Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
In March, 1863, an appeal[39] to the women of the Republic, was
published in the _New York Tribune_, and in tract form extensively
circulated with "a call"[40] for a National Convention in New York,
which assembled in Dr. Cheever's church May 14th. An immense audience,
mostly women, representing a large number of the States, crowded the
house at an early hour. Miss Susan B. Anthony called the Convention to
order and nominated Lucy Stone for President; the other officers[41]
of the Convention being chosen, Mrs. Stanton made the opening address,
and stated the objects of the meeting.
Miss Anthony having received large numbers of letters[42] which it
was impossible to read, said that the one word which had come up from
all quarters showed an earnestness of purpose on the part of women to
do everything in their power to aid the Government in the prosecution
of this war to the glorious end of freedom. The President in
introducing Angelina Grimke Weld, said:
This lady, once a South Carolina slaveholder, not only gave
freedom to all her slaves twenty years ago, but has spent the
strength of her younger years in going up and down among the
people, urging the Northern States to make their soil sacred to
freedom, to so amend their laws and constitutions that slavery
can find no protection within their borders.
MRS. WELD said: I came here with no desire and no intention to
speak; but my heart is full, my country is bleeding, my people
are perishing around me. But I feel as a South Carolinian, I am
bound to tell the North, go on! go on! Never falter, never
abandon the principles which you have adopted. I could not say
this if we were now where we stood two years ago. I could not say
thus when it was proclaimed in the Northern States that the Union
was all that we sought. No, my friends, such a Union as we had
then, God be praised that it has perished. Oh, never for one
moment consent that such a Union should be re-established in our
land. There was a time when I looked upon the Fathers of the
Revolution with the deepest sorrow and the keenest reproach. I
said to their shadows in another world, "Why did you leave this
accursed system of slavery for us to suffer and die under? why
did you not, with a stroke of the pen, determine--when you
acquired your own independence--that the principles which you
adopted in the Declaration of Independence should be a shield of
protection to every man, whether he be slave or whether he be
free?" But, my friends, the experience of sixty years has shown
me that the fruit grows slowly. I look back and see that great
Sower of the world, as he traveled the streets of Jerusalem and
dropped the precious seed, "Do unto others as ye would that
others should do unto you." I look at all the contests of
different nations, and see that, whether it were the Patricians
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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