Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
In the evening Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) delivered a beautiful
address on Forgotten Women, which she closed with these words: "It was
not a grander thing to lead the forlorn hope in 1776, not a grander
thing to strike the shackles from the black slaves in 1863, than it
would be in 1884 to carry a presidential campaign on the basis of
Political Equality to Women. The career, the fame, to match that of
Washington, to match that of Lincoln, awaits the man who will espouse
the cause of forgotten womanhood and introduce that womanhood to
political influence and political freedom."
Interesting addresses were made by Mrs. Mary E. Haggart (Ind.), Why Do
Not Women Vote? and by the Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, pastor of the
Second Universalist Church, Jersey City, on New Jersey as a
Leader--the first to grant suffrage to women. They voted from 1776
until the Legislature took away the right in 1807.
At the afternoon session of the last day Mrs. Lizzie D. Fyler, a
lawyer of Arkansas, gave an extended résumé of the legal and
educational position of women in that State, which was shown to be in
advance of many of the eastern and western States. George W. Clark,
one of the old Abolition singers contemporaneous with the Hutchinsons,
expressed a strong belief in woman suffrage and offered a tribute of
song to Wendell Phillips. Brief addresses were made by Mrs. J. Ellen
Foster (Ia.) and Mrs. Morrison (Mass.). A letter of greeting was read
from the corresponding secretary, Rachel G. Foster, Julia and Mrs.
Julia Foster (Penn.), written in Florence, Italy. Mrs. Caroline Gilkey
Rogers described School Suffrage in Lansingburgh, N. Y.
An eloquent address was made by Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.),
in which she said:
There are a great many excellent people in the world who are
strongly prejudiced against what they designate "isms," but who
are always glad of any opportunity of serving God, as they
express it. I ask what can finite beings do to serve Omnipotence
unless it be to exert all their powers for the good of humanity,
for the uplifting of man, which, if aught of ours could do, must
rejoice our Creator. When we see more than one-half of the adult
human family--reasonably industrious and intelligent, if we make
for them no larger claim, and certainly the _raison d'etre_ of
the other half--called to account by the laws of the land and
held in strict obedience to them without the slightest voice in
their making, with neither form nor shadow of representation
before State or country, do we not see that there rests upon the
entire race a stigma that materialist and idealist, agnostic and
churchman, should each and all hasten to remove?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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