Every person, man or woman, is an integer, an individual, a whole person; and also a portion of the race, and so a fraction of humankind. Well, the Rights of individualism are not to be possessed, developed, used, and enjoyed, by a life in solitude, but by joint action. Accordingly, to complete and perfect the individual man or woman, and give each an opportunity to possess, use, develop, and enjoy these rights, there must be concerted and joint action; else individuality is only a possibility, not a reality. So the individual rights of woman carry with them the same domestic, social, ecclesiastical, and political rights, as those of man.
The Family, Community, Church and State, are four modes of action which have grown out of human nature in its historical development; they are all necessary for the development of mankind; machines which the human race has devised, in order to possess, use, develop, and enjoy their rights as human beings, their rights also as men.
These are just as necessary for the development of woman as of man; and, as she has the same nature, right, and duty, as man, it follows that she has the same right to use, shape, and control these four inst.i.tutions, for her general human purpose and for her special feminine purpose, that man has to control them for his general human purpose and his special masculine purpose. All that is as undeniable as anything in metaphysics or mathematics.
If woman had been consulted, it seems to me theology would have been in a vastly better state than it is now. I do not think that any woman would ever have preached the d.a.m.nation of babies new-born; and "h.e.l.l, paved with the skulls of infants not a span long," would be a region yet to be discovered in theology. A celibate monk--with G.o.d"s curse writ on his face, which knew no child, no wife, no sister, and blushed that he had a mother--might well dream of such a thing. He had been through the preliminary studies. Consider the ghastly attributes which are commonly put upon G.o.d in the popular theology; the idea of infinite wrath, of infinite d.a.m.nation, and total depravity, and all that. Why, you could not get a woman, that had intellect enough to open her mouth, to preach these things anywhere. Women think they think that they believe them; but they do not.
Celibate priests, who never knew marriage, or what paternity was, who thought woman was a "pollution"--they invented these ghastly doctrines; and when I have heard the Athanasian Creed and the Dies Irae chanted by monks, with the necks of bulls and the lips of donkeys--why, I have understood where the doctrine came from, and have felt the appropriateness of their braying out the d.a.m.nation hymns; woman could not do it. We shut her out of the choir, out of the priest"s house, out of the pulpit; and then the priest, with unnatural vows, came in, and taught these "doctrines of devils." Could you find a woman who would read to a congregation, as words of truth, Jonathan Edwards" sermon on a Future State--"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G.o.d," "The Justice of G.o.d in the d.a.m.nation of Sinners," "Wrath upon the Wicked to the Uttermost," "The Future Punishment of the Wicked,"
and other things of that sort? Nay, can you find a worthy woman, of any considerable culture, who will read the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, and declare that a true picture of the G.o.d she worships? Only a she-dragon could do it in our day.
The popular theology leaves us nothing feminine in the character of G.o.d. How could it be otherwise, when so much of the popular theology is the work of men who thought woman was a "pollution,"
and barred her out of all the high places of the church? If women had had their place in ecclesiastical teaching, I doubt that the "Athanasian Creed" would ever have been thought a "symbol" of Christianity. The pictures and hymns which describe the last judgment are a protest against the exclusion of woman from teaching in the church. "I suffer not a woman to teach, but to be in silence," said a writer in the New Testament. The sentence has brought manifold evil in its train. So much for the employments of women.
By nature, woman has the same political rights that man has--to vote, to hold office, to make and administer laws. These she has as a matter of right. The strong hand and the great head of man keep her down; nothing more. In America, in Christendom, woman has no political rights, is not a citizen in full; she has no voice in making or administering the laws, none in electing the rulers or administrators thereof. She can hold no office--can not be committee of a primary school, overseer of the poor, or guardian to a public lamp-post. But any man, with conscience enough to keep out of jail, mind enough to escape the poor-house, and body enough to drop his ballot into the box, he is a voter. He may have no character--even no money; that is no matter--he is male. The n.o.blest woman has no voice in the State.
