Linnaeus, was persecuted when he first presented his sexual system in vegetation to the world.

[219] The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no powers or privileges on the one side or disability on the other.—Subjection of Woman, John Stuart Mill.

[220] The Worcester Chronicle of recent date gives an account of a wife sale in England. Thomas Middleton delivered up his wife Mary M. to Philip Rostius, and sold her for one shilling and a quart of ale, and parted from her solely and absolutely for life, "not to trouble one another for life." Philip Rostius made his mark as a witness. A second witness was S. H. Shore, Crown Inn, Trim street.

[221] In the peace made by the Sabines with the Romans, after the forcible abduction of the Sabine maidens, one of the provisions was that no labor, except spinning, should be required of these Roman wives.

[222] THE FAIR SEX IN THE ALPS.—The farmers In the Upper Alps, though by no means wealthy, live like lords in their houses, while the heaviest portion of agricultural labors devolves on the wife. It is no uncommon thing to see a woman yoked to the plough with an ass, while her husband guides it. An Alpine farmer accounts it an act of politeness to lend his wife to a neighbor who has too much work, and the neighbor in return lends his wife for a few days' labor whenever requested.

[223] Lord Shaftesbury bringing the subject before Parliament.

[224] A STORY OF IRELAND IN 1880.—Recently, a young girl named Catherine Cafferby, of Belmullet, in County Mayo—the pink of her father's family—fled from the "domestic service" of a landlord as absolute as Lord Leitrim, the moment the poor creature discovered what that "service" customarily involved. The great man had the audacity to invoke the law to compel her to return, as she had not given statutable notice of her flight. She clung to the door-post of her father's cabin; she told aloud the story of her terror, and called on God and man to save her. Her tears, her shrieks, her piteous pleadings were all in vain. The Petty Sessions Bench ordered her back to the landlord's "service," or else to pay L5, or two weeks in jail. This is not a story of Bulgaria under Murad IV., but of Ireland in the reign of the present sovereign. That peasant girl went to jail to save her chastity. If she did not spend a fortnight in the cells, it was only because friends of outraged virtue, justice, and humanity paid the fine when the story reached the outer world.

[225] The son of the late William Ellery Channing, in a recent letter to a friend on this point, says: "Religions like the Jewish and Christian, which make God exclusively male, consign woman logically to the subordinate position which is definitely assigned to her in Mahometanism. History has kept this tradition. The subjection of woman has existed as an invariable element in Christian civilization. It could not be otherwise. If God and Christ were both represented as male (and the Holy Ghost, too, in the pictures of the old masters), it stood to reason and appealed to fanaticism that the male form was the Godlike. Hence, logically, intellect and physical force were exalted above the intuition of conscience and attractive charm. The male religion shaped government and society after its own form. Theodore Parker habitually addressed God as our Father and Mother. What we call God is the infinite ideal of humanity. The preposterous, ridiculous absurdity of supposing God so defined to be of the male sex, and to call God 'him,' does not need a word to make it apparent. This ideal which we all reverence, and for which we yearn, necessarily enfolds in One the attributes which, separated in our human race, express themselves in Manhood and Womanhood."

[226] Some person, over the signature of "A Bible Reader," writing in the Sun of March 16, says: "I would be sincerely glad to know what guarantee we have that ere long we shall not have another revision of Scripture? It is not so long ago since the discovery of Tischendorf of an important manuscript of the New Testament, which gave a number of new readings. There may be in existence other and older manuscripts of the Bible than any we now have, from which may be omitted the narratives of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Should we then have to give these up? If the revisers act consistently they would certainly have to do so.

"It appears that already the Calvinists and the Trinitarians have been deprived by the revisers of the texts they relied upon to uphold their peculiar doctrines. It remains to be seen how the Universalists, Baptists, and other Christian sects will fare."



APPENDIX.

CHAPTER I.

PRECEDING CAUSES.

MARGARET FULLER possessed more influence upon the thought of America, than any woman previous to her time. Men of diverse interests and habits of thought, alike recognized her power and acknowledged the quickening influence of her mind upon their own. Ralph Waldo Emerson said of her: "The day was never long enough to exhaust her opulent memory; and I, who knew her intimately for ten years, never saw her without surprise at her new powers."

William R. Channing, in her "Memoirs," says: "I have no hope of conveying to my readers my sense of the beauty of our relation, as it lies in the past, with brightness falling on it from Margaret's risen spirit. It would be like printing a chapter of autobiography, to describe what is so grateful in memory—its influence upon oneself."

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says: "Socrates without his scholars, would be more complete than Margaret without her friends. The insight which Margaret displayed in finding her friends; the magnetism by which she drew them toward herself; the catholic range of her intimacies; the influence which she exerted to develop the latent germ of every character; the constancy with which she clung to each when she had once given and received confidence; the delicate justice which kept every intimacy separate, and the process of transfiguration which took place when she met any one on this mountain of friendship, giving a dazzling lustre to the details of common life—all these should be at least touched upon and illustrated, to give any adequate view of these relations." Horace Greeley, in his "Recollections of a Busy Life," said: "When I first made her acquaintance she was mentally the best instructed woman in America."

When Transcendentalism rose in New England, drawing the brightest minds of the country into its faith, Margaret was accepted as its high-priestess; and when The Dial was established for the expression of those views, she was chosen its editor, aided by Ralph Waldo Emerson and George Ripley. Nothing could be more significant of the place Margaret Fuller held in the realm of thought than the fact, that in this editorship she was given precedence over the eminent philosopher and eminent scholar, her associates.

She sought to unveil the mysteries of life and enfranchise her own sex from the bondage of the past, and while still under thirty planned a series of conversations (in Boston) for women only, wherein she took a leading part. The general object of these conferences, as declared in her programme, was to supply answers to these questions: "What are we born to do?" and "How shall we do it?" or, as has been stated, "Her three special aims in those conversations were, To pass in review the departments of thought and knowledge, and endeavor to place them in one relation to one another in our minds. To systematize thought and give a precision and clearness in which our sex are so deficient, chiefly, I think, because they have so few inducements to test and classify what they receive. To ascertain what pursuits are best suited to us, in our time and state of society, and how we may make the best use of our means of building up the life of thought upon the life of action."

These conversations continued for several successive winters, and were in reality a vindication of woman's right to think. In calling forth the opinions of her sex upon Life, Literature, Mythology, Art, Culture, and Religion, Miss Fuller was the precursor of the Woman's Rights agitation of the last thirty-three years. Her work, "The Great Lawsuit; or, Man vs. Woman, Woman vs. Man," was declared by Horace Greeley to be the loftiest and most commanding assertion made of the right of woman to be regarded and treated as an independent, intelligent, rational being, entitled to an equal voice in framing and modifying the laws she is required to obey, and in controlling and disposing of the property she has inherited or aided to acquire. In this work Margaret said: "It is the fault of MARRIAGE and of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman belongs to the man, instead of forming a whole with him.... Woman, self-centered, would never be absorbed by any relation; it would only be an experience to her, as to Man. It is a vulgar error that love—a love—is to Woman her whole existence; she is also born for Truth and Love in their universal energy. Would she but assume her inheritance, Mary would not be the only virgin mother."

Margaret Fuller was the first woman upon the staff of The New York Tribune, a position she took in 1844, when she was but thirty-four. Mrs. Greeley having made Margaret's acquaintance, attended her conversations and accepted her leading ideas, planned to have her become a member of the Greeley family, and a writer for The Tribune; a position was therefore offered her by Mr. Greeley upon his wife's judgment. It required but a short time, however, for the great editor to feel her power, although he failed to fully comprehend her greatness. It has been declared not the least of Horace Greeley's services to the nation, that he was willing to entrust the literary criticisms of The Tribune to one whose standard of culture was so far above that of his readers or his own.

Margaret Fuller opened the way for many women, who upon the editorial staff of the great New York dailies, as literary critics and as reporters, have helped impress woman's thought upon the American mind.

