The Complete History of Women's Suffrage – All 6 Volumes in One Edition (Illustrated Edition). Elizabeth Cady Stanton
poor words of his own. There were many who came into a Woman's Rights Convention and started to find men on the platform. He could only say, that in these times, and with the present light, there was no place where a man could redeem his manhood better than on the Woman's Rights Platform. Gentlemen in distant seats were perhaps trembling to think that they had actually got that far into this dangerous place. They might think themselves well off—no, badly off—if the maelstrom did not draw them nearer and nearer and nearer in, as it did him. He began, like them, hesitating and smiling on the back seats; they saw what he had got to now, and he hoped they, too, might get into such noble company before long. He was prouder to train in this band than to be at the head of the play-soldiers who were marching through the streets to-day, and immortalizing themselves by not failing, so utterly as some of their companions, to hit some easy target. Those were play-soldiers; these were soldiers in earnest.
Men talk a great deal of nonsense about the woman's rights movement. He never knew a husband who was demolished in an argument by his wife, or a young gentleman who found his resources of reason entirely used up by a young lady, who did not fall back at last when there was no retreat, and say: "It's no use; you can't reason with a woman." Well, so it would seem in their case. Others shelter themselves behind the general statement, that they don't wish to marry a woman's rights woman. I have no doubt the woman's rights women reciprocate the wish. These appear to have some anxiety about dinner—that seems to be the trouble. Jean Paul, the German, wanted to have a wife who could cook him something good; and Mrs. Frederica Bremer, the novelist, remarked, that a wife can always conciliate her husband by having something to stop his mouth. In a conversation in Philadelphia the other day, a young lawyer, when told that Mrs. Emma R. Coe was studying law with the intention of practicing, remarked, that he should never see her in Court, but she would remind him of mince pies; to which the gentleman he was in conversation with, observed that he had better not get her as his antagonist in trying a suit, or she would remind him of minced meat. Having given two or three examples of the nonsense of men upon this subject, he would now read them some sense. The letter was from one of the most eloquent and learned of the younger clergy of New England; a man possessed of powers of genius and practical wisdom which would yet make him heard in a larger sphere than that which he now occupied. It was not the old English Sam. Johnson who said that "there never was a lawsuit or a quarrel where a woman was not at the bottom of it." This was Sam. Johnson Americanized, and of course he was a woman's rights man.
LETTER FROM REV. SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Salem, October 4, 1856.
Dear Friend:—In complying with your desire that I should send a few words to the Woman's Rights Convention, I am quite aware that in this matter infinitely more depends upon what women do than upon what men say; nevertheless, if my confession of faith will be of the least service, it shall not be wanting.
I regard this movement as no less than the sum and crown of all our moral enterprises; as a proclamation of entire social freedom, never practicable until now. I welcome it, not merely because it aims at delivering half the human race from constraints that degrade and demoralize the whole, but also because it is opening a new spiritual hemisphere, destined to put a new heart into our semi-barbarian theology, politics, manners, literature, and law. And especially do I rejoice, that having defrauded the feminine element of its due share in practical affairs for so many ages, and found ourselves, as a natural consequence, drifting toward barbarism with all our wealth and wisdom, we are compelled at last to learn that justice to woman is simply mercy to ourselves.
Doubtless the main obstacles to this work come from her own sex. Strange if it were not so; if the meagre hope doled out to women hitherto should have unfitted them to believe that such a function awaits them. Strange if they did not fear a thousand perils in the untried way of freedom. But the unwise distrust will have to be abandoned; and so will the conventional flippancy and contempt. I think the grand duty of every honorable man toward this effort at emancipation is simply not to stand in its way. For how much is really covered by that duty? It means that he must wash his hands of every law or prejudice that dooms woman to an inferior position, and makes her the victim of miserable wages and fatal competitions with herself. It means that he must clear himself of this senseless twaddle about "woman's sphere," a matter surely no more for his legislation, than his "sphere" is for hers; and one upon which, at this stage of their experience, it is unbecoming in either to dogmatize; and it means that as a simple act of justice, he must resign to her the control of her own earnings, secure her fair and full culture, and welcome her to the pulpit, the bar, the medical profession, and to whatever other posts of public usefulness she may prepare herself to fill. As long as he fails of doing this, he is unjustly interfering with her sacred rights; and after he has done this, he may safely leave the rest to her.
It is humiliating indeed that numbers of well-disposed persons should not recognize so plain a duty. I have no patience to argue it. The moral logic of this movement is as patent as the simplest rule in arithmetic. Every argument brought against it resolves itself into a sneer at woman's capacity, or an anxiety lest the distinction God has established between the sexes will not bear testing; or, what is more common still, though covered up in a thousand ways, the brutish assertion that "might makes right." There is but one answer to these impertinences, and that is the success of individual women in the work they set about. The current ridicule at "doing justice to women" will pass for the sheer vulgarity it is, when so many women shall do justice to themselves, that they can not be taken as exceptions to prove the rule. And this success depends on their own wills. The noble use of God's gifts shall make its mark in this world. As sure as God lives, it shall compel a becoming respect. For more and more of these lessons in true honor do we pray; for the very name of manhood must make us blush, so long as it is identified with these airs of patronage and control, these insulting obeisances, these flatterers of what is childish in women, these sarcasms upon what is noblest; worse than all, this willingness to derive gain from the degradation and suffering of the sex it professes to adore. And words are poor to express the gratitude that shall be forever due to those women whose moral energy shall rebuke this littleness, and stir true manliness in man.
With sincere respect, I am truly your friend,
Samuel Johnson.
Ernestine L. Rose remarked, that in the letter read by Mr. Higginson there was one sentence that struck her with great force, viz: that it is of far greater importance what woman does than what man thinks; and, she would add, what woman thinks. The influence of what she had done was felt not only in this country, but throughout the entire continent of Europe.
The author of that letter had expressed another sentiment to which she wished briefly to advert. He said that where ten men could be convinced of the truth of Woman's Rights, hardly one woman could be gained. At first sight it might so appear. But it should be borne in mind, that men were more accustomed to think and reflect and argue upon everything connected with the legal and political rights of men, at least, and, therefore, they were more easily convinced. Nevertheless, the subject, whenever presented to the mind of woman in its proper light, would not fail to find an echo in her heart. Whenever the subject was broached to a woman hitherto unacquainted with it, it first caused a smile, and, perchance, a sneer; but, put to her a few common-sense questions, and the smile disappeared, and her countenance assumed a serious expression. Ask her if she is not entitled to self-government, to the full development of her mental powers, to the free choice of her industrial avocations, to proper remuneration for her labor, to equal control of her offspring with that of her husband, to the possession and control of her own property, and to a voice in making the laws that impose taxes upon property that she may hold—ask her a few simple, straight-forward questions like these, and see if an immediate, hearty, and warm assent is not elicited.
In spite of a violent storm a large number assembled in the evening. The speakers announced were Mrs. Elizabeth Jones and Wendell Phillips. Mrs. Jones' address was a clear and logical statement of the whole claim of woman. By her own request, it was not published.
Wendell Phillips:—Ladies and gentlemen. I am told that the Times of to-day warns the women of this Convention that if they proceed in their crusade they will forfeit the protection of the men. Perhaps, before it is offered, the question had better be asked whether it is needed. I do not think that I should run the risk of