History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 21

"It was with pain that I heard Wendell Phillips say on our platform, 'Albany can not help you; your throne is the world of fas.h.i.+on!'--meaning women. If we are given over to fas.h.i.+on, frivolity, and vice, does it follow that rights and privileges, duties and responsibilities will not help us? If just governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed, and taxation without representation is tyranny, then Albany can help us in just so much as a good and just government will help the people who live under its rules and laws. No one would at this day, if a friend to the negro, say to him, 'A vote can not help you!' Then why say it to women?

"Our Woman's Rights Convention has now taken the broad platform of 'Equal Rights,' and upon that will work in time to come. And our meeting in New York seemed proof--if proof was wanting--that all we need now is to ask and receive. Our worst enemy, our greatest hindrance, is woman herself; and her indifference is the legitimate result of long-denied privileges and responsibilities of which she has not learned the necessity. If, as Mr. Beecher a.s.serted, 'to vote is a duty,' then it is the duty of every man and woman to work to secure that right to every human being of adult years.

"Since our meeting, the House of Representatives at Was.h.i.+ngton has pa.s.sed, by more than three to one, the amendment of the Reconstruction Committee. If the Senate concurs, then, to save the four million negroes of the South, or rather to save the Republican party (the people agreeing), seventeen millions of women, governed without their own consent, are proclaimed a disfranchised cla.s.s by the Const.i.tution of the United States, hitherto unpolluted by any such legislation. Let us, then, work for this, too, that seventeen million women shall not be left without the power considered so necessary to the negro for his preservation and protection; the power to help govern himself.

Let us never forget his claim, but strengthen it, by not neglecting our own."

At the November election of this year, Mrs. Stanton offered herself as a candidate for Congress; in order to test the const.i.tutional right of a woman to run for office. This aroused some discussion on this phase of the question, and many were surprised to learn that while women could not vote, they could hold any office in which their const.i.tuents might see fit to place them. Theodore Tilton gives the following graphic description of this event in "The Eminent Women":

In a cabinet of curiosities I have laid away as an interesting relic, a little white ballot, two inches square, and inscribed:

+-------------------------------------+ | _For Representative to Congress_, | | ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. | +-------------------------------------+

Mrs. Stanton is the only woman in the United States who, as yet, has been a candidate for Congress. In conformity with a practice prevalent in some parts of this country, and very prevalent in England, she nominated herself. The public letter in which she proclaimed herself a candidate was as follows:

_To the Electors of the Eighth Congressional District_:

Although, by the Const.i.tution of the State of New York woman is denied the elective franchise, yet she is eligible to office; therefore, I present myself to you as a candidate for Representative to Congress. Belonging to a disfranchised cla.s.s, I have no political antecedents to recommend me to your support,--but my creed is _free speech_, _free press_, _free men_, and _free trade_,--the cardinal points of democracy.

Viewing all questions from the stand-point of principle rather than expediency, there is a fixed uniform law, as yet unrecognized by either of the leading parties, governing alike the social and political life of men and nations. The Republican party has occasionally a clear vision of personal rights, though in its protective policy it seems wholly blind to the rights of property and interests of commerce; while it recognizes the duty of benevolence between man and man, it teaches the narrowest selfishness in trade between nations. The Democrats, on the contrary, while holding sound and liberal principles on trade and commerce, have ever in their political affiliations maintained the idea of cla.s.s and caste among men--an idea wholly at variance with the genius of our free inst.i.tutions and fatal to high civilization. One party fails at one point and one at another.

In asking your suffrages--believing alike in free men and free trade--I could not represent either party as now const.i.tuted.

Nevertheless, as an Independent Candidate, I desire an election at this time, as a rebuke to the dominant party for its retrogressive legislation in so amending the National Const.i.tution as to make invidious distinctions on the ground of s.e.x. That instrument recognizes as persons all citizens who obey the laws and support the State, and if the Const.i.tutions of the several States were brought into harmony with the broad principles of the Federal Const.i.tution, the women of the Nation would no longer be taxed without representation, or governed without their consent. Not one word should be added to that great charter of rights to the insult or injury of the humblest of our citizens. I would gladly have a voice and vote in the Fortieth Congress to demand _universal_ suffrage, that thus a republican form of government might be secured to every State in the Union.

