This selection of duty shows the advance of the movement. Formerly a woman might be literary in a general sense: now she had the oversight of the field, and might choose the place and kind of her work.
All this prepared the way for the advent of Margaret Fuller, and brought about the condition of which she was the exponent. She caught the rumor which floated in subtle discord all around her. Her quick insight detected every true and living germ of thought in the confused social deposits and exhalations. Out of the discord, she wrought a quaint and scholarly music; out of the refuse, she enriched a fragrant garden: and this song, this outgrowth, had an essential music and beauty, and were caught at once to the popular heart.
That the division of labor was already taking place, was obvious enough to her: so she claimed, in advance, the right of suffrage. Society was already prepared to make this claim, but only discovered its readiness as it listened to her enthusiastic song. Like Deborah, our friend struck her cymbals; and, when the heart of the people shouted consent, they "made her a judge over them."
Although it was doubtless owing to many older causes, it seemed as if her statement of the "great lawsuit" in 1844 led to the first Woman's Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848; and, in 1850, the National Woman's-rights Association began the yearly work in which it has ever since persevered.
Man, as well as woman, has been forced to respect this work, moved by the moral destitution in the lowest, and the profane inanity in the highest, ranks of life, which is the result of our social depravity.
Profane inanity, I repeat; for every helpless woman is a living, intolerable blasphemy against the Most High. Not more a blasphemy than every helpless man; but society neither expects, defends, nor provides for, helpless men. It is only the helpless woman who is expected and approved.
Often do we hear it said, that no law forbids American women to work.
Neither, it has been responded, is there any law which forbids Chinese women to walk; but the careful ligatures, so closely pressed by unsuspecting mothers about those tender feet, do not do their work more surely than the inevitable restrictions of society.
In summing up this constantly accruing list of influences and changes, I must again direct your attention to the fact, that, from the earliest dawn of modern civilization, women have been, in some nations at least, invested with political power.