Kennett Square and Longwood have for years been noted for their liberal religious meetings, in which the leading reformers of the nation have in turn been annually represented. In those gatherings of the Progressive Friends, all the questions of the hour were freely discussed, and their printed testimonies sent forth to enlighten the people.
The Convention assembled at ten o'clock in Horticultural Hall, and was called to order by Lucretia Mott, and the following officers chosen:
President.—Mariana Johnson.
Service-Presidents.—Mary Ann Fulton, William Jackson, Chandler Darlington.
Secretaries.—Sarah L. Miller, Hannah Darlington, Sidney Peirce, Edward Webb.
Business Committee.—James Mott, Ann Preston, Lucretia Mott, Frances D. Gage, Sarah D. Barnard, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Joseph A. Dugdale, Margaret Jones, Ernestine L. Rose, Alice Jackson, Jacob Painter, Phebe Goodwin.
Finance Committee, appointed by the Chair.—Hannah Darlington, Jacob Painter, Isaac Mendenhall, Elizabeth Miller.
Mrs. Mott read the following call:
The friends of Justice and Equal Rights are earnestly invited to assemble in Convention, to consider and discuss the present position of Woman in Society, her Natural Eights and Relative Duties.
The reasons for such a Convention are obvious. With few exceptions, both the radical and conservative portions of the community agree that woman, even in this progressive age and country, suffers under legal, educational, and vocational disabilities which ought to be removed. To examine the nature of these disabilities, to inquire into their extent, and to consider the most feasible and proper mode of removing them, will be the aim of the Convention which it is proposed to hold.
If it shall promote in any degree freedom of thought and action among women; if it shall assist in opening to them any avenues to honorable and lucrative employment (now unjustly and unwisely closed); if it shall aid in securing to them more thorough intellectual and moral culture; if it shall excite higher aspirations; if it shall advance by a few steps just and wise public sentiment, it will not have been held in vain.
The elevation of woman is the elevation of the human race. Her interests can not be promoted or injured without advantage or injury to the whole race. The call for such a Convention is therefore addressed to those who desire the physical, intellectual, and moral improvement of mankind. All persons interested in its objects are respectfully requested to be present at its sessions and participate in its deliberations.
THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS
The position in which woman has been placed is an anomaly. On the one hand she is constantly reminded of duties and responsibilities from which an angel might shrink. The world is to be saved by her prayers, her quiet and gentle efforts. Man, she is told, is ruled by her smiles; his whole nature subdued by the potency of her tears. Priests, politicians, and poets assure her with flattering tongue, that on her depend the progress and destiny of the race. On the other hand, she is told that she must lovingly confide in the strength and skill of man, who has been endowed with superior intellectual powers; that she must count it her highest honor to reflect upon the world the light of his intelligence and wisdom, as the moon reflects the light of the sun!
We may congratulate one another on this occasion in view of the cheering indications so manifest on every hand that the ignorance and darkness which have so long brooded over the prospects of woman, are beginning to give place to the light of truth. In the summer of 1848, in the village of Seneca Falls, a small number of women, disregarding alike the sneers of the ignorant and the frowns of the learned, assembled in Convention and boldly claimed for themselves, and for their sex, the rights conferred by God and so long withheld by man. Their courageous words were the expression of sentiments which others had felt as deeply as themselves, but which the restraints imposed by long-established custom had taught them to suppress. But now the hour had come, and the world stood prepared for the reception of a new thought, which is destined to work a revolution in human society, more beneficent than any that has preceded it. The seeds of truth which that Convention planted in faith and hope were not left to perish. In many thoughtful minds they germinated apace and brought forth fruit. That fruit was seen in the large Convention held in Ohio in the spring of 1850, in that held in Massachusetts in the autumn of the same year, and in those which have followed since in New England and the West.
Woman at length is awaking from the slumber of ages. Many of the sex already perceive that knowledge, sound judgment, and perfect freedom of thought and action are quite as important for the mothers as for the fathers of the race. They weary of the senseless talk of "woman's sphere," when that sphere is so circumscribed that they may not exert their full influence and power to save their country from war, intemperance, slavery, licentiousness, ignorance, poverty, and crime, which man, in the mad pursuit of his ambitious schemes, unchecked by their presence and counsel, permits to desolate and destroy all that is fair and beautiful in life and fill the world with weeping, lamentation, and woe. Woman begins to grow weary of her helpless and dependent position, and of being treated as if she were formed only to cultivate her affections, that they may flow in strong and deep currents merely to gratify the self-love of man.
