of the distinguished women who there enunciated a "declaration of sentiments" equal to the old Declaration of Independence, and founded on a similar list of grievances as those which provoked and justified the Revolutionary war. Especially will you note the speech of a woman there, hardly thirty years of age, which for philosophic comprehension of the great truths of liberty and responsibility, for patriotism and eloquence, has not been surpassed in the history of our country. This alone should be sufficient to send the name of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, side by side with the grandest of our revolutionary statesmen, down to the latest posterity.
The moving spirit of the occasion, however, we are told, was Lucretia Mott, who spoke with her usual eloquence to a large and intelligent audience on the subject of "Reform in General," and, from time to time, during the numerous sessions of the Convention, swayed the assembly by her beautiful and spiritual appeals, and was the first to affix her name to this prophetic and inspired "Declaration of sentiments"—an act which she will tell you to-day, I trust, has brought to her more joy than, perhaps, any other act of her life.
Had I the means, the printed report of this Convention should be placed in the hands of every woman in the United States capable of reading it and understanding its high import. And, my friends, if this could be done, our labors would be well nigh ended, and those women who so desire might approach the polls unmolested, leaving their sisters "who have all the rights they want" in the comfortable security of homes made twice secure in that they are guarded by the watchful care of the mothers as well as by the courage of the fathers of the republic. That these noble women, so intensely in earnest to secure the blessings of liberty to all their posterity, and so deeply conscious of the heavy responsibilities of such a trust, should have suspended their claims during the season of our civil war, and have thrown themselves into the contest for the rights of enslaved black men, is only new proof, where none was wanting, of the unselfishness of their nature, and the purity of their motive. But the war being over, and a new million of black males being added to the many million white males as rulers of the land, what do we find to-day? Susan B. Anthony, the Garrison of the woman's rights movement, not dragged by a rope round her neck, through the streets of Rochester, precisely, but indicted for the crime of attempting to vote for her rulers, she being an honest citizen of the United States, and a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen of the State of New York! Nevertheless, permit me, dear friend, to congratulate you upon the immense progress in our work which this indicates. It is but a little time since you and your illustrious compeers were counted only worthy of jests and sneers or contemptuous neglect. That you are called to-day to answer for the crime of loving liberty too well, declares to us who are watching your career, that the beginning of the end is close at hand, that slavery is soon to cease, and reconstruction to begin under the auspices of noble women not a few, and of the noble men who have acted as a body-guard through all these years of struggle.
I have heard that with your accustomed indomitableness you have been attempting to instruct your possible jurors of the county upon the just principles of personal liberty and a republican form of government. But have you considered in doing this to what an incompetent jury you are possibly