“If particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”—This was the warning directed by Mrs. John Adams in March, 1776, to her husband while he was attending the Continental Congress, assembled in Philadelphia to consider the Declaration of Independence.
When this document was framed and adopted without recognizing the rights of women, Mrs. Adams and a number of other women, deeply indignant, made good the threat of Mrs. Adams and opened that most remarkable warfare, which has lasted for more than a hundred years and may be called “Woman’s Battle for Suffrage.”
That they were deeply disappointed by the inattention of Congress, may be inferred from a letter by Hannah Lee, the sister of General Lee, in which she asks her brother to demand from Congress suffrage for women, as otherwise they would not pay any taxes. The same request was made by various other prominent women, who pointed to the fact that, while their husbands and sons had fought for the inherent rights of men, they had likewise fought for the rights of women. But as at that time American women were not organized their demands failed to make the necessary impression and remained unheeded. Besides, the majority of American women receiving only a very limited education, took little interest in the question, because of their ignorance of its importance. Thus, the subject of woman’s rights and suffrage dragged on until women had discovered, that there is strength in numbers, in federation, and that federation is the preliminary requirement to make victory possible.
The evolution of women’s clubs during the 19th Century is one of the most striking and most important phenomena in woman’s history. The movement began with the sewing or spinning circles of long ago, and made a great stride when the custom was initiated of some members reading while the others sewed. Later on these circles evolved into reading-clubs, which again developed into literary societies and associations for public improvement, aiming at the establishment of public schools and libraries, the erection of hospitals, orphan asylums, the sanitation of the streets, and other public works.
Such women’s clubs were not even afraid to tackle such most difficult problems as the abolition of slavery, which, at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th Century, became the burning question of the time. The hot discussion of this problem split the population of the United States into two hostile factions, of which the South with its partisans in the North made desperate efforts to prevent the free expression of opinion respecting the institution of slavery. In the slave States even the Christian churches used their influence in favor of the maintenance of slavery.
Among the first and strongest advocates of abolition were Sarah and Angelina Grimke, the daughters of a family of Salzburgers, who during the 18th Century had immigrated into South Carolina and Georgia. Shocked by the inhuman treatment and cruelties inflicted upon the slaves all round, and suffering intensely from the stand taken by their own relatives, the sisters resolved to fight these abuses.
While visiting Philadelphia, Sarah came under the influence of the Quakers, and read the strong protest against slavery, which Pastorius and the settlers of Germantown in 1688 had directed to the Quaker meeting. Returning to her home, Sarah besought her relatives to free their slaves. Failing in this effort, she left her home, joined the Quaker society of the “Friends” in Philadelphia, and in 1835 directed an “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,” imploring them to become active on behalf of the slaves. This pamphlet aroused such a profound sensation wherever it was read, that when some time afterward Miss Grimke expressed a desire to visit her former home, the mayor of Charleston called upon her mother and informed her that the police had been instructed to prevent her daughter’s landing when the steamer should come into port. He also would see to it that she might not communicate with any person, by letter or otherwise, and that, if she should elude the vigilance of the police and go ashore, she was to be arrested and imprisoned until the return of the vessel. As threats of personal violence were also made, Miss Grimke abandoned her visit, but published soon afterward “An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States,” and, at the same time, began to address meetings in Pennsylvania as well as in the New England States, in order to rouse the dormant moral sense of the hearers to protest against the colossal sin of the nation. She was assisted by her sister Angelina and such eloquent speakers as Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Stanton, William Lloyd Garrison and others. These agitators finally created such a stir, that the conservatives and opponents of abolition decided that they must be silenced. Quite often their meetings were disturbed by mobs; halls were refused them, and violence was threatened. The General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts passed a resolution censuring the Grimke sisters, and issued a pastoral letter containing a tirade against “female preachers.” But in spite of all efforts, public sentiment in the North in favor of abolition steadily grew, until it became evident that the question could not be settled without an armed conflict.
At a gathering of abolitionists, held on July 19th, 1848, at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca, N.Y., the question of women’s rights was eagerly discussed. Mrs. Stanton, the daughter of a lawyer, had found by frequent visits to her father’s office that according to the then existing laws, which had been adopted from England, married women had no right of disposal over their own inherited property, their own income, or their own children, no matter how unfit, degraded, and cruel their husbands might be. There was even no redress for corporal punishment which the husbands might inflict on their wives.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.