If the party now in the ascendency makes its demand for "Negro Suffrage" in good faith, on the ground of natural right, and because the highest good of the State demands that the republican idea be vindicated, on no principle of justice or safety can the women of the nation be ignored. In view of the fact that the Freedmen of the South and the millions of foreigners now crowding our sh.o.r.es, most of whom represent neither property, education, nor civilization, are all in the progress of events to be enfranchised, the best interests of the nation demand that we outweigh this incoming pauperism, ignorance, and degradation, with the wealth, education, and refinement of the women of the republic. On the high ground of safety to the Nation, and justice to citizens, I ask your support in the coming election.

New York, _Oct. 10, 1866_. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

The New York _Herald_, though, of course, with no sincerity, since that journal is never sincere in anything--warmly advocated Mrs. Stanton's election. "A lady of fine presence and accomplishments in the House of Representatives," it said (and said truly), "would wield a wholesome influence over the rough and disorderly elements of that body." The _Anti-Slavery Standard_, with genuine commendation, said: "The electors of the Eighth District would honor themselves and do well by the country in giving her a triumphant election." The other candidates in the same district were Mr. James Brooks, Democrat, and Mr. Le Grand B. Cannon, Republican. The result of the election was as follows: Mr. Brooks received 13,816 votes, Mr. Cannon 8,210, and Mrs.

Stanton 24. It will be seen that the number of sensible people in the district was limited! The excellent lady, in looking back upon her successful defeat, regrets only that she did not, before it became too late, procure the photographs of her two dozen unknown friends.[68]

The years of 1866 and '67 were marked by unusual activity among the friends of this movement in both England and America. John Stuart Mill, a member of Parliament, proposed an amendment to the "Household Suffrage Bill," by striking out the word "man," sustained by many able speeches, which finally carried the measure triumphantly there. New York held a Const.i.tutional Convention, Michigan a Commission, and Kansas submitted the proposition of woman suffrage to a vote of her people. Twenty thousand pet.i.tions were rolled up and presented in the Const.i.tutional Convention, asking that the word "male" be stricken from Article II, sec. 1, and as many more were poured into Congress and the Legislatures of several of the States. A series of conventions, commencing in Albany, were held in all the chief cities of New York.[69]

THE AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS a.s.sOCIATION.

The labors of this year are well rounded out with a grand National Convention,[70] during Anniversary week, in New York, which a.s.sembled at the Church of the Puritans, May 9th, 1867, at 10 o'clock A.M.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton called the meeting to order and said: "In the absence of our venerable President (Lucretia Mott), Robert Purvis, one of the Vice-Presidents, will take the chair."

Mr. PURVIS said: I regret the absence of Mrs. Mott. It is needless to say that no one has higher claims upon the nation's grat.i.tude for what has been accomplished in the glorious work of Anti-Slavery, and for what is now being accomplished in the still greater, because more comprehensive work for freedom contemplated by this Society, than our honored and beloved President, Lucretia Mott. (Applause). It is with no ordinary feelings that I congratulate the friends of this a.s.sociation on the healthful, hopeful, animating, inspiring signs of the times. Our simple yet imperative demand, founded upon a just conception of the true idea of our republican government, is equality of rights for all, without regard to color, s.e.x, or race; and, inseparable from the citizen, the possession of that power, that protection, that primal element of republican freedom--the ballot.

Lucretia Mott here entered the hall, and, at the request of Mr.

Purvis, took the chair, and called for the Secretary's Report.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY said: It is my duty to present to you at this time a written Report of all that has been done during the past year; but those of us who have been active in this movement, have been so occupied in doing the work, that no one has found time to chronicle the progress of events. With but half a dozen live men and women, to canva.s.s the State of New York, to besiege the Legislature and the delegates to the Const.i.tutional Convention with tracts and pet.i.tions, to write letters and send doc.u.ments to every State Legislature that has moved on this question, to urge Congress to its highest duty in the reconstruction, by both public and private appeals, has been a work that has taxed every energy and dollar at our command. Money being the vital power of all movements--the wood and water of the engine--and, as our work through the past winter has been limited only by the want of it, there is no difficulty in reporting on finance. The receipts of our a.s.sociation, during the year, have amounted to $4,096.78; the expenditures, for lectures and conventions, for printing and circulating tracts and doc.u.ments, to $4,714.11--leaving us in debt $617.33.

