"3d. That you should so misconceive the actual convictions of ministers and Christians, and almost all, as to the public speaking of women;
"4th. That you should take the ground that the clergy, and the whole church government, must come down before slavery can be abolished (a proposition which to my mind is absurd).
"5th. That you should so utterly overlook the very threshold: principle upon which alone any moral reformation can be effectually promoted. Oh, dear! There are a dozen other things—marvellables—in your letters; but I must stop short, or I can say nothing on other points.
"... Now, before we commence action, let us clear the decks; for if they are clogged we shall have foul play. Overboard with everything that don't belong on board. Now, first, what is the precise point at issue between us? I answer first negatively, that we may understand each other on all points kindred to the main one. 1st. It is not whether woman's rights are inferior to man's rights."
He then proceeded to state the doctrine of Woman's Rights very forcibly. Of sex, he says:—
"Its only design is not to give nor to take away, nor in any respect to modify, or even touch, rights or responsibilities in any sense, except so far as the peculiar offices of each sex may afford less or more opportunity and ability for the exercise of rights, and the discharge of responsibilities, but merely to continue and enlarge the human department of God's government."
For an entire page he continues in this manner of "negatives" to "clear the decks," until he has shown through seven negative specifications what do not constitute the point at issue, and then goes on:—
"Well, waving further negatives, the question at issue between us is, whether you, S.M.G. and A.E.G., should engage in the public discussion of the rights of women as a distinct topic. Here you affirm, and I deny. Your reasons for doing it, as contained in your two letters, are the following:—
"1st. The New England Spectator was opened; you were invited to write on the subject, and some of the Boston abolitionists urged you to do so, and you say, 'We viewed this unexpected opportunity of throwing our views before the public, as providential.'
"Answer. When the devil is hard pushed, and likely to be run down in the chase, it is an old trick of his to start some smaller game, and thus cause his pursuers to strike off from his own track on to that of one of his imps. It was certainly a very providential opportunity for Nehemiah to 'throw his views before the public,' when Geshem, Sanballat, and Tobiah invited and urged him to stop building the wall and hold a public discussion as to the right to build. And doubtless a great many Jews said to him, 'Unless we establish the right in the first place, it will surely be taken from us utterly. This is a providential opportunity to preach truth in the very camp of the enemy.' But who got it up, God or the devil?... Look over the history of the world, and in nine cases out of ten we shall find that Satan, after being foiled in his arts to stop a great moral enterprise, has finally succeeded by diverting the reformers from the main point to a collateral, and that too just at the moment when such diversion brought ruin. Now, even if this opportunity made it the duty of somebody to take up the subject (which is not proved by the fact of the opportunity), why should you give your views, and with your name:? Others as able might be found, and as familiar with the subject. But you say, others 'are driven off the field, and cannot answer the objections.' I answer, your names do not answer the objections.... How very easy to have helped a third person to the argument. By publicly making an onset in your own names, in a widely-circulated periodical, upon a doctrine cherished as the apple of their eye (I don't say really believed:) by nine tenths of the church and the world; what was it but a formal challenge to the whole community for a regular set-to?"