Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
MADAM:--Your favor of 23d inst. has come to hand with your call,
which was published and endorsed by our paper, as you will see by
the enclosed slip. Your sentiments are so high and noble that to
doubt a favorable result and response from the West would be like
doubting whether our women had courage enough to follow the
truest instincts, the best impulses of their own pure nature. I,
for one, have no such idea, no such fears; and if I should ever
believe that the Cornelias and Thuseneldas were only to be found
by going back thousands of years in history, and would not and
could not be rivalled by patriotic mothers and heroic wives in
this present crises of ours, I then would renounce at once all
hopes of a national resurrection. Liberty, it is true, is
immortal; but we would be bound to look for her in some other
part of our globe, if we fail on American soil to enlist in our
struggle the full heart of our women.
But there is no such thing as failure in battling for all that is
high and good and sacred, and there is no such thing as failure
in appealing for so good a cause to woman's noble mind and true
heart. They will be with us, every one of them will, and whether
a majority of our people be up to our standard this time or not,
still, in the eyes of our women we would be what our German poet
calls, "the conquering defeated."
Yours for Fremont and Freedom, EMILE PRETORIUS.
LETTER FROM CHARLES SUMNER.
SENATE CHAMBER, _May 6, 1864_.
MADAM:--I can not be with you in New York, according to the
invitation with which you have honored me; for my post of duty is
here. I am grateful to your Association for what you have done to
arouse the country to insist on the extinction of slavery. Now is
the time to strike, and no effort should be spared. And yet there
are many who lap themselves in the luxury of present success, and
hold back. This is a mistake. The good work must be finished; and
to my mind nothing seems to be done while anything remains to be
done. There is one point to which attention must be directed. No
effort should be spared to castigate and blast the whole idea of
_property in man_, which is the corner-stone of the rebel
pretension, and the constant assumption of the partisans of
slavery, or of its lukewarm opponents. Let this idea be trampled
out, and there will be no sympathy with the rebellion; and there
will be no such abomination as _slave-hunting_, which is beyond
question the most execrable feature of slavery itself. Accept my
thanks, and believe me,
Madam, faithfully yours,
MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY. CHARLES SUMNER.
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