Читать книгу The History of Woman Suffrage - Various - Страница 62

The following interesting correspondence in regard to the exclusion of women from the World's Convention, reveals the fact that the action was the result, after all, of religious bigotry more than prejudice against sex. And this opinion is further confirmed by the decided opposition promptly manifested to Lucretia Mott's proposal to have a series of meetings for women alone. Some of the Orthodox Friends said they were afraid, that under the plea of discussing emancipation for the slave, other subjects might be introduced. Mrs. Mott, desiring to know what Daniel O'Connell thought of the action of the Convention, wrote him as follows:

To Daniel O'Connell, M.P.:

The rejected delegates from America to the "General Anti-Slavery Conference," are desirous to have the opinion of one of the most distinguished advocates of universal liberty, as to the reasons urged by the majority for their rejection, viz: that the admission of women being contrary to English usage would subject them to ridicule, and that such recognition of their acknowledged principles would prejudice the cause of human freedom.

Permit me, then, on behalf of the delegation, to ask Daniel O'Connell the favor of his sentiments as incidentally expressed in the meeting on the morning of the 13th inst., and oblige his sincere friend,

Lucretia Mott.

London, sixth mo., 17, 1840.

16 Pall Mall, 20th June, 1840.

Madam:—Taking the liberty of protesting against being supposed to adopt any of the complimentary phrases in your letter as being applicable to me, I readily comply with your request to give my opinion as to the propriety of the admission of the female delegates into the Convention.

I should premise by avowing that my first impression was strong against that admission; and I believe I declared that opinion in private conversation. But when I was called on by you to give my personal decision on the subject, I felt it my duty to investigate the grounds of the opinion I had formed; and upon that investigation I easily discovered that it was founded on no better grounds than an apprehension of the ridicule it might excite if the Convention were to do what is so unusual in England—admit women to an equal share and right of the discussion. I also without difficulty recognized that this was an unworthy, and, indeed, a cowardly motive, and I easily overcame its influence.

My mature consideration of the entire subject convinces me of the right of the female delegates to take their seats in the Convention, and of the injustice of excluding them. I do not care to add that I deem it also impolitic; because, that exclusion being unjust, it ought not to have taken place even if it could also be politic. My reasons are:

First. That as it has been the practice in America for females to act as delegates and office-bearers, as well as in common capacity of members of Anti-Slavery Societies, the persons who called this Convention ought to have warned the American Anti-Slavery Societies to confine their choice to males, and for want of this caution many female delegates have made long journeys by land and crossed the ocean to enjoy a right which they had no reason to fear would be withheld from them at the end of their tedious voyage.

Secondly. The cause which is so intimately interwoven with every good feeling of humanity and with the highest and most sacred principles of Christianity—the Anti-Slavery cause in America—is under the greatest, the deepest, the most heart-binding obligations to the females who have joined the Anti-Slavery Societies in the United States. They have shown a passive but permanent courage, which ought to put many of the male advocates to the blush. The American ladies have persevered in our holy cause amidst difficulties and dangers, with the zeal of confessors and the firmness of martyrs; and, therefore, emphatically they should not be disparaged or discouraged by any slight or contumely offered to their rights. Neither are this slight and contumely much diminished by the fact that it was not intended to offer any slight or to convey any contumely. Both results inevitably follow from the fact of rejection. This ought not to be.

Thirdly. Even in England, with all our fastidiousness, women vote upon the great regulation of the Bank of England; in the nomination of its directors and governors, and in all other details equally with men; that is, they assist in the most awfully important business—the regulation of the currency of this mighty Empire—influencing the fortunes of all commercial nations.

Fourthly. Our women in like manner vote at the India House; that is, in the regulation of the government of more than one hundred millions of human beings.

Fifthly. Mind has no sex; and in the peaceable struggle to abolish slavery all over the world, it is the basis of the present Convention to seek success by peaceable, moral, and intellectual means alone, to the utter exclusion of armed violence. We are engaged in a strife not of strength, but of argument. Our warfare is not military; it is Christian. We wield not the weapons of destruction or injury to our adversaries. We rely entirely on reason and persuasion common to both sexes, and on the emotions of benevolence and charity, which are more lovely and permanent amongst women than amongst men.

