Blackwell, the first ordained woman minister; Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Mrs. Stanton; Mrs. Fanny Garrison Villard, daughter of William Lloyd Garrison, a pioneer; the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer, an early leader in Rhode Island, and Miss Laura Clay, at the head of the movement in Kentucky almost from its beginning. Among the later generation were the Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane (Mich.), Miss Julie R. Jenney (N. Y.), Mrs. Ella S. Stewart (Ill.), Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (N. Y.) and Mrs. Judith Hyams Douglas (La.).
Of most of these addresses there is no printed record. Mrs. Gilman commented on the resolution that "the laws which place woman in a position inferior to that of man are contrary to the great precept of nature," saying in part: "Woman has the same right to happiness and justice as an individual that man has and as the mother of the race she has more.... Women have a right to citizenship and to all that citizenship implies, not only for their own sake but especially because the world needs them. We have the masculine and the feminine but above them both is the human, which has nothing to do with sex. The argument for equal freedom and equal opportunities for women rests not on the law of the worthy Mr. Blackstone but on the law of nature, which is the law of God.... "
Mrs. Blackwell said in response to the resolution that "as man accords to woman moral superiority it is his pre-eminent duty to encourage her to speak and teach in religious assemblies": "You cannot realize how serious a thing it was to be a minister in early days when St. Paul was taken literally. I know from personal experience that nearly all the religious world in those days believed it to be a sin for a woman to try to preach. My own mother urged me to become a foreign missionary instead; she was willing to send her daughter away to other lands rather than have her become a minister at home. At 18 I was considered as well-fitted for college as the half dozen young men among my schoolmates who were going to take a college course. At that time Oberlin, O., was the only college that admitted women. When I arrived there Lucy Stone had pretty well stirred up the whole institution. I was warned against her in advance but we soon became warm friends. One beautiful evening we walked
