It may not be unknown to most of you, that for nearly two years past, in connection with the so-called "Boston Provident a.s.sociation," I have been engaged in an agency wherein the peculiar trials of this cla.s.s have been revealed to me as never before.
Hundreds of poor, desolate, forsaken women, especially in the winter months, have come to that office with the same pitiable tale of poverty, desertion, and tyranny on the part of their worthless and drunken husbands, who had gone off to California, Kansas, or the West, taking away from their wives and children every possible means of support, and leaving them the pauper dependents on a public charity. Now, if this be not the denial of Woman"s Rights, I know not what is. Had we time, I might fill the hour with a journal of statistics in painful ill.u.s.tration of these facts. Now, I say, that a system of society which can tolerate such a state of things, and, by sufferance even, allow such men to wrench away the plain rights of their wives and families, needs reforming.
But let us look a little higher in the social scale, to the rights and claims of a cla.s.s of women not so dependent--a cla.s.s who, by their education and culture, are competent to fill, or who may be filling, the position of clerks, secretaries, or a.s.sistant agents. How inadequate and insufficient, as a general thing, is the compensation they receive!
There was a.s.sociated with me in the agency and office to which I have referred, as office-clerk and coadjutor, among others, an intelligent and very worthy young woman, whose term of service there has been coeval and coincident with the a.s.sociation itself, even through the whole seven years or more; and there she still survives, through all the vicissitudes of the General Agency by death or otherwise, with a fidelity of service worthy of more liberal compensation; for she receives, even now, for an amount of service equal to that of any other in the office, only about one-third the salary paid to a male occupant of the same sphere!
Look next at the professional sphere of women, properly so called; and who shall deny her right and claim to that position?
A young brother clergyman came to my office one day, wanting his pulpit supplied; and, in the course of conversation, asked very earnestly, "How would it do to invite a woman-preacher into my pulpit?" "Do!" said I (giving him the names of Mrs. Dall, Dr.
Hunt, etc., as the most accessible) "of course it"ll do." And all I have to say is, if I ever resume again the charge of a pulpit myself, and either of those preachers want an exchange, I shall be honored in the privilege of so exchanging.
Well, my young friend, the brother clergyman referred to, whom I am glad to see in this audience, went and did according to my suggestion; and, by the professional service of Mrs. Dall in his pulpit, more than once, I think, ministered no little edification to his people. And, in this connection, let me say: If the argument against woman"s preaching be, "Oh! it looks so awkward and singular to see a woman with a gown on in the pulpit" (for that"s the whole gist of it), why, then, the same logic might as well disrobe the male priesthood of their silken paraphernalia, ca.s.sock and bands.
But there are other and better words in waiting, and I yield the floor.
CHARLES G. AMES expressed his grat.i.tude at being permitted to occupy this platform, and identify himself with the cause of those n.o.blest of living women who had dared the world"s scorn--had dared to stand alone on the ground of their moral convictions. He thought Rev. Mr. Clarke had spoken but half the truth in saying, "Half the human race are concerned in the Woman"s Rights movement."
If the Mohammedan doctrine (that woman has no soul) be true, then the opponents of this cause are justifiable. But concede that she has a rational soul, and you concede the equality of her rights. Concede that she is capable of being a Christian, and you concede that she has a right to help do the Christian"s work; and the Christian"s work includes all forms of n.o.ble activity, as well as the duty of self-development.
But some people are afraid of agitation. You remember the story of the rustic, who fainted away in the car when taking his first railroad ride, and gasped out, on coming to himself, "Has the thing lit?" He belonged, probably, to that large cla.s.s of people who go into hysterics every time the world begins to move, and who are never relieved from their terror till quiet is restored.
Great alarm prevails lest this agitation should breed a fatal quarrel between man and woman; as though there could be a want of harmony, a collision of rights, between the s.e.xes. Sad visions are conjured up before us of family feuds, mutual hair-pullings, and a general wreck of all domestic bliss. Certainly, there are difficulties about settling some domestic questions. Marriage is a partnership between two; no third person to give the casting vote. Then they must "take turns"; the wife yielding to the husband in those cases where he is best qualified to judge, and the husband yielding to the wife in those matters which most concern her, or concerning which she can best judge. Yet man is the senior partner of the firm: his name comes first. Few women would be pleased to see the firm styled in print as "Mrs.
So-and-So and Husband."