She does not listen with delight, as she once did, when she hears her relations to her equal brother represented by the poetical figure of the trellis and creeping tendril, or of the oak and the gracefully clinging vine. No, she feels that she is, like him, an accountable being—that the Infinite Father has laid responsibilities upon her which may not be innocently transferred to another, but which, in her present ignorance, she is not prepared to meet. She is becoming rapidly imbued with the spirit of progress, and will not longer submit, without remonstrance, to the bondage of ancient dogmas and customs. In the retirement and seclusion of life, the stirring impulse of the times has reached even the heart of woman, and she feels the necessity of a more thorough culture and a wider field of usefulness. She sees the glaring injustice by which she has long been deprived of all fair opportunity to earn an independent livelihood, and thus, in too many instances, constrained to enter the marriage relation, as a choice of evils, to secure herself against the ills of impending poverty. The wrong she so deeply feels she is at length arousing herself to redress.
What, then, is the substance of our demand? I answer, we demand for woman equal freedom with her brother to raise her voice and exert her influence directly for the removal of all the evils that afflict the race; and that she be permitted to do this in the manner dictated by her own sense of propriety and justice. We ask for her educational advantages equal to those enjoyed by the other sex; that the richly endowed institutions which she has been taxed to establish and support, may be open alike to all her children. We claim for her the right to follow any honorable calling or profession for which she may be fitted by her intellectual training and capacity. We claim for her a fair opportunity to attain a position of pecuniary independence, and to this end that she receive for her labor a compensation equivalent to its recognized value when performed by the other sex.
These demands, we think, must be admitted to be essentially wise and just. We make them in no spirit of selfish antagonism to the other sex, but under a deep conviction that they are prompted by an enlightened regard for the highest welfare of the race. Some one has justly said that God has so linked the human family together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length. The true interests of the sexes are not antagonistic, but harmonious. There can be no just conflict between their respective rights and duties. For the coming of the day when this great truth shall be universally received, we must work and pray as we have opportunity. When that day shall arrive, it will be clearly perceived that in the true Harmonic Order "woman and her brother are pillars in the same temple and priests of the same worship."
The Secretary, Sidney Peirce, read the following letter from
SARAH M. GRIMKÉ.
When an insect emerges with struggles from its chrysalis state, how feeble are all its movements, how its wings hang powerless until the genial air has dried and strengthened them, how patiently the insect tries again and again to spread them, and visit the flowers which bloom around, till at last it enjoys the recompense of its labors in the nectar and the fragrance of the garden.
This illustrates the present condition of Woman. She is just emerging from the darkness and ignorance by which she has been shrouded. She looks forth from her chrysalis and sees the natural and intellectual world lying around her clothed in radiant beauty, and inviting her to enter and possess this magnificent inheritance. How came I, she asks, to be excluded from all these precious privileges? I will arise and go to my Father and say, "Father, permit me to share the labors of my brethren and partake of the fruits which they enjoy." "Go, my daughter," is the paternal response. "Be unto man, in an infinitely higher sense than heretofore, a help-meet." How is woman fulfilling her divine mission? Is she looking on the benefits she is commissioned to bestow on the human race, or is she keeping her eye on her own interests and seeking her own elevation, with little of that expansive benevolence, that philosophical foresight which seeks the development of all?
