Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
The one Abolitionist who sustained Mr. Garrison's position, and sat
with him in the gallery, was Nathaniel P. Rogers, editor of the
_Herald of Freedom_, in Concord, New Hampshire, who died in the midst
of the Anti-Slavery struggle. However, the debates in the Convention
had the effect of rousing English minds to thought on the tyranny of
sex, and American minds to the importance of some definite action
toward woman's emancipation.
As Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton wended their way arm in
arm down Great Queen Street that night, reviewing the exciting scenes
of the day, they agreed to hold a woman's rights convention on their
return to America, as the men to whom they had just listened had
manifested their great need of some education on that question. Thus a
missionary work for the emancipation of woman in "the land of the
free and the home of the brave" was then and there inaugurated. As the
ladies were not allowed to speak in the Convention, they kept up a
brisk fire morning, noon, and night at their hotel on the unfortunate
gentlemen who were domiciled at the same house. Mr. Birney, with his
luggage, promptly withdrew after the first encounter, to some more
congenial haven of rest, while the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, from Boston,
who always fortified himself with six eggs well beaten in a large bowl
at breakfast, to the horror of his host and a circle of aesthetic
friends, stood his ground to the last--his physical proportions being
his shield and buckler, and his Bible (with Colver's commentaries) his
weapon of defence.[7]
The movement for woman's suffrage, both in England and America, may be
dated from this World's Anti-Slavery Convention.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The ladies of the Convention were fenced off behind a bar and
curtain, similar to those used in churches to screen the choir from
the public gaze.
[7] Some of the English clergy, dancing around with Bible in hand,
shaking it in the faces of the opposition, grew so vehement, that one
would really have thought that they held a commission from high heaven
as the possessors of all truth, and that all progress in human affairs
was to be squared by their interpretation of Scripture. At last George
Bradburn, exasperated with their narrowness and bigotry, sprang to the
floor, and stretching himself to his full height, said: "Prove to me,
gentlemen, that your Bible sanctions the slavery of woman--the
complete subjugation of one-half the race to the other--and I should
feel that the best work I could do for humanity would be to make a
grand bonfire of every Bible in the Universe."
CHAPTER IV.
NEW YORK.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account