Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Gloucester, Mass., August 24, 1852.
To Mrs. Paulina W. Davis:
Dear Madam:...—I have never questioned what I understand to be the central principle of the reform in which you are engaged. I believe that every mature soul is responsible directly to God, not only for its faith and opinions, but for the details of its life in the world. In every crisis of duty there can be consultation, at last, only between one spirit and its Creator. The assertion that woman is responsible to man for her belief or conduct, in any other sense than man is responsible to woman, I reject, not as a believer in any theory of "Woman's Rights," but as a believer in that religion which knows neither male nor female, in its imperative demand upon the individual conscience.
This being true, I know not by what logic the obligation of woman to form her own ideal of life, and pursue the career which her reason and conscience dictate, can be denied. The sphere of activity in which any person will shine, is always an open question until answered by experience. I may admire the wisdom of the mind which has discovered that half the people in the world are incompetent to act beyond one circle of duty; but until the fact has been established by the universal failure of your sex, everywhere outside that fatal line, I must admire rather than believe. Every real position in society is achieved by conquest. I must convince my people that I am a true minister of the Gospel, before I can claim their respect and support. And when a woman, in the possession of the powers and opportunities given her by God, tells me she must trade, or instruct the young, or heal the sick, or paint, or sing, or act upon the stage, or call sinners to repentance, I can say but one thing—just what I must say to the man who affirms the same—"My friend, show your ability to serve society in this way, and all creation can not deprive you of the right. If you can do this to which you aspire—can do it well, then you and everybody will be the gainers. And whoever says you have forfeited any essential grace or virtue of womanhood by your act, betrays, by the accusation, an utter incompetency to judge upon questions of human responsibility and obligation."
.... I therefore believe the method of this reform is that declared by God when He said to Adam: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." There is no "royal road" to womanhood, as there is certainly none to manhood. You must achieve what you desire.... Woman must do much before man can help her. I suppose the sexes are about equally culpable; and I make no peculiar charge, when I say that until I can see more individual consecration, more clearness of perception and firmness of conduct in regions outside of the walls of the household among the mass of women, than now, I shall not cherish extravagant hopes of the great immediate success of your noble object.
.... Your movement is a part of the great onward march of society, and must be exposed to the reverses from outward hostility and inward faithlessness, that have always hindered the progress of the race.... This reform will be a sword of division, and you will not be surprised when those who have entered it from any motive less exalted than consecration to duty, fall away in weariness and disgust. Yet all the more honorable will it be to those who are content to remain, and abide the fatal conditions of sincere human effort. You are not very near your journey's end; but you are doing much for your sex, in a mode which will "tell" inevitably upon society. I often encounter a new spirit of self-respect and honorable independence; a new hope, and works corresponding to it, among young women, which I can trace back to these Conventions. I believe cultivated men in all professions are becoming ashamed to treat your arguments with open ridicule or quiet contempt, and occupy a position, at least, of fair-minded neutrality, to a greater degree than ever before, while the popular sympathies are every year more enlisted in your success.—With great respect, I remain your friend and fellow-laborer in the cause of truth,
A. D. Mayo.
Samuel J. May read the following extract from a letter from Wm. Lloyd Garrison, of Boston:
"Much, very much, do I regret that I can not be at the Woman's Rights Convention which is to assemble to-morrow in Syracuse; but circumstances prevent. I shall be there in spirit, from its organization to its dissolution. It has as noble an object in view, aye, and as Christian a one, too, as was ever advocated beneath the sun. Heaven bless all its proceedings.