B. Anthony.
Dear Madam:—It would afford me great satisfaction to be able to serve you as you request. I am compelled to say, however, that it is entirely out of my power. I have already engaged for so much work beyond my regular duties, that I shall have no leisure even to prepare a new Lyceum address. Not having any lecture upon the position of woman that is full enough, and adequate in any way to the present state of the discussion, I must reluctantly decline the opportunity you offer.
T. S. King.
With sincere thanks, I remain truly yours,
In the autumn of 1858, Francis Jackson, of Boston, placed $5,000 in the hands of Wendell Phillips for woman's enfranchisement, as will be seen by the following letter:
Boston, Nov. 6, 1858.
Dear Friends:—I have had given me five thousand dollars, to be used for the Woman's Rights cause; to procure tracts on that subject, publish and circulate them, pay for lectures, and secure such other agitation of the question as we deem fit and best to obtain equal civil and social position for woman.
The name of the giver of this generous fund I am not allowed to tell you; the only condition of the gift is, that the fund is to remain invested in my keeping. In other respects, we three are a Committee of Trustees to spend it wisely and efficiently.
Let me ask you to write me what plan strikes you as best to begin with. I think some agitation specially directed to the Legislature very important. It is wished that we should begin our efforts at once.
Wendell Phillips,
Yours truly,
Miss Susan B. Anthony.
Mrs. Lucy Stone.
It was in the year 1859 that Charles F. Hovey of Boston left by will,153 a sum of $50,000 to be expended annually in the promotion of various reforms. Woman's Rights among them.
MOZART HALL,
NEW YORK, MAY 13, 14, 1858.
The year 1857 seems to have passed without a National Convention, although the work was still vigorously prosecuted in the State of New York, but in the spring of 1858, the ninth National Convention was called in New York during the week of the anniversaries when crowds were always attracted to attend the various religious and reformatory meetings. Henceforward, for many years, a Woman's Rights Convention was a marked feature of this period in the month of May. There were several persons at this Convention who had not before honored our platform.154 These, with the usual familiar speakers,155 filled the platform with quite a striking group of ladies and gentlemen. The morning session was occupied with the usual preliminary business matters, choosing officers, presenting resolutions, and planning new aggressive steps for the coming year. Susan B. Anthony was President on this occasion, and fulfilled her duties to the general satisfaction. During the evening session the hall was crowded, all the available space for either sitting or standing was occupied, the platform and steps were densely packed, and this at twenty-five cents admission.
Mr. Phillips, Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Rose, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Higginson, Miss Brown, and Lucy Stone all spoke with their usual effect. Mrs. Eliza Woodson Farnham, the author of "Woman and her Era," spoke at length on the "Superiority of Woman."
She presented a series of resolutions, recognizing the right of man in the primary era in his physical and cerebral structure, to be the conqueror, the mechanic, the inventor, the clearer of forests, the pioneer of civilization, but she looked to the dawning of a higher era, when woman should assume her true position in harmony with her superior organism, her delicacy of structure, her beauty of person, her great powers of endurance, and thus prove herself not only man's equal in influence and power, but his superior in many of the noblest virtues. In woman's creative power during maternity, she recognized her as second only to God himself. Woman should recognize man as a John the Baptist, going before to prepare the world for her coming, he recognizing her greater divinity as equal in the Godhead, as heavenly mother as well as father.
Mrs. Farnham156 enforced her theory of woman's superiority in a long speech, which was received with apparent satisfaction by the audience, though several on the platform dissented from the claim of superiority, thinking it would be a sufficient triumph over the tyrannies of the past, if popular thought could be educated to the idea of the equality of the sexes.
Mrs. Sarah Hallock read an extract from the Statutes of New York, giving the items set aside by law for use of the wife and minor children, in case the husband died without a will.
(Extract from the Statutes of New York).
ARTICLES INVENTORIED, BUT NOT APPROVED, BELONGING TO THE WIDOW AND MINOR CHILDREN.
1st. All spinning-wheels, weaving-looms, or stoves put up for use.
2d. The family Bible, family pictures, school-books, and books not exceeding in value fifty dollars.
[Mrs. Hallock here interjected, husbands had better give their wives cheap books].
3d. Ten sheep and their fleeces, and the yarn and cloth manufactured from the same; one cow, two swine, and the pork of such swine. [Laughter],
4th. All necessary wearing apparel, beds, bedsteads, and bedding; the clothing of the widow and her ornaments proper to her station (as to ornaments, tastes differ as to those proper to her station), one table, six chairs (suppose there were seven or ten children, what then? queried Mrs. Hallock [Laughter],) six knives and forks, six tea-cups and saucers, one sugar-dish, one milk-pot, one tea-pot, and six spoons. "So great a favorite is the female sex of the laws of England and America," says Blackstone.
Mrs. Rose protested against one tea-pot; the law didn't mention tea-pot at all. [Great laughter].
Mrs. Hallock: Oh, yes! but not a coffee-pot. [Renewed laughter].
Mrs. Gage: In Ohio they give twelve spoons. [Convulsive laughter].
Mrs. Hallock: We'll get up a delegation to Ohio, then.
Mrs. Farnham: I would say that I will give up all these things if the State will only give us in return one of our children. [Applause and laughter].
Mrs. Hallock: Isn't it a pity that our laws—are they ours?
Mrs. Rose: No.
Mrs. Hallock: Well, then, your laws. It is a pity that those statutes should not be revised so as to give a widow a carpet and other smaller articles of luxury. [Great laughter].
And such was the boasted "protection" secured to the wives and mothers by the laws of the most civilized nations on the globe, and such the law-makers in whose hands woman's interests were supposed to be secure, when we began our battle for equality. Class laws, class legislation, legalized robbery from the unborn child, down to the commonest necessaries of life, has been the "protection" woman has complained of from fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. Those just awaking to an interest in this reform, see but the smoke of the former battles; they can not appreciate all the tyranny from which this agitation has freed them. Step by step, custom by custom, law by law, a partial victory has been wrested, and a public opinion slowly created that promises other victories in the near future.
Those who have not been through the conflict will never realize how dark the prospect was in starting. Denied education, and a place in the world of work, denied the rights of property, whether of