Theodore Parker, who knew her well, characterized her as a critic, rather than a creator or seer. But whether we look upon her as critic, creator, or seer, she was thoroughly a woman. One of her friends wrote of her, "She was the largest woman, and not a woman who wanted to be a man." Woman everywhere, to-day, is a critic. Enthralled as she has been for ages, by both religious and political despotism, no sooner does she rouse to thought than she necessarily begins criticism. The hoary wrongs of the past still fall with heavy weight upon woman—their curse still exists. Before building society anew, she seeks to destroy the errors and injustice of the past, hence we find women critics in every department of thought.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.

NEW YORK.

Seneca Falls and Rochester Conventions.

WOMEN OUT OF THEIR LATITUDE.

We are sorry to see that the women in several parts of this State are holding what they call "Woman's Rights Conventions," and setting forth a formidable list of those Rights in a parody upon the Declaration of American Independence.

The papers of the day contain extended notices of these Conventions. Some of them fall in with their objects and praise the meetings highly; but the majority either deprecate or ridicule both.

The women who attend these meetings, no doubt at the expense of their more appropriate duties, act as committees, write resolutions and addresses, hold much correspondence, make speeches, etc., etc. They affirm, as among their rights, that of unrestricted franchise, and assert that it is wrong to deprive them of the privilege to become legislators, lawyers, doctors, divines, etc., etc.; and they are holding Conventions and making an agitatory movement, with the object in view of revolutionizing public opinion and the laws of the land, and changing their relative position in society in such a way as to divide with the male sex the labors and responsibilities of active life in every branch of art, science, trades, and professions.

Now, it requires no argument to prove that this is all wrong. Every true hearted female will instantly feel that this is unwomanly, and that to be practically carried out, the males must change their position in society to the same extent in an opposite direction, in order to enable them to discharge an equal share of the domestic duties which now appertain to females, and which must be neglected, to a great extent, if women are allowed to exercise all the "rights" that are claimed by these Convention-holders. Society would have to be radically remodelled in order to accommodate itself to so great a change in the most vital part of the compact of the social relations of life; and the order of things established at the creation of mankind, and continued six thousand years, would be completely broken up. The organic laws of our country, and of each State, would have to be licked into new shapes, in order to admit of the introduction of the vast change that it contemplated. In a thousand other ways that might be mentioned, if we had room to make, and our readers had patience to hear them, would this sweeping reform be attended by fundamental changes in the public and private, civil and religious, moral and social relations of the sexes, of life, and of the Government.

But this change is impracticable, uncalled for, and unnecessary. If effected, it would set the world by the ears, make "confusion worse confounded," demoralize and degrade from their high sphere and noble destiny, women of all respectable and useful classes, and prove a monstrous injury to all mankind. It would be productive of no positive good, that would not be outweighed tenfold by positive evil. It would alter the relations of females without bettering their condition. Besides all, and above all, it presents no remedy for the real evils that the millions of the industrious, hard-working, and much suffering women of our country groan under and seek to redress.—Mechanic's (Albany, N. Y.) Advocate.

INSURRECTION AMONG THE WOMEN.

A female Convention has just been held at Seneca Falls, N. Y., at which was adopted a "declaration of rights," setting forth, among other things, that "all men and women are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." The list of grievances which the Amazons exhibit, concludes by expressing a determination to insist that woman shall have "immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States." It is stated that they design, in spite of all misrepresentations and ridicule, to employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and National Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in their behalf. This is bolting with a vengeance.—Worcester (Mass.) Telegraph.

THE REIGN OF PETTICOATS.

The women in various parts of the State have taken the field in favor of a petticoat empire, with a zeal and energy which show that their hearts are in the cause, and that they are resolved no longer to submit to the tyrannical rule of the heartless "lords of creation," but have solemnly determined to demand their "natural and inalienable right" to attend the polls, and assist in electing our Presidents, and Governors, and Members of Congress, and State Representatives, and Sheriffs, and County Clerks, and Supervisors, and Constables, etc., etc., and to unite in the general scramble for office. This is right and proper. It is but just that they should participate in the beautiful and feminine business of politics, and enjoy their proportion of the "spoils of victory." Nature never designed that they should be confined exclusively to the drudgery of raising children, and superintending the kitchens, and to the performance of the various other household duties which the cruelty of men and the customs of society have so long assigned to them. This is emphatically the age of "democratic progression," of equality and fraternization—the age when all colors and sexes, the bond and free, black and white, male and female, are, as they by right ought to be, all tending downward and upward toward the common level of equality.

The harmony of this great movement in the cause of freedom would not be perfect if women were still to be confined to petticoats, and men to breeches. There must be an "interchange" of these "commodities" to complete the system. Why should it not be so? Can not women fill an office, or cast a vote, or conduct a campaign, as judiciously and vigorously as men? And, on the other hand, can not men "nurse" the babies, or preside at the wash-tub, or boil a pot as safely and as well as women? If they can not, the evil is in that arbitrary organization of society which has excluded them from the practice of these pursuits. It is time these false notions and practices were changed, or, rather, removed, and for the political millennium foreshadowed by this petticoat movement to be ushered in. Let the women keep the ball moving, so bravely started by those who have become tired of the restraints imposed upon them by the antediluvian notions of a Paul or the tyranny of man.—Rochester (N. Y.) Daily Advertiser, Henry Montgomery, Editor.

"PROGRESS," is the grand bubble which is now blown up to balloon bulk by the windy philosophers of the age. The women folks have just held a Convention up in New York State, and passed a sort of "bill of rights," affirming it their right to vote, to become teachers, legislators, lawyers, divines, and do all and sundries the "lords" may, and of right now do. They should have resolved at the same time, that it was obligatory also upon the "lords" aforesaid, to wash dishes, scour up, be put to the tub, handle the broom, darn stockings, patch breeches, scold the servants, dress in the latest fashion, wear trinkets, look beautiful, and be as fascinating as those blessed morsels of humanity whom God gave to preserve that rough animal man, in something like a reasonable civilization. "Progress!" Progress, forever!—Lowell (Mass.) Courier.

To us they appear extremely dull and uninteresting, and, aside from their novelty, hardly worth notice.—Rochester Advertiser.

This has been a remarkable Convention. It was composed of those holding to some one of the various isms of the day, and some, we should think, who embraced them all. The only practical good proposed—the adoption of measures for the relief and amelioration of the condition of indigent, industrious, laboring females—was almost scouted by the leading ones composing the meeting. The great effort seemed to be to bring out some new, impracticable, absurd, and ridiculous proposition, and the greater its absurdity the better. In short, it was a regular emeute of a congregation of females gathered from various quarters, who seem to be really in earnest in their aim at revolution, and who evince entire confidence that "the day of their deliverance is at hand." Verily, this is a progressive era!—Rochester Democrat.

THE WOMEN OF PHILADELPHIA.

Our Philadelphia ladies not only possess beauty, but they are celebrated for discretion, modesty, and unfeigned diffidence, as well as wit, vivacity, and good nature. Whoever heard of a Philadelphia lady setting up for a reformer, or standing out for woman's rights, or assisting to man the election grounds, raise a regiment, command a legion, or address a jury? Our ladies glow with a higher ambition. They soar to rule the hearts of their worshipers, and secure obedience by the sceptre of affection. The tenure of their power is a law of nature, not a law of man, and hence they fear no insurrection, and never experience the shock of a revolution in their dominions. But all women are not as reasonable as ours of Philadelphia. The Boston ladies contend for the rights of women. The New York girls aspire to mount the rostrum, to do all the voting, and, we suppose, all the fighting too.... Our Philadelphia girls object to fighting and holding office. They prefer the baby-jumper to the study of Coke and Lyttleton, and the ball-room to the Palo Alto battle. They object to having a George Sand for President of the United States; a Corinna for Governor; a Fanny Wright for Mayor; or a Mrs. Partington for Postmaster.... Women have enough influence over human affairs without being politicians.

Is not everything managed by female influence? Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sweethearts manage everything. Men have nothing to do but to listen and obey to the "of course, my dear, you will, and of course, my dear, you won't." Their rule is absolute; their power unbounded. Under such a system men have no claim to rights, especially "equal rights."

