What a writer in the British Quarterly for January, says of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, applies with equal force to Mrs. Davis. "She seems to have been saved from the coa.r.s.eness and strenuous tone of the typical strong-minded woman, although probably some of her opinions might shock staid people who are innocent alike of philosophy and the doctrines of the new era." Though in fact this typical strong-minded woman of whom we hear so much in England and America, is after all a "myth"; for the very best specimens of womanhood in both countries are those who thoroughly respect themselves, and maintain their political, civil, and social rights. For nearly three years Mrs. Davis continued _The Una_, publishing it entirely at her own expense. It took the broadest ground claimed to-day: individual freedom in the State, the Church, and the home; woman"s equality and suffrage a natural right.
In 1859, she visited Europe for the first time, and spent a year traveling in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, giving her leisure hours to picture galleries and the study of art. She made many valuable friends on this trip, regained her health, and returned home to work with renewed zeal for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman.
Having decided to celebrate the second decade of the National Woman Suffrage movement, in New York, Mrs. Davis took charge of all the preliminary arrangements, including the foreign correspondence. She gave a good report at the opening session of the Convention, of what had been accomplished in the twenty years, and published the proceedings in pamphlet form, at her own expense. One of Mrs. Davis"
favorite ideas was a Woman"s Congress in Washington, to meet every year, to consider the national questions demanding popular action; especially to present them in their moral and humanitarian bearings and relations, while our representatives discussed them, as men usually do, from the material, financial, and statistical points of view. In this way only, said she, "can the complete idea on any question ever be realized. All legislation must necessarily be fragmentary, so long as one-half the race give no thought whatever on the subject."
In 1871, Mrs. Davis, with her niece and adopted daughter, again visited Europe, and pursued her studies of art, spending much time in Julian"s life studio, the only one open to women. She took lessons of Carl Marko in Florence. When in Paris she spent hours every day copying in the Louvre and Luxembourg. The walls of her home were decorated with many fine copies, and a few of her own creations. Her enthusiasm for both art and reform may seem to some a singular combination; but with her view of life, it was a natural one.
Believing, as she did, in the realization of the ultimate equality of the human family, and the possibility of the race sometime attaining comparative perfection, when all would be well-fed, clothed, sheltered, and educated; humanity in its poverty, ignorance, and deformity, were to her but the first rude sketch on the canvas, to be perfected by the skillful hand of the Great Artist. Hence she labored with faith and enthusiasm to realize her ideal alike in both cases.
In Naples she made the acquaintance of Mary Somerville, then in her ninetieth year. She found her quite conversant with American affairs, and she expressed great pleasure in reading Mrs. Davis" history of the suffrage movement in this country. There too she met Mrs.
Merrycoyf, a bright, accomplished woman, a sister of Josephine Butler, and like her, engaged in English reforms. She had many discussions with Mrs. Proby, the wife of the English Consul, who thought Mrs.
Davis was wasting her efforts for the elevation of woman, as she considered it a hopeless case to make women rational and self-reliant.
However, before they parted, Mrs. Davis inspired her with some faith in her own s.e.x. I read a very interesting letter from Mrs. Proby acknowledging the benefit derived from her acquaintance with Mrs.
Davis, in giving her new hope for woman. At Rome she received the blessing of the Pope, and met Pere Hyacinthe and his charming wife, and attended one of his lectures, but the crowd was so great she could not get in, so she went the Sunday after to hear the prayers for the Pope and the Church against the influence of the dangerous Pere. She says: "It was a most impressive occasion, the immense crowd, the grand music swelling through the arches of that vast cathedral, the responses of the ten thousand voices, rolling like the great tidal waves of the mighty ocean, were altogether sublime beyond description." At Paris she met Mrs. Crawford, wife of the corresponding editor of _The London Times_, a woman of fine conversational powers, and a brilliant writer, now the Paris correspondent of _The New York Tribune_. She found her a woman of very liberal opinions. At one of her breakfasts she met Martin, the historian, and several members of the a.s.sembly. She also visited the Countess Delacoste, who sympathized deeply with the republican movement, and had concealed Clusaret three months in her house. There she met several distinguished Russians and Frenchmen. In London she attended one of Mrs. Peter Taylor"s receptions, where she met Mrs.