Woman wants more self-reliance. Has she not always been taught that it is very proper to faint at the sight of toads and spiders and fresh blood, and whenever a gentleman pops the question? Has she not always been taught that man was the strong, towering oak, and she the graceful, clinging vine, sure to collapse like an empty bag whenever his mighty support was withdrawn? Until all this folly is unlearned, how can she be self-dependent and truly womanly?
Women are afraid to claim their rights; and not timidity only, but laziness--the love of ease--keeps them back from the great duty of self-a.s.sertion. True, it is a good deal like work to summon up the soul to such a conflict with an opposing and corrupt public opinion. But woman must do that work for herself, or it will never be done.
Woman"s _rights_ we talk of. There is a grandeur about these great questions of right, which makes them the glory of our age; and it is the shame of our age, that right and rights in every form get so generally sneered at. What use have I for my conscience, what remains of my n.o.ble manhood, if, when half the human race complain that I am doing them a wrong, I only reply with a scoff? A man without a conscience to make him quick and sensitive to right and duty, is neither fit for heaven nor for h.e.l.l. He is an outsider, a monster!
Conservatism says, "Let the world be as it is"; but Christianity says, "Make it what it should be." No man need call himself a Christian, who admits that a wrong exists, and yet wishes it to continue, or is indifferent to its removal. Let us
"Strike for that which ought to be, And G.o.d will bless the blows."
[Ill.u.s.tration: PAULINA WRIGHT DAVIS (with autograph).]
The speaker spoke of the abuse and injustice done to the Bible by those who make it the shelter and apologist for all the wrong, vileness, and sneaking meanness that the world bears up; and closed with a testimony against the cowardice of those time-serving ministers who allow their manhood to be suffocated by a white cravat, and who never publicly take sides with what they see to be a good cause, until "popular noises" indicate that the time has come for speaking out their opinions.
The President then introduced to the audience WENDELL PHILLIPS, Esq., of Boston:
MADAM PRESIDENT:--I am exceedingly happy to see that this question calls together so large an audience; and perhaps that circ.u.mstance will make me take exception to some representations of the previous speakers as to the unpopularity of this movement.
The gentleman who occupied this place before me thought that perhaps he might count the numbers of those that occupied this platform as the real advocates of that question. Oh, no! The number of those who sympathize with us must not be counted so.
Our idea penetrates the whole life of the people. The shifting hues of public opinion show like the colors on a dove"s neck; you can not tell where one ends, or the other begins. [Cheers].
Everybody that holds to raising human beings above the popular ideas, and not caring for artificial distinctions, is on our side; I think I can show my friend that. Whenever a new reform is started, men seem to think that the world is going to take at once a great stride. The world never takes strides. The moral world is exactly like the natural. The sun comes up minute by minute, ray by ray, till the twilight deepens into dawn, and dawn spreads into noon. So it is with this question. Those who look at our little island of time do not see it; but, a hundred years later, everybody will recognize it.
No one need be at all afraid; there is no disruption, no breaking away from old anchorage--not at all. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there were two movements--first, the peasants in the town were striving to fortify each man his own house--to set up the towns against the kings; then, in the colleges, the great philosophers were striving each to fortify his own soul to make a revolution against Rome. The peasants branded the collegians as "infidels," and the collegians showed the peasants to be "traitors." Cordially they hated each other; blindly they went down to their graves, thinking they had been fighting each other; but, under the providence of G.o.d, they were entwined in the same movement. Now, if I could throw you back to-day into the civilization of Greece and Rome, I could show you the fact that our question is two thousand years old. [Cheers.]
In the truest sense, it did not begin in 1848, as my friend Dr.
Hunt stated; it began centuries ago. Did you ever hear of the old man who went to the doctor, and asked him to teach him to speak prose? "Why, my dear fellow," was the reply, "you have been speaking prose all your life." But he did not know it. So with some people in regard to the movement for Woman"s Rights.
Many think the steps taken since 1850 are shaking this land with a new infidelity. Now, this infidelity is a good deal older than the New Testament. When man began his pilgrimage from the cradle of Asia, woman was not allowed to speak before a court of justice. To kill a woman was just as great a sin as to kill a cow, and no greater. To sell an unlicensed herb in the city of Calcutta, was exactly the same crime as to kill a woman. She did not belong to the human race. Come down thousands of years, and the civilization of Greece said, "Woman has not got enough of truth in her to be trusted in the court of justice;" and, if her husband wants to give her to a brother or friend, he can take her to their door, and say, "Here, I give you this." And so it continues till you reach the feudal ages; when woman, though she might be queen or d.u.c.h.ess, was often not competent to testify in a court of justice. She had not soul enough, men believed, to know a truth from a lie. That is the code of the feudal system.