A woman is nobody. A wife is everything. A pretty girl is equal to ten thousand men, and a mother is, next to God, all powerful.... The ladies of Philadelphia, therefore, under the influence of the most serious "sober second thoughts," are resolved to maintain their rights as Wives, Belles, Virgins, and Mothers, and not as Women."—Public Ledger and Daily Transcript.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.

This is the age of revolutions. To whatever part of the world the attention is directed, the political and social fabric is crumbling to pieces; and changes which far exceed the wildest dreams of the enthusiastic Utopians of the last generation, are now pursued with ardor and perseverance. The principal agent, however, that has hitherto taken part in these movements has been the rougher sex. It was by man the flame of liberty, now burning with such fury on the continent of Europe, was first kindled; and though it is asserted that no inconsiderable assistance was contributed by the gentler sex to the late sanguinary carnage at Paris, we are disposed to believe that such a revolting imputation proceeds from base calumniators, and is a libel upon woman.

By the intelligence, however, which we have lately received, the work of revolution is no longer confined to the Old World, nor to the masculine gender. The flag of independence has been hoisted, for the second time, on this side of the Atlantic; and a solemn league and covenant has just been entered into by a Convention of women at Seneca Falls, to "throw off the despotism under which they are groaning, and provide new guards for their future security." Little did we expect this new element to be thrown into the cauldron of agitation which is now bubbling around us with such fury. We have had one Baltimore Convention, one Philadelphia Convention, one Utica Convention, and we shall also have, in a few days, the Buffalo Convention. But we never dreamed that Lucretia Mott had convened a fifth Convention, which, if it be ratified by those whom it purposes to represent, will exercise an influence that will not only control our own Presidential elections, but the whole governmental system throughout the world.... The declaration is a most interesting document. We published it in extenso the other day. The amusing part is the preamble, where they assert their equality, and that they have certain inalienable rights, to secure which governments, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, are instituted; and that after the long train of abuses and usurpations to which they have been subjected, evincing a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government.

The declaration is, in some respects, defective. It complains of the want of the elective franchise, and that ladies are not recognized as teachers of theology, medicine, and law.... These departments, however, do not comprise the whole of the many avenues to wealth, distinction, and honor. We do not see by what principle of right the angelic creatures should claim to compete with the preacher, and refuse to enter the lists with the merchant. A lawyer's brief would not, we admit, sully the hands so much as the tarry ropes of a man-of-war; and a box of Brandreth's pills are more safely and easily prepared than the sheets of a boiler, or the flukes of an anchor; but if they must have competition in one branch, why not in another? There must be no monopoly or exclusiveness. If they will put on the inexpressibles, it will not do to select those employments only which require the least exertion and are exempt from danger. The laborious employments, however, are not the only ones which the ladies, in right of their admission to all rights and privileges, would have to undertake. It might happen that the citizen would have to doff the apron and buckle on the sword. Now, though we have the most perfect confidence in the courage and daring of Miss Lucretia Mott and several others of our lady acquaintances, we confess it would go to our hearts to see them putting on the panoply of war, and mixing in scenes like those at which, it is said, the fair sex in Paris lately took prominent part.

It is not the business, however, of the despot to decide upon the rights of his victims; nor do we undertake to define the duties of women. Their standard is now unfurled by their own hands. The Convention of Seneca Falls has appealed to the country. Miss Lucretia Mott has propounded the principles of the party. Ratification meetings will no doubt shortly be held, and if it be the general impression that this lady is a more eligible candidate for the Presidential chair than McLean or Cass, Van Buren or old "Rough and Ready," then let the Salic laws be abolished forthwith from this great Republic. We are much mistaken if Lucretia would not make a better President than some of those who have lately tenanted the White House.—New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, Proprietor.

MRS. STANTON'S REPLY.

In answer to all the newspaper objections, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in an article published in the National Reformer, Rochester, N. Y., Geo. G. Cooper, Editor, Sept. 14, 1848, said as follows:

There is no danger of this question dying for want of notice. Every paper you take up has something to say about it, and just in proportion to the refinement and intelligence of the editor, has this movement been favorably noticed. But one might suppose from the articles that you find in some papers, that there were editors so ignorant as to believe that the chief object of these recent Conventions was to seat every lord at the head of a cradle, and to clothe every woman in her lord's attire. Now, neither of these points, however important they be considered by humble minds, were touched upon in the Conventions.... For those who do not yet understand the real objects of our recent Conventions at Rochester and Seneca Falls, I would state that we did not meet to discuss fashions, customs, or dress, the rights or duties of man, nor the propriety of the sexes changing positions, but simply our own inalienable rights, our duties, our true sphere. If God has assigned a sphere to man and one to woman, we claim the right to judge ourselves of His design in reference to us, and we accord to man the same privilege. We think a man has quite enough in this life to find out his own individual calling, without being taxed to decide where every woman belongs; and the fact that so many men fail in the business they undertake, calls loudly for their concentrating more thought on their own faculties, capabilities, and sphere of action. We have all seen a man making a jackass of himself in the pulpit, at the bar, or in our legislative halls, when he might have shone as a general in our Mexican war, captain of a canal boat, or as a tailor on his bench. Now, is it to be wondered at that woman has some doubts about the present position assigned her being the true one, when her every-day experience shows her that man makes such fatal mistakes in regard to himself?

There is no such thing as a sphere for a sex. Every man has a different sphere, and one in which he may shine, and it is the same with every woman; and the same woman may have a different sphere at different times. The distinguished Angelina Grimke was acknowledged by all the anti-slavery host to be in her sphere, when, years ago, she went through the length and breadth of New England, telling the people of her personal experience of the horrors and abominations of the slave system, and by her eloquence and power as a public speaker, producing an effect unsurpassed by any of the highly gifted men of her day. Who dares to say that in thus using her splendid talents in speaking for the dumb, pleading the cause of the poor friendless slave, that she was out of her sphere? Angelina Grimke is now a wife and the mother of several children. We hear of her no more in public. Her sphere and her duties have changed. She deems it her first and her most sacred duty to devote all her time and talents to her household and to the education of her children. We do not say that she is not now in her sphere. The highly gifted Quakeress, Lucretia Mott, married early in life, and brought up a large family of children. All who have seen her at home agree that she was a pattern as a wife, mother, and housekeeper. No one ever fulfilled all the duties of that sphere more perfectly than did she. Her children are now settled in their own homes. Her husband and herself, having a comfortable fortune, pass much of their time in going about and doing good. Lueretia Mott has now no domestic cares. She has a talent for public speaking; her mind is of a high order; her moral perceptions remarkably clear; her religious fervor deep and intense; and who shall tell us that this divinely inspired woman is out of her sphere in her public endeavors to rouse this wicked nation to a sense of its awful guilt, to its great sins of war, slavery, injustice to woman and the laboring poor. As many inquiries are made about Lucretia Mott's husband, allow me, through your columns, to say to those who think he must be a nonentity because his wife is so distinguished, that James Mott is head and shoulders above the greater part of his sex, intellectually, morally, and physically. As a man of business, his talents are of the highest order. As an author, I refer you to his interesting book of travels, "Three Months in Great Britain." In manners he is a gentleman; in appearance, six feet high, and well-proportioned, dignified, and sensible, and in every respect worthy to be the companion of Lueretia Mott.

MRS. C. I. H. NICHOLS.

Miss Barber, of The Madison (Ga.) Visitor, promises to "sit in the corner and be a good girl," if we will admit her to our next "editorial soiree." Indeed we will, and brother Lamb, of The Greenfield Democrat, shall sit in the other corner and "cast sheep's (Lamb's) eyes" at her; for he copies her naughty declaration of inferiority, and adds that she "is just the editress for him"; that he "don't like Mrs. Swisshelm, Mrs. Pierson, and that class." We will let him off with a whispered reminder that there is a Mr. Swisshelm, Mr. Pierson, and more of the same sort for "that class." He has nobody on his side but the musty, fusty old bachelors of the ——, and ——, and ——, who, never having wanted for anything but puddings and shirts, imagine, as Mrs. Pierson says, that "a shirt and a pudding are the two poles of woman's sphere."

