other hand, she is told that she must lovingly confide in the strength and skill of man, who has been endowed with superior intellectual powers; that she must count it her highest honor to reflect upon the world the light of his intelligence and wisdom, as the moon reflects the light of the sun!
We may congratulate one another on this occasion in view of the cheering indications so manifest on every hand that the ignorance and darkness which have so long brooded over the prospects of woman, are beginning to give place to the light of truth. In the summer of 1848, in the village of Seneca Falls, a small number of women, disregarding alike the sneers of the ignorant and the frowns of the learned, assembled in Convention and boldly claimed for themselves, and for their sex, the rights conferred by God and so long withheld by man. Their courageous words were the expression of sentiments which others had felt as deeply as themselves, but which the restraints imposed by long-established custom had taught them to suppress. But now the hour had come, and the world stood prepared for the reception of a new thought, which is destined to work a revolution in human society, more beneficent than any that has preceded it. The seeds of truth which that Convention planted in faith and hope were not left to perish. In many thoughtful minds they germinated apace and brought forth fruit. That fruit was seen in the large Convention held in Ohio in the spring of 1850, in that held in Massachusetts in the autumn of the same year, and in those which have followed since in New England and the West.
Woman at length is awaking from the slumber of ages. Many of the sex already perceive that knowledge, sound judgment, and perfect freedom of thought and action are quite as important for the mothers as for the fathers of the race. They weary of the senseless talk of "woman's sphere," when that sphere is so circumscribed that they may not exert their full influence and power to save their country from war, intemperance, slavery, licentiousness, ignorance, poverty, and crime, which man, in the mad pursuit of his ambitious schemes, unchecked by their presence and counsel, permits to desolate and destroy all that is fair and beautiful in life and fill the world with weeping, lamentation, and woe. Woman begins to grow weary of her helpless and dependent position, and of being treated as if she were formed only to cultivate her affections, that they may flow in strong and deep currents merely to gratify the self-love of man.
She does not listen with delight, as she once did, when she hears her relations to her equal brother represented by the poetical figure of the trellis and creeping tendril, or of the oak and the gracefully clinging vine. No, she feels that she is, like him, an accountable being—that the Infinite Father has laid responsibilities upon her which may not be innocently transferred to another, but which, in her present ignorance, she is not prepared to meet. She is becoming rapidly imbued with the spirit of progress, and will not longer submit, without remonstrance, to the bondage of ancient dogmas and customs. In the retirement and seclusion of life, the stirring impulse of the times has reached even the heart of woman, and she feels the necessity of a more thorough culture and a wider field of usefulness. She sees the glaring injustice by which she has long been deprived of all fair opportunity to earn an independent livelihood, and thus, in too many instances, constrained to enter the marriage relation, as a choice of evils, to secure herself against the ills of impending poverty. The wrong she so deeply feels she is at length arousing herself to redress.
What, then, is the substance of our demand? I answer, we demand for woman equal freedom with her brother to raise her voice and exert her influence directly for the removal of all the evils that afflict the race; and that she be permitted to do this in the manner dictated by her own sense of propriety and justice. We ask for her educational advantages equal to those enjoyed by the other sex; that the richly endowed institutions which she has been taxed to establish and support, may be open alike to all her children. We claim for her the right to follow any honorable calling or profession for which she may be fitted by her intellectual training and capacity. We claim for her a fair opportunity to attain a position of pecuniary independence, and to this end that she receive for her labor a compensation equivalent to its recognized value when performed by the other sex.
These demands, we think, must be admitted to be essentially wise and just. We make them in no spirit of selfish antagonism to the other sex, but under a deep conviction that they are prompted by an enlightened regard for the highest welfare of the race. Some one has justly said that God has so linked the human family together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length. The true interests of the sexes are not antagonistic, but harmonious. There can be no just conflict between their respective rights and duties. For the coming of the day when this great truth shall be universally received, we must work and pray as we have opportunity. When that day shall arrive, it will be clearly perceived that in the true Harmonic Order "woman and her brother are pillars in the same temple and priests of the same worship."
The Secretary, Sidney Peirce, read the following letter from
SARAH M. GRIMKÉ.
When an insect emerges with struggles from its chrysalis state, how feeble are all its movements, how its wings hang powerless until the genial air has dried and strengthened them, how patiently the insect tries again and again to spread them, and visit the flowers which bloom around, till at last it enjoys the recompense of its labors in the nectar and the fragrance of the garden.
This illustrates the present condition of Woman. She is just emerging from the darkness and ignorance by which she has been shrouded. She looks forth from her chrysalis and sees the natural and intellectual world lying around her clothed in radiant beauty, and inviting her to enter and possess this magnificent inheritance. How came I, she asks, to be excluded from all these precious privileges? I will arise and go to my Father and say, "Father, permit me to share the labors of my brethren and partake of the fruits which they enjoy." "Go, my daughter," is the paternal response. "Be unto man, in an infinitely higher sense than heretofore, a help-meet." How is woman fulfilling her divine mission? Is she looking on the benefits she is commissioned to bestow on the human race, or is she keeping her eye on her own interests and seeking her own elevation, with little of that expansive benevolence, that philosophical foresight which seeks the development of all?
Woman is now in the transition state, a glorious mission is before her, a glorious destiny awaits her. To fulfill that mission, to be worthy of that destiny, she must patiently wait and quietly hope, blessing those who scorn and deride her feeble and often unsuccessful efforts, to free herself from her entanglements. She must expect many failures in her attempts to emancipate herself from the thralldom of public opinion. Those who have long held the reins of power and the rank of superiority, naturally look with distrust on a movement which threatens to overturn long established customs and transform the baby and the toy into an intellectual being, desiring equal rights with themselves and asserting her claim to all the immunities they enjoy. Woman must be willing to see herself as she is, the slave of fashion, assuming all the Proteus forms she invents, without reference to health or convenience. She must remember how few of us give evidence of sufficient development to warrant our claims; and whilst we feel a divine impulse to proceed in achieving the enlargement of woman, whilst we hear a voice saying, "Ye have compassed this mountain long enough; speak to the people that they go forward," let us not be dismayed at the hindrances we shall encounter from those whom we are laboring to release from the swaddling bands of infancy, or the grave-clothes of superstition, time-honored opinion and crushing circumstances. We are now in a perilous and difficult position. We feel all the inconveniences of our past condition, all the disadvantages and uneasiness of the one we are constrained to occupy, and see in bold relief all the advantages which a change will yield us. But let us remember that our transition state, although replete with temptations and suffering, is necessary to our improvement; we need it to strengthen us and enable us to bear hardships as good soldiers of truth.
To regard any state of society as fixed, is to regard it as the ultimate good, as the best condition to which we can attain. But when man has progressed, when his morality and his religion have assumed a higher tone, it is impossible to perpetuate his childhood, or to give permanence to institutions and opinions whose days are numbered. When reform has truth for its basis and is instinct with the life of progression,