Woman is now in the transition state, a glorious mission is before her, a glorious destiny awaits her. To fulfill that mission, to be worthy of that destiny, she must patiently wait and quietly hope, blessing those who scorn and deride her feeble and often unsuccessful efforts, to free herself from her entanglements. She must expect many failures in her attempts to emancipate herself from the thralldom of public opinion. Those who have long held the reins of power and the rank of superiority, naturally look with distrust on a movement which threatens to overturn long established customs and transform the baby and the toy into an intellectual being, desiring equal rights with themselves and asserting her claim to all the immunities they enjoy. Woman must be willing to see herself as she is, the slave of fashion, assuming all the Proteus forms she invents, without reference to health or convenience. She must remember how few of us give evidence of sufficient development to warrant our claims; and whilst we feel a divine impulse to proceed in achieving the enlargement of woman, whilst we hear a voice saying, "Ye have compassed this mountain long enough; speak to the people that they go forward," let us not be dismayed at the hindrances we shall encounter from those whom we are laboring to release from the swaddling bands of infancy, or the grave-clothes of superstition, time-honored opinion and crushing circumstances. We are now in a perilous and difficult position. We feel all the inconveniences of our past condition, all the disadvantages and uneasiness of the one we are constrained to occupy, and see in bold relief all the advantages which a change will yield us. But let us remember that our transition state, although replete with temptations and suffering, is necessary to our improvement; we need it to strengthen us and enable us to bear hardships as good soldiers of truth.
To regard any state of society as fixed, is to regard it as the ultimate good, as the best condition to which we can attain. But when man has progressed, when his morality and his religion have assumed a higher tone, it is impossible to perpetuate his childhood, or to give permanence to institutions and opinions whose days are numbered. When reform has truth for its basis and is instinct with the life of progression, no power can dress it in the habiliments of the grave, and bury it out of sight, either in the Potter's-field or under the magnificent mausoleum. There is nothing so precious to man as progress; he has defended it with his heart's best blood, and according to his development has aided it, although sometimes in his blindness he has scattered fire and sword, destruction and misery around, in endeavoring to force mankind to adopt the truths he thought essential to progress. "Woman has come on the stage," says Horace Mann, "6,000 years after man, to profit by his misdeeds and correct his errors." Until now, the world was not prepared to receive, in full measure, the hallowed influence which woman is designed to shed. Her holy mission is to bring peace on earth and good-will to man. She does not ask for irresponsible power; she has seen that from the earliest records of the human race the possession of such power is fraught with danger, that it has always made tyrants. She feels Divinity stirring within her, and its irrepressible aspirings can not, should not be controlled. Mankind have always rejected the means appointed by Infinite Wisdom to assist their upward flight. Let us then go calmly forward, alike regardless of the scorn and ridicule of the shallow, the grave denunciations of the bigot, or the weighty counsel of the narrow-minded and selfish, who would point out the exact position fitted for us to occupy, and with seeming condescension invite us to fill some posts of honor and profit, while they undertake to confine us within their bounds, leaving nothing to our good sense, intelligence, intuitive desires, and aspiring hopes. The truth is, "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." God alone is competent to do this, and in the present movement His power, wisdom, and will, are so conspicuous, that it will be well to set no bounds to His work, but let it have free course, expecting that contradictions and inconsistencies will mar it, but believing that those contradictions will cease, those inconsistencies disappear, and the perfected human being be developed.
If we adopt as our watchword the language of Margaret Fuller, we can not but overcome all obstacles, outlive all opposition: "Give me Truth. Cheat me by no illusion. Oh, the granting of this prayer is sometimes terrible; I walk over the burning plowshares and they sear my feet—yet nothing but Truth will do."
Sarah M. Grimké
Lucretia Mott addressed the Convention, briefly referring to the importance of the movement and expressing her gratification on seeing the response given to the call, by the great number of persons assembled. She saw before her not only a large delegation from the immediate vicinity, but a goodly number from other and distant States.
The movement for the enfranchisement of woman is indeed making rapid progress. Since the first Convention held at Seneca Falls, in 1848, where a few women assembled, and notwithstanding their ignorance of the parliamentary modes of conducting business, promulgated these principles, which took deep root, and are already producing important results. Other large Conventions have been held in different places, which have done much toward disseminating the great principles of equality between the sexes; and a spirit of earnest inquiry has been aroused. She referred to the fact that the agitation commenced in those States most distinguished for intellectual and moral culture, while we in Pennsylvania are ready to embrace their views on this subject; and trusted that the Convention now assembled, would be neither less interesting nor less efficient than those that have been already held.