But we can not let Miss Barber off so lightly. She says "it is written in the volume of inspiration, as plainly as if traced in sunbeams, that man, the creature of God's own image, is superior to woman, who was afterward created to be his companion. He has a more stately form, stronger nerves and muscles, and, in nine cases out of ten, a more vigorous intellect."

In the first place, it is paying no great compliment to man to suppose that God created an inferior to be his companion. But a man, "the creature of God's own image!" And was the material for God's image all worked up in creating Adam? And if so, whose images are the men of to-day, who can't possibly lay claim to more of the original stock than mother Eve, who set up existence with an entire rib! And what has it to do with the question of her intellectual equality, that she was created afterward? If precedence in creation gave any advantage intellectually, the inferior animals may claim superiority of intellect over both man and woman. It would be quite as sound logic to maintain, as some do, that, as last in the series which commenced in nothing (?) and rose by gradations to image God, woman's superiority to all that preceded her in the creation, is probable.... Again, if women have less nerves and muscles, the ox and the ass have a great deal more—while God and angels and disembodied spirits have none at all; so that nerves and muscles are of no more significance in this question of the intellectual equality or inequality of the sexes, than is the beard that grows on a man's face and not on a woman's. And arguments drawn from such premises always remind us of the profound logic of a gentleman we once met in a stage coach, and who is now holding a high office under Government at Washington. He professed to set great store by whiskers and mustaches—he had none himself—and gave as a reason why the beard should be tenderly cherished, that "it was given to man as a badge of his superiority over woman." We were young and mischievous then, and so we told him, most complacently, that the ladies would readily concede the point, and give him the full benefit of his argument and of his beard, since men shared their "badge of superiority" with goats, monkeys, and many other inferior animals. Some fifteen years have passed, but we never think of the honorable gentleman or see his name attached to official reports, without a laugh.

Miss Barber assumes woman's entire intellectual equality, in claiming that she "may mould the mind of the future statesman into whatsoever she will—that "through him she can and will make the laws." And we only regret that she should speak so lightly of "depositing a little strip of paper in the ballot-box." To us it is a serious thing, that the depositing of that strip of paper gives and takes the rights, whose possession is the means of the highest intellectual and moral culture and enjoyment.—Windom County Democrat, Brattleboro, Vermont.

MRS. JANE G. SWISSHELM.

A MISTAKE.—Dear Brother Wright:—In printing my former letter, there was a mistake made which I intended to let pass; but as some of your cotemporaries have taken an agony over the letter, it may be as well to set it right. The last sentence reads, "Now, I move Grace be let alone, and her moral power be no longer invoked by those who have set her and all the rest of her sex, down on a stool mid-way between free negroes and laborers." I wrote it "between free negroes and baboons," and meant just what I said. Man, in his code of laws, has assigned woman a place somewhere between the rational and irrational creation. Our Constitutions provide that all "free white male citizens" of a certain age shall have a right to vote. Here Indians, negroes, and women stand side by side. Our gallant legislators excluded the "inferior races" from the elective franchise because of their inferiority; and just threw their wives and mothers into the same heap, because of their great superiority! One was excluded because they hated them, the other because they loved them so very well. Yet one sentence covers both cases. Women and negroes stand side by side in this case, and also in that of exclusion from our colleges. A negro can not be admitted into one of our colleges or seminaries of the highest class. Neither can a woman. Witness the refusal of some half dozen of your medical colleges to admit Miss Blackwell.

But free negroes can acquire property, can sell it, keep it, give it away, or divide it. A baboon has no such rights; neither has a woman in her highest state of existence here. The right to acquire and hold property is a distinguishing trait between mankind and the brute creation. Woman is deprived of that distinction; for all that she has and all she can acquire, belongs to her master. Custom says she should be fed and clothed, dandled and fondled, her freaks borne with and her graces admired; it awards the same attentions, in a little different degree, to a pet monkey. So woman has been "set down mid-way between free negroes and baboons."

Your good-tempered friend and sister, JANE G. SWISSHELM.

BORDERS OF MONKEYDOM, Sept. 28, 1848.

P. S.—There is a man who edits The Sunday Age of New York—H. P. Grattan—who appears to be in a peck of trouble about "Blue-Stocking Effusions" in general, and my letter to you in particular. He says, "We love woman. We bow down to them in adoration. But they have their proper place; but the moment they step from the pedestal upon which heaven stood them, they fail to elicit our admiration," etc. Then, to show what the pedestal is on which he adores them, he adds, "If they gave evidence of a knowledge of puddings and pies, how much happier they might be," in the sunlight of his admiration, of course. Well, freedom of conscience in this free land! The Faithful may bow to his prophet; the Persian adore his sun; the Egyptian may kneel to his crocodile; and why should not Mr. Grattan go into rhapsodies before his cook, as the dispenser of the good things of this life? The good book speaks of "natural brute beasts who make a god of their bellies," and it might be natural to transfer the homage to her who ministers to the stomach. I can see his chosen divinity now, mounted on her "pedestal," a kitchen stool, her implements before her, crowned with a pudding-pan, her sceptre a batter spoon, and Mr. Grattan down, in rapt adoration, with eyes upturned, and looks of piteous pleading! Poor fellow! Do give him his dinner! J. G. S.—Saturday Visitor, Pittsburg, Penn.

Here are some of the titles of editorials and communications in respectable papers all over the country: "Bolting among the Ladies," "Women Out of their Latitude," "Insurrection among the Women," "The Reign of Petticoats," "Office-Seeking Women," "Petticoats vs. Boots." The reader can judge, with such texts for inspiration, what the sermons must have been.

RESOLUTIONS AT ROCHESTER.

The following resolutions, which had been separately discussed, were again read. Amy Post moved their adoption by the meeting, which was carried with but two or three dissenting voices:

1. Resolved, That we petition our State Legislature for our right to the elective franchise, every year, until our prayer be granted.

2. Resolved, That it is an admitted principle of the American Republic, that the only just power of the Government is derived from the consent of the governed; and that taxation and representation are inseparable; and, therefore, woman being taxed equally with man, ought not to be deprived of an equal representation in the Government.

3. Resolved, That we deplore the apathy and indifference of woman in regard to her rights, thus restricting her to an inferior position in social, religious, and political life, and we urge her to claim an equal right to act on all subjects that interest the human family.

4. Resolved, That the assumption of law to settle estates of men who die without wills, having widows, is an insult to woman, and ought to be regarded as such by every lover of right and equality.

5. WHEREAS, The husband has the legal right to hire out his wife to service, collect her wages, and appropriate it to his own exclusive and independent benefit; and,

WHEREAS, This has contributed to establish that hideous custom, the promise, of obedience in the marriage contract, effectually, though insidiously, reducing her almost to the condition of a slave, whatever freedom she may have in these respects being granted as a privilege, not as a right; therefore,

Resolved, That we will seek the overthrow of this barbarous and unrighteous law; and conjure women no longer to promise obedience in the marriage covenant.

Resolved, That the universal doctrine of the inferiority of woman has ever caused her to distrust her own powers, and paralyzed her energies, and placed her in that degraded position from which the most strenuous and unremitting effort can alone redeem her.

Only by faithful perseverance in the practical exercise of those talents, so long "wrapped in a napkin and buried under the earth," she will regain her long-lost equality with man.

Resolved, That in the persevering and independent course of Miss Blackwell, who recently attended a series of medical lectures in Geneva, and has now gone to Europe to graduate as a physician, we see a harbinger of the day when woman shall stand forth "redeemed and disenthralled," and perform those important duties which are so truly within her sphere.

Resolved, That those who believe the laboring classes of women are oppressed, ought to do all in their power to raise their wages, beginning with their own household servants.

Resolved, That it is the duty of woman, whatever her complexion, to assume, as soon as possible, her true position of equality in the social circle, the Church, and the State.

