Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
And now I leave the action of the Convention to say what were our
motives in going there. From what I have related of the
circumstances which conspired to induce us to go, and the manner
of our going, you can but see that no absurd desire for
notoriety, no coveting of such unenviable fame as we know must
await us, were the inducements. And as a simple fact, there was
nothing so very important in a feeble woman's going as a delegate
to that Convention; but the fact was made an unpleasant one in
the experience of that delegate, and was blown into notoriety by
the unmanly action of that Convention itself. But what were our
reasons for going to that Convention? Did we go there to forward
the cause of Temperance or to forward the cause of woman, or what
were our motives in going? Woman was pleading her own cause in
the Convention at the Tabernacle, and she had no need that any
should go there to forward her cause for her; and much as I love
temperance, and love those poor sisters who suffer because of
intemperance, it was not especially to plead their cause that I
went there. I went to assert a principle, a principle relevant to
the circumstances of the World's Convention to be sure, but one,
at the same time, which, acknowledged, must forward all good
causes, and, disregarded, must retard them. I went there, asking
no favor as a woman, asking no special recognition of the
woman-cause. I went there in behalf of the cause of humanity. I
went there, asking the indorsement of no ism, and as the exponent
of no measure, but as a simple item of the world in the name of
the world, claiming that all the sons and daughters of the race
should be received in that Convention, if they went there with
the proper credentials. I simply planted my feet upon the rights
of a delegate. I asked for nothing more, and dare take nothing
less. The principle which we were there to assert, was that which
is the soul of the Golden Rule, the soul of that which says, "All
things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye
even so unto them." I went there to see if they would be true to
their own call, and recognize delegates without distinction of
color, sex, creed, party, or condition; to see if they would
recognize each member of the human family, as belonging to the
human family; to see if they would grant the simple rights of a
delegate to all delegates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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