Men make laws, disposing of her property, her person, her children; still she must bear it, "with a patient shrug."
Looking at it as a matter of pure right and pure science, I know no reason why woman should not be a voter, or hold office, or make and administer laws. I do not see how I can shut myself into political privileges and shut woman out, and do both in the name of inalienable right. Certainly, every woman has a natural right to have her property represented in the general representation of property, and her person represented in the general representation of persons.
Looking at it as a matter of expediency, see some facts. Suppose woman had a share in the munic.i.p.al regulation of Boston, and there were as many alderwomen as aldermen, as many common council women as common council men, do you believe that, in defiance of the law of Ma.s.sachusetts, the city government, last spring, would have licensed every two hundred and forty-fourth person of the population of the city to sell intoxicating drink? would have made every thirty-fifth voter a rum-seller? I do not.
Do you believe the women of Boston would spend ten thousand dollars in one year in a city frolic, or spend two or three thousand every year, on the Fourth of July, for sky-rockets and firecrackers; would spend four or five thousand dollars to get their Canadian guests drunk in Boston harbor, and then pretend that Boston had not money enough to establish a high-school for girls, to teach the daughters of mechanics and grocers to read French and Latin, and to understand the higher things which rich men"s sons are driven to at college? I do not.
Do you believe that the women of Boston, in 1851, would have spent three or four thousand dollars to kidnap a poor man, and have taken all the chains which belonged to the city and put them round the court-house, and have drilled three hundred men, armed with bludgeons and cutla.s.ses, to steal a man and carry him back to slavery? I do not. Do you think, if the women had had the control, "fifteen hundred men of property and standing" would have volunteered to take a poor man, kidnapped in Boston, and conduct him out of the State, with fire and sword? I believe no such thing.
Do you think the women of Boston would take the poorest and most unfortunate children in the town, put them all together into one school, making that the most miserable in the city, where they had not and could not have half the advantages of the other children in different schools, and all that because the unfortunates were dark-colored? Do you think the women of Boston would shut a bright boy out of the High-School or Latin-School, because he was black in the face?
Women are said to be cowardly. When Thomas Sims, out of his dungeon, sent to the churches his pet.i.tion for their prayers, had women been "the Christian clergy," do you believe they would not have dared to pray?
If women had a voice in the affairs of Ma.s.sachusetts, do you think they would ever have made laws so that a lazy husband could devour all the substance of his active wife--spite of her wish; so that a drunken husband could command her bodily presence in his loathly house; and when an infamous man was divorced from his wife, that he could keep all the children? I confess I do not.
If the affairs of the nation had been under woman"s joint control, I doubt that we should have butchered the Indians with such exterminating savagery, that, in fifty years, we should have spent seven hundred millions of dollars for war, and now, in time of peace, send twenty annual millions more to the same waste. I doubt that we should have spread slavery into nine new States, and made it national. I think the Fugitive Slave bill would never have been an act. Woman has some respect for the natural law of G.o.d.
I know men say woman can not manage the great affairs of a nation. Very well. Government is political economy--national housekeeping. Does any respectable woman keep house so badly as the United States? with so much bribery, so much corruption, so much quarrelling in the domestic councils?
But government is also political morality, it is national ethics.
Is there any worthy woman who rules her household as wickedly as the nations are ruled? who hires bullies to fight for her? Is there any woman who treats one-sixth part of her household as if they were cattle and not creatures of G.o.d, as if they were things and not persons? I know of none such. In government as housekeeping, or government as morality, I think man makes a very poor appearance, when he says woman could not do as well as he has done and is doing.
I doubt that women will ever, as a general thing, take the same interest as men in political affairs, or find therein an abiding satisfaction. But that is for women themselves to determine, not for men.
