we were holding a woman suffrage convention in Albany, at the time appointed for the hearing, Ernestine L. Rose and Lucretia Mott briefly added their views on the question. Although Mrs. Mott had urged Mrs. Rose and myself to be as moderate as possible in our demands, she quite unconsciously made the most radical utterance of all, in saying that marriage was a question beyond the realm of legislation, that must be left to the parties themselves. We rallied Lucretia on her radicalism, and some of the journals criticised us severely; but the following letter shows that she had no thought of receding from her position:
"Roadside, near Philadelphia,
"4th Mo., 30th, '61.
"My Dear Lydia Mott:
"I have wished, ever since parting with thee and our other dear friends in Albany, to send thee a line, and have only waited in the hope of contributing a little 'substantial aid' toward your neat and valuable 'depository.' The twenty dollars inclosed is from our Female Anti-slavery Society.
"I see the annual meeting, in New York, is not to be held this spring. Sister Martha is here, and was expecting to attend both anniversaries. But we now think the woman's rights meeting had better not be attempted, and she has written Elizabeth C. Stanton to this effect.
"I was well satisfied with being at the Albany meeting. I have since met with the following, from a speech of Lord Brougham's, which pleased me, as being as radical as mine in your stately Hall of Representatives:
"'Before women can have any justice by the laws of England, there must be a total reconstruction of the whole marriage system; for any attempt to amend it would prove useless. The great charter, in establishing the supremacy of law over prerogative, provides only for justice between man and man; for woman nothing is left but common law, accumulations and modifications of original Gothic and Roman heathenism, which no amount of filtration through ecclesiastical courts could change into Christian laws. They are declared unworthy a Christian people by great jurists; still they remain unchanged.'
"So Elizabeth Stanton will see that I have authority for going to the root of the evil.
"Thine,
"LUCRETIA MOTT."
Those of us who met in Albany talked the matter over in regard to a free discussion of the divorce question at the coming convention in New York. It was the opinion of those present that, as the laws on marriage and divorce were very unequal for man and woman, this was a legitimate subject for discussion on our platform; accordingly I presented a series of resolutions, at the annual convention, in New York city, to which I spoke for over an hour. I was followed by Antoinette L, Brown, who also presented a series of resolutions in opposition to mine. She was, in turn, answered by Ernestine L. Rose. Wendell Phillips then arose, and, in an impressive manner pronounced the whole discussion irrelevant to our platform, and moved that neither the speeches nor resolutions go on the records of the convention. As I greatly admired Wendell Phillips, and appreciated his good opinion, I was surprised and humiliated to find myself under the ban of his disapprobation. My face was scarlet, and I trembled with mingled feelings of doubt and fear—doubt as to the wisdom of my position and fear lest the convention should repudiate the whole discussion. My emotion was so apparent that Rev. Samuel Longfellow, a brother of the poet, who sat beside me, whispered in my ear, "Nevertheless you are right, and the convention will sustain you."
Mr. Phillips said that as marriage concerned man and woman alike, and the laws bore equally on them, women had no special ground for complaint, although, in my speech, I had quoted many laws to show the reverse. Mr. Garrison and Rev. Antoinette L. Brown were alike opposed to Mr. Phillips' motion, and claimed that marriage and divorce were legitimate subjects for discussion on our platform. Miss Anthony closed the debate. She said: "I hope Mr. Phillips will withdraw his motion that these resolutions shall not appear on the records of the convention. I am very sure that it would be contrary to all parliamentary usage to say that, when the speeches which enforced and advocated the resolutions are reported and published in the proceedings, the resolutions shall not be placed there. And as to the point that this question does not belong to this platform—from that I totally dissent. Marriage has ever been a one-sided matter, resting most unequally upon the sexes. By it man gains all; woman loses all; tyrant law and lust reign supreme with him; meek submission and ready obedience alone befit her. Woman has never been consulted; her wish has never been taken into consideration as regards the terms of the marriage compact. By law, public sentiment, and religion,—from the time of Moses down to the present day,—woman has never been thought of other than as a piece of property, to be disposed of at the will and pleasure of man. And at this very hour, by our statute books, by our (so-called) enlightened Christian civilization, she has no voice whatever in saying what shall be the basis of the relation. She must accept marriage as man proffers it, or not at all.
"And then, again, on Mr. Phillips' own ground, the discussion is perfectly in order, since nearly all the wrongs of which we complain grow out of the inequality of the marriage laws, that rob the wife of the right to herself and her children; that make her the slave of the man she marries. I hope, therefore, the resolutions will be allowed to go out to the public; that there may be a fair report of the ideas which have actually been presented here; that they may not be left to the mercy of the secular press, I trust the convention will not vote to forbid the publication of those resolutions with the proceedings."
Rev. William Hoisington (the blind preacher) followed Miss Anthony, and said: "Publish all that you have done here, and let the public know it."
The question was then put, on the motion of Mr. Phillips, and it was lost.
As Mr. Greeley, in commenting on the convention, took the same ground with Mr. Phillips, that the laws on marriage and divorce were equal for man and woman, I answered them in the following letter to the New York Tribune.
"To the Editor of the New York Tribune:
"Sir: At our recent National Woman's Rights Convention many were surprised to hear Wendell Phillips object to the question of marriage and divorce as irrelevant to our platform. He said: 'We had no right to discuss here any laws or customs but those where inequality existed for the sexes; that the laws on marriage and divorce rested equally on man and woman; that he suffers, as much as she possibly could, the wrongs and abuses of an ill-assorted marriage.'
"Now it must strike every careful thinker that an immense difference rests in the fact that man has made the laws cunningly and selfishly for his own purpose. From Coke down to Kent, who can cite one clause of the marriage contract where woman has the advantage? When man suffers from false legislation he has his remedy in his own hands. Shall woman be denied the right of protest against laws in which she had no voice; laws which outrage the holiest affections of her nature; laws which transcend the limits of human legislation, in a convention called for the express purpose of considering her wrongs? He might as well object to a protest against the injustice of hanging a woman, because capital punishment bears equally on man and woman.
"The contract of marriage is by no means equal. The law permits the girl to marry at twelve years of age, while it requires several years more of experience on the part of the boy. In entering this compact, the man gives up nothing that he before possessed, he is a man still; while the legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage, and, henceforth, she is known but in and through the husband. She is nameless, purseless, childless—though a woman, an heiress, and a mother.
"Blackstone says: 'The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.' Chancellor Kent, in his 'Commentaries' says: 'The legal effects of marriage are generally deducible from the principle of the common law, by which the husband and wife are regarded as one person, and her legal existence and authority lost or suspended during the continuance of the matrimonial union.'
"The