Margaret Lucas, sister of John Bright, and other notables. She visited Josephine Butler at her home in Liverpool. Friends sent her tickets of admission to the lady"s gallery, in the House of Commons, where she heard Jacob Bright make his opening speech on the woman"s disability bill, and Fawcett, the blind member, also on the same bill. And with all these distinguished people, in different countries, speaking different languages, she found the same interest in the progressive ideas that had gladdened and intensified her own life.
On the 29th of May she sailed for America, and reached her home in safety, but the disease that had been threatening her for years (rheumatic gout) began to develop itself, until in the autumn she was confined to her room, and unable at times even to walk. It was thus I found her in a large arm-chair quietly making all her preparations for the sunny land, resigned to stay or to go, to accept the inevitable, whatever that might be.[54] As she was an enthusiastic spiritualist, the coming journey was not to her an unknown realm, but an inviting home where the friends of her earlier days were waiting with glad hearts to give her tin heavenly welcome.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Mercy Otis, born at Barnstable, Ma.s.s., September 35, 1728, married James Warren, about 1754. Reference has been made to her correspondence with the eminent men of the Revolution. Aside from her patriotism, Mrs. Warren was a woman of high literary ability. She wrote several dramatic and satirical works in 1773, against the royalists, which, with two tragedies, were included in a volume of Dramatic and Miscellaneous Poems, published in 1790. She also wrote "A History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, interspersed with Biographical, Political, and Moral Observations," in three volumes, published in Boston, 1805. Mrs.
Warren lived quite into the present century, dying October 19, 1814.
Mrs. Ellet, "Queens of Society," says: "In point of influence, Mercy Warren was the most remarkable woman who lived in the days of the American Revolution."
Rochefoucauld, "Tour in the United States," says: "Seldom has a woman in any age acquired such ascendency by the mere force of a powerful intellect, and her influence continued through her life."
Generals Lee and Gates were among her correspondents; Knox wrote: "I should be happy to receive your counsels from time to time." Mrs.
Washington was frequently entertained by Mrs. Warren, at one time when the former was in Ma.s.sachusetts with the General, Mrs. Warren going with her chariot to headquarters at Cambridge for her.
[26] Dried leaves of the raspberry.--LOSSING.
[27] Lossing, "Field-Book of the Revolution," says: "On February 9, 1769, the Mistresses of three hundred families met and formed a league, and upon the second day the young ladies a.s.sembled in great numbers, signing the following covenant: "We, the daughters of those patriots who have, and do now, appear for public interest, and in proper regard for their posterity as such, do, with pleasure, engage with them in denying ourselves the drink of foreign tea, in hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to deprive a whole country of all that is valuable in life."
[28] Lossing"s "Field-Book of the Revolution" states that on the 12th of June, 1769, the "Daughters of Liberty," met at the house of pastor Moorehead, in such numbers that in one afternoon they spun two hundred and ninety skeins of fine yarn, which they presented to him. After supper they were joined by many "Sons of Liberty," who united with the "Daughters" in patriotic songs.
[29] These girls, then only about twelve and fourteen years of age, saw the enemy making preparations to land at an isolated point. No men were near to defend the place, or to whom warning could be given. A bright thought struck one of the girls. Accustomed to play the drum, she well knew how to beat the call to arms, and no sooner had this thought entered her mind, than she began a tattoo, calling her sister to take the fife as an accompaniment. Together they marched toward the sh.o.r.e, careful to keep hidden by the rocks, among whose intricacies they wound back and forth, the sound of their instruments falling upon the enemy"s ears, now far, now near, as though a force of many hundred men was marching down upon them, and thoroughly frightened, they beat a retreat to their boats.