In order to attain the end--the development of man in body and spirit--human inst.i.tutions must represent all parts of human nature, both the masculine and the feminine element. For the well-being of the human race, we need the joint action of man and woman, in the family, the community, the Church, and the State. A family without the presence of woman--with no mother, no wife, no sister, no womankind--is a sad thing. I think a community without woman"s equal social action, a church without her equal ecclesiastical action, and a State without her equal political action, is almost as bad--is very much what a house would be without a mother, wife, sister, or friend.
You see what prevails in the Christian civilization of the nineteenth century; it is Force--force of body, force of brain.
There is little justice, little philanthropy, little piety.
Selfishness preponderates everywhere in Christendom--individual, domestic, social, ecclesiastical, national selfishness. It is preached as gospel and enacted as law. It is thought good political economy for a strong people to devour the weak nations; for "Christian" England and America to plunder the "heathen" and annex their land; for a strong cla.s.s to oppress and ruin the feeble cla.s.s; for the capitalists of England to pauperize the poor white laborer; for the capitalists of America to enslave the poorer black laborer; for a strong man to oppress the weak men; for the sharper to buy labor too cheap, and sell its product too dear, and so grow rich by making many poor. Hence, nation is arrayed against nation, cla.s.s against cla.s.s, man against man.
Nay, it is commonly taught that mankind is arrayed against G.o.d, and G.o.d against man; that the world is a universal discord: that there is no solidarity of man with man, of man with G.o.d. I fear we shall never get far beyond this theory and this practice, until woman has her natural rights as the equal of man, and takes her natural place in regulating the affairs of the family, the community, the Church, and the State. It seems to me G.o.d has treasured up a reserved power in the nature of woman to correct many of those evils which are Christendom"s disgrace to-day.
Circ.u.mstances help or hinder our development, and are one of the two forces which determine the actual character of a nation or of mankind, at any special period. Hitherto, amongst men, circ.u.mstances have favored the development of only intellectual power, in all its forms--chiefly in its lower forms. At present, mankind, as a whole, has the superiority over womankind, as a whole, in all that pertains to intellect, the higher and the lower. Man has knowledge, has ideas, has administrative skill; enacts the rules of conduct for the individual, the family, the community, the Church, the State, and the world. He applies these rules of conduct to life, and so controls the great affairs of the human race. You see what a world he has made of it. There is male vigor in this civilization, miscalled "Christian"; and in its leading nations there are industry and enterprise, which never fail. There is science, literature, legislation, agriculture, manufactures, mining, commerce, such as the world never saw. With the vigor of war, the Anglo-Saxon now works the works of peace. England abounds in wealth--richest of lands; but look at her poor, her vast army of paupers, two million strong, the Irish whom she drives with the hand of famine across the sea.
Martin Luther was right when he said: "The richer the nation, the poorer the poor." Look at the cities of England and America. What riches, what refinement, what culture of man and woman too! Ay; but what poverty, what ignorance, what beastliness of man and woman too! The Christian civilization of the nineteenth century is well summed up in London and New York--the two foci of the Anglo-Saxon tribe, which control the shape of the world"s commercial ellipse. Look at the riches and the misery; at the "religious enterprise" and the heathen darkness; at the virtue, the decorum, and the beauty of woman well-born and well bred; and at the wild sea of prost.i.tution, which swells and breaks and dashes against the bulwarks of society--every ripple was a woman once!
Oh, brother-men, who make these things, is this a pleasant sight?
Does your literature complain of it--of the waste of human life, the slaughter of human souls, the butchery of woman? British literature begins to wail, in "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Jane Eyre"
and "Mary Barton" and "Alton Locke," in many a "Song of the Shirt"; but the respectable literature of America is deaf as a cent to the outcry of humanity expiring in agonies. It is busy with California, or the Presidency, or extolling iniquity in high places, or flattering the vulgar vanity which buys its dross for gold. It can not even imitate the philanthropy of English letters; it is "up" for California and a market. Does not the Church speak?--the English Church, with its millions of money; the American, with its millions of men--both wont to bay the moon of foreign heathenism? The Church is a dumb dog, that can not bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. It is a church without woman, believing in a male and jealous G.o.d, and rejoicing in a boundless, endless h.e.l.l!
