Woman's work in America

by Unknown

The aggressions of the slaveocracy during the first half century of our national existence alarmed the non-slaveholding portion of the country. And almost at the same time, in the progress of civilization, the era was reached when the enlightened conscience of the civilized world demanded the abolition of slavery. Slowly routed from the dominions of other nations by the manumission of the bondmen, or the purchase of their freedom, slavery seemed at last to have intrenched itself on American soil, and to dominate American civilization. A struggle with it was inevitable. Some of the grandest men and women of the nation entered the lists against it, for the early Abolitionists were remarkable people. It is only necessary to mention the names of some of the leaders in that holy war, to summon up visions of manly beauty and womanly grace, men and women endowed with ability, culture, character, refinement, courage, and social charm. Their public speech blazed with remorseless moral logic, and thrilled with matchless eloquence, so that crowds flocked to hear them, wherever they spoke. Garrison and Phillips, Sumner and Parker, Birney and Pierpont, Gerrit Smith and Theodore Weld—what men of their day surpassed them in manliness, moral force, and persuasive and convincing speech? They were supplemented and complemented by noble women, unlike them, and yet every whit their peers—Maria Weston Chapman and Lydia Maria Child, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelly, Helen Garrison and Ann Greene Phillips.[^[163]]

Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. Child put to the service of the great reform pens tipped with flame, and wielded with consummate energy and skill. And the Grimké sisters, who had manumitted their slaves in Charleston, S. C., and come North to advocate Antislavery doctrines, with Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelly, entranced large audiences with their eloquent discourse, and roused the dormant moral sense of their hearers into protest against the colossal sin of the nation. Conservatives in church and state were alarmed. War was declared against the eloquent women, and it was decided that they should be silenced, and not allowed to act or vote in the business meetings of the Antislavery Society. This brought about a division in the organization before it had reached its first decade.

A double battle was now forced on the Garrisonian Abolitionists—a battle for the rights of woman as well as for the freedom of the slave. The doctrine of human rights was discussed anew, broadly and exhaustively, and it was demonstrated that the rights of man and woman were identical. Antislavery platforms resounded with the demand that liberty, justice, and equality be accorded to women, and the anti-slavery press teemed with arguments for women’s rights, which are repeated in the woman suffrage meetings of the present time.

In 1840 a “World’s Antislavery Convention” was held in London, and all Antislavery organizations throughout the world were invited to join in it, through their delegates. Several American societies accepted the invitation, and elected delegates, six or eight of whom were women, Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Wendell Phillips among them. The excitement caused by their presence in London was intense, for the English Abolitionists were very conservative, and never dreamed of inviting women to sit in their Convention. And these women who had come among them had rent the American Antislavery Societies in twain, had been denounced from the pulpit, anathematized by the press, and mobbed by the riffraff of the streets. “They who have turned the world upside down have come hither also,” was the affrighted cry, nor was the alarm of the English Abolitionists lessened when they saw that those of the women delegates who were not Quakers, clad in the traditional garb of that sect, were young, cultivated, and refined.

A long and acrimonious debate followed on the admission of the women, during which many of the men delegates from America showed the white feather and sided with the English opposition. Again the tyranny of sex was combated, and the doctrine of woman’s equality with man enunciated, and again the battle for woman’s rights was fought with moral force and logical correctness, as it had been in America the year before. Some of the noblest women of England were in attendance as listeners and spectators,—Elizabeth Fry and Lady Byron, Mrs. Anna Jameson and Mary Howitt,—and, judging by later events, the lesson was not lost upon them. When the vote was taken, the women delegates were excluded by a large majority. William Lloyd Garrison did not arrive in London until after the rejection of the women. When he was informed of the decision of the Convention he refused to take his seat with the delegates. And throughout the ten days’ sessions he maintained absolute silence, remaining in the gallery as a spectator. Only one other of the delegates joined him, Nathaniel P. Rogers of Concord, New Hampshire, an editor of an Antislavery paper.