In the Church to which I belong the female sex are devoted by as strict rules and with as much, if not more, unceasing austerity to the performance (and that to the exclusion of all worldly or temporal joys and pleasures) of all works of humanity, of education, of benevolence, and of charity, in all its holy and sacred branches, as the men. The great work in which we are now engaged embraces all these charitable categories; and the women have the same duties, and should, therefore, enjoy the same rights with men in the performance of their duties.

I have a consciousness that I have not done my duty in not sooner urging these considerations on the Convention. My excuse is that I was unavoidably absent during the discussion on the subject.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, madam,

Your obedient servant,

Daniel O'Connell.

Lucretia Mott.

The following earnest and friendly letter from William Howitt, was highly prized by Mrs. Mott:

London, June 27, 1840.

Dear Friend:—. … I regret that I was prevented from making a part of the Convention, as nothing should have hindered me from stating there in the plainest terms my opinion of the real grounds on which you were rejected. It is a pity that you were excluded on the plea of being women; but it is disgusting that under that plea you were actually excluded as heretics. That is the real ground, and it ought to have been at once proclaimed and exposed by the liberal members of the Convention; but I believe they were not aware of the fact. I heard of the circumstance of your exclusion at a distance, and immediately said: "Excluded on the ground that they are women?" No, that is not the real cause; there is something behind. And what are these female delegates? Are they orthodox in religion? The answer was "No, they are considered to be of the Hicksite party of Friends." My reply was, "That is enough; there lies the real cause, and there needs no other. The influential Friends in the Convention would never for a moment tolerate their presence there if they could prevent it. They hate them because they have dared to call in question their sectarian dogmas and assumed authority; and they have taken care to brand them in the eyes of the Calvinistic Dissenters, who form another large and influential portion of the Convention, as Unitarians; in their eyes the most odious of heretics."

But what a miserable spectacle is this! The "World's Convention" converting itself into the fag-end of the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends! That Convention met from various countries and climates to consider how it shall best advance the sacred cause of humanity; of the freedom of the race, independent of caste or color, immediately falls the victim of bigotry; and one of its first acts is to establish a caste of sectarian opinion, and to introduce color into the very soul! Had I not seen of late years a good deal of the spirit which now rules the Society of Friends, my surprise would have been unbounded at seeing them argue for the exclusion of women from a public assembly, as women. But nothing which they do now surprises me. They have in this case to gratify their wretched spirit of intolerance, at once abandoned one of the most noble and most philosophical of the established principles of their own Society.

That Society claims, and claims justly, to be the first Christian party which has recognized the great Christian doctrine that there is no sex in souls; that male and female are one in Christ Jesus. There were Fox and Penn and the first giants of the Society who dared in the face of the world's prejudices to place woman in her first rank; to recognize and maintain her moral and intellectual equality. It was this Society which thus gave to woman her inalienable rights, her true liberty; which restored to her the exercise of mind, and the capacity to exhibit before her assumed ancient lord and master, the highest qualities of the human heart and understanding; discretion, sound counsel, sure sagacity, mingled with feminine delicacy, and that beautiful innate modesty which avails more to restrain its possessor within the bounds of prudence and usefulness than all the laws of corrupt society. It was this Society which, at once fearless in its confidence in woman's goodness and sense of propriety, gave its female portion its own meetings of discipline, meetings of civil discussion and transaction of actual and various business. It was this Society which did more; which permitted its women in the face of a great apostolic injunction to stand forth in its churches and preach the Gospel. It has, in fact, sent them out armed with the authority of its certificates to the very ends of the earth to preach in public; to visit and persuade in private.

And what has been the consequence? Have the women put their faith And philosophy to shame? Have they disgraced themselves or the Society which has confided in them? Have they proved by their follies, their extravagances, their unwomanly boldness and want of a just sense of decorum that these great men were wrong? On the contrary, I will venture to say, and I have seen something of all classes, that there is not in the whole civilized world a body of women to be found of the same numbers, who exhibit more modesty of manner and delicacy of mind than the ladies of the Society of Friends; and few who equal them in sound sense and dignity of character. There can be no question that the recognition of the moral and intellectual equality of the most lovely and interesting portion of our Society has tended, and that very materially, to raise them greatly in value as wives, as bosom friends and domestic counselors, whose inestimable worth is only discovered in times of trial and perplexity.