Mrs. Clarina Howard Nichols, of Brattleboro, Vermont, spoke briefly on the absurdity of the popular idea of woman's sphere. She thought the sphere of sex could only be determined by capacity and moral obligation. She had once thought politics necessarily too degrading for woman, but she had changed her views. The science of government, it is said, is of divine origin; a participation in its administration can not then necessarily involve anything to deteriorate from the true dignity of woman. The world's interests have never yet been fully represented. The propriety of woman voting had been to her a stumbling-block; the idea was repelling. She was not yet allowed to vote, but she had ceased to consent to the arrangement which deprived her of that right, and therefore experienced a freedom of spirit which she had not known before. The idea that woman could not go to the ballot-box without a sacrifice of her delicacy was absurd. Women were allowed to vote in church matters unquestioned. They can hold railroad stock, bank stock, and stock of other corporations, where their influence is in proportion to the amount held.
But we are not called upon to maintain the position of the propriety or expediency of women voting. The question is, Shall they have the right so to do?—the propriety should be left to themselves. Woman can now travel alone securely, where formerly it was considered a risk. She can deposit her vote with men, with as much propriety as she can ride with them in railroad cars, on steamboats, etc. She came all the way from the Green Mountains without any male attendant; she traveled with members of Congress and delegates to the Baltimore Convention, and not a "bear" among them offered her the least indignity.
Ernestine L. Rose quoted the testimony of Horace Mann,[67] that our Legislatures were "bear gardens, our representatives too rude and rough for woman's association, hence the impropriety and indelicacy of her mingling in politics." But we are told it is woman's province to soothe the angry passions and calm the belligerent feelings of man, and if what Horace Mann says is true, where can we find a riper harvest awaiting us than in the halls of legislation!
Harriet K. Hunt then read an address upon the medical education of women; on concluding, she offered the following resolutions:
1st. Resolved, That the present position of medical organizations, precluding women from the same educational advantages with men, under pretext of delicacy, virtually acknowledges the impropriety of his being her medical attendant.
2d. Resolved, That we will do all in our power to sustain those women who, from a conviction of duty, enter the medical profession, in their efforts to overcome the evils that have accumulated in their path, and in attacking the strongholds of vice.
3d. Resolved, That the past actions and present indications of our medical schools should not affect us at all; and notwithstanding Geneva and Cleveland Medical Colleges closed their doors after graduating one woman each, and Harvard, through the false delicacy of the students, declared it inexpedient to receive one who had been in successful practice many years, we would still earnestly follow in peace and love where duty points, and leave the verdict to an enlightened public sentiment.
The address of Dr. Hunt called out a discussion on the importance of a thorough medical training for women in all departments of science belonging to that profession.
Mrs. Nichols spoke earnestly of the imperfect education of woman. With no knowledge of the laws of health, she has no means of obtaining the required information. Men hold the purse even when it is filled by the labor of both. They close the college doors, though we have helped to build and endow them. And at what a fearful cost of life and health are we thus wronged. Does it cost too much to educate the future mothers of this nation in the science of life? Who can estimate how much greater are the expenses incurred by our ignorant violation of the laws of health?
Frances Dana Gage, of Ohio, spoke of the high scholarship and very successful examinations of those women who had been admitted into the medical colleges, far surpassing the young men in their recitations and general intelligence. So long as the lives of children are conceded to be in the hands of their mothers, it is of vital consequence to the race that women be thoroughly educated for the medical profession.
Mrs. ROSE said: These are mighty questions. When our little ones are removed by death from our care and affection, we feel most keenly our ignorance, and long to know something of those immutable laws of life and health we have so long violated. Woman should at least know enough to be physician to herself and children, but she is denied the advantages granted to man for obtaining knowledge of these things more necessary if possible to her than to him.
The idea of a female doctor is ridiculed. But what is she worth as a nurse of the sick without a knowledge of the art of healing? Why am I in the prime of life in such feeble health? In my country, the laws of life are, comparatively speaking, kept in a nutshell. The girl must not exercise; it is not fashionable. She must not be seen in active life; it is not feminine. The boy may run, the girl must creep. It is to discuss all these grave inequalities that we have assembled here, and I trust the influence of this Convention may be felt in opening to woman all honest and honorable means of self-support and self-development, and in removing all the legal shackles that block her pathway through life.
Eva Pugh said: The degradation of one sex is the degradation of the other. This question is universal, affecting all alike. No fact is better established than that the character of the parent is inherited by the child. Can noble men be born of infirm women? Who are the mothers of great men? Women of mind, of thought, of independence; not women degraded by man's tyranny, laboring in prescribed limits, thinking other people's thoughts, and echoing their opinions. This question of woman's rights affects the whole human race. We know from sad experience that man can not rise while woman is degraded.