Hitherto, with woman, circ.u.mstances have hindered the development of intellectual power, in all its forms. She has not knowledge, has not ideas or practical skill to equal the force of man. But circ.u.mstances have favored the development of pure and lofty emotion in advance of man. She has moral feeling, affectional feeling, religious feeling, far in advance of man; her moral, affectional, and religious intuitions are deeper and more trustworthy than his. Here she is eminent, as he is in knowledge, in ideas, in administrative skill.
I think man will always lead in affairs of intellect--of reason, imagination understanding--he has the bigger brain; but that woman will always lead in affairs of emotion--moral, affectional, religious--she has the better heart, the truer intuition of the right, the lovely, the holy. The literature of women in this century is juster, more philanthropic, more religious, than that of men. Do you not hear the cry which, in New England, a woman is raising in the world"s ears against the foul wrong which America is working in the world? Do you not hear the echo of that woman"s voice come over the Atlantic--returned from European sh.o.r.es in many a tongue--French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Russian, Dutch? How a woman touches the world"s heart! because she speaks justice, speaks piety, speaks love. What voice is strongest, raised in continental Europe, pleading for the oppressed and down-trodden? That also is a woman"s voice!
Well, we want the excellence of man and woman both united; intellectual power, knowledge, great ideas--in literature, philosophy, theology, ethics--and practical skill; but we want something better--the moral, affectional, religious intuition, to put justice into ethics, love into theology, piety into science and letters. Everywhere in the family, the community, the Church, and the State, we want the masculine and feminine element co-operating and conjoined. Woman is to correct man"s taste, mend his morals, excite his affections, inspire his religious faculties. Man is to quicken her intellect, to help her will, translate her sentiments to ideas, and enact them into righteous laws. Man"s moral action, at best, is only a sort of general human providence, aiming at the welfare of a part, and satisfied with achieving the "greatest good of the greatest number."
Woman"s moral action is more like a special human providence, acting without general rules, but caring for each particular case. We need both of these, the general and the special, to make a total human providence.
If man and woman are counted equivalent--equal in rights, though with diverse powers,--shall we not mend the literature of the world, its theology, its science, its laws, and its actions too?
I can not believe that wealth and want are to stand ever side by side as desperate foes; that culture must ride only on the back of ignorance; and feminine virtue be guarded by the degradation of whole cla.s.ses of ill-starred men, as in the East, or the degradation of whole cla.s.ses of ill-starred women, as in the West; but while we neglect the means of help G.o.d puts in our power, why, the present must be like the past--"property" must be theft, "law" the strength of selfish will, and "Christianity"--what we see it is, the apology for every powerful wrong.
To every woman let me say--Respect your nature as a human being, your nature as a woman; then respect your rights, then remember your duty to possess, to use, to develop, and to enjoy every faculty which G.o.d has given you, each in its normal way.
And to men let me say--Respect, with the profoundest reverence, respect the mother that bore you, the sisters who bless you, the woman that you love, the woman that you marry. As you seek to possess your own manly rights, seek also, by that great arm, by that powerful brain, seek to vindicate her rights as woman, as your own as man. Then we may see better things in the Church, better things in the State, in the Community, in the Home. Then the green shall show what buds it hid, the buds shall blossom, the flowers bear fruit, and the blessing of G.o.d be on us all.
REMINISCENCES OF PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS.
BY E. C. S.