And here have gone the little men of the present day, and have knocked down in the face of the world all that their ancestors, in this respect, had built up! If they are at all consistent they must carry out their new principle and sweep it through the ancient constitution of their own Society. They must at once put down meetings of discipline among their women; they must call home such as are in distant countries, or are traversing this, preaching and visiting families. There must be no appointments of women to meet committees of men to deliberate on matters of great importance to the Society. But the fact is, my dear friend, that bigotry is never consistent except that is always narrow, always ungracious, and always under plea of uniting God's people, scattering them one from another, and rendering them weak as water.

I want to know what religious opinions have to do with a "World's Convention." Did you meet to settle doctrines, or to conspire against slavery? Many an august council has attempted to settle doctrines, and in vain; and you had before you a subject so vast, so pressing, so momentous, that in presence of its sublimity, any petty jealousy and fancied idea of superiority ought to have fallen as dust from the boughs of a cedar. You as delegates, had to meet this awful fact in the face, and to consider how it should be grappled with; how the united power of civilized nations should be brought to bear upon it! The fact that after nearly a century of gradually growing and accumulating efforts to put down slavery and the slave trade, little has been done; that there are now more slaves in the world than ever, and that the slave trade is far more extensive and monstrous than it was when Clarkson raised his voice against its extinction; that is a fact which, if the men who now take the lead in warring on the evil were truly great men, it would silence in them every other feeling than that of its enormity, and the godlike resolve that all hands and all hearts should be raised before Heaven and united in its spirit to chase this spreading villainy from the earth speedily and forever. But men, however benevolent, can not be great men if they are bigots. Bigots are like the peasants who build their cabins in the mighty palaces of the ancient Cæsars. The Cæsars who raised the past fabrics are gone, and the power in which they raised them is gone with them. Poor and little men raise their huts within those august palace walls, and fancy themselves the inhabitants of the palaces themselves. So in the mighty fane of Christianity, bigots and sectarians are continually rearing their little cabins of sects and parties, and would fain persuade us, while they fill their own narrow tenements, that they fill the glorious greatness of Christianity itself!

It is surely high time that after eighteen hundred years of Christ's reign we should be prepared to allow each other to hold an opinion on the most important of all subjects to ourselves! It is surely time that we opened our eyes sufficiently to see what is so plain in the Gospel: the sublime difference between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of His disciples when they fain would have made a bigot of Him. "We saw men doing miracles in thy name; and we forbade them." "Forbid them not, for they who are not against us are for us." It is not by doctrines that Christ said His disciples should be known, but by their fruits; and by the greatest of all fruits—love.

You, dear friend, and those noble women to whom I address myself when addressing you, have shown in your own country the grand Christian testimonial of love to mankind in the highest degree. You have put your lives in your hands for the sake of man's freedom from caste, color, and mammon; and the greatest disgrace that has of late years befallen this country is, that you have been refused admittance as delegates to the Convention met ostensibly to work that very work for which you have so generously labored and freely suffered. The Convention has not merely insulted you, but those who sent you. It has testified that the men of America are at least far ahead of us in their opinion of the discretion and usefulness of women. But above all, this act of exclusion has shown how far the Society of Friends is fallen from its ancient state of greatness and catholic nobleness of spirit.

But my time is gone. I have not said one-half, one-tenth, one-hundredth part of what I could say to you and to your companions on this subject; but of this be assured, time and your own delegators will do you justice. The true Christians in all ages were the heretics of the time; and this I say not because I believe exactly as you do, for in truth I neither know nor desire to know exactly how far we think alike. All that I know or want to know is, that you have shown the grand mark of Christian truth—love to mankind.