But all at once the world has waked up, and thinks a man is not a man because he has a pound of muscle, or because he has a stalwart arm; but because he has thoughts, ideas, purposes: he can commit crime, and he is capable of virtue.
No man is born in a day. A baby is always six months old before he is twenty-one. Our fathers, who first reasoned that G.o.d made all men equal, said: "You sha"n"t hang a man until you have asked him if he consents to the law." Some meddlesome fanatic, engaged in setting up type, conceived the idea, that he need not pay his tax till he was represented before the law: then why should woman do so? Now, I ask, what possible reason is there that woman, as a mother, as a wife, as a laborer, as a capitalist, as an artist, as a citizen, should be subjected to any laws except such as govern man? What moral reason is there for this, under the American idea? Does not the same interest, the same strong tie, bind the mother to her children, that bind the father? Has she not the same capacity to teach them that the father has? and often more? Now, the law says: "If the father be living, the mother is nothing; but, if the father be dead, the mother is everything." Did she inherit from her husband his great intellect? If she did not, what is the common sense of such a statute? The mother has the same rights, in regard to her children, that the father has: there should be no distinction.
Yours is not a new reform. The gentleman who occupied the platform a few moments ago gave the common representation of this cause: "If a husband doesn"t do about right, his wife will pull his hair; and, if you let her have her way, she may vote the Democratic ticket, and he the Republican; and _vice versa_."
Well, now, my dear friend, suppose it were just so; it is too late to complain. That point has long been settled; if you will read history a little, you will see it was settled against you.
In the time of Luther, it was a question: "Can a woman choose her own creed?" The feudal ages said: "No; she believes as her husband believes, of course." But the reformers said: "She ought to think for herself; her husband is not her G.o.d." "But," it was objected, "should there be difference of opinion between man and wife, the husband believing one creed and the wife another, there would be continual discord." But the reply was: "G.o.d settled that; G.o.d has settled it that every responsible conscience should have a right to his own creed." And Christendom said: "Amen." The reformers of Europe, to this day, have allowed freedom of opinion; and who says that the experience of three centuries has found the husband and wife grappling each other"s throats on religious differences? It would be Papal and absurd to deny woman her religious rights. Then why should she not be allowed to choose her party?
We claim the precedents in this matter. It was arranged and agreed upon, in the reform of Europe, that women should have the right to choose their religious creeds. I say, therefore, this is not a new cause; it is an old one. It is as old as the American idea. We are individuals by virtue of our brains, not by virtue of our muscles. "Why do you women meddle in politics?" asked Napoleon of De Stael. "Sire, so long as you will hang us, we must ask the reason," was the answer. The whole political philosophy of the subject is in that. The instant you say, "Woman is not competent to go to the ballot-box," I reply: "She is not competent to go to the gallows or the State prison. If she is competent to go to the State prison, then she is competent to go to the ballot-box, and tell how thieves should be punished."
[Applause].
Man is a man because he thinks. Woman has already begun to think.
She has touched literature with the wand of her enchantment, and it rises to her level, until woman becomes an author as well as reader. And what is the result? We do not have to expurgate the literature of the nineteenth century before placing it in the hands of youth. Those who write for the lower level sink down to dwell with their kind.
Mr. Sargent and Mr. Clarke expatiated on the wholesome influence of the side-by-side progress of the s.e.xes. There are no women more deserving of your honest approbation than those who dare to work singly for the elevation of their s.e.x....
Woman"s Rights and Negro Rights! What rights have either women or negroes that we have any reason to respect? The world says: "None!"
There has lately been a pet.i.tion carried into the British Parliament, asking--for what? It asks that the laws of marriage and divorce shall be brought into conformity with the creed and civilization of Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century. The state of British law, on the bill of divorce, was a disgrace to the British statute-book. Whose was the intellect and whose the heart to point out, and who had the courage to look in the face of British wealth and conservatism, and claim that the law of divorce was a disgrace to modern civilization? It was the women of Great Britain that first said her statute-book disgraced her. Who could say, that if those women had been voters, they might not have reformed it?
