The aggressions of the slaveocracy during the first half century of our national existence alarmed the non-slaveholding portion of the country. And almost at the same time, in the progress of civilization, the era was reached when the enlightened conscience of the civilized world demanded the abolition of slavery. Slowly routed from the dominions of other nations by the manumission of the bondmen, or the purchase of their freedom, slavery seemed at last to have intrenched itself on American soil, and to dominate American civilization. A struggle with it was inevitable. Some of the grandest men and women of the nation entered the lists against it, for the early Abolitionists were remarkable people. It is only necessary to mention the names of some of the leaders in that holy war, to summon up visions of manly beauty and womanly grace, men and women endowed with ability, culture, character, refinement, courage, and social charm. Their public speech blazed with remorseless moral logic, and thrilled with matchless eloquence, so that crowds flocked to hear them, wherever they spoke. Garrison and Phillips, Sumner and Parker, Birney and Pierpont, Gerrit Smith and Theodore Weld—what men of their day surpassed them in manliness, moral force, and persuasive and convincing speech? They were supplemented and complemented by noble women, unlike them, and yet every whit their peers—Maria Weston Chapman and Lydia Maria Child, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelly, Helen Garrison and Ann Greene Phillips.[163] Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. Child put to the service of the great reform pens tipped with flame, and wielded with consummate energy and skill. And the Grimké sisters, who had manumitted their slaves in Charleston, S. C., and come North to advocate Antislavery doctrines, with Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelly, entranced large audiences with their eloquent discourse, and roused the dormant moral sense of their hearers into protest against the colossal sin of the nation. Conservatives in church and state were alarmed. War was declared against the eloquent women, and it was decided that they should be silenced, and not allowed to act or vote in the business meetings of the Antislavery Society. This brought about a division in the organization before it had reached its first decade. A double battle was now forced on the Garrisonian Abolitionists—a battle for the rights of woman as well as for the freedom of the slave. The doctrine of human rights was discussed anew, broadly and exhaustively, and it was demonstrated that the rights of man and woman were identical. Antislavery platforms resounded with the demand that liberty, justice, and equality be accorded to women, and the anti-slavery press teemed with arguments for women’s rights, which are repeated in the woman suffrage meetings of the present time.