The Secretary then rapidly rehea.r.s.ed the signs of progress. She spoke of the discussion in the United States Senate on the Suffrage bill, through three entire days, resulting in a vote of nine Senators in favor of extending suffrage to the women as well as black men of the District of Columbia; of the action of the Legislatures of Kansas and Wisconsin to strike the words "white male" from their const.i.tutions; of the discussions and minority votes in the Legislatures of Maine, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Missouri; of the addresses of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone before the Judiciary Committees of the New York and New Jersey Legislatures; of the demand for household suffrage by the women of England, earnestly maintained by John Stuart Mill in the British Parliament--all showing that the public mind everywhere is awake on this question of equal rights to all. Every mail brings urgent requests from the West for articles for their papers, for lectures and tracts on the question of suffrage. In Kansas they are planning ma.s.s conventions, to be held throughout the State through September and October; and they urge us to send out at least a dozen able men and women, with 100,000 tracts, to help them educate the people into the grand idea of universal suffrage, that they may carry the State at the November election.

Two of our agents, Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, are already in Kansas, speaking in all her towns and cities--in churches, school-houses, barns, and the open air; traveling night and day, by railroad, stage, and ox-cart; scaling the rocky divides, and fording the swollen rivers--their hearts all aglow with enthusiasm, greeted everywhere by crowded audiences, brave men and women, ready to work for the same principles for which they have suffered in the past, that Kansas, the young and beautiful hero of the West, may be the first State in the Union to realize a genuine Republic. The earnest, loyal people of Kansas have resolved to teach the nation to-day the true principle of reconstruction, as they taught the nation, twelve years ago, the one and only way in which to escape from the chains of slavery.

They ask us to help them. So do Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and New York. But for this vast work, as I have already shown you, we have an empty treasury. We ask you to replenish it. If you will but give your money generously--if you will but oil the machinery--this a.s.sociation will gladly do the work that shall establish universal suffrage, equal rights to all, in every State in the Union.

The PRESIDENT (Mrs. Mott) said: The report which we have had, although not written, is most interesting. A great deal of it is new to me. There are so many actively engaged in the cause, that it is fitting that some of us older ones should give place to them. That is the natural order, and every natural order is divine and beautiful. Therefore, I feel glad of the privilege--although my filling the office of President has been a mere nominal thing--to withdraw from the chair and to yield the place to our friend Robert Purvis, one of our Vice-Presidents.

The cause is dear to my heart, and has been from my earliest days. Being a native of the island of Nantucket, where women were thought something of, and had some connection with the business arrangements of life, as well as with their homes, I grew up so thoroughly imbued with woman's rights that it was the most important question of my life from a very early day. I hail this more public movement for its advocacy, and have been glad that I had strength enough to co-operate to some extent. I have attended most of the regular meetings, and I now feel almost ashamed, old as I am, to be so ignorant of what has happened during the last year. We need a paper--an organ that shall keep those who can not mingle actively in our public labors better informed. _The Standard_ has done much; and I find in many other papers a disposition to do justice, to a great extent, to our cause. It is not ridiculed as it was in the beginning. We do not have the difficulties, the opposition, and the contumely to confront that we had at an early day. I am very glad to find such an audience here to-day; and far be it from me to occupy the time so as to prevent Mr. May, Mr. Burleigh, and others, from having their proper place.

Mr. PURVIS resumed the chair, and introduced Mrs. Stanton, who spoke to the following resolutions:

_Resolved_, That government, of all sciences, is the most exalted and comprehensive, including, as it does, all the political, commercial, religious, educational, and social interests of the race.

_Resolved_, That to speak of the ballot as an "article of merchandise," and of the science of government as the "muddy pool of politics," is most demoralizing to a nation based on universal suffrage.

In considering the question of suffrage, there are two starting points: one, that this right is a gift of society, in which certain men, having inherited this privilege from some abstract body and abstract place, have now the right to secure it for themselves and their privileged order to the end of time. This principle leads logically to governing races, cla.s.ses, families; and, in direct antagonism to our idea of self-government, takes us back to monarchies and despotisms, to an experiment that has been tried over and over again, 6,000 years, and uniformly failed.

Ignoring this point of view as untenable and anti-republican, and taking the opposite, that suffrage is a natural right--as necessary to man under government, for the protection of person and property, as are air and motion to life--we hold the talisman by which to show the right of all cla.s.ses to the ballot, to remove every obstacle, to answer every objection, to point out the tyranny of every qualification to the free exercise of this sacred right. To discuss this question of suffrage for women and negroes, as women and negroes, and not as citizens of a republic, implies that there are some reasons for demanding this right for these cla.s.ses that do not apply to "white males."