Resolved, That we tender our grateful acknowledgment to the Trustees of the Unitarian Church, who have kindly opened their doors for the use of this Convention.

Resolved, That we, the friends who are interested in this cause, gratefully accept the kind offer from the Trustees of the use of Protection Hall, to hold our meetings whenever we wish.

SIGNATURES TO THE DECLARATION ADOPTED AT SENECA FALLS.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this Declaration:

Lucretia Mott, Hannah Plant, Harriet Cady Eaton, Lucy Jones, Margaret Pryor, Sarah Whitney, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary H. Hallowell, Eunice Newton Foote, Elizabeth Conklin, Mary Ann McClintock, Sally Pitcher, Margaret Schooley, Mary Conklin, Martha C. Wright, Susan Quinn, Jane C. Hunt, Mary S. Mirror, Amy Post, Phebe King, Catharine F. Stebbins, Julia Ann Drake, Mary Ann Frink, Charlotte Woodward, Lydia Mount, Martha Underhill, Delia Matthews, Dorothy Matthews, Catharine C. Paine, Eunice Barker, Elizabeth W. McClintock, Sarah K. Woods, Malvina Seymour, Lydia Gild, Phebe Mosher, Sarah Hoffman, Catherine Shaw, Elizabeth Leslie, Deborah Scott, Martha Ridley, Sarah Hallowell, Rachel D. Bonnel, Mary McClintock, Betsy Tewksbury, Mary Gilbert, Rhoda Palmer, Sophronie Taylor, Margaret Jenkins Cynthia Davis, Cynthia Fuller, Mary Martin, Eliza Martin, P. A. Culvert, Maria E. Wilbur, Susan R. Doty, Elizabeth D. Smith, Rebecca Race, Caroline Barker, Sarah A. Mosher, Ann Porter, Mary E. Vail, Experience Gibbs, Lucy Spalding, Antoinette F. Segur, Lavinia Latham, Hannah J. Latham, Sarah Smith, Sarah Sisson.

The following are the names of the gentlemen present in favor of the movement:

Richard P. Hunt, Charles L. Hoskins, Samuel D. Tilman, Thomas McClintock, Justin Williams, Saron Phillips, Elisha Foote, Jacob Chamberlain, Frederick Douglass, Jonathan Metcalf, Henry W. Seymour, Nathan J. Milliken, Henry Seymour, S. E. Woodworth, David Spalding, Edward F. Underhill, William G. Barker, George W. Pryor, Elias J. Doty, Joel Bunker, John Jones, Isaac Van Tassel, William S. Dell, Thomas Dell, James Mott, E. W. Capron, William Burroughs, Stephen Shear, Robert Smalldridge Henry Hatley, Jacob Matthews, Azaliah Schooley.

Many persons signed the Declaration at Rochester, among them Daniel Anthony, Lucy Read Anthony, Mary S. Anthony, the officers of the Convention, and others.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VI.

OHIO.

Salem Convention, April 19, 20, 1850.

LETTER FROM ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

SENECA FALLS, N. Y., April 7.

DEAR MARIANA:—How rejoiced I am to hear that the women of Ohio have called a Convention preparatory to the remodeling of their State Constitution. The remodeling of a Constitution, in the nineteenth century, speaks of progress, of greater freedom, and of more enlarged views of human rights and duties. It is fitting that, at such a time, woman, who has so long been the victim of ignorance and injustice, should at length throw off the trammels of a false education, stand upright, and with dignity and earnestness manifest a deep and serious interest in the laws which are to govern her and her country. It needs no argument to teach woman that she is interested in the laws which govern her. Suffering has taught her this already. It is important now that a change is proposed, that she speak, and loudly too. Having decided to petition for a redress of grievances, the question is, for what shall you first petition? For the exercise of your right to the elective franchise—nothing short of this. The grant to you of this right will secure all others; and the granting of every other right, whilst this is denied, is a mockery. For instance: What is the right to property without the right to protect it? The enjoyment of that right to-day is no security that it will be continued to-morrow, so long as it is granted to us as a favor, and not claimed by us as a right. Woman must exercise her right to the elective franchise, and have her own representatives in our National councils, for two good reasons:

1st. Men can not represent us. They are so thoroughly educated into the belief that woman's nature is altogether different from their own, that they have no idea that she can be governed by the same laws of mind as themselves. So far from viewing us like themselves, they seem, from their legislation, to consider us their moral and intellectual antipodes; for whatever law they find good for themselves, they forthwith pass its opposite for us, and express the most profound astonishment if we manifest the least dissatisfaction. For example: our forefathers, full of righteous indignation, pitched King George, his authority, and his tea-chests, all into the sea, and because, forsooth, they were forced to pay taxes without being represented in the British Government. "Taxation without representation," was the text for many a hot debate in the forests of the New World, and for many an eloquent oration in the Parliament of the Old. Yet, in forming our new Government, they have taken from us the very rights which they fought and bled and, died to secure to themselves. They not only tax us, but in many cases they strip us of all we inherit, the wages we earn, the children of our love; and for such grievances we have no redress in any court of justice this side of Heaven. They tax our property to build colleges, then pass a special law prohibiting any woman to enter there. A married woman has no legal existence; she has no more absolute rights than a slave on a Southern plantation. She takes the name of her master, holds nothing, owns nothing, can bring no action in her own name; and the principle on which she and the slave is educated is the game. The slave is taught what is considered best for him to know—which is nothing; the woman is taught what is best for her to know—which is little more than nothing, man being the umpire in both cases. A woman can not follow out the impulses of her own mind in her sphere, any more than the slave can in his sphere. Civilly, socially, and religiously, she is what man chooses her to be, nothing more or less, and such is the slave. It is impossible for us to convince man that we think and feel exactly as he does; that we have the same sense of right and justice, the same love of freedom and independence. Some men regard us as devils, and some as angels; hence, one class would shut us up in a certain sphere for fear of the evil we might do, and the other for fear of the evil that might be done to us; thus, except for the sentiment of the thing, for all the good that it does us, we might as well be thought the one as the other. But we ourselves have to do with what we are and what we shall be.

2d. Men can not legislate for us. Our statute books and all past experience teach us this fact. His laws, where we are concerned, have been, without one exception, unjust, cruel, and aggressive. Having denied our identity with himself, he has no data to go upon in judging of our wants and interests. If we are alike in our mental structure, then there is no reason why we should not have a voice in making the laws which govern us; but if we are not alike, most certainly we must make laws for ourselves, for who else can understand what we need and desire? If it be admitted in this Government that all men and women are free and equal, then must we claim a place in our Senate Chamber and House of Representatives. But if, after all, it be found that even here we have classes and caste, not "Lords and Commons," but lords and women, then must we claim a lower House, where our Representatives can watch the passage of all bills affecting our own welfare, or the good of our country. Had the women of this country had a voice in the Government, think you our national escutcheon would have been stained with the guilt of aggressive warfare upon such weak, defenceless nations as the Seminoles and Mexicans? Think you we should cherish and defend, in the heart of our nation, such a wholesale system of piracy, cruelty, licentiousness, and ignorance as is our slavery? Think you that relic of barbarism, the gallows, by which the wretched murderer is sent with blood upon his soul, uncalled for, into the presence of his God, would be sustained by law? Verily, no, or I mistake woman's heart, her instinctive love of justice, and mercy, and truth!

Who questions woman's right to vote? We can show our credentials to the right of self-government; we get ours just where man got his; they are all Heaven-descended, God-given. It is our duty to assert and reassert this right, to agitate, discuss, and petition, until our political equality be fully recognized. Depend upon it, this is the point to attack, the stronghold of the fortress—the one woman will find the most difficult to take, the one man will most reluctantly give up; therefore let us encamp right under its shadow; there spend all our time, strength, and moral ammunition, year after year, with perseverance, courage, and decision. Let no sallies of wit or ridicule at our expense; no soft nonsense of woman's beauty, delicacy, and refinement; no promise of gold and silver, bank stock, road stock, or landed estate, seduce us from our position until that one stronghold totters to the ground. This done, the rest they will surrender at discretion. Then comes equality in Church and State, in the family circle, and in all our social relations.