Mrs. Mott spoke of the great change in public sentiment within her recollection in regard to the so-called sphere of woman. Twenty years ago people wondered how a modest girl could attend lectures on Botany; but modest girls did attend them and other places frequented only by men, and the result was not a loss of delicacy, but a higher and nobler development; a true modesty.
Joseph A. Dugdale made a few remarks on the injustice of the laws by which happy households are often broken up on the death of the husband and father. He said there remained one way in which this great evil could be avoided even while the law remains unchanged, and that was by a will of the husband conveying the whole property of their joint industry and economy to the wife, in the event of his death. He urged this as the duty of every husband and father. He closed his remarks with the following extract from the will of Martin Luther, proving that other errors than those of the Church, were deemed by the great reformer of sufficient magnitude to awaken his earnest opposition:
MARTIN LUTHER'S WILL.
"This is all I am worth, and I give it all to my wife for the following reasons:
"1. Because she has always conducted herself toward me lovingly, worthily, and beautifully, like a pious, faithful, and noble wife; and by the rich blessings of God, she has borne and brought up five living children, who yet live, and God grant they may long live.
"2. Because she will take upon herself and pay the debts which I owe and may not be able to pay during my life, which, so far as I can estimate, may amount to about 450 florins, or perhaps a little more.
"3. But most of all, because I will not have her dependent on the children, but the children on her; that they may hold her in honor, and submit themselves to her as God has commanded. For I see well and observe, how the devil, by wicked and envious mouths, heats and excites children, even though they be pious, against this command; especially when the mothers are widows, and the sons get wives, and the daughters get husbands, and again socrus murum, nurus socrum. For I hold that the mother will be the best guardian for her own children, and will use what little property and goods she may have, not for their disadvantage and injury, but for their good and improvement, since they are her own flesh and blood, and she carried them under her heart.
"And if, after my death, she should find it necessary or desirable to marry again (for I can not pretend to set limits to the will or providence of God), yet I trust and herewith express my confidence that she will conduct herself toward our mutual children as becometh a mother, and will faithfully impart to them property, and do whatever else is right.
"And herewith I humbly pray my most gracious lord, his grace Duke John Frederick, elector of Saxony, graciously to guard and protect the above-named gifts and property.
"I also entreat all my good friends to be witnesses for my dear Catey, and help to defend her should any good-for-nothing mouth reprove and slander her, as if she had secretly some personal property of which she would defraud the poor children. For I testify there is no personal property except the plate and jewelry enumerated above.
"Finally, I beg, since in this will or testament I have not used legal forms or words (and thereto I have my reasons), that every one may let me be the person that I am in truth, namely, openly and known both in heaven and earth, and in hell, and let me have respect and authority enough so that I may be trusted and believed more than any lawyer. For so God the Father of all mercies hath entrusted to me, a poor, miserable, condemned sinner, the Gospel of His dear Son, and therein thus far I have behaved and conducted myself truly and faithfully, and it has made much progress in the world through me, and I am honored as a teacher of truth, notwithstanding the curse of the Pope and the wrath of emperors, kings, princes, priests, and all kinds of devils; much rather then let me be believed in this little matter, especially as here in my hand which is very well known; and I hope it may be enough, when it can be said and proved that this is the serious and deliberate desire of Dr. Martin Luther (who is God's lawyer and witness of His Gospel) to be proved by his own hand and seal, Sept. 16, 1542."
Lucretia Mott (see 8th resolution) thought it important that we should not disclaim the antagonism that woman's present position rendered it necessary she should assume. Too long had wrongs and oppressions existed without an acknowledged wrong-doer and oppressor. It was not until the slaveholder was told, "thou art the man," that a healthful agitation was brought about. Woman is told that the fault is in herself, in too willingly submitting to her inferior condition; but, like the slave, she is pressed down by laws in the making of which she has had no voice, and crushed by customs that have grown out of such laws. She can not rise, therefore, while thus trampled in the dust. The oppressor does not see himself in that light until the oppressed cry for deliverance.
In commenting on the will just read, she further said: