In our time, when the admission of women to participation in nearly every form of activity is universally accepted, it may seem extraordinary that the American Antislavery Society should have divided upon such an issue. But what is now a familiar custom was then a strange doctrine, the consequences of which were unknown and were dreaded by conservative people. The abolitionists whose votes admitted women to equal rights with men contended that women were among the most useful and influential workers for the cause and that they should have a corresponding position in the councils of the party. It was denied that active participation in the meetings of the societies was inappropriate to their sex. On the other hand, it was believed by many persons earnestly and usefully engaged in the cause of emancipation that the antislavery society should pursue its end unimpeded and undisturbed by outside issues. The emancipation of woman might be a highly desirable reform, but it should be sought separately from the emancipation of the negro. An individual should be allowed to labour for the slave without being forced to support untried theories regarding woman's rights and the sinfulness of human government. At this period Judge Jay was especially active with his pen. In 1839 was published his "View of the Action of the Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery." This work was the first effective exposure of the manner in which the United States Government had been used for many years by pro-slavery statesmen to carry out their own ends. Judge Jay showed the shameful position in which the National Government had been placed before the nations of the world when the President and his diplomatic representatives were forced by the Slave Power to demand the return of fugitive slaves and compensation for their loss when shipwreck had allowed them to attain liberty on a foreign shore; when the armies of the United States were sent to Florida at enormous expense to capture alleged runaway private property; when the power of the Government was strained to prevent abolition in Cuba and to introduce slavery into Texas. The efforts to suppress the right of petition and freedom of debate in Congress were thoroughly described. An account, humiliating to every American, was given of the condition of the national capital itself, converted by the fostering protection of the United States Government into the chief slave-market of the Union.