Unitarianism claimed for every individual, what Protestantism had at most asked for the congregation,--the right to think for one's self. This right was won earlier in Europe than in America, for here the clergy kept much of their original authority and popularity. Their influence over politics collapsed with Federalism. On all other subjects they were still listened to as "stewards of the mysteries of God," who had been taught all things by the Holy Spirit, and were under a divine call to preach the truth necessary for salvation. The clergyman was supposed to have acquired by his ordination a peculiar knowledge of all the rights and duties of human life. No one else, however wise and philanthropic, could speak with such authority about what books might be read and what amusements should be shunned. Scientific habits of thought, free inquiry about religion, and scholarly study of the Bible were put under the same ban with dancing, card-playing, reading novels, and travelling on Sunday. The pulpit blocked the path of intellectual progress. Its influence on literature was wholly changed by the Unitarian controversy, which was at its height in 1820. Still more beneficial controversies followed. The trinitarian clergymen tried to retain their imperilled supremacy by getting up revivals. One of these, in the summer of 1828, was carried so far at Cincinnati that many a woman lost her reason or her life. These excesses confirmed the anti-clerical suspicions of Frances Wright, who had come over from England to study the negro character, and had failed, after much labour and expense, to find the slaves she bought for the purpose capable of working out their freedom. She had made up her mind that slavery is only one of many evils caused by ignorance of the duties of man to man, that these duties needed to be studied scientifically, and that scientific study, especially among women, was dangerously impeded by the pulpit. That autumn she delivered the first course of public lectures ever given by a woman in America. Anne Hutchinson and other women had preached; but she was the first lecturer. The men and women of Cincinnati crowded to hear the tall, majestic woman, who stood in the court-house, plainly dressed in white. Her style was ladylike throughout; but she complained of the many millions wasted on mere teachers of opinions, whose occupation was to set people by the ears, and whose influence was stifling the breath of science. "Listen," she said, "to the denunciations of fanaticism against pleasures the most innocent, recreations the most necessary to bodily health." "See it make of the people's day of leisure a day of penance." Her main theme was the necessity of establishing schools to teach children trades, and also halls of science with museums and public libraries.