Hearing that my friend had returned from Europe too ill to leave her room, I hastened to her charming home in the suburbs of Providence, Rhode Island. There in her pleasant chamber, bright with the sunshine of a clear December day,[53] surrounded with her books and pictures of her own painting, looking out on an extensive lawn, grand old trees, and the busy city in the distance, we pa.s.sed three happy days together reviewing our own lives, the progress of the reforms we advocated, and in speculations of the unknown world. In my brief sketch of the "Woman"s Rights Movement" and its leaders for the "Eminent Women of the Age," I made no mention of Mrs. Davis, being ignorant of the main facts of her life. I waited for her return from Florida, until it was too late, as the work was hurried to press. Hence I was glad of this opportunity to dot down fresh from her own lips some of the incidents and personal experiences of her life.
Paulina Kellogg was born in Bloomfield, New York, the very day, Capt.
Hall delivered up the fort at Detroit. Her father, Capt. Kellogg, being a volunteer in the army at that time, would often jocosely refer to those two great events on the 7th of August, 1813. Her grandfather Saxton was a colonel in the Revolution, and on Lafayette"s staff. Both her father and mother possessed great personal beauty, and were devotedly attached to each other, and were alike conservative in their opinions and a.s.sociations. When Paulina was four years old her grandfather bought a large tract of land at Cambria, near Niagara Falls, where all his children settled. That trip was the first memory of her childhood. A cavalcade of six army wagons, men, women, children, horses, cattle, dogs, hens, pushed their weary way eleven days through wild woods, cutting their own roads, and fording creeks and rivers. Crossing the Genesee in a scow, one immense cow walked off into the water, others followed and swam ash.o.r.e. The little girl thinking that everything was going overboard, trembled like an aspen leaf until she felt herself safe on land. The picnics under the trees, the beds in the wagons drawn up in a circle to keep the cattle in, the friendly meetings with the Indians, all charmed her childish fancies.
The summer the first bridge was built to Goat Island, her uncle caught her in his arms, ran across the beams, and set her down, saying: "There, you are probably the first white child that ever set foot on Goat Island."
When seven years old she was adopted by an aunt, and moved to Le Roy, New York, where she was educated. Her aunt was a strict orthodox Presbyterian, a stern, strong Puritan. Her life in her new home was sad and solitary, and one of constant restraint. In the natural reaction of the human mind, with such early experiences, we can readily account for Paulina"s love of freedom, and courage in attacking the wrongs of society. In referring to these early years, she said: "I was not a happy child, nor a happy woman, until in mature life, I outgrew my early religious faith, and felt free to think and act from my own convictions." Having joined the church in extreme youth, and being morbidly conscientious, she suffered constant torment about her own sins, and those of her neighbors. She was a religious enthusiast, and in time of revivals was one of the bright and shining lights in exhortation and prayer.
She was roused to thought on woman"s position by a discussion in the church as to whether women should be permitted to speak and pray in promiscuous a.s.semblies. Some of the deacons protested against a practice, in ordinary times, that might be tolerated during seasons of revival. But those who had discovered their gifts in times of excitement were not so easily remanded to silence; and thus the Church was distracted then as now with the troublesome question of woman"s rights. Sometimes a liberal pastor would accord a lat.i.tude denied by the elders and deacons, and sometimes one church would be more liberal than others in the same neighborhood, or synod; hence individuals and congregations were continually persecuted and arraigned for violation of church discipline and G.o.d"s law, according to man"s narrow interpretation. "Thus," she says, "my mind was confused and uncertain with conflicting emotions and opinions in regard to all human relations. And it was many years before I understood the philosophy of life, before I learned that happiness did not depend on outward conditions, but on the harmony within, on the tastes, sentiments, affections, and ambitions of the individual soul."
On leaving school, Paulina had made up her mind to be a missionary to the Sandwich Islands, as that was the Mecca in those days to which all pious young women desired to go. But after five months of ardent courtship, Mr. Francis Wright, a young merchant of wealth and position in Utica, New York, persuaded her that there were heathen enough in Utica to call out all the religious zeal she possessed, to say nothing of himself as the chief of sinners, hence in special need of her ministrations.
