WOMEN TO THE FRONT.
The first public meeting to bring these questions prominently before the country was held in the Wesleyan Chapel, in Seneca Falls, on the 19th day of July, 1848. It was attended by the ladies I have mentioned, by Mr. Bascom, by Mr. Thomas McClintoch, a Quaker preacher and member of his family, by several clergymen, and other persons of some prominence in the village. Frederick Douglass was also present. Mr. James Mott, the husband of Lucretia, presided, and that lady opened the meeting with a careful statement of women’s wrongs and grievances and made a demand for their redress. Mr. Stanton read a clearly written paper to the same purport and reported a woman’s declaration of independence, in which her wrongs were fully set forth and her rights as fully insisted upon and proclaimed. The position was boldly taken that the ballot should be placed in her hands on a perfect equality with man himself, as only through the ballot could her rights be effectually asserted and maintained. The discussion lasted through two days, and the declaration was signed by fifty women and about the same number of men. The papers over the country generally noticed the gathering, and with few exceptions ridiculed the whole movement, while bearing testimony to the earnestness of those engaged in it.
Two weeks later, a second meeting of the same character was held in Rochester; and this one, as showing signs of progress, was presided over by a woman, the first event of the kind that had occurred up to that date, although since then it has become a common occurrence, and as a general rule it has been found that women make excellent presiding officers. Several new recruits were enlisted at the Rochester meeting, both women and men, among the latter being the Rev. William Henry Channing, a popular Unitarian clergyman of that city. The Rochester meeting fully endorsed the resolutions and declaration of independence of the Seneca Falls meeting, and from that time the new movement of women’s rights was fully launched upon the great ocean of public discussion and public opinion. Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton were the acknowledged leaders; but soon other advocates of wide influence were enrolled in the cause, and its influence from that day has continued to widen and extend, until it now includes men and women of great distinction and power in every English-speaking country in the world.