The cause of woman is onward. For our encouragement, let us take a review of what has occurred during the last few years. Not two years since the women of New York held several Conventions. Their meetings were well attended by both men and women, and the question of woman's true position was fully and freely discussed. The proceedings of those meetings and the Declaration of Sentiments were all published and scattered far and near. Before that time, the newspapers said but little on that subject. Immediately after, there was scarcely a newspaper in the Union that did not notice these Conventions, and generally in a tone of ridicule. Now you seldom take up a paper that has not something about woman; but the tone is changing—ridicule is giving way to reason. Our papers begin to see that this is no subject for mirth, but one for serious consideration. Our literature is also assuming a different tone. The heroine of our fashionable novel is now a being of spirit, of energy, of will, with a conscience, with high moral principle, great decision, and self-reliance.

Contrast Jane Eyre with any of Bulwer's, Scott's, or Shakespeare's heroines, and how they all sink into the shade compared with that noble creation of a woman's genius! The January number of The Westminster Review contains an article on "Woman," so liberal and radical, that I sometimes think it must have crept in there by mistake. Our fashionable lecturers, too, are now, instead of the time-worn subjects of "Catholicism," "The Crusades," "St. Bernard," and "Thomas a Becket," choosing Woman for their theme. True, they do not treat this new subject with much skill or philosophy; but enough for us that the great minds of our day are taking this direction. Mr. Dana, of Boston, lectured on this subject in Philadelphia. Lucretia Mott followed him, and ably pointed out his sophistry and errors. She spoke to a large and fashionable audience, and gave general satisfaction. Dana was too sickly and sentimental for that meridian. The women of Massachusetts, ever first in all moral movements, have sent, but a few weeks since, to their Legislature, a petition demanding their right to vote and hold office in their State. Woman seems to be preparing herself for a higher and holier destiny. That same love of liberty which burned in the hearts of our sires, is now being kindled anew in the daughters of this proud Republic. From the present state of public sentiment, we have every reason to look hopefully into the future. I see a brighter, happier day yet to come; but woman must say how soon the dawn shall be, and whether the light shall first shine in the East or the West. By her own efforts the change must come. She must carve out her future destiny with her own right hand. If she have not the energy to secure for herself her true position, neither would she have the force or stability to maintain it, if placed there by another. Farewell!

Yours sincerely, E. C. STANTON.

LETTER FROM LUCRETIA MOTT.

DEAR FRIENDS:—The call for this Convention, so numerously signed, is indeed gratifying, and gives hope of a large attendance. The letter of invitation was duly received, and I need scarcely say how gladly I would be present if in my power. Engagements in another direction, as well as the difficulty to travel at this season of the year, will prevent my availing myself of so great a privilege. You will not, however, be at a loss for speakers in your midst, for among the signers to the call are the names of many whose hearts "believe unto righteousness"; out of their abundance, therefore, the mouth will make "confession unto salvation."

The wrongs of woman have too long slumbered. They now begin to cry for redress. Let them be clearly pointed oat in your Convention; and then, not ask as favor, but demand as right, that every civil and ecclesiastical obstacle be removed out of the way.

Rights are not dependent upon equality of mind; nor do we admit inferiority, leaving that question to be settled by future developments, when a fair opportunity shall be given for the equal cultivation of the intellect, and the stronger powers of the mind shall be called into action.

If, in accordance with your call, you ascertain "the bearing which the circumscribed sphere of woman has on the great political and social evils that curse and desolate the land," you will not have come together in vain.

May you, indeed, "gain strength" by your contest with "difficulty!" May the whole armor of "Right, Truth, and Reason" be yours; Then will the influence of the Convention be felt in the assembled wisdom of men which is to follow; and the good results, as well as your example, will ultimately rouse other States to action in this most important cause.

I herewith forward to you a "Discourse on Woman," which, though brought out by local circumstances, may yet contain principles of universal application.

Wishing you every success in your noble effort,

I am yours, for woman's redemption and consequent elevation, LUCRETIA MOTT.

PHILADELPHIA, 4th mo., 13, 1850.

LETTER FROM LUCY STONE.

For the Woman's Rights Convention:

DEAR FRIENDS:—The friends of human freedom in Massachusetts rejoice that a Woman's Rights Convention is to be held in Ohio. We hail it as a sign of progress, and deem it especially fitting that such a Convention should be held now, when a State Constitution is to be formed.

It is easier, when the old is destroyed, to build the new right, than to right it after it is built.

The statute books of every State in the Union are disgraced by an article which limits the right to the elective franchise to "male citizens of twenty-one years of age and upwards," thus excluding one-half the population of the country from all political influence, subjecting woman to laws in the making of which she has neither vote nor voice. The lowest drunkard may come up from wallowing in the gutter, and, covered with filth, reel up to the ballot-box and deposit his vote, and his right to do so is not questioned. The meanest foreigner who comes to our shores, who can not speak his mother-tongue correctly, has secured for him the right of suffrage. The negro, crushed and degraded, as if he were not a brother man, made the lowest of the law, even he, in some of the States, can vote; but woman, in every State, is politically plunged in a degradation lower than his lowest depths.

Woman is taxed under laws made by those who profess to believe that taxation and representation are inseparable, while, in the use and imposition of the taxes, as in representation, she is absolutely without influence. Should she hint that the profession and practice do not agree, she is gravely told that "Women should not talk politics." In most of the States the married woman loses, by her marriage, the control of her person and the right of property, and, if she is a mother, the right to her children also: while she secures what the town paupers have—the right to be maintained. The legal disabilities under which women labor have no end: I will not attempt to enumerate them. Let the earnest women who speak in your Convention enter into the detail of this thing, nor stop to "patch fig-leaves for the naked truth," but "before all Israel and the sun," expose the atrocities of the laws relative to women, until the ears of those who hear shall tingle. So that the men who meet in Convention to form the new Constitution for Ohio, shall, for very shame's sake, make haste to put away the last remnant of the barbarism which your statute book (in common with other States) retains in its inequality and injustice to woman. We know too well the stern reform spirit of those who have called this Woman's Eights Convention, to doubt for a moment that what can be done by you to secure equal rights for all, will be done.

Massachusetts ought to have taken the lead in the work you are now doing, but if she chooses to linger, let her young sisters of the West set her a worthy example; and if the "Pilgrim spirit is not dead," we'll pledge Massachusetts to follow her.

Yours, for Justice and Equal Rights, LUCY STONE.

SOUTHAMPTON, April 10, 1850.

LETTER FROM SARAH PUGH

"Lawrencian Villa is extremely beautiful; the grounds full of shrubbery and flowers; the splendid dairy, the green-houses and conservatories—four or five of them appropriated to fruit, flowers, and rare plants in large numbers—the whole presenting great taste and skill. Mrs. Lawrence's improvements are not completed; she is extending her shrubbery and walks. She is undoubtedly one of the most skillful cultivators and florists in the country (a country abounding with them), and carries off more prizes at the horticultural exhibitions than almost any one else. I am told Mr. Lawrence is an eminent surgeon in London, and that the whole of the country place is under Mrs. Lawrence's management."—Colman's Letters from Europe.

DEAR FRIENDS:—As I finished reading this paragraph, your letter, inviting me to your Convention, to be held on the 19th inst., was received. I can not, as I gladly would, be with you. That my mite may not be wanting in aid of the cause, taking the above extract for my text, I would add as a commentary, that, according to the laws and usages of a large portion of Christendom, in the event of the death of Mr. Lawrence, Mrs. Lawrence, the one whose skill and taste has formed this elegant establishment, would be left by the will of Mr. Lawrence an income from a part of the estate, and the "privilege" of occupying "during her natural life," two or three rooms in the large mansion, but powerless as a stranger in the beautiful demesne made valuable by her industry and skill! This is not "supposing" a case, only in the application of it to Mrs. L. In this country, where, as a general rule, women take their full share of the labor and responsibility of a household, and thus by their constant assiduity contribute their full proportion to the means by which a comfortable competence is secured, do we not see the disposal of it assumed as a matter of right by the male partner of the firm?

