Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
"'_Resolved_, That women are clearly entitled to the right of
suffrage, and to be considered eligible to office; the omission
to demand which, on her part, is a palpable recreancy to duty,
and a denial of which is a gross usurpation on the part of man,
no longer to be endured; and that every party which claims to
represent the humanity, civilization, and progress of the age, is
bound to inscribe on its banners, "Equality before the Law,
without distinction of Sex or Color."'
"From North to South the press found these reformers wonderfully
ridiculous people. The 'hen convention' was served up in every variety
of style, till refined women dreaded to look into a newspaper.
Hitherto man had assumed to be the conscience of woman, now she
indicated the will to think for herself; hence all this odium. But,
however the word was preached, whether for wrath or conscience sake,
we rejoiced and thanked God.
"In July, following this Convention, an able and elaborate notice
appeared in the _Westminster Review_. This notice, candid in tone and
spirit, as it was thorough and able in discussion, successfully
vindicated every position we assumed, reaffirmed and established the
highest ground taken in principle or policy by our movement. The
wide-spread circulation and high authority of this paper told upon the
public mind, both in Europe and this country. It was at the time
supposed to be by Mr. John Stuart Mill. Later we learned that it was
from the pen of his noble wife, to whom be all honor for thus coming
to the aid of a struggling cause. I can pay no tribute to her memory
so beautiful as the following extract from a letter recently received
from her husband:
"'It gives me the greatest pleasure to know that the service
rendered by my dear wife to the cause which was nearer her heart
than any other, by her essay in the _Westminster Review_, has had
so much effect and is so justly appreciated in the United States.
Were it possible in a memoir to have the formation and growth of
a mind like hers portrayed, to do so would be as valuable a
benefit to mankind as was ever conferred by a biography. But such
a psychological history is seldom possible, and in her case the
materials for it do not exist. All that could be furnished is her
birth-place, parentage, and a few dates, and it seems to me that
her memory is more honored by the absence of any attempt at a
biographical notice than by the presence of a most meagre one.
What she was, I have attempted, though most inadequately, to
delineate in the remarks prefaced to her essay, as reprinted with
my "Dissertations and Discussions."'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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