has been achieved by woman in the realm of mind or matter, has been achieved by right womanly women. Let us then work, and continue to work, until the world shall assent to our right to do whatever the capacities God has given us enable us to do.
Susan B. Anthony rose and said that several gentlemen had handed her contributions, one $40, another $25. She trusted that all New York men and women would find they had something more to do than listen to speeches.
LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY.
New York, November 22, 1856.
My Friend:—You are promised to be present and speak at the approaching "Woman's Rights Convention." I, too, mean to attend its deliberations, or some portion thereof, but not to take part in them. For I find this evil apparently inseparable from all Radical gatherings: a very large and influential portion of the press, including, I grieve to say, religious as well as secular journals, are prone and eager to expose to odium those whom they would undermine and destroy, by attributing to them, not the sentiments they have personally expressed, but those of others with whom they are or have been associated in some reformatory movement. He, then, who appears as a speaker at a Woman's Rights Convention is made responsible for whatever may be uttered at such Convention—no matter by whom—which is most likely to excite popular prejudice and arouse popular hostility. I have borne a good share of this unfairly exalted and unjust odium, with regard to the dietetic, anti-slavery, and social reforms suggested in our day, and shall bear on as patiently as I may; but I grow older, and do not confront the world on a fresh issue with so light a heart, so careless a defiance, as I might have done twenty years ago. Allow me, then, through you, to say what I think of the woman's rights movement, its objects, incitements, and limitations. If I may thus attain perspicuity, I can bear the imputation of egotism.
1. I deem the intellectual, like the physical capacities of women unequal in the average to those of men; but I perceive no reason in this natural diversity for a factitious and superinduced legal inequality. On the contrary, it seems to me that the fact of a natural and marked discrepancy in the average mental as well as muscular powers of men and women ought to allay any apprehensions that the latter, in the absence of legal interdicts and circumscriptions, would usurp the functions and privileges of the former.
2. I believe the range of employment for woman, in our age and country, far too restricted, and the average recompense of her labor, consequently far less than it should be. In saying this, I do not intimate a doubt that the best possible employment for most women is to be found in the care and management of their own households respectively, with the rearing and training of their children. But many women, including some of the most noble and estimable, are never called to preside over households; while some of the called are impelled to decline the invitation. In point of fact, then, there is and always will be a large proportion of the gentler sex who are, at least temporarily, required to earn their own subsistence, and vindicate their own usefulness in some other capacity than that of the loved and honored wife and mother. The maiden or widow, blessed with opulence, ought to be insured against the worse calamities of a reverse of fortune, by the mastery of some handicraft or industrial avocation; she ought to lead a life of persistent and efficient industry, as the fulfillment of a universal duty; while her unportioned sister must do this or grovel in degrading idleness and dependence on a father's or brother's overtaxed energies, looking to marriage as her only chance of escape therefrom. For man's sake, no less than woman's, it is eminently desirable that that large portion of our women, who are not absorbed in domestic cares, should be attracted and stimulated to industry by a wider range of pursuits, and a consequent increase of recompense. I deem it at once unjust and—like all injustice—impolitic, that a brother and sister, hired by the same farmer, the one to aid him in his own round of labor, the other to assist his wife in hers, should be paid, the one twelve to twenty, the other but four to six dollars per month. The difference in their wages should be no greater than in their physical and mental ability. Still more glaring is this discrepancy, when the two are employed as teachers, and, though of equal efficiency, the one is paid five hundred dollars per annum, the other but two, or in that proportion, merely because the former is a man and the latter a woman. While such disparities exist, right here in this metropolis of American civilization and Christianity, it is in vain that Conservatism stops its ears and raises its eyebrows at the announcement of a Woman's Rights Convention.
3. Regarding marriage as the most important, most sacred, and tender of human relations, and deeming it irrevocable, save by death, it seems to me essential that woman should be proffered such a range of employments, with such adequate recompense, as to enable her at all times to support herself in honored and virtuous independence, so that marriage shall be accepted by her at the dictates of love, and not of hunger. Much might be urged on this point, but I choose simply to commend it to the consideration of others.
4. As to woman's voting or holding office, I defer implicitly to herself. If the women of this or any other country believe their rights would be better secured and their happiness promoted by the assumption on their part of the political franchises and responsibilities of men, I, a Republican in principle from conviction, shall certainly interpose no objection. I perceive what seem to be serious practical difficulties in the way of realizing such assumption; but these are difficulties, not for me, but for them. I deem it unjust that men should be so constantly and unqualifiedly impeached as denying rights to woman which the great majority of women seem quite as reluctant to claim as men are to concede. I apprehend that whenever women shall generally and earnestly desire an equality of political franchises with men, they will meet with little impediment from the latter.
5. I can not share at all in the apprehensions of those who are alarmed at the Woman's Rights agitation, lest it should result in the unsexing of woman, or her general deflection from her proper sphere. On the contrary, I feel sure that the freest inquiry and discussion will only result in a clearer and truer appreciation of woman's proper position, and a more general and rigid adherence thereto. "Let there be light!" for this is an indispensable condition of all true and healthy growth. Let all convictions find free utterance—all grievances be stated and considered. In the range of my observation, I have found those women who were conscious of defects in the present legal and social position of their sex among the most zealous, faithful, and efficient in the discharge of their household and parental duties. I feel confident that a general discussion of the subject of Woman's Rights will result in a more general recognition and cheerful performance of woman's appropriate duties.
Horace Greeley.
Very truly yours,
Rev. Samuel J. May.
LETTER FROM HON. WILLIAM HAY, OF SARATOGA SPRINGS.
I acknowledge, with much pleasure, the receipt of a printed circular, calling for the Seventh Woman's Rights Annual Convention. I also acknowledge, with increased pleasure, and perhaps with more pride than becomes me, the accompanying invitation to attend that Convention, and take part in its proceedings. I like this word, because it implies progress.
Pre-engagement will prevent my personal attendance at the Broadway Tabernacle, but, be assured, my heart shall be there, with all its desires and hopes for the future of humanity; because I am convinced that until the individual and social rights of our whole race, without distinction of caste or sex, shall have been universally recognized, the tyrannies of earth will not cease from oppressing it.
I wish that every woman in the United States could be at New York, throughout the continuance of your Convention, where each might see for herself, in Mrs. Lucretia Mott, what woman may be, and should be, and must be, before her sex can attain, individually and socially, "that equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle" her. For physical and mental improvement of man's condition, according to his birthright and educational capacity, there must be, in America, more Marys, the mothers of Washingtons.
The great political and legal reform announced in your circular, contemplating