I have heard the noble Garrison blamed that he had not taken his place in the Convention because you and your fellow-delegates were excluded. I, on the contrary, honor him for his conduct. In mere worldly wisdom he might have entered the Convention and there made his protest against the decision; but in at once refusing to enter where you, his fellow-delegates, were shut out, he has made a far nobler protest; not in the mere Convention, but in the world at large. I honor the lofty principle of that true champion of humanity, and shall always recollect with delight, the day Mary and I spent with you and him.

I must apologize for this most hasty and I fear illegible scrawl, and with our kind regards and best wishes for your safe return to your native country, and for many years of honorable labor there for the truth and freedom, I beg to subscribe myself,

Most sincerely your friend,

William Howitt.

Harriet Martineau, who had visited Mrs. Mott when in America, and was prevented from attending the Convention by illness, wrote as follows:

I can not be satisfied without sending you a line of love and sympathy. I think much of you amidst your present trials, and much indeed have I thought of you and your cause since we parted. May God strengthen you. It is a comfort to me that two of my best friends, Mrs. Reid and Julia Smith, are there to look upon you with eyes of love. I hear of you from them, for busy as they are, they remember me from day to day, and make me a partaker of your proceedings. … I can not but grieve for you in the heart-sickness which you have experienced this last week. We must trust that the spirit of Christ will in time enlarge the hearts of those who claim his name, that the whites as well as the blacks will in time be free.

After the Convention, Mrs. Mott visited Miss Martineau, who was an invalid, staying at Tynemouth, for the benefit of sea air. And on her return to London, she received another letter, from which we extract the following:

I felt hardly as if I knew what I was about that morning, but I was very happy, and I find that I remember every look and word. I did not make all the use I might of the opportunity; but when are we ever wise enough to do it? I do not think we shall ever meet again in this world, and I believe that was in your mind when you said farewell. I feel that I have derived somewhat from my intercourse with you that will never die, and I am thankful that we have been permitted to meet. You will tell the Furnesses (Rev. Wm. H.) where and how you found me. Tell them of my cheerful room and fine down and sea. I wish my friends would suffer for me no more than I do for myself. I hope you have yet many years of activity and enjoyment before you. My heart will ever be in your cause and my love with yourself.

In James Mott's published volume, "Three months in Great Britain," he speaks of many distinguished persons who extended to them most gracious hospitalities, for although Mrs. Mott had been ostracised by some of the more bigoted "Friends," others were correspondingly marked in their attentions. Among such was that noble-hearted young woman, Elizabeth Pease, of Darlington, who was one of the first to call upon them on their arrival in London, and the last to bid them farewell on the morning they sailed from Liverpool; having in company with her father gone from Manchester for that purpose. Her cultivated mind and fine talents were devoted to subjects of reform, with an energy and perseverance rarely equaled.

Ann Knight, another sincere friend and advocate of human rights, was quite indignant, that a Convention called for such liberal measures should reject women on the flimsy plea, "that it being contrary to English usage, it would subject them to ridicule and prejudice their cause." She was unremitting in her attentions to the American women, doing many things to make their visit pleasant while in London, and afterward, entertaining several as guests in her own "quiet home." Amelia Opie, with her happy face and genial manners, was in constant attendance at the Convention. On entering one of the sessions, she accosted Mrs. Mott, saying, "though in one sense the women delegates were rejected, yet they were held in high esteem, and their coming would have immense influence on the action of future assemblies."

At the "Crown and Anchor," one evening, the members of the Convention took a parting cup of tea; nearly five hundred persons were present. As the resolution excluding women did not extend to this company, Mrs. Mott gave her views on the use of slave products, which were well received. In the course of her remarks she referred to the example and faithfulness of the "Society of Friends," in using as far as possible the produce of free labor in their families. Josiah Forster, ever vigilant on the battlements of bigotry, could not allow this allusion to pass unnoticed, and when Mrs. Mott sat down, he arose and said he "could not conscientiously refrain from informing the company, that Mrs. Mott did not represent the Society of Friends. He did so with no other than feelings of kindness, but,"—when he had proceeded thus far it was evident he was about to disclaim religious fellowship with her, and a general burst of disapprobation was manifested by cries of "down, down! order, order! shame, shame!"—but he finished his disavowal amidst the confusion, though few heard what he said, neither did they wish to hear his expressions of intolerance. As soon as he had finished his speech he left the room, probably displeased that his feelings met with so little sympathy, or at the manifestation of dissatisfaction with his remarks.

