Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
And do you ask, did this not retard the cause of Temperance? No;
it carried it forward, as it carries every good cause forward. It
awakened thought, and mankind need only to be aroused to thought,
to forever destroy all wrong customs, and among them the rum
traffic. They need only to think to the purpose, and when this
shall be done, all good causes are bound to go forward together.
Christianity is the heart and soul of them all, and those reforms
which seek to elevate mankind and better their condition, cling
around our Christianity, and are a part of it. They are like the
cluster of grapes, all clinging about the central stem.
A wrong was done in that Convention to a delegate, and many
people saw and felt that wrong, and they began to inquire for the
cause of it; and so the causes of things were searched more
nearly than before, and this was a good which promoted
temperance. It is absurd to believe that any man or woman is any
less a temperance man or woman, or a "Maine law" man or woman
now, than before. If ever they loved that cause they love it now
as before.
Water is the very symbol of democracy! a single jet of it in a
tube will balance the whole ocean. We went there, only to claim
in the name of Democracy and Christianity, that all be treated
alike and impartially. The human soul is a holy thing; it is the
temple of living joy or sorrow. It is freighted with vital
realities. It can outlengthen Heaven itself, and it should be
reverenced everywhere, and treated always as a holy thing. We
only went there in the name of the world, in the name of
humanity, to promote a good cause; and it is what I pledge myself
now anew to do, at all times and under all circumstances, when
the opportunity shall present itself to me. It was a good act, a
Christian duty, to go there under those circumstances.
But let me now leave this matter, and say something which may
have a direct bearing upon the circumstances of our Convention,
and show why it is proper to bring up these facts here. Let us
suppose ourselves gathered in Metropolitan Hall. It is a large
hall, with two galleries around its sides. I could see men up
there in checked blouses, who looked as though they might disturb
a Convention, but they looked down upon the rowdyism of the
platform, a thing unprecedented before, with simple expressions
of wonder, while they were quiet. Well, here we are upon the
platform. The President is speaking.
PRESIDENT: "Miss Brown has the floor."
A DELEGATE: "Mr. President, I rise to a point of order."
PRESIDENT: "State your point of order."
It is stated, but at the same time, in the general whirl and
confusion all around, another voice from the floor exclaims: "I
rise to a point of order!"
The PRESIDENT: "State it!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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