proposal, that women be impaneled on every jury where women are to be tried, seems to me very good, and calculated to place the injustice to which women are at present subjected, by the entire legal system, in a very striking light.
"'I am, dear madam, yours sincerely,
J. S. Mill.'
"'Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis.
"Immediately after the reports were published, they were sent to various persons in Europe, and before the second Convention was held, letters of cheer were received from Harriet Martineau, Marion Reid, and others.
"Thus encouraged, we felt new zeal to go on with a work which had challenged the understanding and constrained the hearts of the best and soundest thinkers in the nation; had given an impulse to the women of England and of Sweden—for Frederika Bremer had quoted from our writings and reported our proceedings; our words had been like an angel's visit to the prisoners of State in France and to the wronged and outraged at home!
"Many letters were received from literary women in this country as well as abroad. If not always ready to be identified with the work, they were appreciative of its good effects, and, like Nicodemus, they came by night to inquire 'how these things could be.' Self-interest showed them the advantages accruing from the recognition of equality—self-ism held them silent before the world till the reproach should be worn away; but we credit them with a sense of justice and right, which prompts them now to action. The rear guard is as essential in the army as the advance; each should select the place best adapted to their own powers."
As Mrs. Davis has fallen asleep since writing the above, we have thought best to give what seemed to her the salient points of that period in her own words.
October 23, 1850, a large audience assembled in Brinley Hall, Worcester, Mass. The Convention was called to order by Sarah H. Earle, of Worcester. Nine States were represented. There were Garrison, Phillips, Burleigh, Foster, Pillsbury, leaders in the anti-slavery struggle; Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth representing the enslaved African race. The Channings, Sargents, Parsons, Shaws, from the liberal pulpit and the aristocracy of Boston. From Ohio came Mariana and Oliver Johnson, who had edited the Anti-Slavery Bugle, that sent forth many a blast against the black laws of that State, and many a stirring call for the woman's conventions. From Ohio, too, came Ellen and Marion Blackwell, sisters of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Pennsylvania sent its Lucretia Mott, its Darlingtons, Plumlys, Hastings, Millers, Hicks, who had all taken part in the exciting divisions among the "Friends," as a sect. On motion of Mariana Johnson, a temporary chairman was chosen, and a nominating committee appointed, which reported the following list of officers adopted by the Convention:
President—Paulina Wright Davis, R. I.
Vice-Presidents—William Henry Channing, Mass.; Sarah Tyndale, Pa.
Secretaries—Hannah M. Darlington, Pa.; Joseph C. Hathaway, N. Y.
The Call of the Convention was read. It contains so good a digest of the demands then made, in language so calm and choice, in thought so clear and philosophical, that we give it entire, that the women of the future may see how well their mothers understood their rights, and with what modesty and moderation they pressed their wrongs on the consideration of their rulers.
THE CALL.
A Convention will be held at Worcester, Mass., on the 23d and 24th of October next, to consider the question of Woman's Rights, Duties, and Relations. The men and women who feel sufficient interest in the subject to give an earnest thought and effective effort to its rightful adjustment, are invited to meet each other in free conference at the time and place appointed.
The upward tending spirit of the age, busy in an hundred forms of effort for the world's redemption from the sins and sufferings which oppress it, has brought this one, which yields to none in importance and urgency, into distinguished prominence. One-half the race are its immediate objects, and the other half are as deeply involved, by that absolute unity of interest and destiny which Nature has established between them. The neighbor is near enough to involve every human being in a general equality of rights and community of interests; but men and women in their reciprocities of love and duty, are one flesh and one blood; mother, sister, wife, and daughter come so near the heart and mind of every man, that they must be either his blessing or his bane. Where there is such mutuality of interests, such an interlinking of life, there can be no real antagonism of position and action. The sexes should not, for any reason or by any chance, take hostile attitudes toward each other, either in the apprehension or amendment of the wrongs which exist in their necessary relations; but they should harmonize in opinion and co-operate in effort, for the reason that they must unite in the ultimate achievement of the desired reformation.
Of the many points now under discussion, and demanding a just settlement; the general question of woman's rights and relations comprehends these: Her education—literary, scientific, and artistic; her avocations—industrial, commercial, and professional; her interests—pecuniary, civil, and political; in a word, her rights as an individual, and her functions as a citizen.
No one will pretend that all these interests, embracing as they do all that is not merely animal in a human life, are rightly understood, or justly provided for in the existing social order. Nor is it any more true that the constitutional differences of the sexes which should determine, define, and limit the resulting differences of office and duty, are adequately comprehended and practically observed.
Woman has been condemned for her greater delicacy of physical organization, to inferiority of intellectual and moral culture, and to the forfeiture of great social, civil, and religious privileges. In the relation of marriage she has been ideally annihilated and actually enslaved in all that concerns her personal and pecuniary rights, and even in widowed and single life, she is oppressed with such limitation and degradation of labor and avocation, as clearly and cruelly mark the condition of a disabled caste. But by the inspiration of the Almighty, the beneficent spirit of reform is roused to the redress of these wrongs.
The tyranny which degrades and crushes wives and mothers sits no longer lightly on the world's conscience; the heart's home-worship feels the stain of stooping at a dishonored altar. Manhood begins to feel the shame of muddying the springs from which it draws its highest life, and womanhood is everywhere awakening to assert its divinely chartered rights and to fulfill its noblest duties. It is the spirit of reviving truth and righteousness which has moved upon the great deep of the public heart and aroused its redressing justice, and through it the Providence of God is vindicating the order and appointments of His creation.
The signs are encouraging; the time is opportune. Come, then, to this Convention. It is your duty, if you are worthy of your age and country. Give the help of your best thought to separate the light from the darkness. Wisely give the protection of your name and the benefit of your efforts to the great work of settling the principles, devising the methods, and achieving the success of this high and holy movement.
This call was signed by eighty-nine leading men and women of six States.42
On taking the chair, Mrs. Davis said:
The reformation we propose in its utmost scope is radical and universal. It is not the mere perfecting of a reform already in motion, a detail of some established plan, but it is an epochal movement—the emancipation of a class, the redemption of half the world, and a conforming reorganization of all social, political, and industrial interests and institutions. Moreover, it is a movement without example among the enterprises of associated reformations, for it has no purpose of arming the oppressed against the oppressor, or of separating the parties, or of setting up independence, or of severing the relations