At a dinner party, at Elizabeth J. Reid's, a few days after, Lady Byron was one of the company; with whom Mr. and Mrs. Mott had a previous acquaintance, through a letter of introduction from George Combe. As Colonel Miller, one of the American delegation, had been in the Greek war with Lord Byron, and knew him well, several interesting interviews with the wife and daughter grew out of that acquaintance. They also visited Dr. Bowring and his interesting family several times, and on one occasion met there Charles Pelham Villiers, the leading advocate in Parliament for the modification of their corn laws. Dr. Bowring was a near neighbor and great admirer of Jeremy Bentham, and entertained them with many anecdotes of his original friend. William H. Ashurst, a lawyer of eminence in London, gave them a cordial welcome to his family circle, where they met William and Mary Howitt, and Robert Owen, the philanthropist. Mr. Ashurst took an active part in favor of reducing the postage on letters and papers.

At Birmingham, they passed a few days with their liberal "Friend," William Boultbee, and visited several of the great manufacturing establishments. Here they made the acquaintance of a Catholic priest, Thomas M. McDonald, a man of broad views and marked liberality. He tendered Mrs. Mott the use of a large room at his disposal, and urged her to hold a meeting. At Liverpool, they were the guests of William Rathbone and family. In Dublin, they met James Houghton, Richard Allen, Richard Webb, and the Huttons, who entertained them most hospitably and gave them many charming drives in and about the city. At Edinburgh, they joined Sarah Pugh and Abby Kimber, who had just returned from the Continent, and had a cordial reception at the home of George Thompson. They passed two days with George Combe, the great phrenologist, who examined and complimented Mrs. Mott's head, as indicating a strong symmetrical character. They took tea with his brother, Andrew Combe, the author of that admirable work on "Infancy," which has proved a real blessing to many young mothers.

At a meeting in Glasgow, to hear George Thompson on the subject of British India, Mrs. Mott asked the chairman for the liberty of addressing the audience for a few minutes, but was denied, though a colored man, Charles Lenox Remond, of Salem, Massachusetts, was listened to with attention, as he had been in London and other places, showing that the unholy prejudice against color was not so bitter in England as that against sex. George Harris, the minister of the Unitarian Chapel in Glasgow, cordially extended to Mrs. Mott the use of his church for a lecture on slavery, which was gladly accepted. The house was crowded, and there was abundant reason to believe the people were well pleased. But the small handful of "Friends" in that city did not suffer so good an opportunity of disclaiming them to pass, and accordingly had the following communication published in the papers:

To the Editor of the Glasgow Gazette:

Respected Friend:—Intimation having been given on the 8th, current, by means of placards extensively posted throughout the city, that "On Sabbath first, the 9th instant, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, a minister of the Society of Friends, Philadelphia, would hold a meeting in the Christian Unitarian Chapel"; and that the meeting was held and numerously attended by our fellow-citizens, we deem it right on behalf of the Society of Friends residing in Glasgow, to inform the public that we hold no religious fellowship with Lueretia Mott, nor with the body in the United States called Hicksites, to which she belongs, they not being recognized by the Society of Friends in the United Kingdom, nor by those "Friends" with whom we are in connection in America; and that we do not wish to be in any way identified with, or considered responsible for any sentiments that Lucretia Mott may have uttered at the meeting above referred to.

We are, respectfully, thy friends,

William Smeal, William White, John Maxwell,

James Smeal, Edward White.

Glasgow, 12th of 8th mo., 1840.

To us who knew, loved, and honored Lucretia Mott for her many virtues, these manifestations of bigotry, so narrowing and embittering in their effect on the mind, should be an added warning against that evil spirit of persecution that has brought such sorrow to mankind. We sincerely hope these few examples we have endeavored to place in their true light, may awaken thought in the minds of our readers, and incline them to renewed charity and a wiser appreciation of what is and what is not vital in religion. Surely life must ever stand for more than faith.