York. A large number of the life-long friends were on the platform and a fine audience in attendance. Mrs. Stanton called the meeting to order and read the call.[1] She said, after due consultation the committee had decided that as Mrs. Davis had called the first National Convention twenty years ago, and presided over its deliberations, it was peculiarly fitting that she should preside over this also. A motion was made and seconded to that effect, and unanimously adopted. On taking the chair Mrs. Davis gave the following resumé of the Woman's Rights movement:
In assembling to review the past twenty years, it is a fitting question to ask if there has been progress; or has this universal radical reform, which was then declared, been like reformations in religion, but a substitution of a new error for an old one; or, like physical revolutions, but a rebellion? Has this work, intended from its inception to change the structure of the central organization of society, failed and become a monument of buried hopes? Have we come together after twenty years, bowed with a profound grief over the wreck and debris of the battle unwon, or to rejoice over what has been attained, and mark out work for the next decade?
We answer, in many things we have failed, for we believed and hoped beyond the possible; but reviewing the past we have only cause for rejoicing—for thanksgiving to God—and for courage in the future. We affirmed a principle, an adjustment of measures to the exigencies of the times, a profound expediency true to the highest principles of rights, and to-day we reiterate the axiom with which we started, that "They who would be free, themselves must strike the blow," believing it as imperative as when the
- ↑ Woman Suffrage Celebration.—The twentieth anniversary of the inauguration of the woman suffrage movement in this country, will be celebrated in Apollo Hall, in the city of New York, on the 19th and 20th of October, 1870. The movement in England, as in America, may be dated from the first National Convention, held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1850. The July following that convention, a favorable criticism of its proceedings and an able digest of the whole question appeared in the Westminster Review, written by Mrs. John Stuart Mill, which awakened attention in both hemispheres. In the call for that convention, the following subjects for discussion were presented: Woman's right to education, literary, scientific and artistic; her avocations, industrial, commercial and professional; her interests, pecuniary, civil and political: in a word, her rights as an individual, and her functions as a citizen. It is hoped that the Old and the New World will both be largely represented by the earlier advocates of this reform who will bring with them reports of progress and plans for future action. An extensive foreign correspondence will also add interest to the meetings. We specially invite the presence of those just awakening to an interest in this great movement, that from a knowledge of the past they may draw fresh inspiration for the work of the future and fraternize with a generation now rapidly passing away. As those who inaugurated a reform, so momentous and far reaching in its consequences, should hold themselves above all party considerations and personal antagonisms, and as this gathering is to be in no way connected with either of our leading woman suffrage organizations, we hope that the friends of real progress everywhere will come together and unitedly celebrate this Twentieth Anniversary of a great National Movement for Freedom.
Committee of Arrangements.—Lucretia Mott, Sarah Pugh, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Ernestine L. Rose, Samuel J. May, Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols. On behalf of the Committee,
Paulina W. Davis, Chairman.
