Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/593

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
The Two most hated Elements.
567

woman who had "harbored" and detained her from her husband, though with her own consent and desire, should pay him $10,000. He recovered this sum on the principle of ownership; the wife's services were due him, and he recovered their value.

Mrs. Gage also commented on the divorce laws, which she declared were less just in Christian than in Mohammedan countries. In those countries if the husband sues for a divorce he is obliged to restore the dower, but in Christian America the husband not only retains all the property in case he sues for a divorce, but where the wife, being the innocent party, sues, she even then receives neither property nor children, unless by an express decree of the court. She is alike punished, whether innocent or guilty. Mrs. Gage also discussed the question so often put, "What has woman to do with politics?" She said the country must look to women for its salvation.

Sojourner Truth, a tall colored woman, well known in antislavery circles, and called the Lybian Sybil, made her appearance on the platform. This was the signal for a fresh outburst from the mob; for at every session every man of them was promptly in his place, at twenty-five cents ahead. And this was the one redeeming feature of this mob — it paid all expenses, and left a surplus in the treasury. Sojourner combined in herself, as an individual, the two most hated elements of humanity. She was black, and she was a woman, and all the insults that could be cast upon color and sex were together hurled at her; but there she stood, calm and dignified, a grand, wise woman, who could neither read nor write, and yet with deep insight could penetrate the very soul of the universe about her. As soon as the terrible turmoil was in a measure quelled

She Said: Is it not good for me to come and draw forth a spirit, to see what kind of spirit people are of? I see that some of you have got the spirit of a goose, and some have got the spirit of a snake. I feel at home here. I come to you, citizens of New York, as I suppose you ought to be. I am a citizen of the State of New York; I was born in it, and I was a slave in the State of New York; and now I am a good citizen of this State. I was born here, and I can tell you I feel at home here. I've been lookin' round and watchin' things, and I know a little mite bout Woman's Rights, too. I come forth to speak 'bout Woman's Rights, and want to throwin my little mite, to keep the scales a-movin'. I know that it feels a kind o' hissin' and ticklin' like to see a colored woman get up and tell you about things, and Woman's Rights. We have all been thrown down so low that nobody thought we'd ever get up again; but we have been long enough trodden now; we will come up again, and now I am here. I was a-thinkin', when I see women contendin' for their rights, I was athinkin' what a difference there is now, and what there was in old times. I have only a few minutes to speak; but in the old times the kings of