to mention, however, to show that it is almost impossible for the most liberal of men to understand what liberty means for woman. This sacrifice of human rights, by men who had assembled from all quarters of the globe to proclaim universal emancipation, was offered up in the presence of such women as Lady Byron, Anna Jameson, Amelia Opie, Mary Howitt, Elizabeth Fry, and our own Lucretia Mott. The clergy with few exceptions were bitter in their opposition. Although, as Abolitionists, they had been compelled to fight both Church and Bible to prove the black man's right to liberty, conscience forbade them to stretch those sacred limits far enough to give equal liberty to woman.
The leading men who championed the cause of the measure in the Convention and voted in the affirmative, were Wendell Phillips, George Thompson, George Bradburn, Mr. Ashurst, Dr. Bowring, and Henry B. Stanton. Though Daniel O'Connell was not present during the discussion, having passed out with the President, yet in his first speech, he referred to the rejected delegates, paying a beautiful tribute to woman's influence, and saying he should have been happy to have added the right word in the right place and to have recorded his vote in favor of human equality..
William Lloyd Garrison, having been delayed at sea, arrived too late to take part in the debates. Learning on his arrival that the women had been rejected as delegates, he declined to take his seat in the Convention; and, through all those interesting discussions on a subject so near his heart, lasting ten days, he remained a silent spectator in the gallery. What a sacrifice for a principle so dimly seen by the few, and so ignorantly ridiculed by the many! Brave, noble Garrison! May this one act keep his memory fresh forever in the hearts of his countrywomen!
The one Abolitionist who sustained Mr. Garrison's position, and sat with him in the gallery, was Nathaniel P. Rogers, editor of the Herald of Freedom, in Concord, New Hampshire, who died in the midst of the Anti-Slavery struggle. However, the debates in the Convention had the effect of rousing English minds to thought on the tyranny of sex, and American minds to the importance of some definite action toward woman's emancipation.
As Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wended their way arm in arm down Great Queen Street that night, reviewing the exciting scenes of the day, they agreed to hold a woman's rights convention on their return to America, as the men to whom they had just listened had manifested their great need of some education on that question. Thus a missionary work for the emancipation of woman in "the land of the free and the home of the brave" was then and there inaugurated. As the ladies were not allowed to speak in the Convention, they kept up a brisk fire morning, noon, and night at their hotel on the unfortunate gentlemen who were domiciled at the same house. Mr. Birney, with his luggage, promptly withdrew after the first encounter, to some more congenial haven of rest, while the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, from Boston, who always fortified himself with six eggs well beaten in a large bowl at breakfast, to the horror of his host and a circle of æsthetic friends, stood his ground to the last—his physical proportions being his shield and buckler, and his Bible (with Colver's commentaries) his weapon of defence.7
The movement for woman's suffrage, both in England and America, may be dated from this World's Anti-Slavery Convention.
6 The ladies of the Convention were fenced off behind a bar and curtain, similar to those used in churches to screen the choir from the public gaze.
7 Some of the English clergy, dancing around with Bible in hand, shaking it in the faces of the opposition, grew so vehement, that one would really have thought that they held a commission from high heaven as the possessors of all truth, and that all progress in human affairs was to be squared by their interpretation of Scripture. At last George Bradburn, exasperated with their narrowness and bigotry, sprang to the floor, and stretching himself to his full height, said: "Prove to me, gentlemen, that your Bible sanctions the slavery of woman—the complete subjugation of one-half the race to the other—and I should feel that the best work I could do for humanity would be to make a grand bonfire of every Bible in the Universe."
CHAPTER IV.
New York.
The First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, July 19-20, 1848—Property Rights of Women secured—Judge Fine, George Geddes, and Mr. Hadley pushed the Bill through—Danger of meddling with well-settled conditions of domestic happiness—Mrs. Barbara Hertell's will—Richard Hunt's tea-table—The eventful day—James Mott President—Declaration of sentiments—Convention in Rochester—Clergy again in opposition with Bible arguments.
New York with its metropolis, fine harbors, great lakes and rivers; its canals and railroads uniting the extremest limits, and controlling the commerce of the world; with its wise statesmen and wily politicians, long holding the same relation to the nation at large that Paris is said to hold to France, has been proudly called by her sons and daughters the Empire State.
But the most interesting fact in her history, to woman, is that she was the first State to emancipate wives from the slavery of the old common law of England, and to secure to them equal property rights. This occurred in 1848. Various bills and petitions, with reference to the civil rights of woman, had been under discussion twelve years, and the final passage of the property bill was due in no small measure to two facts. 1st. The constitutional convention in 1847, which compelled the thinking people of the State, and especially the members of the convention, to the serious consideration of the fundamental principles of government. As in the revision of a Constitution the State is for the time being resolved into its original elements in recognizing the equality of all the people, one would naturally think that a chance ray of justice might have fallen aslant the wrongs of woman and brought to the surface some champion in that convention, especially as some aggravated cases of cruelty in families of wealth and position had just at that time aroused the attention of influential men to the whole question. 2d. Among the Dutch aristocracy of the State there was a vast amount of dissipation; and as married women could hold neither property nor children under the common law, solid, thrifty Dutch fathers were daily confronted with the fact that the inheritance of their daughters, carefully accumulated, would at marriage pass into the hands of dissipated, impecunious husbands, reducing them and their children to poverty and dependence. Hence this influential class of citizens heartily seconded the efforts of reformers, then demanding equal property rights in the marriage relation. Thus a wise selfishness on one side, and principle on the other, pushed the conservatives and radicals into the same channel, and both alike found anchor in the statute law of 1848. This was the death-blow to the old Blackstone code for married women in this country, and ever since legislation has been slowly, but steadily, advancing toward their complete equality.
Desiring to know who prompted the legislative action on the Property Bill in 1848, and the names of our champions who carried it successfully through after twelve years of discussion and petitioning, a letter of inquiry was addressed to the Hon. George Geddes of the twenty-second district—at that time Senator—and received the following reply:
Fairmount, Onondaga Co., N. Y.,
November 25, 1880.
Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage:
Dear Madam:—I was much gratified at the receipt of your letter of the 22d inst., making inquiries into the history of the law of 1848 in regard to married women holding property independently of their husbands. That the "truth of history" may be made plain, I have looked over the journals of the Senate and Assembly, and taken full notes, which I request you to publish, if you put any part of this letter in print.
I