That women contribute their full share in the building-up of an estate by labor—the only rightful mode—no one that is capable of taking an enlightened view of the prevailing condition of things will deny. True, she may not wield the axe or guide the plough, braced by the invigorating air, for hers is the wearisome task, and the one which requires the most skill to attend to the complicated machinery within doors; she may not handle the awl or the plane for "ten hours a day," with but a small tax on the intellectual, but by her perpetual oversight and unvarying labor she may make one dollar, two, or more.

This is one form of the many grievances to which women are subjected, all arising from the false assumption of their inferiority by nature and by the "ordination of Providence." May your Convention aid in dispelling this delusion from the minds of men, but chiefly from the minds of women; for to themselves, in a great degree, is their degraded position owing. Rouse them to a belief in their natural equality, and to a desire to sustain it by cultivation of their noblest powers.

There is much that crowds on me for utterance, but there will be those among you that will be able to give a fuller and fitter expression to the thoughts that cluster around this all-important question, the "Rights and Duties of Women"—her rights equal to those of men—she alone the judge of her duties.

May your Convention hasten the day when these rights shall be acknowledged as equal to those of man and independent of him, and when men and women shall equally co-operate for the good of all mankind.

With great interest, your friend, SARAH PUGH.

To the Ohio Convention of Women, Phila., April 15, 1850.

RESOLUTIONS OF THE SALEM (OHIO) CONVENTION, 1850.

6th. Resolved, That in those laws which confer on man the power to control the property and person of woman, and to remove from her at will the children of her affection, we recognize only the modified code of the slave plantation; and that thus we are brought more nearly in sympathy with the suffering slave, who is despoiled of all his rights.

16th. Resolved, That we regard those women who content themselves with an idle, aimless life, as involved in the guilt as well as the suffering of their own oppression; and that we hold those who go forth into the world, in the face of the frowns and the sneers of the public, to fill larger spheres of labor, as the truest preachers of the cause of Woman's Rights.

19th. Resolved, That, as woman is not permitted to hold office, nor have any voice in the Government, she should not be compelled to pay taxes out of her scanty wages to support men who get eight dollars a day for taking the right to themselves to enact laws for her.

20th. Resolved, That we, the women of Ohio, will hereafter meet annually in Convention, to consult upon and adopt measures for the removal of the various disabilities—political, social, religious, legal, and pecuniary—to which women, as a class, are subjected, and from which results so much misery, degradation, and crime.

After the Akron Convention in 1851, The New York Sunday Mercury published a woodcut covering a whole page, representing the Convention. Every woman in coat and breeches and high-heeled boots, sitting cross-legged smoking cigars (truly manly arguments for equal political rights). There was not a Bloomer present.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

To the Woman's Convention, held at Akron, Ohio, May 25, 1851:

DEAR FRIENDS:—It would give me great pleasure to accept your invitation to attend the Convention, but as circumstances forbid my being present with you, allow me, in addressing you by letter, to touch on those points of this great question which have, of late, much occupied my thoughts. It is often said to us tauntingly, "Well, you have held Conventions, you have speechified and resolved, protested and appealed, declared and petitioned, and now, what next? Why do you not do something?" I have as often heard the reply, "We know not what to do."

Having for some years rehearsed to the unjust judge our grievances, our legal and political disabilities and social wrongs, let us glance at what we may do, at the various rights of which we may, even now, quietly take possession. True, our right to vote we can not exercise until our State Constitutions are remodelled; but we can petition our legislators every session, and plead our cause before them. We can make a manifestation by going to the polls, at each returning election, bearing banners, with inscriptions thereon of great sentiments handed down to us by our revolutionary fathers—such as, "No Taxation without Representation," "No just Government can be formed without the consent of the Governed," etc. We can refuse to pay all taxes, and, like the English dissenters, suffer our goods to be seized and sold, if need be. Such manifestations would appeal to a class of minds that now take no note of our Conventions or their proceedings; who never dream, even, that woman thinks herself defrauded of a single right. The trades and professions are all open to us; let us quietly enter and make ourselves, if not rich and famous, at least independent and respectable. Many of them are quite proper to woman, and some peculiarly so. As merchants, postmasters, and silversmiths, teachers, preachers, and physicians, woman has already proved herself fully competent. Who so well fitted to fill the pulpits of our day as woman? All admit her superior to man in the affections, high moral sentiments, and religious enthusiasm; and so long as our popular theology and reason are at loggerheads, we have no need of acute metaphysicians or skillful logicians in our pulpits. We want those who can make the most effective appeals to our imaginations, our hopes and fears.

Again, as physicians. How desirable are educated women in this profession! Give her knowledge commensurate with her natural qualifications, and there is no position woman could assume that would be so pre-eminently useful to her race at large, and her own sex in particular, as that of ministering angel to the sick and afflicted; an angel, not capable of sympathy merely, but armed with the power to relieve suffering and prevent disease. The science of Obstetrics is a branch of the profession which should be monopolized by woman. The fact that it is now almost wholly in the hands of the male practitioner, is an outrage on common decency that nothing but the tyrant custom can excuse. "From the earliest history down to 1568, it was practiced by women. The distinguished individual first to make the innovation on this ancient, time-sanctified custom, was no less a personage than a court prostitute, the Duchess of Villiers, a favorite mistress of Louis XIV. of France." This is a formidable evil, and productive of much immorality, misery, and crime. But now that some colleges are open to woman, and the "Female Medical College of Pennsylvania" has been established for our sex exclusively, I hope this custom may be abolished as speedily as possible, for no excuse can be found for its continuance, in the want of knowledge and skill in our own sex. It seems to me, the existence of this custom argues a much greater want of delicacy and refinement in woman, than would the practice of the profession by her in all its various branches.

But the great work before us is the education of those just coming on the stage of action. Begin with the girls of to-day, and in twenty years we can revolutionize this nation. The childhood of woman must be free and untrammeled. The girl must be allowed to romp and play, climb, skate, and swim; her clothing must be more like that of the boy—strong, loose-fitting garments, thick boots, etc., that she may be out at all times, and enter freely into all kinds of sports. Teach her to go alone, by night and day, if need be, on the lonely highway, or through the busy streets of the crowded metropolis. The manner in which all courage and self-reliance is educated out of the girl, her path portrayed with dangers and difficulties that never exist, is melancholy indeed. Better, far, suffer occasional insults or die outright, than live the life of a coward, or never move without a protector. The best protector any woman can have, one that will serve her at all times and in all places, is courage; this she must get by her own experience, and experience comes by exposure. Let the girl be thoroughly developed in body and soul, not modeled, like a piece of clay, after some artificial specimen of humanity, with a body like some plate in Godey's book of fashion, and a mind after the type of Father Gregory's pattern daughters, loaded down with the traditions, proprieties, and sentimentalities of generations of silly mothers and grandmothers, but left free to be, to grow, to feel, to think, to act. Development is one thing, that system of cramping, restraining, torturing, perverting, and mystifying, called education, is quite another. We have had women enough befooled under the one system, pray let us try the other. The girl must early be impressed with the idea that she is to be "a hand, not a mouth"; a worker, and not a drone, in the great hive of human activity. Like the boy, she must be taught to look forward to a life of self-dependence, and early prepare herself for some trade or profession. Woman has relied heretofore too entirely for her support on the needle—that one-eyed demon of destruction that slays its thousands annually; that evil genius of our sex, which, in spite of all our devotion, will never make us healthy, wealthy, or wise.