The obstinate persistence with which fallacious and absurd objections are pressed against their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt--as if they were anomalous beings, outside all human laws and necessities--is most humiliating and insulting to every black man and woman who has one particle of healthy, high-toned self-respect. There are no special claims to propose for women and negroes, no new arguments to make in their behalf. The same already made to extend suffrage to all white men in this country, the same John Bright makes for the working men of England, the same made for the emanc.i.p.ation of 22,000,000 Russian serfs, are all we have to make for black men and women. As the greater includes the less, an argument for universal suffrage covers the whole question, the rights of all citizens. In thus relaying the foundations of government, we settle all these side issues of race, color, and s.e.x, end cla.s.s legislation, and remove forever the fruitful cause of the jealousies, dissensions, and revolutions of the past.

This is the platform of the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation.

"We are masters of the situation." Here black men and women are buried in the citizen. As in the war, freedom was the key-note of victory, so now is universal suffrage the key-note of reconstruction.

"Negro suffrage" may answer as a party cry for an effete political organization through another Presidential campaign; but the people of this country have a broader work on hand to-day than to save the Republican party, or, with some abolitionists, to settle the rights of races. The battles of the ages have been fought for races, cla.s.ses, parties, over and over again, and force always carried the day, and will until we settle the higher, the holier question of individual rights. This is our American idea, and on a wise settlement of this question rests the problem whether our nation shall live or perish.

The principle of inequality in government has been thoroughly tried, and every nation based on that idea that has not already perished, clearly shows the seeds of death in its dissensions and decline. Though it has never been tried, we know an experiment on the basis of equality would be safe; for the laws in the world of morals are as immutable as in the world of matter. As the Astronomer Leverrier discovered the planet that bears his name by a process of reason and calculation through the variations of other planets from known laws, so can the true statesman, through the telescope of justice, see the genuine republic of the future amid the ruins of the mighty nations that have pa.s.sed away. The opportunity now given us to make the experiment of self-government should be regarded by every American citizen as a solemn and a sacred trust. When we remember that a nation's life and growth and immortality depend on its legislation, can we exalt too highly the dignity and responsibility of the ballot, the science of political economy, the sphere of government?

Statesmans.h.i.+p is, of all sciences, the most exalted and comprehensive, for it includes all others. Among men we find those who study the laws of national life more liberal and enlightened on all subjects than those who confine their researches in special directions. When we base nations on justice and equality, we lift government out of the mists of speculation into the dignity of a fixed science. Everything short of this is trick, legerdemain, sleight of hand. Magicians may make nations seem to live, but they do not. The Newtons of our day who should try to make apples stand in the air or men walk on the wall, would be no more puerile in their experiments than are they who build nations outside of law, on the basis of inequality.

What thinking man can talk of _coming down_ into the arena of politics? If we need purity, honor, self-sacrifice and devotion anywhere, we need them in those who have in their keeping the life and prosperity of a nation. In the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman, in lifting her up into this broader sphere, we see for her new honor and dignity, more liberal, exalted and enlightened views of life, its objects, ends and aims, and an entire revolution in the new world of interest and action where she is soon to play her part. And in saying this, I do not claim that woman is better than man, but that the s.e.xes have a civilizing power on each other. The distinguished historian, Henry Thomas Buckle, says: "The turn of thought of women, their habits of mind, their conversation, invariably extending over the whole surface of society, and frequently penetrating its intimate structure, have, more than all other things put together, tended to raise us into an ideal world, and lift us from the dust into which we are too p.r.o.ne to grovel." And this will be her influence in exalting and purifying the world of politics. When woman understands the momentous interests that depend on the ballot, she will make it her first duty to educate every American boy and girl into the idea that to vote is the most sacred act of citizens.h.i.+p--a religious duty not to be discharged thoughtlessly, selfishly or corruptly; but conscientiously, remembering that, in a republican government, to every citizen is entrusted the interests of the nation. Would you fully estimate the responsibility of the ballot, think of it as the great regulating power of a continent, of all our interests, political, commercial, religious, educational, social and sanitary!