Douglas Jerrold said: "Woman knows she is omnipotent"; and so she is. She may be ignorant, she may not have a dollar, she may have no right given her to testify in the court of justice; she may be a slave, chained by a dozen statutes; but, when her husband loves her, she is his queen and mistress, in spite of them all; and the world knows it. All history bears testimony to this omnipotent influence. What we are here for is to clear up the choked channel; make hidden power confess itself, and feel its responsibility, feel how much rests upon it, and therefore gird itself to its duty. We are to say to the women: "Yours is one-half of the human race. Come to the ballot-box, and feel, when you cast a vote in regard to some great moral question, the dread post you fill, and fit yourself for it." Woman at home controls her son, guides her husband--in reality, makes him vote--but acknowledges no responsibility, and receives no education for such a throne. By her caprices in private life, she often ruins the manhood of her husband, and checks the enthusiastic purposes of her son.
Many a young girl, in her married life, loses her husband, and thus is left a widow with two or three children. Now, who is to educate them and control them? We see, if left to her own resources, the intellect which she possesses, and which has remained in a comparatively dormant state, displayed in its full power. What a depth of heart lay hidden in that woman! She takes her husband"s business--guides it as though it were a trifle; she takes her sons, and leads them; sets her daughters an example; like a master-leader, she governs the whole household. That is woman"s influence. What made that woman? Responsibility. Call her out from weakness, lay upon her soul the burden of her children"s education, and she is no longer a girl, but a woman!
Horace Greeley once said to Margaret Fuller: "If you should ask a woman to carry a ship round Cape Horn, how would she go to work to do it? Let her do this, and I will give up the question." In the fall of 1856, a Boston girl, only twenty years of age, accompanied her husband to California. A brain-fever laid him low. In the presence of mutiny and delirium, she took his vacant post, preserved order, and carried her cargo safe to its destined port. Looking in the face of Mr. Greeley, Miss Fuller said: "Lo!
my dear Horace, it is done; now say, what shall woman: do next?"
[Cheers].
Mrs. CAROLINE H. DALL then dismissed the a.s.sembly.[52]
In _The Liberator_ of July 6, 1860, we find a brief mention of what was called Mrs. Dall"s "Drawing-room" Convention, in which it was proposed to present the artistic and aesthetic view of the question.
The meeting was held June 1st, in the Melodeon. Mrs. Caroline M.
Severance presided. Mrs. Dall, Rev. Samuel J. May, R. J. Hinton, Moses (Harriet Tubman), James Freeman Clarke, Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, Elizabeth M. Powell, and Wendell Phillips took part in the discussions.
We close our chapter on Ma.s.sachusetts, with a few extracts from a sermon by Theodore Parker, to show his position on the most momentous question of his day and generation. In March, 1853, he gave two discourses in Music Hall, Boston, one on the domestic, and one on the public function of woman, in which he fully expressed himself on every phase of the question.
THEODORE PARKER--THE PUBLIC FUNCTION OF WOMAN.
If woman is a human being, first, she has the Nature of a human being; next, she has the Right of a human being; third, she has the Duty of a human being. The Nature is the capacity to possess, to use, to develop, and to enjoy every human faculty; the Right is the right to enjoy, develop, and use every human faculty; and the Duty is to make use of the Right, and make her human nature, human history. She is here to develop her human nature, enjoy her human rights, perform her human duty. Womankind is to do this for herself, as much as mankind for himself. A woman has the same human nature that a man has; the same human rights, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the same human duties; and they are as inalienable in a woman as in a man.
Each man has the natural right to the normal development of his nature, so far as it is general-human, neither man nor woman, but human. Each woman has the natural right to the normal development of her nature, so far as it is general-human, neither woman nor man. But each man has also a natural and inalienable right to the normal development of his peculiar nature as man, where he differs from woman. Each woman has just the same natural and inalienable right to the normal development of her peculiar nature as woman, and not man. All that is undeniable.
Now see what follows. Woman has the same individual right to determine her aim in life, and to follow it; has the same individual rights of body and of spirit--of mind and conscience, and heart and soul; the same physical rights, the same intellectual, moral, affectional, and religious rights, that man has. That is true of womankind as a whole; it is true of Jane, Ellen, and Sally, and each special woman that can be named.
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.