The London Convention marked the beginning of a new era in the woman’s cause. Hitherto, the agitation of the question of woman’s equal rights had been incidental to the prosecution of other work. Now the time had come when a movement was needed to present the claims of woman in a direct and forcible manner, and to take issue with the legal and social order which denied her the rights of human beings, and held her in everlasting subjection. At the close of the exasperating and insulting debates of the “World’s Antislavery Convention,” Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton agreed to hold a Woman’s Rights Convention on their return to America, and to begin in earnest the education of the people on the question of woman’s enfranchisement. Mrs. Stanton had attended the Convention as a bride, her husband having been chosen a delegate.

Accordingly the first Woman’s Rights Convention of the world was called at Seneca Falls, New York, on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848. It was attended by crowds of men and women, and the deepest interest was manifested in the proceedings. “Demand the uttermost,” said Daniel O’Connell, “and you will get something.” The leaders in the new movement, Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton, with their husbands, and Frederick Douglass, acted on this advice. They demanded in unambiguous terms all that the most radical friends of woman have ever claimed: “equal rights in colleges and universities, trades and professions; the right to vote; to share in all political offices, honors, and emoluments; to complete equality in marriage; equal rights in property, in wages for equal work, and in minor children; to make contracts; to sue and be sued; to personal freedom; and to serve on juries, especially when women were tried.”

The Convention adjourned to meet in Rochester, New York, August 2, 1848. There were the same crowds in attendance, the same deep interest, and the same earnest debates and discussions as had characterized the meeting at Seneca Falls. Women soon adapted themselves to the situation, increased in efficiency and courage, participated in the debates, and elected a woman president, in spite of the ridicule occasioned by the suggestion. She discharged the duties of the office admirably, and the ridicule was soon merged in applause. A third Convention was held at Salem, Ohio, in 1850; a fourth in Akron, Ohio, in 1851; a fifth in Massillon, Ohio, in 1852; another at Ravenna, Ohio, in 1853, and others rapidly followed. The advocates of woman suffrage increased in number and ability. Superior women, whose names have become historic, espoused the cause—Frances D. Gage, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Jane G. Swisshelm, Caroline M. Severance, Celia C. Burr, who later became Mrs. C. C. Burleigh, Josephine S. Griffing, Antoinette L. Brown, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Paulina W. Davis, Caroline H. Dall, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Ernestine L. Rose, Mrs. C. H. Nichols, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt; the roll-call was a brilliant one, representing an unusual versatility of culture and ability.

The First National Woman Suffrage Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 23 and 24, 1850. It was more carefully planned than any that had yet been held. Nine States were represented. The arrangements were perfect—the addresses and papers were of the highest character—the audiences were at a white heat of enthusiasm. The number of cultivated people who espoused the new gospel for women was increased by the names of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Bronson and Abby May Alcott, Thomas W. Higginson, William I. Bowditch, Samuel E. and Harriet W. Sewall, Henry Ward Beecher, Henry B. Blackwell, Ednah D. Cheney, Hon. John Neal, Rev. William H. Channing, and Wendell Phillips. Space fails for a detailed statement of the grand personages who gave of their talents, their wealth, and themselves, that the cause of woman’s elevation might be advanced.

Meetings were now of frequent occurrence in various parts of the country. The ridicule of the press, the horror of conservatives, the anathemas of the pulpit, and the ostracism of society began to abate. Petitions to legislatures, that were at first received with derisive laughter, and then laid on the table, now received attention. Unjust laws, that bore down upon women with cruel severity, were modified. And papers established in the interest of women found their way to the people, increased in circulation, and their influence was felt for good. A dozen years were spent in severe pioneer work and then came the four years Civil War. All reformatory work was temporarily suspended, for the nation then passed through a crucial experience, and the issue of the fratricidal conflict was national life or national death.