To many minds, this claim for the ballot suggests nothing more than a rough polling-booth where coa.r.s.e, drunken men, elbowing each other, wade knee-deep in mud to drop a little piece of paper two inches long into a box--simply this and nothing more. The poet Wordsworth, showing the blank materialism of those who see only with their outward eyes, says of his Peter Bell:

"A primrose on the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more."

So our political Peter Bells see the rough polling-booth in this great right of citizens.h.i.+p, and nothing more. In this act, so lightly esteemed by the mere materialist, behold the realization of that great idea struggled for in the ages and proclaimed by the Fathers, the right of self-government. That little piece of paper dropped into a box is the symbol of equality, of citizens.h.i.+p, of wealth, of virtue, education, self-protection, dignity, independence and power--the mightiest engine yet placed in the hand of man for the uprooting of ignorance, tyranny, superst.i.tion, the overturning of thrones, altars, kings, popes, despotisms, monarchies and empires. What phantom can the sons of the Pilgrims be chasing, when they make merchandise of a power like this? Judas Iscariot, selling his Master for thirty pieces of silver, is a fit type of those American citizens who sell their votes, and thus betray the right of self-government. Talk not of the "muddy pool of politics," as if such things must need be. Behold, with the coming of woman into this higher sphere of influence, the dawn of the new day, when politics, so called, are to be lifted into the world of morals and religion; when the polling-booth shall be a beautiful temple, surrounded by fountains and flowers and triumphal arches, through which young men and maidens shall go up in joyful procession to ballot for justice and freedom; and when our election days shall be kept like the holy feasts of the Jews at Jerusalem. Through the trials of this second revolution shall not our nation rise up, with new virtue and strength, to fulfill her mission in leading all the peoples of the earth to the only solid foundation of government, "equal rights to all." ...

Our danger lies, not in the direction of despotism, in the one-man power, in centralization; but in the corruption of the people....

It is in vain to look for a genuine republic in this country until the women are baptized into the idea, until they understand the genius of our inst.i.tutions, until they study the science of government, until they hold the ballot in their hands and have a direct voice in our legislation. What is the reason, with the argument in favor of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women all on one side, without an opponent worthy of consideration--while British statesmen, even, are discussing this question--the Northern men are so dumb and dogged, manifesting a studied indifference to what they can neither answer nor prevent? What is the reason that even abolitionists who have fearlessly claimed political, religious and social equality for women for the last twenty years, should now, with bated breath, give her but a pa.s.sing word in their public speeches and editorial comments--as if her rights const.i.tuted but a side issue of this grave question of reconstruction? All must see that this claim for _male_ suffrage is but another experiment in cla.s.s legislation, another violation of the republican idea. With the black man we have no new element in government, but with the education and elevation of women we have a power that is to develop the Saxon race into a higher and n.o.bler life, and thus, by the law of attraction, to lift all races to a more even platform than can ever be reached in the political isolation of the s.e.xes. Why ignore 15,000,000 women in the reconstruction? The philosophy of this silence is plain enough. The black man crowned with the rights of citizens.h.i.+p, there are no political Ishmaelites left but the women. This is the last stronghold of aristocracy in the country. Sydney Smith says: "There always has been, and always will be, a cla.s.s of men in the world so small that, if women were educated, there would be nothing left below them."

It is a consolation to the "white male," to the popinjays in all our seminaries of learning, to the ignorant foreigner, the boot-black and barber, the idiot--for a "white male" may vote if he be not more than nine-tenths a fool--to look down on women of wealth and education, who write books, make speeches, and discuss principles with the savans of their age. It is a consolation for these cla.s.ses to be able to say, "well, if woman can do these things, they can't vote after all." I heard some boys discoursing thus not long since. I told them they reminded me of a story I heard of two Irishmen the first time they saw a locomotive with a train of cars. As the majestic fire-horse, with all its grace and polish, moved up to a station, stopped, and snorted, as its mighty power was curbed, then slowly gathered up its forces again and moved swiftly on--"be jabers," says Pat, "there's muscle for you. What are we beside that giant?" They watched it intently till out of sight, seemingly with real envy, as if oppressed with a feeling of weakness and poverty before this unknown power; but rallying at last, one says to the other: "No matter, Pat; let it snort and dash on--it can't vote, after all."

