Resolved, first.
That revelation, history and song
Have ever done to women grievous wrong,
Regarding her a weaker vessel made
For coarser man to love, protect, and aid,
While truly, if the case were justly tried,
Each faculty that fosters manly pride,
She owns in full, and mother-wit beside;
Whereby we know that cunning women can
Eclipse the dull experience of man;
And, tho’ to work is not her special mission,
She lifts great loads “by woman’s intuition”
Therefore, in order that the race may thrive
The man should hold the plow and woman drive.
Second.
This meeting gives approval hearty to
Victoria’s proposition bold and new,
To bore a hole right down to old Cathay,
Through which, while twilight-beams still ling’ring play,
The parting sun may dart his upward ray
And banish night—so shall bold woman’s sway
Prove harlinges of an eternal day.
Third.
The Maker in his several creations
Took coarse material to build foundations,
But rose by imperceptible gradations
To gases in the highest elevations.
The lesson taught is plain. ’Tis easy seeing
That man’s a coarse disreputable being,
While woman rounded into grace imperial,
Was doubtless made of gaseous material.
It follows hence he’s only fit to mate her
As under mates the upper crust in “natur.”
Fourth.
And last: Resolved, in solemn conclave met,
Although we ne’er can liquidate the debt
We owe to holy mother Bantam’s name,
Hereby we publicly renew the same.
This paying debts we clearly understand
Shows want of confidence on either hand.
We therefore pledge the whole of women kind
To pay no debts of whatsoever kind.
In lieu thereof we vote her now a niche,
And canonize her as a blessed witch,
(The only kind of Cannonizing we
Consider worthy of our bravery)
Whose manly inde—— no we scorn the phrase,—
Whose brazen firmness courts the public gaze—
Whose noble disregard of social rules—
Those spider-webs designed to fetter fools—
All plainly indicate her as the she
Exponent fit of woman’s destiny.
Her views of individual repose,
Must needs ameliorate the bridal woes;
’Twill further much convenience, rest, and pleasure,
And is withal a sanitary measure.
At least such doctrines logically tend
To bring our revolution to an end.
Her free abandonment of orbit high,
Where once she shone the glory of her sky
Make her in human reason’s eye appear
A fallen star—the evening one ’tis clear—
The morning star, ’tis known, shot from his sphere
Just at creation’s dawn; from which ’twould seem,
The night draws on whereof our poets dream.
But we behold in these events design
Which shows fulfillment of a plan divine.
Redemption is a scheme, as we believe,
Made possible by fall of luckless Eve.
Like problematic benefit may spring
From sister Bantam’s modern tumbling.
With one united voice we ever will
Exalt her as a spiritual virgin still.
Her busted form perpetual shall stand
By desolated hearthstones through the land.
In sulphurous flames her utterings shall glow
Bright in the midst of ev’ry household wo.
Now, Madame President, with your permission,
One word, to fortify the strong position
In these four resolutions taken. Before,
However, I proceed to offer more,
One thing I wish to have you understand,
My own, as yet, is at my own command.
Thank God, I’m not like silly married noodles
Reduced to suckle twins and drink in puddles;
Not firmly bounden body, soul and breeches
To toil and slave like Irishmen in ditches,
For man’s convenience or emolument,
While he, in Congress or in Parliament,
Sits cool like lion in his lordly den,
Jeering at woman with his fellow men.
Vipers! wretches! Of earth the filth and scum!
Would heav’n, in wrath, might strike the monsters dumb—
That heaviest curse that can on mortals come—
Had I ordained the building of this planet,
Or been consulted ere the Lord began it,
The universe one station would have seen
Of man and man’s belongings bare and clean;
One place where free’d from plagues to craze and pester,
Woman might dwell with nothing to molest her.
Where hairy lips should never scratch our noses,
Or kisses paint our damask cheeks like roses—
With pepper cheap and vinegar at will,
With none to order woman to be still,
With muddy boots and curling smoke no more
To spoil the curtains or bedaub the floor,
With flies and filth and hourly sweeping banished,
And e’en the ground of crystal, smooth and planished—
No living thing, save woman, clean and clever,
To sit alone forever and forever—
With absolutely naught to curb or fetter
Can mortal maid expect or ask for better.
But ah! when once the fates such offers spurn
The golden moment never can return!
Such sad mistake no effort can repair!
There’s no reprieve! we’re doomed to grin and bear!
At least, while selfish men control and own us,
They can’t obtain my plan without a bonus.
The sole resort is, by concerted movement,
To force adoption of that grand improvement,
Before this honorable body stated,
In sev’ral resolutions just related.
Dear Sisters! Do you rightly comprehend
Of cruel man the purpose, aim, and end?
Have you observed how from the first beginning,
He schemed to catch unhappy women sinning?
That, while confused and blind with fright and wonder
He might the more completely them under?
And ever since contrives to lord it o’er ’em
By holding up that “lapsus in torrorum”
With full intent I solemnly believe
To terminate our sex at mother Eve;
And equally perpetuate his own
By forcing us to carry boys alone?
Whether ’twas accident or nice design
That ultimately saved the female line
And keeps it, holy records fail to show.
Perhaps, one of the “lost arts”—this I know;—
Such confidence have I in female cunning,—
If woman willed to keep the girls-a-running
And stupid man refused his aid about it,
She’d find some easy way to do without it.
Retaliation is a law of “natur,”
Which was decreed by the benign Creator,
Or stated by some holy commentator,
And must be right. I therefore recommend
Such measures be adopted as shall end
In making man, the author of our woes,
A “lusus naturae,” the pride of shows.
No more let children male encumber earth
But strangle at, or just before their birth.