[30] "This dispute infused its spirit into everything. It interfered with the levy of troops for the Pequot war; it influenced the respect shown to the magistrates, the distribution of town lots, the a.s.sessment of rates, and at last the continued existence of the two parties was considered inconsistent with the public peace."--Bancroft, "History of the United States."
[31] _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1871.
[32] In three New England colonies church membership was required for the franchise.--Frothingham, "Rise of the Republic."
[33] Dr. John Weis, of New York, now an aged gentleman, well remembers his grandmother saying, that at an early day women were allowed to vote in all the New England colonies.
[34] Mother of the late Daniel P. King, at that time a member of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature, and since then a Representative in Congress.
[35] Benj. C. Pitkin, of Salem, at that time State Senator.
[36] Hon. Mr. Upham saying: "A great many of the members told me they didn"t believe a woman wrote it."
[37] This pet.i.tion was put in the hands of a gentleman to secure his mother"s name (who had signed numbers of pet.i.tions before), and those of certain other ladies, but unfaithful to this trust, he forwarded the pet.i.tion with but its single name, which, Mrs. Ferrin remarks, was powerful in itself.
[38] James W. North, a lawyer, of Augusta, Maine, to his honor be it said, a.s.sisted Mrs. Ferrin, by perfecting the divorce pet.i.tion, in circulation during her six years of pet.i.tion work.
[39] A lady commenting upon unjust legislation, said: "When the laws were made regarding women and children, the most impotent men were employed to make them; decent men had other business to do."
From time to time, Mrs. Ferrin sent in memorials and addresses with the pet.i.tions she yearly forwarded. One of these, in reply to the oft-made boast of man"s unsolicited amelioration of woman"s condition, carried the following retort: "The Powers tell us much has been done to ameliorate the condition of woman without any effort on woman"s part. It would add a huge feather to their caps should they give us the history of the cause of the need of such reformation. It can not be because woman placed herself in so degrading a position. So, the merit of the up-lifting hardly reaches the demerit of the down-treading."
[40] Mrs. Davis herself.
[41] Wife of John Milton Earl, editor of the _Worcester Spy_.
[42] See Appendix.
[43] See Appendix.
[44] See Appendix.
[45] See Appendix
[46] See Appendix
[47] See Appendix.
[48] Mrs. Caroline Norton, a distinguished English author, who separated from her husband because of cruel treatment. He robbed nor of all the profits of her books, and of her children, and when she appealed to the Courts, English law sustained the husband in all his violations of natural justice.
[49] Abby May Alcott, Abby Kelly Foster, Lucy Stone, Thomas W.
Higginson, Ann Green Phillips, Wendell Phillips, Anna Q. T. Parsons, Theodore Parker, William J. Bowditch, Samuel E. Sewall, Ellis Gray Loring, Charles K. Whipple, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Harriot K. Hunt, Thomas T. Stone, John W. Browne, Francis Jackson, Josiah F. Flagg, Mary Flagg, Elizabeth Smith, Eliza Barney, Abby H. Price, William C.
Nell, Samuel May, Jr., Robert F. Wallcott, Robert Morris, A. Bronson Alcott.
[50] Anthony Burns, the slave, was a Baptist minister In his Southern home, and had sought freedom in Boston, but was pursued and recaptured.
[51] A gentleman of wealth, who gave most liberally to all reforms, and in his will bequeathed $5,000 to the cause of woman suffrage.
[52] The Publishing Committee do not willingly print the above report of one of the ablest and most eloquent speeches ever delivered in Boston. Mr. Phillips never writes his speeches. He is now too far distant to be consulted. Two very young girl reporters--after a week"s hard practice, and three hours" excessive heat--wrote these heads down, without the most distant idea of publication. All the Committee can do is to rejoice that the accident did not happen to a young speaker, but to one whose reputation is established, and whose immortality is certain. C. H. D.
[53] In the year 1875.
[54] See Appendix.
CHAPTER IX.
INDIANA AND WISCONSIN.