Teach the girl it is no part of her life to cater to the prejudices of those around her. Make her independent of public sentiment, by showing her how worthless and rotten a thing it is. It is a settled axiom with me, after much examination and reflection, that public sentiment is false on every subject. Yet what a tyrant it is over us all, woman especially, whose very life is to please, whose highest ambition is to be approved. But once outrage this tyrant, place yourself beyond his jurisdiction, taste the joy of free thought and action, and how powerless is his rule over you! his sceptre lies broken at your feet; his very babblings of condemnation are sweet music in your ears; his darkening frown is sunshine to your heart, for they tell of your triumph and his discomfort. Think you, women thus educated would long remain the weak, dependent beings we now find them? By no means. Depend upon it, they would soon settle for themselves this whole question of Woman's Rights. As educated capitalists and skillful laborers, they would not be long in finding their true level in political and social life.

E. C. STANTON. SENECA FALLS, May 1861.

RESOLUTIONS OF THE MASSILON (OHIO) CONVENTION, 1852.

1st. Resolved, That in the proposition affirmed by the nation to be self-evidently true, that "all men are created equal," the word "MEN" is a general term, including the whole race, without distinction of sex.

2d. Resolved, That this equality of the sexes must extend, and does extend, to rights personal, social, legal, political, industrial, and religious, including, of course, representation in the Government, the elective franchise, free choice in occupations, and an impartial distribution of the reward of effort; and in reference to all these particulars, woman has the same right to choose her sphere of action, as man to choose his.

3d. Resolved, That since every human being has an individual sphere, and that is the largest he or she can fill, no one has the right to determine the proper sphere of another.

4th. Resolved, That the assertion of these rights for woman, equally with man, involves the doctrine that she, equally with him, should be protected in their exercise.

5th. Resolved, That we do not believe any legal or political restriction necessary to preserve the distinctive character of woman, and that in demanding for women equality of rights with their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, we neither deny that distinctive character, nor wish them to avoid any duty, or to lay aside that feminine delicacy which legitimately belongs to them as mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters.

6th. Resolved, That to perfect the marriage union and provide for the inevitable vicissitudes of life, the individuality of both parties should be equally and distinctively recognised by the parties themselves, and by the laws of the land; and, therefore, justice and the highest regard for the interests of society require that our laws be so amended, that married women may be permitted to conduct business on their own account; to acquire, hold, invest, and dispose of property in their own separate and individual right, subject to all corresponding and appropriate obligations.

7th. Resolved, That the clause of the Constitution of the State of Ohio, which declares that "all men have the right of acquiring and possessing property," is violated by the judicial doctrine that the labor of the wife is the property of the husband.

8th. Resolved, That in the general scantiness of compensation of woman's labor, the restrictions imposed by custom and public opinion upon her choice of employments, and her opportunities of earning money, and the laws and social usages which regulate the distribution of property as between men and women, have produced a pecuniary dependence of woman upon man, widely and deeply injurious in many ways; and not the least of all in too often perverting marriage, which should be a holy relation growing out of spiritual affinities, into a mere bargain and sale—a means to woman of securing a subsistence and a home, and to man of obtaining a kitchen drudge or a parlor ornament.

9th. Resolved, That sacred and inestimable in value as are the rights which we assert for woman, their possession and exercise are not the ultimate end we aim at; for rights are not ends, but only means to ends, implying duties, and are to be demanded in order that duties may be performed.

10th. Resolved, That God, in constituting woman the mother of mankind, made her a living Providence, to produce, nourish, guard, and govern His best and noblest work from helpless infancy to adult years. Having endowed her with faculties ample, but no more than sufficient, for the performance of her great work, He requires of her, as essentially necessary to its performance, the full development of those faculties.

11th. Resolved, That we do not charge woman's deprivation of her rights upon man alone, for woman also has contributed to this result; and as both have sinned together, we call on both to repent together, that the wrong done by both may, by the united exertions of both, be undone.

FIFTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION, CLEVELAND, OHIO, 1853.

1st. Resolved, That by Human Rights, we mean natural Rights, in contradistinction to conventional usages, and that because Woman is a Human being, she, therefore, has Human Rights.

2d. Resolved, because woman is a human being, and man is no more, she has, by virtue of her constitutional nature, equal rights with man; and that state of society must necessarily be wrong which does not, in its usages and institutions, afford equal opportunities for the enjoyment and protection of these Rights.

4th. Resolved, the common law, by giving the husband the custody of the wife's person, does virtually place her on a level with criminals, lunatics, and fools, since these are the only classes of adult persons over which the law-makers have thought it necessary to place keepers.

5th. Resolved, That if it be true, in the language of John C. Calhoun, that "he who digs the money out of the soil, has a right to it against the universe," then the law which gives to the husband the power to use and control the earnings of the wife, makes robbery legal, and is as mean as it is unjust.

6th. Resolved, That woman will soonest free herself from the legal disabilities she now suffers, by securing the right to the elective franchise, thus becoming herself a lawmaker; and that to this end we will petition our respective State Legislatures to call conventions to amend their Constitutions, so that the right to the elective franchise shall not be limited by the word "male."

7th. Resolved, That there is neither justice nor sound policy in the present arrangements of society, restricting women to so comparatively a narrow range of employments; excluding them from those which are most lucrative; and even in those to which they are admitted, awarding them a compensation less, generally by one-half or two-thirds, than is paid to men for an equal amount of service rendered.

8th. Resolved, That, although the question of the intellectual strength and attainments of woman has nothing to do with the settlement of their rights, yet in reply to the oft-repeated inquiry, "Have women, by nature, the same force of intellect with men?" we will reply, that this inquiry can never be answered till women shall have such training as shall give their physical and intellectual powers as full opportunities for development, by being as heavily taxed and all their resources as fully called forth, as are now those of man.

Mr. Garrison, on being called for, replied that the resolutions would do for his speech to-night, and read as follows:

1st. Resolved, That the natural rights of one human being, are those of every other, in all cases equally sacred and inalienable; hence the boasted "Rights of Man," about which we hear so much, are simply the "Rights of Woman," of which we hear so little; or, in other words, they are the Rights of Humanity, neither affected by, nor dependent upon, sex or condition.

2d. Resolved, That those who deride the claims of woman to a full recognition of her civil rights and political equality, exhibit the spirit which tyrants and usurpers have displayed in all ages toward the mass of mankind; strike at the foundation of all truly free and equitable government; contend for a sexual aristocracy, which is as irrational and unjust in principle, as that of wealth and hereditary descent, and show their appreciation of liberty to be wholly one-sided and supremely selfish.

3d. Resolved, That for the men of this land to claim for themselves the elective franchise, and the right to choose their own rulers and enact their own laws, as essential to their freedom, safety, and welfare, and then to deprive all the women of all these safeguards, solely on the ground of a difference of sex, is to evince the pride of self-esteem, the meanness of usurpation, and the folly of a self-assumed superiority.

4th. Resolved, That woman, as well as man, has a right to the highest mental and physical development; to the most ample educational advantages; to the occupancy of whatever position she can reach, in Church and State, in science and art, in poetry and music, in painting and sculpture, in civil jurisprudence and political economy, and in all the varied departments of human industry, enterprise, and skill; to the elective franchise, and to a voice in the administration of justice, and the passage of laws for the general welfare.

5th. Resolved, That to pretend that the granting of these claims would tend to make woman less amiable and attractive, less regardful of her peculiar duties and obligations as wife and mother, a wanderer from her proper sphere, bringing confusion into domestic life, and strife into the public assembly, is the cant of Papal Rome as to the discordant and infidel tendencies of the right of private judgment in matters of faith; is the outcry of legitimacy as to the incapacity of the people to govern themselves; is the false allegations which selfish and timid conservatism is ever making against every new measure of reform, and has no foundation in reason, experience, fact, or philosophy.

6th. Resolved, That the consequences arising from the exclusion of woman from the possession and exercise of her natural rights and the cultivation of her mental faculties, have been calamitous to the whole human race; making her servile, dependent, unwomanly; the victim of a false gallantry on the one hand, and of tyrannous subjection on the other; obstructing her mental growth, crippling her physical development, and incapacitating her for general usefulness; and thus inflicting an injury upon all born of woman, and cultivating in man a lordly and arrogant spirit, a love of dominion, a disposition to lightly regard her comfort and happiness, all which have been indulged to a fearful extent, to the curse of his own soul and the desecration of her nature.