Poor human nature wants something to look down on. No privileged order ever did see the wrongs of its own victims, and why expect the "white male citizen" to enfranchise woman without a struggle--by a scratch of the pen to place themselves on a dead level with their lowest order? And what a fall would that be, my countrymen. In none of the nations of modern Europe is there a cla.s.s of women so degraded politically as are the women of these Northern States. In the Old World, where the government is the aristocracy, where it is considered a mark of n.o.bility to share its offices and powers--there women of rank have certain hereditary rights which raise them above a majority of the men, certain honors and privileges not granted to serfs or peasants.

In England woman may be Queen, hold office, and vote on some questions. In the Southern States even the women were not degraded below their working population, they were not humiliated in seeing their coachmen, gardeners, and waiters go to the polls to legislate on their interests; hence there was a pride and dignity in their bearing not found in the women of the North, and pluck in the chivalry before which Northern doughfaceism has ever cowered. But here, where the ruling cla.s.s, the aristocracy, is "male," no matter whether washed or unwashed, lettered or unlettered, rich or poor, black or white, here in this boasted northern civilization, under the shadow of Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall, which Mr. Phillips proposes to cram down the throat of South Carolina--here women of wealth and education, who pay taxes and are amenable to law, who may be hung, even though not permitted to choose the judge, the juror, or the sheriff who does the dismal deed, women who are your peers in art, science, and literature--already close upon your heels in the whole world of thought--are thrust outside the pale of political consideration with traitors, idiots, minors, with those guilty of bribery, larceny, and infamous crime. What a category is this in which to place your mothers, wives, and daughters. I ask you, men of the Empire State, where on the footstool do you find such a cla.s.s of citizens politically so degraded? Now, we ask you, in the coming Const.i.tutional Convention, to so amend the Second Article of our State Const.i.tution as to wipe out this record of our disgrace.

"But," say you, "women themselves do not make the demand." Mr.

Phillips said on this platform, a year ago, that "the singularity of this cause is, that it has to be carried on against the wishes and purposes of its victims," and he has been echoed by nearly every man who has spoken, on this subject during the past year.

Suppose the a.s.sertion true, is it a peculiarity of this reform?... Ignorant cla.s.ses always resist innovations. Women looked on the sewing-machine as a rival for a long time. Years ago the laboring cla.s.ses of England asked bread; but the Cobdens, the Brights, the Gladstones, the Mills have taught them there is a power behind bread, and to-day they ask the ballot. But they were taught its power first, and so must woman be. Again, do not those far-seeing philosophers who comprehend the wisdom, the beneficence, the morality of free trade urge this law of nations against the will and wishes of the victims of tariffs and protective duties? If you can prove to us that women do not wish to vote, that is no argument against our demand. There are many duties in life that ignorant, selfish, unthinking women do not desire to do, and this may be one of them.

"But," says Rev. O. B. Frothingham, in a recent sermon on this subject, "they who first a.s.sume political responsibilities must necessarily lose something of the feminine element." In the education and elevation of woman we are yet to learn the true manhood and womanhood, the true masculine and feminine elements.

Dio Lewis is rapidly changing our ideas of feminine beauty. In the large waists and strong arms of the girls under his training, some dilettante gentleman may mourn a loss of feminine delicacy.

So in the wise, virtuous, self-supporting, common-sense women we propose as the mothers of the future republic, the reverend gentleman may see a lack of what he considers the feminine element. In the development of sufficient moral force to entrench herself on principle, need a woman necessarily lose any grace, dignity, or perfection of character? Are not those who have advocated the rights of women in this country for the last twenty years as delicate and refined, as moral, high-toned, educated, just, and generous as any women in the land? I have seen women in many countries and cla.s.ses, in public and private; but have found none more pure and n.o.ble than those I meet on this platform. I have seen our venerable President in converse with the highest of English n.o.bility, and even the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland did not eclipse her in grace, dignity, and conversational power. Where are there any women, as wives and mothers, more beautiful in their home life than Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone, or Antoinette Brown Blackwell? Let the freedmen of the South Sea Islands testify to the faithfulness, the devotion, the patience, and tender mercy of Frances D. Gage, who watched over their interests, teaching them to read and work for two long years.

Some on our platform have struggled with hards.h.i.+p and poverty--been slaves even in "the land of the free and the home of the brave," and bear the scars of life's battle. But is a self-made woman less honorable than a self-made man? Answer our arguments. When the Republic is in danger, no matter for our manners. When our soldiers came back from the war, wan, weary, and worn, maimed, halt, blind, wrinkled, and decrepit--their banners torn, their garments stained with blood--who, with a soul to feel, thought of anything but the glorious work they had done?