So they began life together, worshiped in Bethel church, and devoted themselves to the various reforms that in turn attracted their attention. They took an active part in the arrangements for the first Anti-Slavery Convention, held in Utica, Oct. 21, 1835, a day on which anti-slavery meetings were mobbed and violently dispersed in different parts of the country. It was at this meeting that Gerrit Smith gave in his adhesion to the anti-slavery movement and abandoned the idea of the colonization of slaves to Liberia. As the mob would not permit a meeting to be held in Utica, Mr. Smith invited them to Peterboro, where they adjourned. It was a fearful day for Abolitionists throughout that city, as the mob of roughs was backed by its leading men. Mr. Wright"s house was surrounded, piazzas and fences torn down and piled up with wood and hay against it, with the evident intention of burning it down. But several ladies who had come to attend the Convention were staying there, and, as was their custom, they had family prayers that night. The leaders of the mob peeping through the windows, saw a number of women on their knees, and the sight seemed to soften their wrath and change their purpose, for they quietly withdrew their forces, leaving the women in undisturbed possession of the house. The att.i.tude of the Church at this time being strongly pro-slavery, Mr. and Mrs. Wright withdrew, as most Abolitionists did, from all church organizations, and henceforth their religious zeal was concentrated on the anti-slavery, temperance, and woman"s rights reforms. Thus pa.s.sed twelve years of happiness in mutual improvement and co-operation in every good work. Having no children, they devoted themselves unreservedly to one another. But Mr. Wright, being a man of great executive ability, was continually overworking, taxing his powers of mind and body to the uttermost, until his delicate organization gave way and his life prematurely ended.
Having occupied her leisure hours in the study of anatomy and physiology, Mrs. Wright gave a course of lectures to women. As early as 1844 she began this public work. She imported from Paris the first _femme modele_ that was ever brought to this country. She tells many amusing anecdotes of the effect of unveiling this manikin in the presence of a cla.s.s of ladies. Some trembled with fear, the delicacy of others was shocked, but their weaknesses were overcome as their scientific curiosity was awakened. Many of Mrs. Wright"s pupils were among the first to enter the colleges, hospitals, and dissecting-rooms, and to become successful pract.i.tioners of the healing art.
While lecturing in Baltimore, a "Friend," by the name of Anna Needles, attended the course. Another "Friend," seeing her frequently pa.s.s, hailed her on one occasion, and said, "Anna, where does thee go every day?" "I go to hear Mrs. Wright lecture." "What, Anna, does thee go to hear that f.a.n.n.y Wright?" "Oh, no! Paulina Wright!" "Ah! I warn thee, do not go near her, she is of the same species." Many women, now supporting themselves in ease, gratefully acknowledge her influence in directing their lives to some active pursuits.
Thus pa.s.sed the four years of her widowed life, lecturing to women through most of the Eastern and Western States.
In 1849, she was married to the Hon. Thomas Davis, a solid, n.o.ble man of wealth and position, who has since been a member of the Rhode Island Legislature seven years, and served one term in Congress. As he is very modest and retiring in his nature, I will not enumerate his good qualities of head and heart, lest he should be pained at seeing himself in print; and perhaps "the highest praise for a true _man_ is never to be spoken of at all." With several successive summers in Newport and winters in Providence, Mrs. Davis gave more time to fashionable society than she ever had at any period of her life.
When her husband was elected to Congress, in 1853, she accompanied him to Washington and made many valuable acquaintances. As she had already called the first National Woman Suffrage Convention, and started _The Una_, the first distinctively woman"s rights journal ever published, and was supposed to be a fair representative of the odious, strong-minded "Bloomer," the ladies at their hotel, after some consultation, decided to ignore her, as far as possible. But a lady of her fine appearance, attractive manners, and general intelligence, whose society was sought by the most cultivated gentlemen in the house, could not be very long ostracised by the ladies.