The History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 97

[213] While in the midst of correcting proof, March 22d, the New York press comes with an article showing how generally women are rousing to their rights. It is headed:

"WOMEN AT THE CHURCH POLL--_What Came of Reviving an Old Statute in Portchester_.--The trustees of the Presbyterian Church in Portchester, although elected on the 24th of February last, did not organize until about ten days ago. The reason for this delay lies in the claim made by some of the congregation that the election was irregular, owing to women having been allowed to vote. Some of the trustees who held over were at first inclined to resign, and the matter has been much discussed. When opposition was made to women voting, H. T. Smith produced the statute of 1818, which says that any member of the church at full age shall have a right to vote for trustees. There is nothing in the act prohibiting women from voting. There are, I believe, statutes forbidding women to vote in the Dutch Reformed and Episcopal Churches; but this is a regular Presbyterian Church. It seems to me that the women have worked hard for this church, and that they ought to have a vote at the election of trustees and other officers. A Sun reporter called upon the ladies for their version of the troubles.

Miss Pink, who is a school teacher, said: 'We women do four-fifths of the work, and contribute more than one-half the money to support the church. Two years ago we were allowed to vote for a minister, and we don't see why we shouldn't vote for trustees and at other elections.'

Miss Camp gave similar reasons for voting. Mrs. Montgomery Lyon said: 'If the old trustees didn't know that we had a right to vote, it isn't our fault. We women do all the work, and why shouldn't we vote!' Women will vote for President, soon."

[214] The above is article xiv. of the by-laws of the society connected with the aforesaid church. Thus the society undertakes to dictate to the church who shall have a voice in the selection of a pastor. It is a matter of grat.i.tude that the society, if it forbids females to vote in the church, yet allows them to pray and to help the society raise money.--_Independent_, _N. Y._, _Feb. 24, 1881_.

[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 s.e.xual system in vegetation to the world.

[219] The legal subordination of one s.e.x 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 s.h.i.+lling 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. Sh.o.r.e, 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 s.e.x 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 a.s.s, 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 G.o.d 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 5, 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 chast.i.ty. 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 G.o.d exclusively _male_, consign woman logically to the subordinate position which is definitely a.s.signed 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.dlike. 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 G.o.d as our Father and Mother. What we call G.o.d is the infinite ideal of humanity. The preposterous, ridiculous absurdity of supposing G.o.d so defined to be of the male s.e.x, and to call G.o.d '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 ma.n.u.script of the New Testament, which gave a number of new readings. There may be in existence other and older ma.n.u.scripts 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 friends.h.i.+p, giving a dazzling l.u.s.tre to the details of common life--all these should be at least touched upon and ill.u.s.trated, 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 editors.h.i.+p she was given precedence over the eminent philosopher and eminent scholar, her a.s.sociates.

She sought to unveil the mysteries of life and enfranchise her own s.e.x 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 pa.s.s 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 s.e.x are so deficient, chiefly, I think, because they have so few inducements to test and cla.s.sify 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 s.e.x 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 a.s.sertion made of the right of woman to be regarded and treated as an independent, intelligent, rational being, ent.i.tled 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 s.e.xes, 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 a.s.sume 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 h.o.a.ry 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 LAt.i.tUDE.

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 a.s.sert 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.xes, 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 n.o.ble destiny, women of all respectable and useful cla.s.ses, 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, pet.i.tion the State and National Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in their behalf. This is _bolting_ with a vengeance.--_Worcester_ (Ma.s.s.) _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 a.s.sist 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 partic.i.p.ate 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 a.s.signed to them. This is emphatically the age of "democratic progression," of _equality_ and _fraternization_--the age when all colors and s.e.xes, 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.