Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/888

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
854
History of Woman Suffrage.

ing the house. This is "the good time coming." Besides the classes we have enumerated, there is a class of wild enthusiasts and visionaries — very sincere, but very mad — having the same vein as the fanatical Abolitionists, and the majority, if not all of them, being, in point of fact, deeply imbued with the anti-slavery sentiment. Of the male sex who attend these Conventions for the purpose of taking a part in them, the majority are hen-pecked husbands, and all of them ought to wear petticoats.

In point of ability, the majority of the women are flimsy, flippant, and superficial. Mrs. Rose alone indicates much argumentative power.

How did woman first become subject to man as she now is all over the world? By her nature, her sex, just as the negro is and always will be, to the end of time, inferior to the white race, and, therefore, doomed to subjection; but happier than she would be in any other condition, just because it is the law of her nature. The women themselves would not have this law reversed. It is a significant fact that even Mrs. Swisshelm, who formerly ran about to all such gatherings from her husband, is now "a keeper at home," and condemns these Conventions in her paper. How does this happen? Because, after weary years of unfruitfulness, she has at length got her rights in the shape of a baby. This is the best cure for the mania, and we would recommend a trial of it to all who are afflicted.

What do the leaders of the Woman's Rights Convention want? They want to vote, and to hustle with the rowdies at the polls. They want to be members of Congress, and in the heat of debate to subject themselves to coarse jests and indecent language, like that of Rev. Mr. Hatch. They want to fill all other posts which men are ambitious to occupy — to be lawyers, doctors, captains of vessels, and generals in the field. How funny it would sound in the newspapers, that Lucy Stone, pleading a cause, took suddenly ill in the pains of parturition, and perhaps gave birth to a fine bouncing boy in court! Or that Rev. Antoinette Brown was arrested in the middle of her sermon in the pulpit from the same cause, and presented a "pledge "to her husband and the congregation; or, that Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, while attending a gentleman patient for a fit of the gout or fistula in ano, found it necessary to send for a doctor, there and then, and to be delivered of a man or woman child — perhaps twins. A similar event might happen on the floor of Congress, in a storm at sea, or in the raging tempest of battle, and then what is to become of the woman legislator?

WORLD'S TEMPERANCE CONVENTION.

comments of the press.

"The New York Herald" (editorial article), September 9, 1853.

. . . . "We are at length — praised be the stars! — drawing to the termination of the clamorous conventions, which have kept the city in a state of ferment and agitation, excitement and fun, for the past two weeks. ....

"The World's Temperance Convention commenced its sittings on Tuesday, and is still in session. This organization was calculated to effect much good, had it not been leavened with the elements of discord, which had brought contempt and ridicule on that of the 'Whole World.' The Rev. Miss Antoinette Brown cast the brand of disorder into it, by presenting herself as a delegate from the other association. This was a virtual declaration of Woman's Rights, and a resolute effort to have them recognized by the Convention. Neal Dow, as President and as a man of gallantry, decided on receiving Miss Antoinette's credentials, and for a time victory appeared to smile on the Amazons. The triumph, however, was only ephemeral and illusive. The motion was put and carried that none but the officers and invited guests of the Convention should be permitted to occupy places on the platform, and so, by this indirect movement, Miss Brown saw herself, in the moment of her brightest hopes, expelled from the stage, and once more the Anti-Woman's Righters were in the ascendancy.

"This was on Tuesday. Next day another stormy scene, arising from the same cause, was enacted. The meek, temperate Dow — the light of the reformation, the apostle of the Maine Liquor Law, the President of the World's Temperance Convention — no longer able to control the stormy elements which had developed themselves in the council,