against being compelled to submit to that injustice. She said: I wish to vote, that women may have, by law, an equal right with men in property. In October, 1851, I went to pay my taxes in Boston. Going into the Assessor's office, I saw a tall, thin, weak, stupid-looking Irish boy. It was near election time, and I looked at him scrutinizingly. He held in his hand a document, which, I found on inquiry, was one of naturalization; and this hopeful son of Erin was made a citizen of the United States, and he could have a voice in determining the destinies of this mighty nation, while thousands of intellectual women, daughters of the soil, no matter how intelligent, how respectable, or what amount of taxes they paid, were forced to be dumb!
Now, I am glad to pay my taxes, am glad that my profession enables me to pay them; but I would like very much to have a voice in directing what is to be done with the money I pay. I meditated on what I had seen, and, in 1852, when paying my taxes, I took to the Treasurer's office my protest.
The case of the Hon. Mrs. Norton before the English courts, then attracting much attention, was a fair exemplification of the injustice of the law to married women.
Lucy Stone said: I have before me, in a newspaper, a case which shows strongly the necessity for woman's legislating for herself. I mean the case of the Hon. Mrs. Norton, which lately transpired in a court in London, and which fully proves that it is never right for one class to legislate for another. There are, probably, few here who have not been made better and wiser by the beautiful things which have fallen from the pen of that lady. In 1836 her husband obtained a separation from her on the charge of infidelity. Eighteen years of a blameless life since, and the conviction every pure mind must feel, that nothing impure could ever dwell in a mind such as her productions show hers to be, will fully relieve her of any suspicion that she ever was guilty of acts justifying that charge. She was a woman of transcendent abilities; and her works brought her in £1,000 a year—sometimes more, sometimes less. This her husband procured to be paid over to himself, by securing the profits of her copyrights; and this husband allowed her only £400 a year! and, at last, refused to pay her even this sum; so that, for her necessary expenses, she was obliged to go into debt, and her debtors brought a suit against her husband, which was taken into court. In the court she stood before her husband's lawyer, and said to him: "If you are afraid of what I may say, beware how you ask me questions!" Wealth and power were against her, and the lawyer did ask questions which wrung from her what she had concealed for seventeen long years, and the world at last knew how her husband had kept the money she earned by her pen. She stood in court, and said: "I do not ask for rights; I have no rights, I have only wrongs. I will go abroad, and live with my son." Her husband had proposed to take her children from her, but she said: "I would rather starve than give them up." And for a time she did starve. I will read for you her poem of "Twilight," and you will all see what kind of woman has been so wronged, and has so suffered.
That woman, gifted, noble, and wealthy, with such great yearnings in her soul, whose heart was so bound up in her children, was thus robbed
